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3letter word in Italian for without… am I the only one who finds this a bit rich? Am I expected to know the Serbo Croat for all prepositions?

Finally sorted the 4th illustration after following a self- inflicted rabbit hole. Although we’d found the initiator quite early on, we didn’t check his collaborator’s work. Thought our first interpretation of the final quadrant was a bit of a let down. Should have realised, Shark does not disappoint!

It’s an Italian musical term Specsaver, so I think it’s fair game. There’s another in the wordplay for 39a… that clue had me chuckling like a toddler

Oddity - 13A can be taken as an &lit on its own merit, but is so highly thematic that I’m surprised it didn't get a mention in the endgame, especially as the collaborator’s name is revealed..

It surely can’t be a coincidence.

I gave up on this yesterday and I think I will have to once again. On the basis that I can ignore the columns with more than 2 occurrences of an unch of the same letter that leaves me with only 2 columns where I can create new words. One of these has a choice of 2 unches and the other has only 1 choice. Am I wasting my time? or do I persevere?

Just the frustrating fourth illustration to go.
I’m afraid I dislike the wording of part of the preamble regarding the illustrations.
“each consisting of one or two lines tracing a thematic word and an item associated with it”
Does that imply that one or two lines trace the thematic word only, but the illustration then includes an item associated with it? Or are one or two lines for the illustration as a whole?
I’m still grid staring having pretty much ruled out finding the obvious (longer) thematic word and it’s three (equal length) alternatives. Even the other element doesn’t obviously leap out despite appearing in two places, one of which has two possible endpoints. This has gone from enjoyable to well… not.

I'm in a similar position to you, Gitto. I completed the gridfill early doors on Friday and found myself confronted by a brick wall. There comes a point where it's best to stop banging one's head against it and I've reached that point. I hope to see something more comprehensible this coming Friday.

Useby - four illustrations; eight lines. Three illustrations need the second line; the fourth acts to make it, I guess, a longer version of itself. Of each illustrations two component lines, one is the thematic word, the other the corresponding associated ‘item’ (a synonym for this would be a spoiler).

What is maybe confusing is the word ‘line’ in this context - in two cases what you draw is topographically a line, but not a line in common speech; in this puzzle, a ‘W’ would be one line, not four.

Gitto… have you explored the possible replacement words for where the unches occur? Whilst the unches are the same letter, the replacements can be (and are) different. For me, going through all the possible replacement words revealed that there was only one column where the replacements were linked (a bell rang and it was confirmed by Google) and thus the theme emerged. Hope this helps in some way.

hw7
Thank you. I shall look again after pondering your words. The ‘w’ illustration you gave was helpful.