Thank you, as always, for your kind attention. My pesky out-of-grid life interfered with my day-to-day streak, but where there's a lunch break and a notebook there's a way. This one requires more triviaesque knowledge than my previous micros; apologies if this made your solve feel bad.
1A: Ray; ANT ("bug") in MA ("graduate")
4A: dd. "Passing"; "terminal"
5A: "a crime"; anag. ("scrambling") SONAR
1D: "tragic heroine" (in Euripedes' wonderful play "Medea"); homophone ("by the sound of it") of "media". "Media" being semi-synonymous with "content" is a sort of tragic zoomerism where we all agree that in most cases a less mechanical term like "art" would be better, yet continue to say things like "I love your content!"
2D: dd. "perfectly does" (as in "She nails that test every time!"); "spa treatment" (i.e. a mani-pedi)
3D: "noble?" (argon is referred to as a noble gas); first five of ARGONAUTS
Oliver Hardy 🤓3:52 · over 1 year ago
Great puzzle!
1D I think "media" is a doubtful synonym for "content".
3D I know that the ? is to overcome the awkward grammar; perhaps "Noble Jason's crew cut down" or similar would work.
Big fan of 2D and 5A, but I'm struggling a bit with 4A (aren't both just a sense of "final"?) and 1D (muh sound vs. meh sound), though I really love the idea of "content" here (and I think I buy it). I think the ? in 3D is because "noble" alone isn't really a definition for this word; I also know that some cryptic grammar purists would object to "were" on two grounds: a) If you substitute out the parts, you get "A were B," which doesn't really make much sense and b) the tense suggests that A is no longer B. I mention it only so that you're aware of it (if not already). Keep 'em coming!