Oopsie! Part 2 (Meta)

This meta came to me as I was cluing last week's "Practically Parallactic". I had already clued YET as "Blind Himalayan cryptid?" When I got to EMO, I started thinking along the lines of "Red muppet at Christmas?" But then I started worrying that solvers might think this was the mechanism when it was just me trying to make some interesting clues for grid-filler words. And then I suddenly thought it could be the mechanism of a completely different puzzle. So those entries got bland, boring clues... and this meta was born!

The clues!! Are wonderful! It’s like 2 metas in 1 puzzle.

Crossed the MOAT. Standing on the MAT.

Enjoyed this (mainly because I got it without any help, which I can't say for this week's other metas). Thanks for the puzzle, Ben!

OMG, it wasn't until I submitted the meta answer and was looking at the clues again that I finally figured out why things like "DM" and "undies" and "no see" were there! Nicely done!

Fun, thank you! (I noticed YETI/YET first but it took me a while to pick up on all of the wordplay, very nice!)

Tricky grid until I got the hang of the important clues. Fun one, Ben!

Was this like the first one? I don't remember. If so, maybe that's why I caught on with YET.. The last one I got was M, probably because "slides" is a good clue for SKIS as well as SKIMS.

Still scratching my head on a couple of these clues/answers… DM slides? (what does DM stand for… Direct message? what does slide mean? Maybe I’m too old…). WHIT is also unknown to me, though CHIT means to cheat at bridge by signaling, so I had that writting for a while, keeping me puzzled about the braid clue (ICINER? TCINER??) Elmo in Paris at Christmas? Is that a thing? Still, I was able to cobble together “displaced” which was just one letter off (had tried SKIDS for SKIMS, not knowing what the clue meant). Ooof — tough one, but did it without nudges!

Ohhhh… I see. No “L” for elmo… Noel. Okay. Yep I’m pretty dim.

Oopsie!! I got to DISPLACED and stubbornly tried that a few times before a kind muggle pointed out my distake. Er, Mistake. Very clever Ben - thanks!

Well I would have loved it for the clues alone. Many of them were delightful AHAs in their own right. I thought YETI was particularly clever; many of these would seem to be in the cryptic crossword category. Luckily I knew about the game WHIST because it is indeed a classic game but a British classic game (which an English relative tried desperately to teach me but finally gave up and taught me Pontoon). I almost complicated it by trying to add the US to PSPSPS but thankfully the Latin cat is spelled CATTUS, not CATUS therefore I did not fall into that:

Mr. Astley was having a lark when he invited me to a meal but had no tea (RICK)

My exclamation when I realize my bullets are spent (SHOT)

Italian painter, who is (A) very slender and (2) likes to be less formal (LEN)

Dermatological procedure that scared me so, I lost a little urine (LASE)

Very satisfying MOAT my friend, very satisfying

Finally got there! thanks

Enjoyed it...thanks Ben!

Ice go'n'!... Enjoyed it, Ben. Thanks. :D

Well, based on the hint given in 39A/41A, I found the correct answer the first time even though I had to backsolve to confirm several missing letters. Enjoyable search for the meta, but I found the grid impossible to solve (and ended up having Crosshare fill in the rest).

This was quite fun, especially once I knew where things were going. Initially had DISPLACED as my meta answer despite being sure I got everything right. MISPLACED was only one letter change anyway, so it didn't take long before I decided to try it. Thanks!