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Well, that took a few weeks longer than it should have, huh? The final chapter of The Woman in the Statue will be up Monday. That’s not an “I swear it’ll be done by then, PLEASE BELIEVE ME!” kind of thing; it’s done, but I’ve given JayDee an advance copy of every chapter thus far, and I wasn’t about to break tradition for the finale. They’ll have time to read it, and I’ll work on polishing it before posting it on Monday. Be forewarned, this is the longest chapter I’ve written for this story by far, a little over 20,000 words. So, what’s next? Well, before anything else, I have some reviews to respond to, and a few stories I need to catch up on in terms of reviews. @Thundercloud should know to expect a review of the grand finale of G.S.P., and I’ll try to catch up on @Tcr’s Last Full Measure, as well as @InvidiaRed’s Rationis. After that...well, I missed the Halloween party this year, but I’ll be back next year, and of course I have a story planned for this year’s holiday party, which is likely to be my next writing project.

There’s only so much an automated spelling and grammar checker can accomplish; sometimes their ones and zeroes get crossed and they suggest incorrect corrections. If you know already that your work is correct in that instance, it’s easy enough to just delete the flag and move on, but what about when you’re not sure? What about when you actually start questioning whether the checker’s suggestion, wrong as it sounds, might be right? I give you the “am I wrong or is my grammar checker an idiot?” thread. Here you can post your spelling and grammar questions and – I hope! – get answers. For clarity’s sake, try to follow this form: The sentence: Write out your sentence in its entirety. The problem: Describe what part of that sentence has caught your checker’s attention, the proposed correction, why you think the checker might be wrong, and if possible, why it might be right. Good luck, and I hope this thread becomes a valuable resource for those of us about to go round an’ round with our grammar checkers!

From GeorgeGlass on October 28, 2020 Tricked Ah, a sequel to last year's story -- although I just glanced at InBrightestDay’s review, which points out that the first one was written by tcr. Interesting choice to sequelize that. I still like the idea of the various underworld gods, old and new, hanging out together. The bit about some of them collecting very few souls these days was a good one. And I'm guessing the cabbie was Jesus? Yep, Luci is currently seriously punch drunk from being crushed. It also continues the theme of luci playing the fool. He likesto think he’s so clever but to put it best Lucifer is playing checkers while everyone else is playing 3d 4v4 chess. That’s indeed why the cabbie is smiling. Wouldn’t you? You’ve announced yourself and despite every hint you’ve given the person in question still doesn’t know who you are.

From InBrightestDay on October 27, 2020 You can always count on me to make you feel better about your own perversions. The suspense was unintentional, but I’ll take it. Basically, while her siblings were having wild gorilla sex, Jenny was planning the perfect crime. As soon as I thought of that line, I knew I had to use it. I tried to foreshadow it a little with the way that they look at each other, and the way Sam touches Freddie’s arm, but I may have undersold it. I wish that I’d had a little more time to think about and then work on this one. I was actually going to save this one for next Halloween, but when my original story for this year fizzled out, I figured I’d better switch to this. Glad you enjoyed. Thanks for reviewing!

From InBrightestDay on October 27, 2020 Tricked What have you done, Invidia!? You've crossed over that which was never meant to cross over! You've opened the seals and we're all doomed! DOOMED I TELL YOU!!! *Ahem.* Muhahaha!How could I resist? The doorway was clearly unattended and now through the archway they come! Dun Dun DUH!!!! Ok, so I started this review wondering whether or not you'd cleared this with tcr, seeing as this is clearly a direct sequel to Death Always Wins, albeit with some rather noticeable changes, one of which is that you have it in your Powdered Sugar setting (which admittedly was inspired by tcr's story, but wasn't a direct continuation). Then the story went in a direction that raised several questions, leading me to the assumption that this is the setup for a Duncan adventure (Duncan himself appears to have blacked out after the end of Temporary and then woken up here), and then… (OOF!, Its not a direct continuation and events do significantly differ. I did message them so its all good. Gods are public domain. Duncan's on a road trip to find Yua. This is deeply flattering, and it would be very cool to see Duncan and Yua interact, but also might cause some potential problems depending on how it relates to the other stories. I am very interested in seeing where it goes, mind you. (Holiday canon can matter just as much or as little as a holiday episode haha its own separate little timeline). Uh...sorry this wasn't more of an actual review of the story itself! I kind of got distracted when Yua was namedropped. (I did also reference The Woman In The Statue. It impressed me highly) The story itself feels more like the first act of something larger, which works in the sense that it makes people interested, but at the same time has the inevitable side effect of storylines here ending on cliffhangers (like whatever's going on with Lucifer at the end there. (Big J was his Uber driver, Luci played the fool this Halloween tricked so many times and he didn’t even realize it. Hel usurped him as the hero of the story) One of Duncan’s previous incarnations was solidly revealed. Angrboða herself. The Norse Mother of Monsters and Wolf Mother) More importantly their personalities are vastly different. They do however share a hostility to Aesir in general and an irrational hatred of angels) Its also the reason why Lucifer couldn’t reap her. Yes, She is dead but essentially she’s but a single thread in a massive spider’s web. Or a single link in a chain. It shouldn’t have been possible since she’s definitively dead and Duncan is multiple incarnations removed from her the rules however are significantly different on Halloween. Someone actually did guess correctly that his other incarnation was none other than Dagda’s Doom- Cethlann

Bruce Springsteen?

If your gonna us it in another book, don't explain it at all, other than he knows her somehow, let people wonder why she crumbled so easily until your ready to tell them - it'll drive people nuts hehehe