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Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a six-letter adjective.
Answer: MASKED
Correct entries: 300

Before filling in a single letter, you might have noticed a few strange aspects to this puzzle:

1) The grid is 14×14 instead of the normal 15×15.
2) The pattern of black squares is not quite symmetrical…but it’s not that far off from being symmetrical, either.
3) The way to give it standard crossword size and symmetry is to add a row and column on the top and left edges of the grid.

But then there’d need to be a whole bunch of new entries formed by those letters, right? Right! Most amusingly, we have the long 14-letter entries going from ASTRONOMICALLY to GASTRONOMICALLY, MOTIONLESSNESS to EMOTIONLESSNESS, CAN’T SAY FOR SURE to I CAN’T SAY FOR SURE, and PEAKING TOO SOON to SPEAKING TOO SOON.

Those were clear, but how do you fill out the rest when many of the letters have a number of options? Like in the center-left, IPOD must be BIPOD and LSE has to be ELSE, but does TONER become STONER or ATONER? And what about AIL and YES, which have many options?

Answer: each of the six newly-formed words in the “ghost” row and column also begin a clue in the grid. This allows you to disambiguate the new words once you have a couple of letters from each. For example, on that center-left word you’re only sure of B??E?, and the only clue whose first word fits that letter pattern is 56-Down [Based on fairness], which yields EVEN.

Take those six new words, find the clue that starts with that word, and see what happens:

HIDE: [Hide and seek player’s tactic] = MOTIONLESSNESS
APPS: [Apps are sold by them] = APPLE
ASHER: [Asher is her father (and an anagram of her name), in the Bible = SERAH
HANG: [Hang on to] = KEEP
BASED: [Based on fairness] = EVEN
ICE-T: [Ice-T song “Somebody Gotta ___”] = DO IT

The first letters of their entries spell contest answer MASKED, which those six words certainly were (and which we ourselves often are these days). Note puckish inclusion of “Asked” in the title as well.

thanman2 says:

Masked and manswered!

TMart writes:

Most weeks, I see things that aren’t there. This week, it actually helped!

Magoo notes:

I really thought OUZO was the only possible extension at 6d. Guess I’d forgotten about the Odfather.

MetaNewbie says:

Worked this out with my sister – the one who hooked me on these metas

Go sis!

Golem quips:

I’d watch “The Masked Solver”

And finally, KayW says:

So now you want us to be co-constructors as well as solvers?! Finish making your own dang puzzles!

Hey c’mon! I did 14 of the 15 rows/columns. You all only had to do one!

NEW PUZZLE SUITE FROM PATRICK BERRY:

The great Patrick Berry has a new meta-suite up entitled “Containment Policy.” Purchase it here for $15. I won’t be solving it until this weekend, but very highly recommended sight unseen nevertheless.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a five-letter historic place name.