For the first thing you described, you got the order of the words wrong. Skull Gate is the correct answer, so what could possibly rhyme with that?
I changed this puzzle after release (the original was too hard/unfun). I think you're on the old version of the program (which is why the letter counts don't match) but your browser loaded the new art.
Try reloading the page and hitting Continue from the main menu. Or you can enter the solutions for the original puzzle which were SPINAL FIN / FINAL SPIN.

