I'll second the "Awful (as in great) puns" in the LA Times puzzle! I do the LA Times puzzle every morning and I looked at the name and it just didn't register that it was you. Congrats!
"The ___": Mideastern monster movie starring Midwesterner Brendan Fraser
8A
Part of 1-Down with a reputation for being shallow
9A
Highly questionable, in slang usage that predates "Among Us" by decades
Verticales
1D
Midwestern aquatic mnemonic
2D
Freedom, in Swahili
3D
Chicago-born actor/director Harold of "Ghostbusters" and "Caddyshack"
4D
"Coffee, Tea, ___?": supposed memoir of two airline stewardesses, actually ghostwritten by Donald Bain, who went to college in Indiana (really reaching for the theme here)
5D
Mideastern end-blown flute hidden in "one yummy taqsim!"