Protagonist of the O.C. / FRI 11-19-21 / Pioneering brand of caffeine-free soft drink / Phrase popularized by Long John Silver of Treasure Island / Eponymous instrument inventor Adolphe / Smaller than usual endearingly / Vast poetically / Sheik's peer / Presidential monogram of the early 1800s / Black sorority with 3000,000+ members in brief

Constructor: John Hawksley

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: GTA (47A: Popular video game series with cars, for short) —

Get That Ape!

Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a series of action-adventure games created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is primarily developed by British development house Rockstar North(formerly DMA Design), and published by its parent company, Rockstar Games. The name of the series references the term "grand theft auto", used in the United States for motor vehicle theft.

Gameplay focuses on an open world where the player can complete missions to progress an overall story, as well as engage in various side activities. Most of the gameplay revolves around driving and shooting, with occasional role-playing and stealth elements. The series also has elements of the earlier beat 'em up games from the 16-bit era. The games in the Grand Theft Auto series are set in fictional locales modelled after real-life cities, at various points in time from the early 1960s to the 2010s. The original game's map encompassed three cities—Liberty City (based on New York City), San Andreas (based on San Francisco), and Vice City (based on Miami)—but later titles tend to focus on a single setting; usually one of the original three locales, albeit remodelled and significantly expanded. The series centers on different protagonists who attempt to rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each title. The antagonists are commonly characters who have betrayed the protagonist or their organisation, or characters who have the most impact impeding the protagonist's progress. Several film and music veterans have voiced characters in the games, including Ray Liotta, Dennis Hopper, Samuel L. Jackson, William Fichtner, James Woods, Debbie Harry, Axl Roseand Peter Fonda. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, things started out easily enough:

After that, I tried to run the Downs—actually, I had tried to run the Downs first, which is usually what I do when confronted with 3- (or 4-) stacks, but that got me nowhere, so I just peeked at the Acrosses first. Anyway, I went after the Downs and still did not make much headway. Got most of the way Across the grid with only ELI and ELEANOR in place. Then I hit the NE and things picked up ... they also got a whole lot uglier:

Anything "poetically" is usually a disaster, but for some reason ENORM feels Particularly disastery. They don't mean "poetically," as no "poet" would use that word. It's deeply olden. I think I see it sometimes in the poetry *I* teach (medieval, early modern), and I'm sure it had legs through the 19th century, but no one would touch that word in the 20th and after unless they were quaint or ironic or just bad. Something like 'NEATH or O'ER I can tolerate, "poetically," as those are just contractions, usually used for the sake of maintaining metrical regularity. But ENORM—you love to see it ... in Coleridge, maybe. Not so much here. And now. "Poetically" is true enough, but "obsoletely" is more accurate ("obsolete" is Merriam-Webster's word, not mine). Crossing HARKS, ENORM really, uh, throws things back. Not in a good way. This is the trouble with these stack grids—an olden form themselves, much in fashion when (usually) men thought them to be showy accomplishments (and technically, architecturally, they were, esp. before constructing software). But when you stack long answers, oh, the crosses. That's where things can go very wrong for you. The ones today are OK, but you can really hear the creak with ENORM IFA and HOTTO (which I was stunned to find out was the real answer—I figured that since it was so obvious an answer to the clue (2D: "Too ___ Handle" (Netflix)), no way it was right. You could at least tell me what the Netflix series is *about*. If you're gonna give me junk fill, at least, I don't know, educate me ... something).

None of the marquee answers are that hot. ETHNIC RELATIONS is a phrase, I guess, but it gives me weird vibes. Like, you'd only use the phrase if things were going very bad. Don't love it. I NEED A HUGE FAVOR is a thing you would say, sure, but I got I NEED A and saw that FAVOR was gonna be the ending, and then thought, well, I NEED A FAVOR works, so ... now I just have to find a random adjective? Coulda been BIG or GIANT. The whole phrase doesn't snap the way I want it to, somehow. HATERS GONNA HATE already feels very dated. I think it's been dated since ... when did Tayl*r Sw*ft use it in a lyric? When was "Shake It Off"? Anyway, it was by definition dated when she used it, so it just didn't have the currency (or POP, I guess) that maybe it was supposed to. 

(2014! LOL even older than I thought!) (P.S. this song is catchy, no

T*ylor sl*nder intended)

The abbreviations were also pretty dire today. Grand Theft Auto is very famous, but that doesn't make GTA great fill. And JQA, yeesh. No one knows him that way. We have to endure a lot of monograms in this crossword life, and yes, I've had to endure this one before, but I shouldn't have to. All so you could get what? A "Q"? And DAD JOKE? Not worth it. SHIVER ME TIMBERS is nice, as is "IT HAPPENS..." and FUN SIZE. But in the end I don't think the marquee answers are snappy enough, or the resulting fill strong enough, to make this really Work. I'm judging this one by Friday standards, which are the Highest Standards, so just know that it's ... it's fine. But there wasn't a lot of joy here. If you want to do a truly wonderful triple-stack puzzle (just one stack, not two), try this one by Claire Rimkus (for free!) over at the Just Gridding blog. Really lovely.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. no idea RCCOLA was caffeine-free and really really had no idea it was "pioneering" (6D: Pioneering brand of caffeine-free soft drink). To me, it was always a fictional soda no one drank because they were too busy drinking Coke or Pepsi like normals.

P.P.S. I told you (see yesterday's write-up for more on the recent SASS wave):

P.P.P.S omg I only just realized that [Sheik's peer?] (53D) is a pun and oof that one hurts. Gotta go sheik it off (sheik it off)

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