Title: “Taking Sides”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is an animal.
Answer: LEMUR
Correct entries: 398 overall, of which 314 were solo solves

Interesting idea from Matthew Stock last week. First insight: with a prompt from the title, notice that there are five L-words on the left of the grid that share all their letters after the L with an -R word on the right. These can then be joined to make a longer L-R word. Like so:

LUBE-UBER = LUBER
LACE-ACER = LACER
LADLE-ADLER = LADLER
LEDGE-EDGER = LEDGER
LOVE-OVER = LOVER

These suggest looking for another logical place to add an L- and an -R, and we find it with another animal, EMU in the central area: and an L and R and you’ve got contest answer LEMUR, found by 398 solvers.

An interesting alternate answer was given by none other than joon pahk, who suggested LOBSTER. It’s an L-R animal of course, but how did joon choose it? Because a lobster is a decapod, and there are its ten legs on the left and right sides of the grid, as our theme answers! So clever that all six solvers who submitted it will get full credit.

Thanks to Matthew for a fun idea, and check out his site if you’d like to see more.

GUEST CONSTRUCTOR PUZZLE:

A bit under the weather this week so I need to punt. Returning that punt is the estimable Patrick Berry, who you can read a bit about here.

This isn’t a Week 4, but in my fatigued state I wasn’t able to complete my Week 4 idea in time. But I think if anyone can pack a Week 4’s worth of fun and ingenuity into a Week 2, it’s Patrick! So let’s give it a look.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a six-letter word.