That's it for Holmestice! But take a guess at who made what...

[holmesticemods]

Thank you so much for another successful round of Holmestice! The mods want to say THANK YOU to all the creators that joined us for this round. 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 an AO3 link on your DW entry, just send us an email and we'll add one.

Reveals and the Master List go up on June 27th; until then, please enjoy reading and commenting 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.

We'll also publish treats right through until reveals: if there's a prompt out there that intrigues you and you want to whip something up for it, please do! Just send it to holmestice@gmail.com, using the regular submission guidelines.

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



alafaye
ancientreader
camillo1978
capt_facepalm
colebaltblue
discordantwords
dryadinthegrove
fridaythegowerstreetcat
gardnerhill
graycardinal
Khorazir
language_escapes
marta_bee
meredydd_writes
monkiainen
navaan
phoenixfalls
rachelindeed
Rocío / disheveledcurls
sanguinity
sanspatronymic
scfrankles
servicerevolver
starfishstar
swissmarg
trickybonmot
tripleransom
trobadora
yeomanrand and shinychimera
zaffrefic



Go forth and leave love for your fellow Holmestice authors, artists, and podficcers. See you again on the 27th, when we reveal who made what!

Comments

[rachelindeed]

Thank you, mods, for running another lovely round! I have so many fanworks to catch up on, but I will go ahead and get the guessing game started in the meantime :)

I think scfrankles' sense of humor shines through "The Case of the Deceased Marmalade Thief."

I am guessing that ancientreader wrote "The Author of All My Joys," with its tenderness and playful yet accurate historicism.

The BAMF ladies of "The Magnificent Division" might belong to gardnerhill.

I think perhaps the beautiful "Return" might belong to sanspatronymic.

Artists are both rarer and more identifiable than authors, so I feel on firmer ground in applauding Khorazir for "Underground Rescue" and camillo1978 for "Shell Cottage."

That's all I've got for now, but I'll keep reading and maybe further clues will reveal themselves!

[scfrankles]

*flexes typing fingers*

Five Times Kincaid Encountered a Dog with Disastrous Consequences to All and Sundry, and One Time It Went Slightly Better Than Expected, Do Wipe That Smug Smile Off Your Face, Watson: This is my splendid gift fic, and it is a Without a Clue fic. And I thought at first, not many people would choose to write in this ‘verse - this is going to be an easy one to guess.

*hollow laughter*

I changed my mind so many times. I was able to eliminate the obvious author from my list immediately - gardnerhill wrote for me last time, and left what looked like a genuine comment of praise on the fic soon after it was posted. So I then considered graycardinal to be the writer for quite a while. But I couldn’t ignore the little niggle in my mind that said the fic wasn’t really in their style. And of course Charlotte Holmes in the 22nd Century has now been posted, which I think must be by graycardinal. I briefly considered language_escapes but again, the fic really isn’t their sort of thing. I then considered sanguinity. Certainly a closer match in styles but I did have another fic pencilled in as her work. In the end it was the fic’s title that gave me a little push in (I hope) the right direction. It reminded me of the title of another fic from the previous Holmestice. And the author of that fic has an impressively large range, and has a history in Holmestice and ACD Holmesfest of writing for people who aren’t straightforward matches. I think the author of my gift fic is colebaltblue.


Two Shoes for a Hat: This fic was moving, funny and full of fresh ideas but oddly enough one particularly conscientious and thoughtful commenter didn’t leave feedback on it… Or to put it another way, after adding my say to the long column of other comments, I thought: oh, rachelindeed hasn’t commented yet. But I expect she will, as it’s beautifully written and it’s exactly her sort of thin— OH BLOODY HELL NOT AGAIN

Yes, it takes me a while to get there but I do get there in the end. I believe the fic to be by rachelindeed.


