Solved:
Across:
1. I came after your plant (5) THY+ME. This was a really nice clue! It stumped me for a while.
3. Loud as a bee (4) BUSY DDEF? I don't really like BUSY being a synonym for LOUD - I understand BUSY can imply a place that's noisy, but that's usually because the place/area is full of activity - like a busy street is a street that's full of cars, and cars make a lot of noise. Also, not sure if BUSY being the definition for "as a bee", since "as a bee" =/= "busy".
6. Perhaps ask mentor Qui? (8, 4): QUESTION MARK*. This was a nice clue. The "?" being the definition was funny, even if it's something I think I've seen once or twice.
8. Pests posts penetrated by Greek character (6) A(PHI)DS. This one was the last one I solved - even though I knew the parsing instructions for it, I couldn't figure it out until I had three letters. I'm not sure how POSTS = ADS, but overall nice clue.
10. Innocent sample of vegan gelatine (5) _AN+GEL. Okay, so I'm not a big fan of "sample of vegan" being "AN" - sample only really indicates that you should take a part of vegan, but it doesn't specify where. This is something that also happens a lot in this crossword. Maybe other people will disagree with me, but I'm not a huge fan.
12. Consequently, A&E only half good [4] ER (emergency room) +GO_. I don't think the grammar for the parsing really works - "half good" isn't the same thing as "half of good". If anything, the clue more so reads as half of A&E. Again, someone else might disagree, but a feedback that Deusovi (a mod here, and a phenomenal puzzler in general) gave me a LONG time ago when I first tried to write cryptic clues is that "cryptic grammar is the same as normal english grammar - the trick is re-interpreting words to mean things they don't usually mean, and interpreting other words as the string of letters that makes them up". They went onto say that "'start something' cannot be interpreted to mean "the start of SOMETHING". I think something similar applies here, though I could be wrong.
15. Booty over the phone for a music maker (4) LUTE (LOOT homophone). I don't really like the definition being "for a music maker" - a lute is an instrument for a music maker, "for a music maker" doesn't necessarily mean a lute. Unless the definition is "a music maker", which in that case is admittedly a clever definition (I was originally thinking that lute was supposed to be a synonym of like bard, but an instrument is also a music maker), but that means that for is a splitter, which has its own issues.
18. Fib inside an outsider (5) A(LIE)N. Solid clue, though a little weird of a surface.
20. Black and white kind of star system (6) BINARY ddef. Good double definition, black and white being BINARY is a little eh, but I think it's fine.
21. Inside every computer, a nerd snoozes uncontrollably (4, 3, 5) ONES AND ZEROS* Nice clue. I think a better surface could be "a nerd snoozes uncontrollably inside every computer" since now the "inside" can also be a red herring as an insertion indicator. I think it would've also been fun to experiment with something like "21 is a kind of star system."
23. St Anne initially asked why not go out (4) ST+A+Y? Not sure if initially is cluing Anne or ASKED, and parsing is weird. Oh I see, ASKED WHY is Y (like in text messages). I personally think that Y is a fine substitute abbreviation of WHY. Only thing is that if ASKED is being a homophone indicator, I'm not exactly sure if that works. Maybe it does.
24. Celestial traveller to approach small part of Earth (5) COME+T? Not sure the parsing. If it's an extraction clue (take t, which is a small part of Earth), I don't really think that's a valid way of getting an extraction.
Down:
1. Mole burrows into upward burst for defeats (6) TRU(+M)PS< (m as in a mole in chemistry, inside SPURT). So there's unfortunate a good number of things that don't really work for me in this clue. The standard abbreviation for mole is mol - I don't think we use m for mole, since there's A LOT of other things in chemistry that use m (m is meter in SI units, M is molarity, m is molality, fancy capital M is molar mass). Also, this comes up in other clues as well - I don't know if "for" works well as a splitter. Quoting Deusovi once again, "the split should tell you how the two parts are related". For doesn't really do that. Finally "defeats" is a bit weird in terms of the grammar of the surface, although is necessary due to the parts of speech.
