That's a wrap!

[holmesticemods]

Thank you so much for another successful round of Holmestice! We have a few extra treats coming up in just a minute. (And if you're itching to make something else, we are happy to take additional treats right through until reveals!)

The mods want to say THANK YOU to all the creators that joined us for this round of Holmestice. You put in a lot of hard work and made some really great fanworks. If you'd like to post to AO3, you may do so at your leisure. If you'd like a link on your LJ entry, just send us an email and we'll add one.

Reveals and the Master List go up on December 21st, but until then read and comment on all the lovely fanworks. Creators, please do NOT respond to comments (except on AO3, which maintains anonymity) or post your fanwork elsewhere on the Internet until reveals go up in the community!

If you'd like to take a guess at who created what in this round, a list of all the participants is below the LJ cut. Go ahead and take a guess. It's all in good fun.





snarryfool
blackbird_song
camillo1978
colebaltblue
capt_facepalm
destntoast
dioscureantwins
disheveledcurls
ellipsical
Emily Nicaoidh
etherai
fictionforlife
gardnerhill
garonne
graycardinal
k_e_p
kinkajou
knowmefirst
koshartu
mahmfic
meredydd
mistyzeo
monkiainen
neverendingview
opaljade
phoenixfalls
rabidsamfan
rodlox
sanguinity
scandalbaby
scfrankles
scifric
sherlollyfan119
swissmarg
venusinthenight
verdant_fire
xfdryad





Go forth and leave love for your fellow Holmestice authors, artists, vidders, and podficcers. See you again on the 21st, when we reveal who made what!

Comments

[ancientreader]

Thank you so so much dear mods, for your hard work and general excellence!

And what an interesting round, with such a variety of Holmeses and Watsons. *admires*

[venusinthenight]

Yay Holmestice!

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Another fantastic job, Mods! Thanks for all the hard labour.

[ancientreader]

Wow, is nobody speculating? Okay, I'm going to try. gardnerhill, did you write "Acme"?

[sanguinity]

I suspect a lot of us are still behind on the reading/looking/listening. (I certainly am! And the comment count seems to be running low right now, no?) Bricks and clay and all that.

But if you think gardnerhill wrote Acme, that's as good as rec, seems to me. *shuffles it higher in the to-read stack*

[ancientreader]

Well, for the value of "think" that = "Hmm, gardnerhill has written some elegant ACD gen, and rachelindeed didn't participate this time, and hey! I seem to have lured sanguinity into admitting they didn't write it ... And, wait! You're a mod! Don't you know who wrote everything? *chinhands*

[graycardinal]

Indeed, that fact rather put paid to all my plans to fake sanguinity out this round....

[ancientreader]

Or was it you? (Acme, I mean.)

[graycardinal]

I have never supplied Wile E. Coyote with merchandise of any kind...oh, wait, you're thinking of that other "Acme".

On one hand, as good as that one is, it doesn't seem to me to quite fit the gardnerhill profile. If I were guessing (which I 'm not), I might tag colebaltblue for it.

[sanguinity]

Heh, sanguinity could know if she was moved to go look it up. Whether that's the same as actually knowing is left as an exercise for the reader.

Did I admit that? I have stated publicly elsewhere that someone reccing or saying something nice about my work often prompts me to re-read it. And I just said above: thinking gardnerhill wrote something is as good as a rec.

*chinhands right back at you*

[ancientreader]

Ahhhhhhhhhh, that's too slippery. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too slippery. *sticks thumbs in ears and wiggles fingers*

[graycardinal]

And now you see what I've had to deal with these past couple of rounds.... :-)

[sanguinity]

Oh, please. My conduct in these guessing threads has been to make like Monty Hall: I provide accurate, useful, and relevant information by which you might improve your own guesses. It's hardly me being "slippery" that you never use it.

And while we are discussing "slippery," may I remind you that I'm not the sneak who goes around leaving comments on my own creations.