The Magnificent Division: I agree with Rachel. The main ‘verse for this is Sherlock, so before reading the fic one specific writer definitely wasn’t on my list of possible authors. But as I went through the story it became clear the fic couldn’t have been written by anyone else: the multiple ‘verses, the sardonic humour, the points about how female characters are stereotypically used in adventures, the frankly hilarious ‘menstruation discussion used as torture’ scene, bees... ^___^ gardnerhill has to be the author.


Nostoi: In the last round of Holmestice there was an outstanding 21,000 word New Russian Holmes fic, set post-Reichenbach. And here once again there is an outstanding 21,000 word New Russian Holmes fic, set post-Reichenbach. I assumed at first this one must be by language_escapes too. But I think that was jumping to conclusions - it feels like a different style to me. I got the author wrong last time but I think it is the right choice this time. I think this fic is by sanguinity.


Two intelligent and moving ACD works:

Intermezzo: I think this might be by tripleransom.

The Question: I think this might be by capt_facepalm.

[sanguinity]

I've been sitting on my hands for DAYS, wanting to tease you for your determined conviction that I have 21K of NRH fic in me--

Except that you were exactly right! I did have 21K of NRH fic in me. Well done!

[rachelindeed]

I was, as usual, very astonished and pleased that you managed to spot my fic so quickly! I've been trying to be sneaky the last couple of rounds and every time I feel like I am standing complacently on the Baker Street stoop in my elderly preacher costume and I hear your voice behind me saying, "Good night, RACHELINDEED." Delightful!!

Also, it's not just me you are uncannily good at recognizing -- you figured out so many tricky ones this time around! Between you and starfishstar, I think almost all the works got correctly identified by at least SOMEBODY this round. (Except language_escapes and colebaltblue! THEY ARE THE WILIEST!)

The guessing post is my favorite spectator sport. *applause*

[ancientreader]

Many thanks, as ever, to the Marvelous Mods of Holmestice!

I have only two guesses so far! One, which I'm damn near certain of, is discordantwords for "Incidents with Dogs." The second is rachelindeed, for "The Question," which has emotional depth of a kind I associate with rachel's work.

Now, scfrankles pins "Two Shoes for a Hat" (see what I did there?) on rachel, BUT! In looking through her (right? and apologies if not) works on the AO3, I note that she doesn't appear to have written any other Ritchie!verse. So I'm still looking for a culprit for that one. And for all the others except, of course, for khorazir's "Underground Rescue" and the one I myself wrote.

ETA: I would really have liked to attribute "And Ye Shall Live" to vulgarweed, who so often rocks the John/Sherlock/Mary, only drat drat drat she commented on it AND does not appear in the list of participants. *headdesk*

[scfrankles]

I note that she doesn't appear to have written any other Ritchie!verse... There's always got to be a first time for everything ^__^ Like for instance, just off the top of my head... Last Holmestice someone writing an excellent ACD fic when she'd never written in that 'verse before... ^_^

I would really have liked to attribute "And Ye Shall Live" to vulgarweed, who so often rocks the John/Sherlock/Mary, only drat drat drat she commented on it AND does not appear in the list of participants. *headdesk*

I think I've got it! Must admit I haven't read the whole fic (only because religion as a kink is something I personally have to approach cautiously) but I've read the beginning and the notes and comments at the end. Ritchie 'verse, erudite, well-written, a fascination with theology - I think it's by marta_bee.

[swissmarg]

I have literally no idea on any of them aside from the beautiful art. There are just so many wonderful writers and such a wide range of adaptations represented this round -- as usual -- so I just want to say thank you to everyone and especially the mods for holding hands and corralling the talent, keeping calm and carrying on the tradition!

[discordantwords]

This was so much fun, thank you mods for running this. I had an absolute blast participating for the first time.

Guessing is hard!

I know that I must have Khorazir to thank for the absolutely wonderful Underground Rescue. What a lovely gift, thank you!

And I'm going to veerrry tentatively guess that ancientreader is the creator of The Author of All My Joys.

[tripleransom]

I'm not even going to try and guess, only say that this was a lot of fun! a big tip o' the hat to our Mods for putting this one on!

