This Goes In One Of Two Ways (Meta)

Had trouble nailing down the last letter. Also coould not get the 7D and 18A crossing. I had TORAH and SCAMPER.

Interesting idea! I just solved assuming a normal "alternate entry" mechanism, and only after a night's sleep do I see what you are doing. Totally (inflammable).

Fun. At first I was looking for other answers for the starred clues - e.g., erode instead of weather. Is 18-A an Aussie term - I have "scarter".

Fun play on words. Thanks, Ben.

Nice puzzle!

Fun one!

Love the concept

But having trouble backsolving BOLT = O. (BOLT and BOUND are near synonyms to my mind and I see SCARPER but... OFF? ODE? ONO? ONS, OLA? .... just not getting it.)

Nice one. Had OPPOSES first (using SRY as the alternate answer to APOLOGY), but then realized that was a verb, so backsolved for DEFENSE. Thanks for the puzzle, Ben!

Argh.... I meant with BOUND =O. Is there an O word I'm overlooking?

I didn’t find that grid too crunchy! Great collection of words… what a strange language we speak. (DUST reminds me of Amelia Bedelia, the overly literal kids’ book character … she reads “dust the furniture” and so applies dust to all the furniture!

I solved. I see the path. I must be missing something because I don’t see how the answer relates.

Nice!

Monty Python wouldn't have been the same if the knights had yelled "Scarper, Scarper"!

Fun solve. Thanks Ben

had to backsolve the D, and still of two minds whether the starred entries are themselves the clues for the alternates, or whether the clues for the alternates are supposed to match the starred entries too. Regardless, fun stuff, thanks. :)

Fascinating -- each word with two contradictory meanings. Thanks for this one.

Fun puzzle! And I learned something new too! Thanks, Ben!

That took me WAY longer than I thought. When I saw PEER and EQUAL as well as FAST and PROMPT I figured that they were alternate meanings (good old English!!!). But some were MUCH harder than others for me. I got caught up in alternate, not opposite, so WEATHERED and ETCH, APOLOGY and SRY and BOUND was tough because I was looking for an alternate. Finally it hit me that it was the OPPOSITE (which still took some searching) and then I managed to get home. Very nice Ben, funny because on the Muggle Zoom we were discussing how English was designed to play word tricks. Hmm, a quick read shows that Hector also got caught up in that so I don't feel bad since he is a MUCH better solver than I. Thanks for a morning of entertainment.

After a bit of confusion, I finally caught on. Thanks, Ben!

Loved the wordplay in this. It took lots of pondering just to solve it - I can't imagine coming up with this! I was on the right track pre-nudges but had a hard time matching up all the words - had to backsolve WEATHER. I had OVERCOME for BOUND but finally decided that was a better match for WEATHER and BOUND became OFF. Thanks for the fun challenge, Ben!

Fun one, Ben! Great idea for a mechanism!