Hi folks. It seems the urge to create meta puzzles is contagious, so welcome to yet another first-time constructor MMM.
I had the idea for this sometime this spring, but waited until the semester was over to tackle actually creating it, since I correctly anticipated that it would be a whole new form of rabbit hole.
Big thanks to test solvers Abide and Wendy Walker, who were super encouraging and helped make it better (especially with respect to difficulty level). And of course to Joe Ross for tech support.
Hope you enjoy!
Nudges were definitely needed, and the “literal title” one was a great nudge. “Symmetrical” helped too. GREAT first puzzle (or hundredth puzzle!)