Protection of a protagonist for narrative purposes in slang / SAT 5-29-21 / Rum-soaked treats / Source of Vibranium in the Marvel universe / Exclamation popularized by Die Hard / Four-time Emmy winner from Coney Island

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This was grueling at first, but at first it was 5 am and I'd been awake all of 15 minutes, so ... on a Saturday, probably not so unusual to feel this way at the start of the puzzle, given the circumstances. NW wasn't falling because PRIDE didn't have any "abbr." indication in the clue (1D: Annual June celebration). So annoying. PRIDE is decidedly a shortening, and clues should indicate that or else they are cheap and stupid. Also, here's the thing ... is this referring to the entirety of PRIDE month (June), or the annual PRIDE march in NYC (June 27), or what? Dunno. I think the clue is referring specifically to the NYC march, or maybe anyPRIDE march, and not to the month as a whole (though at first I thought the month itself was the "celebration"). but exactly when and how long and in what context something called PRIDE occurs probably varies a lot from place to place. PRIDE events happen all month long, all over the world. I love the LBGT+ clue on PRIDE—just write a clue that indicates that we're dealing w/ a colloquial shortening and we're good. It's not hard! Here: [Annual June celebration in NYC]. That's it. Done. Perfect. By adding "in NYC," you've a. clearly indicated that it's a specificevent that you are referring to, and b. clearly indicated that the answer is an abbr. And it only took five extra letters. Magic. (It's not magic)

Never heard of PLOT ARMOR so what was probably enjoyable to some was just a shrug to me (1A: Protection of a protagonist for narrative purposes, in slang). Stupid grad school, awarded me a Ph.D. in literature but never taught me the term PLOT ARMOR. Thanks a lot, UM! So yeah, waffled around up there, with little success. Then somehow glommed onto the "A" in MEA and got ATLANTA and started working on the SE, but again, nowhere. Speaking of the SE, that's the site of my one major problem with this puzzle: GARI crossing "YIPPEE-KI-YAY!" (24D: Exclamation popularized by "Die Hard"). About GARI: this is the first I'm hearing of it. Now, that's fine. New-to-me term, cool. But you have to understand that as sushi-related terms go, this one is much less well known than the others, so much so that it isn't even in the merriam-webster.com dictionary. NORI, that's there. WASABI, there. GARI, nope. And the wikipedia page for GARI is such a hot mess of bad writing and improper citation that I couldn't even use it in the Word of the Day definition, above. Go ahead and use GARI if you like—I'm actually happy to learn the term for the thing I've been eating all this time—but Every Cross Must Be Unassailable when you're dealing with new / uncommon / foreign words like this. And the "I" in "YIPPEE-KI-YAY!"!? That is not something I'd want anywhere near GARI. I've never had occasion to have to spell that stupid exclamation, and this spelling seems counterintuitive in many ways. "KI" makes what sound now? I would pronounce "KI" like the common English word "key." Also, when I hear the Bruce Willis exclamation in my head, I hear the end as "chi" (like the Greek letter) and "a" (like ... the letter). "KI-YAY" just doesn't reflect what's going on in my ears. In the end, "I" was the only good guess there, but the stupid spelling of that exclamation coupled with the unknownness of GARI really made that part awful to experience. Whereas if you'd decoupled these answers, there's a good chance that neither one would've bothered me at all.