Crocheted hair extensions / TUE 8-15-23 / Eco-friendly alternative to tampons / Extremely muscular in slang / It shows up as a blue speech bubble / Literary device that revises a previously established narrative for short / English county with three swords on its flag

Constructor: Malaika Handa

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (*for a Tuesday*, mostly because of one answer)

THEME: FEMALE LEAD (61A: Feature of "Alien," "Mulan" or "Clueless" ... or what the answer to each starred clue has) — theme answers begin with a word for a powerful FEMALE figure of some sort:

Theme answers:

• WITCH HAZEL (17A: *Plant used to treat rashes)
• GODDESS LOCS (29A: *Crocheted hair extensions)
• DIVA CUP (37A: *Eco-friendly alternative to tampons)
• QUEEN OF SOUL (44A: *Epithet for Aretha Franklin)

Word of the Day: RETCON (3D: Literary device that revises a previously established narrative, for short) —

Retcon has had a busy life for such a young word. In the span of a few decades it has managed to become an abbreviation, change from a noun to a verb, and move from the jargon-filled chat rooms of the Internet to general parlance. [...] Retcon is a shortened form of retroactive continuity, and refers to a literary device in which the form or content of a previously established narrative is changed. Retcons are often encountered in serial formats such as comic books or television series, where they serve as a means of allowing the work’s creators to create a parallel universe, reintroduce a character, or explore plot lines that would otherwise be in conflict with the work. Essentially, a retconallows an author to have his or her cake and eat it too, as it enables the return of dead characters, the revision of unpopular elements of a work, and a general disregard for reality. // The term appears to have its roots in a 1973 book by E. Frank Tupper titled The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg: “Pannenberg’s conception of retroactive continuity ultimately means that history flows fundamentally from the future into the past.” [...] [In the '80s,] the term gained some degree of currency among comic book fans. The abbreviated form, retcon, started appearing in Usenet newsgroups before the end of the decade. Retcon's noun and verb forms appeared almost simultaneously. [...] By the turn of the 21st century retcon had moved beyond the province of the Internet, and began to surface in newspapers and books. (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

This was pretty fun, and has two very original answers as part of its themer set (GODDESS LOCS, DIVA CUP), the latter of which continues the NYTXW's extremely recent practice of acknowledging that menstruation exists. TAMPON made its debut in 2018, and now here we are, five years later, at DIVA CUP. You've come a long (actually very short) way, baby! Actually, technically, TAMPON had its NYTXW debut in 1971, where it was clued as [Plug for a wound] (!?). But then I guess people decided "hey, we have no idea what we're doing here, let's just avoid even oblique references to menstruation for fifty years or so." Which is *a* solution. Anyway, I don't think DIVA CUPs existed when I was a younger person, but if you've known girls or younger women since the 2010s, or you *are* one of said girls/women (imagine that!), then that answer is probably going to be very familiar to you. Less familiar —to me, at any rate—was GODDESS LOCS. I had to work for every letter of that one. GODDESS became clear after a bit, but I was still left needing those long Downs in the NE to make sense of LOCS. When I got it, I realized "oh, like dreadlocs, ok, that makes sense." But never heard of it before today. It's the one thing that really took this to a harder-than-usual Tuesday level, for me. The other thing that did that was RETCON, not because I don't know what that is (I do), but because when I see "literary device," I think of many things (soooo many things—a Ph.D. in English will do that to you), but RETCON ... I would not have put anywhere near the word "literature," though in a technical sense, yes, it's correct. Comic books are literature. I just think of it having more to do with TV shows, movies, superhero universes—comic book fandom. "Literary device" sent my brain back to my earliest English classes, so I went rummaging among the likes of "allegory," "litotes," "zeugma," etc. No RETCON to be found.

My only criticism of the theme is that the revealer, FEMALE LEAD, lands with a bit of a thud. It is literally accurate (each theme answer LEADs off with a "female" figure of some kind), but the figures in question aren't merely "female"—they are notably *powerful* females. Exceptional. Forces to be reckoned with. Having the throughline be merely "female" doesn't seem enough. But you get the revealer you get, and it's a nice repurposing of the regular meaning of FEMALE LEAD, and "LEAD" kinda sorta gives you "powerful" vibes by proximity, so it's fine. 

The puzzle felt a little name-y to me, peskily trivia-y in a lot of the smaller answers: HOGG, LEE, DAN, ALI. The only one I didn't know was LEE (she was the all-around Gold Medalist in Tokyo in 2020, so she's definitely worth knowing, and kinda underclued today) (32A: Suni of Team USA gymnastics). It's an extremely online puzzle as well, with lots of APPS ... well, three, anyway (Grindr, Tinder, IMESSAGE). It's so confusing that Tinder has an "e" but Grindr doesn't! Maybe having no "e" is supposed to set off some kind of GAYDAR and that's how you keep the spellings straight (!), but I remain confused every time I'm called upon to spell one of them (Grindr, in case you didn't know, is specifically for "gay, bi, trans, and queer people"). I thought the puzzle had a pretty good sense of humor. I especially appreciated the cannibalistic humor in the COMMA clue (41A: Punctuation missing from "Let's eat Grandma"?). I had SWAK before MWAH, probably because I just read a book about WWII (Paul Fussell's formidable Wartime (1989)) and "SWAK" has its origins as a WWII postal acronym. (LOL, some of these acronyms are hilarious: B.U.R.M.A. = "Be Upstairs (or Undressed) Ready My Angel"!?!?! I guess deprivation makes you creative!)

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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