Five Conundrums (Meta)

Wow! I spotted three (and a half) of the four... hard to back solve, but I scanned the clues again ... And there it was! :D Fun one! Thanks, Ben.

Very fun! Just had to keep staring. I got stuck for awhile trying to use ON THE LAM, UNDERSTOOD, STOOD BY, and OVERSIGHT! CORNERSTONE A wa S

Typo. Sorry. CORNERSTONE was my literal linchpin!

lol it's been so long I had to resolve this. I feel like I got stuck on going from FLAG to the answer originally(??). But this time it came right back.

With some help on the last step, I made it. Loved the first 4 rebuses (rebi?)

With over, under, corner, and cross, I also thought of Fold the Flag.

Wowza! What a remarkable construction!! Thanks for a unique puzzle - I was having fun searching even when I was stumped. And I found some unintended rebuses (rebi?) along the way: RODE out of SIGHT. the JOKES on U. break FREE. BIG step.

That was hard but fun! Thanks, Ben!

Needed all the nudges, and was just about to, ahem, raise the white flag, but finally got there. Definitely a Level 5 (or more). Thanks for the puzzle, Ben!

That was HARD! I got two right away: LIE under OATH = Be untruthful in court = F ib MAN over BOARD = Something shouted from the crow’s nest = L andho

Then the rabbit holes started showing up:

PARADISE by ARAL (the sea) = Tourist attraction = S ight

ONE in the corner = Be an accomplice = A bet

IWAS in the corner = Be an accomplice = A bet

IWAS BOWLed over = Slack-jawed = A gape (this is more of a stretch because of needing the ED, but AGAPE was too promising)

GUN down = Be an accomplice = A bet (I was betting on this from the way it was clued trying to distract, not realizing it was that for another reason)

Corner ONE = Start of a play – A ctI

Plus a few other VERY unlikely:

SHAG over PERU – Would need an alternate like “Airline amenity”

Then I looked at the nudges and of course they invalidated at least one of my ideas (BOWLed over). So I went back and struggled more and then asked lbray53 for help and he gave me therapeutic nudges until I got to FLAG (which I had actually but not for the right reason and not in the right order.

OK, a FALSE FLAG OPERATION is considered a conundrum – NOPE

OK , a “Claim on property” (going back to the original ‘find another clue’) PLANT A/THE/YOUR FLAG – NOPE

The Rebuses go kind of Top to bottom (NW, NE, SW, SE so…) LOWER THE FLAG – MAYBE

BUT the letters of FLAG go Bottom to Top, so RAISE THE FLAG.

Without lbray I never would have brought this home because it would not have occurred to me to drop the L on BOWL and go with CROSSBOW, though the GUN clue should have said to me “DO IT TOM!!!” So I guess the rebus for this would be:

DOPE

MOAT

Dope across the MOAT

Thanks Ben for the challenge

Love the comments here. OVERCOAT was another wannabe, but there wasn't much there of use to keep getting warmer in my pursuit. Love the puzzle too! Thanks, Ben! (Before I caught on that the FLAG was being raised, I thought perhaps the interesting grid design represented the flag of a country. Researched NZ -- interesting!)

I had FLAG letters in the corners with the rebuses they went with, since that put them in a nice order (FLAG). So… four cornered flag? etc. guesses. Someone told me to keep the letters as the are in the grid… and duh… they read FLAG from bottom to top. This was a memorable mechanism! kudos.