"My favorite 7xwords puzzles so far have been the ones with mini-themes, so I knew I wanted my puzzle to have one. After doodling around in Crossfire for a bit, the word at 1D caught my eye, and somehow I noticed the theme possibility on display here at 1D / 8A. I hope you enjoy solving this as much as I enjoyed making it, and of course thanks to Malaika for the opportunity to be a part of such a wonderful community-driven project!
For more of my puzzles, I have a brand-new crossword blog called
jackofallsquares, and if you're into chain reaction machines, you can check out my YouTube channel,
jackofallspades98."