[graycardinal]

Heh. You'll notice that I actually remembered the note I wrote to myself about that last year....

[graycardinal]

Guessing at the moment has been pushed back behind "Yuletide deadline", "dealing with weather" (greater Portland essentially loses its collective mind whenever we get the slightest bit of snow or ice on the roads), and "attempting to prepare for moving to two different places at one and the same time" (no, I'm not making that up, and yes, it is completely insane, but there are Reasons).

Once we get past the weekend, we'll see if there's any time left to guess properly. Just now, the one rabbit I'll attempt to pull out of my hat is a WAG in rabidsamfan's direction for the story gifted to me....

[mistyzeo.livejournal.com]

Portland has lost its mind! As an east-coaster by birth I laugh in the face of snowy roads. But also I'm staying in.

[graycardinal]

Alas, I lack that luxury, being expected at work shortly. Thus I now reply from an unexpectedly on-time bus.

[blink]

Wait, there are three Holmestice players stranded in snowy Portland this week? How statistically improbable is that?

[sanguinity]

If you expand it to the snowy Willamette Valley, there are at least four of us.

[colebaltblue.livejournal.com]

sanguinity is correct, if you expand down to the rest of the Willamette Valley, four. *waves vigorously and tries not to knock any more ice laden trees down*

[mistyzeo.livejournal.com]

We should do some further investigation into this phenomenon perhaps at a local tea shop.

[graycardinal]

We really should, not least because I still owe sanguinity cookies as a consequence of an earlier round, and am likely to be baking cookies in the extremely near future.

It would be best if this hypothetical tea shop were in a relatively central and transit-friendly location, as at least one of us is a lifestyle non-driver. Fortunately, greater Portland is relatively hospitable to lifestyle non-drivers, even in times of chancy weather....

[mistyzeo.livejournal.com]

I am a non driver myself and would be happy to make this happen. We should make deeper plans. Email me? Anyone who lives within visiting distance of PDX should email me. elinor@mistyzeo.net.

[graycardinal]

And email has been dispatched!

[sanguinity]

*poke*

Yuletide deadline's past.

We're back to boring old rain.

Reveals are tomorrow.

Should I invite myself over to pack boxes while you make guesses? (I am an entirely trustworthy person, you know.)

[graycardinal]

That would require that I actually have boxes to be packed (I am just putting in that order today). Organized R *not* us just now.

Sadly, things are just too crazy at present for me to do the kind of organized guessing I've managed in past rounds, but I will make a few purely instinctive attempts:

Design of the Four - I stick with rabidsamfan for this.

Acme - colebaltblue still feels right for that one.

Everything Is Watson - Just to be contrary, I'm *not* going to guess gardnerhill for this (although that's a well-reasoned guess). My vote goes to swissmarg for absolutely no good reason.

The Kidnapping of Arthur Daniel Ruskin and The Chimney-Sweep's Aunt strike me as two of a kind; I won't try to guess who wrote which, but I suspect that between the two we have snarryfool and garonne at work.

And one off-the-wall prediction: I think sanguinity wrote *something* concerning Elementary, but I have not the slightest idea which of that group of stories it is.

[sanguinity]

Interesting.

I'd twirl some mustachios, but snarryfool has them just now.

[ancientreader]

I am willing to share! They're tickling my upper lip, TBH.

[mistyzeo.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thanks for another great exchange!

[destntoast.livejournal.com]

Yay, thanks so much, mods! This was a great first Holmestice experience for me. :)

[colebaltblue.livejournal.com]

This is the mod's favorite part of Holmestice, how close does everyone get to the truth??? Some guesses are spot on, others, not so much.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Just one guess to start with - for Everything is Watson (http://holmestice.livejournal.com/424212.html). This is in fact the excellent fic that I received in the exchange.