[sanspatronymic]

Huzzah! Hat tips all around--thank you mods for putting together another lovely exchange and thank you to my fellow creators for such a lovely round of goodies!

As the master once said, "I never guess."

[starfishstar]

I still have a couple more entries to catch up on (almost there!!) so no guesses from me, at least not yet. But I want to say WOW, what a lot of excellent entries. I've enjoyed my reading (and viewing &c.) so much.

Also WOW, what a range of Holmes versions! As someone with a great love of ACD canon and an involvement in BBC fandom, plus a couple others over the years, but not previously a great breadth of Holmes arcana beyond that, I appreciate the Holmesiana this fest introduces me to – there are Holmeses I know of only because of Holmestice, and I love that!

[sanguinity]

Isn't the breadth of the exchange fun? I admit, it's one of my favorite things, checking in all the works and seeing what-all offerings everyone has brought me.

(Yes, all the gifts are for me. This is one of the perks of being a mod, and I refuse to be instructed otherwise.)

But yes, most rounds I end up reading/watching something real fast so I can properly appreciate the work based on it. It is very much part of the joy of Holmestice: getting to share your own love for a rarer fandom, or in someone else's love for theirs. :-)

[marta_bee]

Lots of beautiful contributions this go-around and such a well-run exchange. Thank you, modlings!

My guesses will be much less impressive, just because I don't know enough about other folks' style. But here's my best guess:

"Return" has the delicious imagery I've found from people who write a lot of short fiction, the clear love of Doyle canon, the subtle fade to grey and the wordplay in the title: I'm guessing scfrankles.

Underground Rescue, in particular the way the faces are drawn.... Khorazir? Yeah, I'm guessing Khoravir here.

I was going to attribute "Knit One, Purl Two to the lovely PipMer because of the sympathetic well-rounded characters, but I see she commented on it and unlike some folks in this thread she's not nefarious that way.

I really have no guesses for "Son of Demeter," but I'm chomping at the bit to find out because that one was magical and I want to read all his or her other stuff. Similarly for "Two Shoes for a Hat" - that too was marvelous, though for some reason I can't quite nail down something about the style suggests swissmarg to me. Or maybe sanguinity? It does seem a bit run through with her strong sense of humor.

[scfrankles]

"Return" has the delicious imagery I've found from people who write a lot of short fiction, the clear love of Doyle canon, the subtle fade to grey and the wordplay in the title: I'm guessing scfrankles. I'm so, so flattered you thought I might have written that ^__^

Epic Guesswork, Part the First

[graycardinal]

Having finally had a spare moment to build a Spreadsheet of Doom, I can now make some attempts at guesswork, but this will take more than one post.

Per usual, I decline to guess at most of the BBC/Sherlock stories -- except that I feel compelled to take a stab at "The Magnificent Division", as it crosses over into territory I'm more familiar with (and because I need to borrow the author other guessers have asigned to that one). I do *not* think that gardnerhill wrote this one on the grounds that there's no compelling reason for a BBC/Sherlock story to arise out of that match, if indeed that match had been made. (Actually, as one of the leading crossover fiends in this gallery, I myself would make about as much sense as author as they would (except that I haven't seen enough BBC/Sherlock to actually write it, have seen/heard even less of "Cabin Pressure", and am wildly unlikely to have written the menstruation-convo-as-torture sequence).

But if we eliminate both gardnerhill and me, who does that leave? I may be wrong, but I'm going to assign sanguinity to "The Magnificent Division".

