CONTEST!
PUZZLE #352
HELTER SKELTER 6
This puzzle contains a word suggested by Patron M. Sean Molley. Support me on Patreon at $15 or more per month to suggest one word or phrase for me to put into a puzzle every month!
This puzzle is also something that I haven't done in a long time (over 100 puzzles ago, in fact): a contest puzzle! Unfortunately, these contest puzzles may continue to be a rare sight in the foreseeable future, as when I told Grant Fikes that I was planning to turn this puzzle into a Contest Puzzle, he pointed out a pretty big loophole: those who got this puzzle early on Patreon may have an unfair advantage over those who don't (in this case, more time to solve it than usual), hence why his Contest Puzzles became separate posts and not his usual Wordy Wednesdays. In response, I've decided to dodge any potential pay-to-win scenarios by not letting Patreons know that a contest was attached to it until after they solved it, which seems to have worked out.
But anyway, back to this current contest. The prize for winning it is a copy of Octopus Crosswords by Brendan Emmett Quigley (basically, a book full of these Helter Skelter puzzles)! There will only be one winner for this contest (who will be selected at random), though if I get a high enough amount of solvers, it'll increase to two winners. If you don't want to enter this contest, you can still solve this puzzle and not partake in the contest, but you'll have to let me know if you do decide to opt out. So now with all that out of the way, here are the directions on how to solve it!
Each answer in this crossword variation starts at the indicated number, and then moves towards the direction of the next number (though it may or may not stop there). The direction of the last answer is to be determined by the solver.
Once the grid has been filled out, unscramble the gray squares to get this week's FINAL ANSWER: An 8-letter word
1) Up to the task
2) Graphic novel, e.g.
3) Was indebted to someone
4) Nick Jr. character who often says "Swiper, no swiping!"
5) Negatively charged atom
6) Org. co-founded by W.E.B. Du Bois
7) Simba's family, say
8) Form a thought in one's brain
9) The Importance of Being _____ (Oscar Wilde's final play)
10) Chem. or phys.
11) Baby bird call
12) Ancient Greek astronomer who compiled the original 48 constellations
13) Short-tempered Sam from various Looney Tunes shorts
14) "Sign o' the _____" (Prince song)
15) 1999 film co-starring Tom Cruise that ends with raining frogs
16) Doom's rhyming partner
17) Moved aside (for): 2 wds.
18) Railway service set to retire their Acela trains by late 2022
19) Reduce to ripped rags
20) Finnish company whose 3310 mobile phone is notoriously hard to damage
21) Illustrations and such
22) The "O" in "MMORPG"
23) Intl. military alliance headquartered in Belgium
24) Foreboding signs
25) Hernando de _____ (Spanish explorer)
Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!
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