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Hey all you cryptic crossword puzzle fans!

THING ONE: The indie crossword puzzle site AVCX has a really excellent cryptic every Thursday. Check them out at https://avxwords.com/. Their free trial subscription, which I started back when the NYTXW was behind a picket line, has now given me enough delightful cyprics that I am happily upgrading to a full paid subscription.

THING TWO: I am DEEPLY DISTURBED by one clue in this week's cryptic, and would love to hear others' thoughts.

The clue is: "Appliance brand is holding onto old game console for its competitor (7)".

The word play part includes "old game console" clueing for NES. Then the definition part of the clue is "its competitor"... which is the Sega GENESIS, competitor of the Nintendo system whose name is hidden inside it.

So what is the word "it" in the definition referring to? From the surface reading of the clue, "it" refers back to "old game console", and it strikes me as a little weird that that phrase is now doing double duty as part of both the word play and the definition. But actually "it" isn't just referring to the phrase "old game console" itself — "it" must be referring specifically to the NES to clue for the Sega being the Nintendo's competitor.

So the "it" in the definition is actually referring to... the answer for a part of the word play?!

Is that, like, allowed?

Happy New Year, and may this be your only heated online debate about pronouns this holiday season.