Hint: it's Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up 2015-11-07

1. one who evaluates

2. hole in the ground

3. Jimmy, Rosalynn and Amy

4. facial features

5. helpful example

6. big cat

7. braid

8. looks intently

9. someone who plays a role

10. deceptive movement

11. overrun

12. suitability

Welcome once again to Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, a weekly opportunity to have a little fun and to get your brain in gear for the regular Sunday Puzzle (which posts Sunday evenings at 8 pm Eastern time). Tonight's diary will be the first under DK-5. Here's hoping DK-5 isn't as horrible as the gremlins have told me it will be.

I'm running way behind this month (as usual) so the gremlins volunteered to provide tomorrow's Sunday Puzzle. Their first idea for the verticals for tomorrow night's puzzle was:

DD EO AF RD KK O5 SO GR EE TL RS IE

I told them I didn't think that was a very good idea and they'd need to come up with something else. Their second idea for the verticals for tomorrow night's puzzle was:

DEK ET5 ARO RIR KDE OOL SFS GDE

I told them I didn't think that was a very good idea either and they'd need to come up with something else. Their third idea for the verticals for tomorrow night's puzzle was:

DSDO EGOR AEFE RTDL KRKS OI5E

... Well, after 4 more tries on their part I finally convinced them that wouldn't be a very inspiring or enjoyable message to build a puzzle around.

So, looking over the rec list to see what topics people enjoyed talking about, the gremlins came up with a number of ideas for verticals about how evil Hillary Clinton supporters are and how deluded Bernie Sanders supporters are which they assured me would bring recs pouring in. They were very disappointed when I suggested there are already enough diaries on those topics and perhaps people would enjoy something different for a change of pace. But they finally came up with something I was able to agree to.

Tomorrow night's diary subtitle will be Rhymes With Manly, and tonight's warm-up puzzle provides a hint as to what their puzzle will be about.

Tonight's puzzle has 4 rows, with 3 answers per row. If you're familiar with how JulieCrostics work, you can jump right in; if you're new and don't yet know how JulieCrostics work, you can find complete instructions in the bottom part of the diary.

If you're new to Sunday Puzzle, a request: please don't post any answers or other spoilers in comment subject lines. Instead (a) please put any guesses at possible answers into the comment itself, and (b) please use the subject line to indicate what the comment talks about, so that people who want help with a particular part of the puzzle will know which comments to read and people who want to work something out for themselves will know which comments to save for later. Thanks!

Have fun, and I hope to see you in comments!