It's set in a rare 'verse - Lego Hound of the Baskervilles - and I was the only participant who mentioned that 'verse in my sign-up, under what I hoped to receive. However, I did also mention three other far more conventional 'verses, so I'm guessing that my assigned writer is the kind of person who looks on this kind of left-field choice as a positive challenge. That, and the quality of the writing, does bring up a few names.

Looking at the fic a bit more closely now - at one point we have: “You see yourself as a new Guy Fawkes, do you not?” Not such an odd reference - the fic must have been written round about 5th Nov, which is Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes Night in the UK. But a couple of minor things in the text make me suspect an American has written this, or at least a non-Briton. Guy Fawkes surely wouldn't come so automatically to mind in that case. Interestingly though, at the beginning of November I myself directed members of a comm, including one particular writer, to the history of Bonfire Night on Wikipedia. And this particular writer then wrote a ACD bonfire night ficlet...

But what really makes me think of one particular author is this line, regarding the baddie's surprising demands: There were all sorts of impossibilities on that list – England’s immediate withdrawal from over a hundred far-flung countries, free rule by the people who lived there, an end to child labour in factories, women’s suffrage – changes that would destroy the Empire and do terrible things to the price of tea if they could be carried out. That kind of sardonic wit - I can really hear the voice of a certain writer ^__^

My guess for the author of this fic is gardnerhill.


Btw, congratulations to everyone who took part - and thanks so much to the mods for all their hard work. It's greatly appreciated ^_^

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Back to make a few more guesses.

Chance, Second Chance, Last Chance (http://holmestice.livejournal.com/423418.html) - I think this is by garonne. The style feels like hers, and her ACD fics do tend to have a romantic pairing. Also, there's something in the header that makes me think of her.

Internal System Reboot (http://holmestice.livejournal.com/425423.html) - Oh, I was so pleased with myself for working out who had written this. I'd put in a comment 'I am in awe of how real you make this world seem', and it suddenly occurred to me I'd put almost exactly the same thing on another anonymous fic in the past - the author now long revealed. So I went to check the sign-up of this particular writer - and they'd mentioned explicitly (^^") that they wanted to write a Holmes/robot!Watson fic. The author is of course mistyzeo.

Promises (http://holmestice.livejournal.com/427335.html) - Not many people offered New Russian Holmes as a 'verse. Looking at those few participants and thinking of their styles, I believe this to be sanguinity's work.

A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One (http://holmestice.livejournal.com/428298.html) - One particularly rare 'verse, gen, cleverly written. I think this must be by graycardinal. They have in fact 'liked' that post but as sanguinity has mentioned here, I do remember the business with the misleading comment from last time...

The Kidnapping of Arthur Daniel Ruskin (http://holmestice.livejournal.com/432088.html) - ACD, plotty gen, casefic. I immediately thought this must be by capt_facepalm. Also, the formatting makes me think of them too.

Acme (http://holmestice.livejournal.com/434021.html) - Not absolutely certain, but I think this is by rabidsamfan. The quality of the prose and the style certainly could be theirs. And I think the charming eccentricity of the labelling of the links in the notes could be a small clue perhaps.

[mistyzeo.livejournal.com]

:3 guilty

[sanguinity]

That was a truly impressive job of guessing, congrats!

May I ask, what was garonne's tell? And what was the other work of mistyzeo's that you had that same reaction to?

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Thank you ^__^

Garonne mentions in her header "my anonymous beta-reader". I'm pretty sure she's referred to a beta before as not having an online pseudonym (at ACD Holmesfest). And the mistyzeo fic is The Hungerford Wreck (http://acd-holmesfest.livejournal.com/59258.html) - also first posted at ACD Holmesfest. You can see my full comment underneath, but the relevant sentence is "I'm rather in awe of your ability to use description to create such a vivid world and sense of reality." ^^

[sanguinity]

Thank you for indulging me! And I agree, Hungerford Wreck was vividly painted indeed.