###

I am not, in this field, going to be able to get out of discussing two specific outliers, namely "Five Times Kincaid Encountered A Dog..." and "Charlotte Holmes in the 22nd Century". I will suggest here that it may have been premature of scfrankles to eliminate the one person who offered "Without A Clue" from consideration as its author (and I have, as a look at AO3 will demonstrate, written in the "five things" mode before). Granted, I am also the only person besides language_escapes to have offered Charlotte Holmes...but I am certainly not the only available writer literate in that fandom. Indeed, colebaltblue might be just as viable a match for "Charlotte Holmes...." as for "Five Times Kincaid Encountered A Dog....". For that matter, if I'm wrong about sanguinity above -- but no, I'd better not go there; that's gotten me in far too much trouble in past rounds. :-)

I want next to look at another outlier: "Nostoi", the 21,000-word Russian Holmes epic. scfrankles attributes this to sanguinity, but if I'm right about "The Magnificent Division", that's unlikely to be accurate...and that would free gardnerhill to have written "Nostoi", which strikes me as by far the likeliest fic in this round to have that set of fingerprints attached to it.

###

Let's do the Ritchie stories next. While I've disagreed with scfrankles on a couple of other attributions, I think that the guess that rachelindeed is behind "Two Shoes For A Hat" is probably accurate. That leaves "And Ye Shall Live...." -- and for no good reason whatsoever, I'm going to hang that one on fridaythegowerstreetcat.

###

There are two Whitehead stories, one a treat, and two offers for Whitehead in my tally. I think language_escapes is more likely to have written the treat than to have been the assigned match for sanguinity, and thereby we get scfrankles as the author of "...Deceased Marmalade Thief", which fits their general style and tone very well.

And that's enough for one post. ACD stories later, I promise.

Re: Epic Guesswork, Part the First

[sanguinity]

*peers closely at the paragraph about Kincaid, Dogs, and Charlotte Holmes* Did you actually offer a guess about either one of those? Or am I having a reading-comprehension fail?

:: ...but no, I'd better not go there; that's gotten me in far too much trouble in past rounds. :-) ::

Aw, shucks! Because as I recollect it, I got a plate of delicious cookies out of you going there in past rounds. :-)

[language_escapes]

I can't guess on many... I am not the guessing queen or king that so many other people are! But!

For my excellent and wonderful gift, "Charlotte Holmes in the 22nd Century" I'm going to guess graycardinal. Graycardinal is familiar with both of the sources, and has said as much. There is also something about the style of the fic itself that strikes me as something very graycardinal-esque.

I'm gonna guess scfrankles for "Deceased Marmalade Thief". Wacky hijinks and closets? Um, yes. I'm gonna stick with scfrankles on this. Pooooossibly smallhobbit? I believe smallhobbit writes closets and wacky hijinks as well, but! They were not a participant this round! So definitely sticking with my scfrankles guess! Ha ha!

For "Five Times Encountered a Dog" I'm going to guess sanguinity. They write a lot of crack, in my experience, and I could see them writing something like that. Although graycardinal seems to suggest they may have authored that one, in their guessing post... but no, I'm going to say sanguinity.

"Magnificent Division", I'm going with the majority here- gardnerhill.

I haven't any other guesses at this time, as that isn't my strong suit. But this was fun, and maybe I'll have more guesses as I continue to make my way through the works!

[scfrankles]

OK - I've seen the reveal post now... ^___^

For "Five Times Encountered a Dog" I'm going to guess sanguinity. They write a lot of crack, in my experience, and I could see them writing something like that. Although graycardinal seems to suggest they may have authored that one, in their guessing post... but no, I'm going to say sanguinity.

You terror ^___^ Very well played - not only did you confirm my erroneous belief you hadn't written this, you made me wonder if you had written Nostoi after all, instead of sanguinity.

Thanks again for writing the fic for me. I love it - it's just perfect ^__^

[scfrankles]

I’m having so much fun with this guessing post that I thought I’d try one more ^^

I’ve been bold and said that I don’t think language_escapes wrote the New Russian Holmes fic. So what did they write? It did seem like they would probably be writing a More!Holmes fic and that was what I was looking out for. But nothing else really matched. I may be digging myself further into a hole here but I don’t think they’ve written anything at all - I think they’re responsible for the only podfic of the round. The podficcer says Gardnerhill requested a podfic of their own work. I like challenges and trying new things so here I am. Which does suggest they haven’t done a podfic before but also suggests to me they didn’t offer podfics as part of their sign-up. language_escapes seems to be the definition of someone who likes to try new things, and they and gardnerhill feel like a natural match - even if you wouldn’t expect an ACD podfic to come out of that match.

