More fill practice. I tried to avoid a lot of technological abbreviations but I suppose some are always going to be needed with a lot of three-letter fills. Also tried to be more playful with my clues this time!
You'll need a good one of these to do well in 7A (maybe. I don't know what kind of standards 7A has)
7A
Alma mater of Lady Gaga and Spike Lee (and Rudy Giuliani, but nowhere's perfect)
8A
Stoolie; grass; pigeon
9A
Type of house; can precede "House" in a Japanese reality show that was briefly wildly popular
11A
Total
12A
I've solved at least two cryptic crosswords where this superhero was clued as "Female?"
16A
Base of the decimal number system
17A
Grandpa Simpson
18A
Style guide which I had to look up a lot when I was writing for academic journals
19A
Almost-defunct web feed technology that Google Reader used until Google Reader was discontinued
Verticali
1D
Member of another one of the races of Middle Earth
2D
Caustic soda
3D
Funny animal representation of the self
4D
This answers police might be mad at me For this clue
5D
AEW pro wrestler once known as Neville in the WWE; a famous yellow character when "-Man" is added
6D
(Homophone of) what 7 did to 9 in an old joke
10D
Your nose or your computer can do this
12D
Country code for the place which won Eurovision in 2021
13D
@dril tweet: "AS THE GUILLOTINE SLIDES TOWARDS MY NECK, I PRODUCE A TINY BARBELL I'VE BEEN HIDING IN MY MOUTH AND LIFT IT WITH MY TONGUE. ONE LAST ___"