[graycardinal]

Heh. "Liking" and commenting are two different things. In any event, I had absolutely no expectation of faking anyone out this round as to authorship. With sanguinity being a mod, the best surprise I figured I could manage was to bring in a second stealth canon, and writing those two rare canons in combination...

...let's just say that the pool of viable mystery authors for that story was very, very small. :-)

[sanguinity]

I very much enjoyed that surprise, btw. I was checking in works when yours came in, and I squinted at the headers for a while wondering what you were up to. Then I went and re-read my sign-up to see if I could figure it out, and eventually decided I had no idea but that you must have taken me at my word when I said make-a-thing-I-trust-you. And whatever it was, if it had made you laugh that hard, it would probably make me laugh, too. :-)

(And then I let one of the other mods queue it so as not to spoil my surprise!)

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Well spotted in my case. Writing is such a drain that I am much too busy to even attempt subterfuge. And yes, the mis-placed, commas, type-os, use of the Oxford comma, and other chaos are all indicative of my distinctive formatting. ;-)

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I did in fact mean the elegant way you split your fic up into numbered sections ^___^

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Scfrankles is usually a very good guesser so I will not quibble with any of her choices above. To add a few more...

I think scfrankles is herself the author of the delightful Without a Clue fic, "The Design of the Four." It has her sense of humor all over it :)

The lovely and nuanced "It Happened One Christmas" reads like swissmarg's work to me.

I was going to guess sanguinity for "The Chimney-Sweep's Aunt," but she has commented on it and also scfrankles has attributed another story to her, so perhaps this poignant story might belong to k_e_p?

I'm not sure about this one, but I wonder if the beautifully lyrical "Gift" might be verdant_fire's?

"Romance in the Snow" is certainly fictionforlife's beautiful artwork.

Once again I am stumped about snarryfool's contribution *shakes fist at sky*

It's been a pleasure catching up with this fest over the last few days, and overt he holiday I look forward to reading those I haven't yet gotten a chance to look at. Thank you to all you wonderful creators!!!

[ancientreader]

Heh heh heh. *twirls Mustachios of Writerly Sneakiness*

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

YOU. SNEAK!!!

You wonderful sneak. Who on earth could be responsible for elegantly written ACD gen, indeed? SHAMELESS.

To paraphrase ACD Holmes himself, I never get your limits, snarry. It was truly a gorgeous story, one of my favorites from this round, and I'm always astonished to see authors who can write ACD style flawlessly on their first attempt. You and swissmarg both did it in different rounds of this fest, and I'm in awe.

[sanguinity]

I KNOW. I NEVER EVER would have guessed that story was anyone's first attempt at ACD. I finished reading it, said, "Wait a second, WHO wrote this? And they said they'd NEVER written ACD before??" and then have been sitting on my hands to not congratulate them for it ever since.

[ancientreader]

Oh, thank you! My smugness (already noted in my reply to rachelindeed) is attended also with blushes!

[ancientreader]

I have been absolutely gnashing my teeth -- and getting my Sneaky Mustachio hairs caught between them -- ever since you made your guessing post! I cannot even begin to tell you how smug I feel right now. And I am so, so delighted and proud that you enjoyed this story.

(Edited to correct typo, because that's the kind of girl I am.)

[k-e-p.livejournal.com]

I'm not one for guessing, on the whole, as I'm typically abysmal at it and I HATE to be seen being abysmal at anything... but Sang twisted my arm, and while I will not do many guesses, I would at least like to guess that colebaltblue wrote the gift for me, "A Study on the Relations Between Consulting Detectives and Doctors: With Observations on The Cornish Countryside, Drug Abuse, and Talking about Feelings." It feels like her style, and furthermore, I know she offered Coules and enjoys Coules.

[phoenixfalls.livejournal.com]

I am both very behind on reading and terrible at guessing, but I am fairly sure "First Correspondence" is by etherai/joaneuglassiawatson? Otherwise i am very curious to see who made what!