So putting my money where my mouth is - I’m going to say Podfic of On the Mend, by Gardnerhill is by language_escapes.

[rachelindeed]

You are BOLD! You are FEARLESS! I love watching you guess, I aspire to this level of brainwork!

*looks forward with great curiosity to the reveals*

Epic Guesswork, Part the Second

[graycardinal]

I actually find that I overlooked the Elementary stories in the prior discussion, and I ought to cover those before going on. Here my process is -- as in many instances -- instinctive rather than scientific. In the case of "And So Live Ever", one name floats up instinctively: horrorfangirl. But I get to "Things They Don't Talk About" in the opposite direction; in that case, a completely subjective process of elimination leads me to disheveledcurls.

###

All right, now to ACD. This is not an easy pool; my spreadsheet gives me nineteen potential authors for seven stories, less five authors I've tagged with non-ACD works in the present round.

Let's start with my own gift, "The Question". One upstream guess attributes this to rachelindeed, which I think unlikely (since she wrote me "Broken Silence" just two rounds back). Another suggests capt_facepalm, which strikes me as not quite right; I think I'd have had a different story if that had been the match. I can eliminate a couple of further names via extant comments (and a presumption of non-deviousness in that regard), but I still end up with ten candidates whose work I know less well than I should.

On second thought, let's set that one aside for a moment...

I actually ended up doing this by coloring in my ACD spreadsheet, rather like the logic problems in some of the better puzzle magazines. This involved changing my mind two or three times about particular stories at the very end of the process -- when I got down to the last two, I went back and re-read the relevant signups, and promptly reversed a couple of prior decisions. This is the list I ended up with:

"A Game Played By Two" • meredydd_writes
"A Good Memory and a Tender Heart" • colebaltblue
"And Wake Up In Tears" • ancientreader
"Intermezzo: • sanspatronymic
"Return" • dryadinthegrove
"The Author of All My Days" • capt_facepalm
"The Question • marta_bee

Some of these I'm more confident of than others. I think my odds of being right are highest for marta_bee (who mentioned Moriarty in her signup) and capt_facepalm (because the shape of the research for the story in question greatly resembles the shape of the research for their story last time out). I am fairly sure meredydd_writes did *not* write "The Question", and not at all sure I'm right about "Intermezzo" (but that's what the spreadsheet said at the end).

And that, at last, is definitely a wrap. :-)

Re: Epic Guesswork, Part the Second

[rachelindeed]

I always enjoy your epic guess spreadsheets! It is one of the pillars of Holmestice, I love to see this every year! And I only wish that sanguinity's mod-ship did not preclude her from the guessing wars of old!

Taking on her mantle for a moment, I will begin Devil's Advocating by observing that I don't see tripleransom on your ACD list of authors, which is surprising given that they are primarily an ACD writer? Also, you have assigned a kinky Holmes/Watson romance to capt_facepalm, who doesn't ship Holmes and Watson? Just some thoughts to spice up the last day of guessing...

[starfishstar]

Hello, hello, I’m here to make guesses! I’m fairly much a newbie (second time) and hardly know any of you, so feel free to laugh heartily at my attempts, but all the guessing always looked like so much fun in the past that I’ve got to try my hand this time…


A chance noticing of a similar turn of phrase in both the epic Nostoi and the charming The Case of the Six Marmalades leads me to think the same person wrote both of them, and I think that person is sanguinity, who offered both New Russian and Whitehead Holmes.

I feel confident in asserting that graycardinal wrote Charlotte Holmes in the 22nd Century, as the sole person who offered both those fandoms (and clearly a person with the pan-fandom knowledge to pull that off!) Further proof: graycardinal’s sign-up said “I'm happy to write way out of left field oddities including crossovers” (aha!) and even, when discussing Charlotte Holmes-verse, contained an intriguing mention of having “some disconcerting thoughts in Milo's direction,” which I find relevant to my reading of that fic.

