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I've taken to writing at night when Gandalf is asleep, but it has caused me to sleep in randomly in the morning, so he tends to get his first meal after I wake up. I turn over this morning upon waking, and discover him sitting at my face (an inch or two away) with a big goofy smile on his face. I check the time, and figure he must be hungry, so I say, "Okay, let's go." He jumps on my chest and walks across me (naturally), then plops down facing a drawer where I keep some of his toy springs (the ones he likes to hide during the day and pull out and smack around in the middle of the night when my neighbors and I are trying to sleep), and looks back at me expectantly. I don't know if it's a trend yet, but he's waited several times now to start breakfast until after I throw that first spring and it's in his possession. Part of me wants to throttle my contractor for showing Gandalf how much fun it is to play fetch with toy springs.

Welcome, Jon.

I haven't been posting for a while, but I still do volunteer user support here and check in regularly, so feel free to send me a connection request for private messaging, or post any questions or issues you may have to the Premium forum. Someone else may respond before I even see it.

If you haven't already, please check out an article I posted in the Premium forum on tips for getting the most reviews of your writing. It's pinned near the top of the forum, so you can't miss it.

It's a small site right now (we're rebuilding the membership after a major server crash and letting folks trickle out for too long), although a number of us have been writing and posting on the site for well over a decade. There are also writers here who have published repeatedly yet still give freely of their time.

I'm hoping to (finally) resume posting the second draft of my apocalyptic thriller, the Emissary, this month. It's part one of a trilogy that tells my fictional interpretation of the end of the world, hopefully in a way that readers will find interesting (it uses a Catholic setting and characters for authenticity much the way Dan Brown does, although he's a bit more successful - for now - lol).

Please check out the book's content summary and prologue to see if you'd like to trade reviews. The prologue is intentionally high octane, with an Indiana Jones-style opening that you may enjoy.

Regardless, I'm happy to answer any site/writing questions I can.

Sorry for the late welcome. Happy New Year!
Dirk

I think the word you're looking for, njc, is, "Wow!" You're amazing, Marilyn. Talk about stellar reviews.
Congratulations.

Be afraid, Morag. Be very afraid! There are some with dark powers lurking about. :-)

Thanks,  Mitch.  She's gone, but will probably return. Bill had already closed a number of accounts belonging to her.

I see what you mean. Without clues It'd be hopeless. Best I could do would be to guess eagle for one of the two five-letter words, neither of which connects to anything else.

Having seen enough cat videos in my time, it didn't surprise me a few weeks ago when Gandalf knocked over the new Christmas tree (assembled so I could verify the lights work), although he did it only minutes after I left the room. My boy is a quick study.

So, we secured the tree to two walls in the corner with picture hanging wire looped through a couple of hooks. One of the walls is only half-height (a "pony" wall?), and divides the entryway from the living room without blocking the view of either. It includes a flat "cap" for keys, wallet, gloves, etc. and serves as Gandalf's throne as he presides over the space.

This evening I hear him meowing from the living room, and when I check, he's on the cap, shaking the tree back and forth, trying to knock it down. That little stinker was doing it on purpose. I wish I had caught that on video. :-)

I can only imagine what he'll do to the decorations later this month.

Anticross!
I really like crossdoodle.

Picaword? Pickaword? Or other variants.
Guessaword? Etc.

Assuming the answer requires the user to guess or pick a word, check a thesaurus for other variants of those two words. Take your favourites, and append -aword, -aname, or some other relevant suffix to the end of it.

Or: Ask Gemini. :-)

God Uses Deception as a Judgment (Biblical Examples)
However, the Bible contains specific instances where God is depicted as the agent of deception against those who have already rejected the truth, often as a form of judgment. These passages are the foundation for the "ethically wrong" argument: 
Sending a Delusion: Paul writes that for those who refuse to love the truth, God will send them "a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false" (2 Thessalonians 2:11). 
Deceiving Prophets: God is described as deceiving prophets who lead Israel astray as a judgment on the people who sought them out (Ezekiel 14:9; 1 Kings 22:23). 
The Hardening of the Heart: God "hardened" Pharaoh's heart, preventing him from agreeing to release the Israelites. This is a form of judicial action that prevents an already-willful person from seeing or accepting the truth.

>> What? Just a warning? No, it's definite.

In the meeting in the year 430 after Rome receives the documents supposedly written by Augustine on his deathbed, the Last Challenge is described as being about corruption in the Church. Specifically, Satan is said to have claimed in the late first century that, by the End Times, the Church will be so corrupt that Christ will not find even one priest worthy of Heaven. That ruse is used by Satan because it supports the narrative that the Emissary is holy and has come to purge the Church of corruption. In reality, it allows Connor to purge the Church of his enemies (real priests still dedicated to God).

So, when Satan, who is in the meeting as a corporeal, discusses the Last Challenge, he explains to the others that, since God accepted the Last Challenge, there is no way the existing ending of Revelation can describe what will actually happen since it does not account for the events related to the challenge. In fact, it was the existing ending of Revelation that led Satan to issue the challenge. He adds that, had it been mentioned in Revelation, along with the likely outcome (God wins), Satan would never have issued the challenge. So, regardless of what John of Patmos wrote, Satan would have done something different to try to "change" the ending.

So, were John's ending "real", Satan would have invalidated it simply by issuing the Last Challenge (assuming God accepted). Although there is precedent in the Bible to change a "prophecy" (the people of Nineveh escaped destruction in the Book of Jonah), for now, I'm going to have Satan go with the argument that Revelation's ending is just a warning, so i don't need to justify how my ending could possibly change one of the biggest prophecies in the Bible. Technically, one could argue that Jonah's prophecy was also just a warning, so no prophecy was actually altered.

God's statement is factually correct. The Bible is full of verses that require careful interpretation to avoid misunderstanding their meaning. Revelation, itself, is drowning in figurative language that will never be understood with 100% certainty. Are those falsehoods? Satan is supposed to be brilliant. All he had to do was ask what that means. Being the arrogant s--t that he is, he assumed God intended to humiliate him rather than burn him. Even if Satan knew his fate might be a black hole, he at least has a chance to avoid that fate and end up ruling Earth. As opposed to being burned alive for eternity. If it were me, I'd go ahead with the challenge. The real reason it's not clearly spelled out is because I want to withhold that potential fate from the reader as a surprise for when it actually happens.

If he wanted. I suppose. Eden, in this case, is in a different dimension - still on Earth, but separate from the "fallen" part of our world. Gemini suggests that's a reasonable way to frame it since the geographic details given in the Bible about real-world rivers downstream from Eden are physically impossible in our dimension (those rivers don't have a common source).

Assuming Satan loses (what are the odds?), he and the rest of the demons will also end up in the "virtual" Lake of Fire, which consists of a burning pool somewhere in a cave in the Holy Land (the entrance to the lake), with a portal at the bottom, leading to the virtual LOF, including the Thousand Worlds (TW), the fallen Earth, and Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Satan and co. will end up on an asteroid spiralling into the black hole. Most of the damned will end up on one of the TW, with varying degrees of harshness; you end up on a world commensurate with the gravity of your mortal sins (i.e., how much of a dick you were in life).

Connor also ends up in the LOF, but the portal brings him directly back to the fallen Earth of our dimension (e.g., just outside the cave with the burning pool, where he threw himself in). Like all the other damned, he can't go back through the portal and emerge in the cave, so he too, technically, is stuck forever in the virtual LOF, and fallen Earth becomes his base.