2. Part of your face gives an affirmation [3] e(YES)? What I suspect is happening in this clue is that "part of" is performing a double duty of a sort - it's both part of the wordplay definition "part of your face" while also being being an indicator (part of your face gives like gives out?). In my opinion though, words shouldn't really be playing double duty like that, it makes the clue ambiguous. I'm going to assume "an affirmation" is the definition.
3. Garbage compiler takes first of 20 before capture [3-3] BIN(-ary)BAG Overall good clue. Would've preferred something like "half of 20", but it's good. I'm a little confused on why it was 3-3 instead of 3,3, unless it's typically spelled bin-bag?
4. Some crass language! (5) _slang_ A nice &lit, though I don't know how some clues a hidden word indicator. Maybe "some of" would be okay, though some of "crass language" as an extraction clue seems a bit odd.
5. Talent using pan but unearthed life is axed (5) SKILL(-et) Not sure what "using" is doing - it doesn't really work as a split. Also I don't really think "unearthed life" = ET. Unearthly life would make more sense, but unearthed life usually implies something that's hidden that's found, and more directly usually involves digging.
7. Cutout for bug without vision, say (5) INSE(-c)T. So I'm not a fan of vision--> see --> c. First off, see is a verb, vision is a noun. Fundamentally, they are not synonyms of each other. Now a matter of personal opinion, I think if you're going to use a homophone as a section of the wordplay, rather than the entire wordplay, the words themselves should be the homophones, not a synonym of the word. Otherwise you run into a game of "guess what I am thinking" and strikes me as unfair.
9. Bridle path, reportedly without a landmass (4) ISLE? @bcz for the parsing, BRIDLE PATH --> BRIDAL PATH --> (a-)ISLE. Yikes. I don't think that's a fair clue - at the very least it should then be bridle (homophone indicator) path without a landmass. The issue here is that the homophone is very ambiguous. PATH is already a close enough synonym of AISLE that you can pretty much get away with PATH, or if you really wanted to, BRIDAL PATH (homophone) landmass. Or bridal path without a landmass.
11. Back and forth time (4) NOON (palindrome). Nice and straightforward.
13. Even trees build a new opportunity (5) _R_E_B_I_D I liked this clue a lot! Good surface.
14. General born mostly for African country (5) GA+BO(-r)N? We have the same issue of "for" being used as a split, and also "mostly" being an ambiguous indicator for "take out a few letters". I've most often seen "mostly" as like a last letter deleter, so like "BORN mostly" would be BOR or "most of BORN" would be BOR. It's not terrible, but it's just not terribly clear. Also GA=General? Would need an explanation on that.
16. Unsuspecting airstrip crash [6] UNWARY*, anagram of RUNWAY*. Yikes. The cardinal sin of Ximenean cryptic crosswords. It's considered unfair to have indirect anagrams, since a lot of the time it devolves into "guess what word I'm thinking of". Keep anagrams to only letters in your clue.
17. Potential test for fish eating you (6) TR(+Y)OUT. Aside from for being used as a split, FISH EATING YOU is a bit ambiguous. I don't think Y is a typical abbreviation of YOU, and TRT isn't a fish. So either it's TR(YOU)T or TR(Y)OUT, neither of which fully make sense. A really simple way to fix this surface would've been something like "A fish eating your head is a potential test." or Potential test: Fish eating your head" (I'm sure someone else can come up with an even smoother surface).
19. Foolish line Ptolemy kept secret (5) _INEPT_ This was one of my favorite clues, very clever. For an even better surface, maybe "Crude line Ptolemy kept secret"?
22. Tree stowed in hat (3) h(ELM)et? Although it's clever, I don't think this follows the traditional rules of cryptic clues, since definition and wordplay should be separate except for &lits.
I will admit, I'm a bit newer(ish) to cryptic clue solving, so some of these might not be all that bad. I (and I think most of the users of this site) are fairly Ximenean when it comes to cryptic crossword constructions, so that also influences a lot of how we construct CCs on this site.
Just don't do indirect anagrams. Please :)