I struggled for a while with the other Whitehead fic, The Case of the Deceased Marmalade Thief. Both scfrankles and languages_escapes offered Whitehead Holmes, so who was it? But eventually I realized that scfrankles could only have written either Whitehead or ACD, and was clear that they preferred keeping to the lighthearted end of the spectrum (and non-explicit), and all the ACD tended somber (or sexy). Process of elimination! scfrankles wrote “Marmalade Thief.”

Meanwhile,language_escapes sounded open to trying out various fandoms or new things. So it’s a shot in the dark, but maybe they did gardnerhill’s podfic On the Mend?

The Five Times… fic I’m likewise left fumbling for, because the only people who offered Without a Clue (graycardinal, scfrankles) truly do seem to be matched elsewhere. graycardinal just has to have written the Charlotte Holmes/22CEN (right??), and scfrankles can’t have written their own giftfic! So it was written by someone who didn’t offer Without a Clue, but who makes clear up front that they know a stunning number of ‘verses and can be matched on almost anything. I’m going to guess gardnerhill. (Who, a sneaky glance at AO3 tells me, has most certainly written Without a Clue before!)

Elementary looked tricky since so many people offered it, but narrowing down to people who ONLY offered it, I think I’ve got it. (Heh, or I’m just overconfident.) I think phoenixfalls wrote Things They Don’t Talk About and disheveledcurls wrote and so live ever.

It’s true the art is so much smaller a pool it feels like cheating to “guess” it, but I’ll mention it anyway: The style of Shell Cottage indeed seems to match the style of camillo1978’s Mystrade portrait I admired in my one previous Holmestice, and though I know their work less well, Underground Rescue does indeed look like Khorazir.

Yeesh, and all the above was just the easy ones, the small pools! Ritchieverse and ACD are terrible, and BBC is nigh impossible.

I’ll come back later to make a few guesses about Ritchie and ACD at least, based mostly on flimsy supposition and sheer determination…

[rachelindeed]

I just want to say thank you for being such a great part of this exchange, I loved seeing the thoughtful comments you left for everyone's work and you, like scfrankles and graycardinal, are so bold and awesome in your guesswork! Seriously, I admire your Holmestice spirit and your contributions on all fronts have really enriched this exchange. *applauds*

*pulls out popcorn to await remaining guesses*

[trobadora]

I agree with everyone else, this fest has been a lot of fun! And as a holmestice newbie I've been watching this post with a great deal of interest. Maybe next time I can get in on the guessing. *g*

[scfrankles]

I don't have the privilege of knowing capt_facepalm personally, but their default user icon certainly seems devious...


I really think I ought to jump in and defend capt_facepalm’s good name at this point. They make Lego dioramas, for God’s sake.

And looking at ‘And Wake Up In Tears’ again, I think I may have solved two mysteries for myself in one go… There is one participant who listed in their sign-up very specific and rare pairings that they wanted to write: ACD: Sherlock Holmes/Prof. Moriarty, Holmes & Moriarty gen; Sherlock: Sherlock/Jim Moriarty, Sherlock & Moriarty gen, Moriarty & Eurus gen. As far as I can see, the only fic that matches any of those is the writer’s own gift fic. However, at the bottom of their sign-up they do say: Please no: ...Holmes/Watson of any kind (canon-level friendship is great, though). Which suggests they might have been prepared to write Holmes and Watson as friends as the central focus of a fic. And in ‘And Wake Up In Tears’, Holmes and Watson are close friends but there is no romantic relationship. And the fic does also focus, perhaps significantly, on the aftermath of Reichenbach.

Also, there is a rather intriguing typo in the fic: "My dearest Holmen, listen to me…, even though ‘s’ and ‘n’ are not near each other on a qwerty keyboard. I notice though that the particular author I’m thinking of gives their location as Germany. And -en as a plural is pretty common in German… I think And Wake Up In Tears is by trobadora.

