This is a variety cryptic crossword that is part of the Unnecessarily series.

Context

This is part of our Unnecessarily series. Click here for an explanation of that series.

This puzzle was written as a handout puzzle for Conline 3. While Conline 3 has ended, you can still see the other handout puzzles and solve the Extravaganza.

Hints

Clues

  • 1a. Obscured in sitrep: a person paws wall coverings
  • 7a. To annoy Captain James? Elbow head
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  • 9a. Notes first one back, returns predecessor at the car show
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  • 11a. Head over heels Spanish love enveloped by America's fantastic odors
  • 13a. "Education chief is butter-enthusiast," Paula reported
  • 14a. Soup containing lots of cream served, hosts about to put in....$*#@! (BEEP)
  • 15a. Hungry 5.0 put into beta
  • 16a. Maxim's "Blue Period," start to finish
  • 17a. Helped promote true tweed ensemble
  • 19a. One might want to do this to 11 in, for example, New Hampshire and Alabama
  • 21a. Remove 1 and 2 from 3rd to get 2 in France
  • 23a. Retain cores of large germanium projectiles (these turbocharge aquatic cargo vehicle known for going in a pool)
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  • 27a. Enabled small suffix
  • 28a. Case for prize-winner dismissed (before 29 or O25 per Gardiner's annalist)
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  • 30a. Tots losing foremost fingers
  • 31a. How some might respond when seeing #69 in French city?
  • 32a. Eclipsing large model is stair leading to moon
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  • 34a. "Enactment" appears in the dictionary
  • 35a. You might build a casa pequeña on one, on all going west?
  • 36a. Gödel theorem featuring Greek letter
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  • 37a. Saturated with water: 33 grams absorbed
  • 1d. Equipment for mapping and measuring deeps or sand lairs at regular intervals
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  • 2d. If we need that extra push over the cliff we might put the dial here for outer layer of lasagne in oven
  • 3d. T + 3A + 2W - (2A + W + T) = √(BEER)
  • 4d. Essence of "Pennsylvania's Father"
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  • 5d. A bit at a time, chip away at a Keats poem about a Clooney show?
  • 6d. Twists or ink or wheels or the earth or tornado or hula hoop or thing that snips
  • 7d. You might do good deeds to improve this game; I unfortunately...
  • 8d. ...had exhibited wreathe made from buds of rosemary and golden Easter daisies
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  • 10d. "Trust One's Hill"
  • 12d. No limits when re-using parts of set versus having six lines
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  • 18d. Hero of Valencia exchanged a club for a diamond and shuffled 25
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  • 19d. Articulated two words you might say to compare patty received flattened
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  • 20d. Eating as Congers stands
  • 22d. Scrutinized ongoing selection for chairman
  • 24d. "Make sure to follow rules extracted from slab" I edify
  • 25d. Approximately 18 cents instead of dollars for first winner of the DeMille Award
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  • 26d. Get by, voting for foot of bronze medal goalie Alec Marriott
  • 27d. "Tropical city with about 9 million people." Carelessly Mr. Al forgets 2.71 thousand.
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  • 29d. Mass in Sèvres, France might be low-key in Verlan, reportedly
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  • 33d. Edible item you might give up with Lent?!

Instructions

Section 1 - There's a problem with entering the word in the grid.
If a word already has it's alphabetically earliest letter in the first position, then when you enter it in the grid, there is no change. This is okay.
Section 2 - There's a problem with entering the word in the grid.
You can enter a palindrome in the grid in reverse. Doesn't change much, but you can do it.
Section 3 - There's a problem with entering the word in the grid.
When an answer undergoes the Second Great Vowel shift, that does mean that any Es in the answer change to Es. Theoretically, if there was an answer word that had only Es as vowels, that means that it wouldn't change.
Section 4 - There's a problem with entering the word in the grid.
If there's no duplicate letters, that means that no letters are removed before entering them in the grid.
Section 5 - There's a problem with entering the word in the grid.
You can replace a NATO alphabet letter with the word that represents its first letter in the NATO alphabet. Just means that it doesn't change much.
Section 6 - There's a problem with entering the word in the grid.
Then you did something wrong. These should all enter regularly.
Section 6 - There's something weird with ordering these clues.
I mean, have you seen the rest of this puzzle? This shouldn't be too surprising.

Answers

Variety Parts
Some of the clues need to be transformed to be solved. The instructions tell you to transform the answers too before putting them in the grid, but it turns out that the transformations don't actually do anything.

Section 1 - Answers need to have the alphabetically-first letter moved to the front, but they're already the first letter. For extraction, this means that you're taking the first letter of each relevant clue.
7A - IRK - T
15A - AVID - H
32A - DEIMOS - E
24D - ABIDE - M

Section 2 - Answers need to be reversed before entering, but they're all palindromes, so that doesn't change anything. For extraction, you take the position of the first R, but all of them start with the letter R, so you take the first letter of each relevant clue. (We didn't mean to make them all start with R, that was just a happy accident that we used.)
1A - REPAPER - O
23A - RACECAR - R
1D - RADAR - E
6D - ROTATOR - T

Section 3 - Answers need to have their vowels replaced with the letter E before entering, but all their vowels are already Es. The indicated number is ELEVEN, so the ones digit is 1, so you take the first letter of each clue.
17A - RETWEETED - H
2D - ELEVEN - I
12D - SESTETS - N
26D - ELECT - G

Section 4 - Answers need to have their duplicated letters removed before entering, but they have no duplicated letters. Since you aren't removing any letters, the extraction instructions just extract the first letter of each clue every time.
14A - POTAGE - S
28A - OBELISK - C
8D - RAGED - H
19D - IRONED - A

Section 5 - Answers need to be replaced with NATO letters, but they're already NATO letters. Since you're not changing the word anymore, the extraction instructions just extract the first letter of each clue every time.
9A - ALFA - N
36A - DELTA - G
4D - PAPA - E
27D - LIMA - T

Section 6 - Answers don't need to be changed for this one, but there is a complicated ordering method. If you follow the complicated ordering, all it does is rearrange the clues and then put them back in clue order, then extract the first letter of each clue.
11A - AROMAS - H
13A - DEAN - E
16A - ADAGES - M
19A - INHALE - O
21A - ONZE - R
27A - LET - E
30A - IDS - T
31A - NICE - H
34A - EDICT - E
35A - LLANO - Y
37A - SOGGY - S
3D - A AND W - T
5D - ERODE - A
7D - IMAGE - Y
10D - FAITH - T
18D - EL CID - H
20D - EASELS - E
22D - ZEDONG - S
25D - CECIL - A
29D - KILO - M
33D - SOY - E

Combine all of these parts together to get the answer phrase THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME, an appropriate description of how this puzzle worked.