{"id":6425,"date":"2026-09-13T04:56:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T04:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/09\/13\/written-in-the-stars\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T04:56:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T04:56:05","slug":"written-in-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/09\/13\/written-in-the-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Written In The Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This puzzle is out of this world!<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/09\/06\">SUNDAY<\/a><\/span><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/05\/24\"><strong> <\/strong><\/a><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/09\/13\">PUZZLE<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/games.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/2026\/05\/24\"><strong> <\/strong><\/a><strong>\u2014<\/strong><\/span> Hi everyone! My name is Johan Landis Lewis, and I\u2019m happy to bring you my first puzzle of the school year. I hope that you all enjoy solving it as much as I did while putting it together. If you have any specific questions or comments about this puzzle, feel free to reach me at <a href=\"mailto:johanll@umich.edu\">johanll@umich.edu<\/a>, while more general concerns can be addressed to <a href=\"mailto:crosswords@umich.edu\">crosswords@umich.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tricky Clues<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">14A: While 38-year-old \u201cU.S. World Cup captain\u201d Tim REAM may have been a relative unknown before this summer, I hope that Team USA\u2019s round of 16 finish turned him into a household name.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">36A: I think it\u2019s really interesting how American SAMOA is the \u201cterritory that produces the most NFL players per capita.\u201d Despite there being less than 300,000 people of Samoan descent in the United States, they\u2019re consistently well-represented in the NFL, especially on offensive and defensive lines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3D: This clue\u2019s reference to ELEANOR \u201cRigby in a song by The Beatles\u201d keeps my streak of puzzles with Beatles-related clues going strong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">49D: While ERY can be found as a suffix for many words, such as \u201ctrick\u201d or \u201cmock,\u201d I\u2019m particularly fond of the word buffoonery, so I\u2019m glad it was represented via \u201cSuffix for buffoon.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Today&#8217;s Theme<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BRUNO MARS and FREDDIE MERCURY (at 33-Across and 16-Across, respectively) are two of my favorite singers of all time, and they were the first two parts of this puzzle\u2019s planetary theme to fall into place. VENUS DE MILO at 22-Across and MOTHER EARTH at 48-Across round out the themed entries, with the revealer found at 53-Across: THE SOLAR SYSTEM. I considered having all the themed clues be singers with planets in their names, but there weren\u2019t enough famous examples, which is why I went with a broader set of clues in the end.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Answer Key:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" width=\"780\" height=\"776\" data-attachment-id=\"616516\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/constructor-notes-2026-09-13\/attachment\/screenshot-2026-09-07-at-3-53-26-pm\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.michigandaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-07-at-3.53.26-PM.png?fit=1146%2C1140&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1146,1140\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Screenshot 2026-09-07 at 3.53.26\u202fPM\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.michigandaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-07-at-3.53.26-PM.png?fit=780%2C776&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.michigandaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-07-at-3.53.26-PM.png?resize=780%2C776&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-616516\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/crosswords\/constructor-notes-2026-09-13\/\">Written In The Stars<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\">The Michigan Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This puzzle is out of this world! SUNDAY PUZZLE \u2014 Hi everyone! My name is Johan Landis Lewis, and I\u2019m happy to bring you my first puzzle of the school year. I hope that you all enjoy solving it as much as I did while putting it together. If you have any specific questions or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[466,4059],"class_list":["post-6425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-stars","tag-written"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6426,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6425\/revisions\/6426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}