Solution to Evan Birnholz’s May 9 Post Magazine crossword, “Chain Reaction”

You may have spotted a pattern from these seven answers, but as an extra nudge, there’s another related answer at the bottom central part of the grid at 129A: [Site where one’s comments can generate reactions] which is FACEBOOK. The first words of the starred answers represent the reactions you can attach to people’s Facebook posts and comments. If you’re not on Facebook, my hope is that you can still find the pattern just by Googling “Facebook reactions” — the hits should show you the emoji icons for the reactions. (The “care” reaction is a fairly new one that might not show up in an initial search; it was released in 2020 in response to the pandemic.)