[starfishstar]

Yes, I rescind all accusations of deviousness (at least aside from anyone who wasn't already actively mustache-twirling in this thread).

Ooh, well-played and well-puzzled! As a German-speaker, I should have caught that German hint... I was definitely wondering where to place trobadora, who offered such specific Holmes/Moriarty possibilities, but there's only one truly Holmes/Moriarty fic ("The Question" centers on them, but not as a pairing) and of course that's trobadora's own gift. Hm, hm.

Okay, back to tearing my hair out over un-placeable BBC fics.

[starfishstar]

part two:

Okay, my first post above had the guesses I felt reasonably confident offering up; these next ones are going to be terribly flimsy! Wheeee, here we go…

RITCHIEVERSE

I’ve been struggling all this time to place rachelindeed. First I thought Return, for the careful, thoughtful writing, but rachelindeed left a comment on that. (Drat!) Others have posited The Question, and I was close to throwing my weight behind that, but that didn’t sit quite right either – I think of rachelindeed as focusing closely on the Holmes/Watson friendship, rather than Holmes and Moriarty. (Not that a versatile writer can’t branch out!) None of the ACD fics seem to fit… Perhaps rachelindeed has indeed written BBC this time, confounding my expectations? Hmph, I wasn’t expecting to be confounded by one of the few writers whose work I actually knew and admired before this fest. Others also suggested rachelindeed wrote the Ritchieverse Two Shoes for a Hat, which at first I dismissed out of hand – rachelindeed doesn’t write Ritchieverse! Nor usually quite so whimsically, I thought. But that fic is whimsical with a grounding of earnest emotion… All right, I’ll join the chorus that rachelindeed wrote Two Shoes for a Hat.

For the other Ritchie fic, And Ye Shall Live, and Ye Shall Know, I looked for all those who seemed at least a possible match for threesomes, explicit fic and kink…plenty of folks match that, but I landed on meredydd_writes, whose sign-up included “Competent and downright brilliant characters who aren't Sherlock are my jam. I love seeing characters who are great at their jobs even without Sherlock's help.” and that seemed to match navaan’s request of “Holmes being the one impressed with other people’s skills” – plus of course matching that fic’s very competent Mary. I don’t know! It could have been many others, I’m sure. (Why did so many of you offer Ritchieverse??)

ACD

Intermezzo could perhaps be tripleransom, who expressed an interest in writing Irene Adler?
The Author of All My Joys – others have pegged ancientreader for this, and while I certainly won’t claim it as my own original guess, it seems right to me – sexy, complex, smart, that seems on target.
A Game Played by Two – I’ll guess navaan, who I believe was the only one aside from trobadora (this fic’s recipient) to offer the Holmes/Moriarty pairing.
Ermmm, I’m going to go out on a very flimsy limb now. swissmarg is another who’s been giving me lots of trouble. I kept trying to make different BBC fics fit, and they weren’t quite fitting, and finally I thought…ACD? So perhaps swissmarg wrote A Good Memory and a Tender Heart – it’s Holmes and Watson overcoming obstacles to be together at last, which seems like a swissmarg sort of thing, so perhaps it fits?
Okay, now things get really thorny. capt_facepalm offered ACD only, and gen only. Must be easy! I thought And Wake Up in Tears, since it’s one of the only gen ACD fics. BUT capt_facepalm commented on that one. scfrankles and I have now talked in circles about this fact, and I’ve lost myself! The Question is also gen, as is Intermezzo if I’m wrong about that above. But throwing around three possible titles hardly counts as a “guess.” :-P I suppose I’m going with The Question by process of elimination? (But scfrankles is probably right that The Question is actually trobadora, since it’s the only other Moriarty-centric fic and trobadora clearly offered Moriarty-centric works, in which case the following bit is definitely wrong…)
The other two people who offered ACD only are colebaltblue and sanspatronymic, which means in the 1% chance that I’ve assigned everything correctly above (ha), they must have written the two remaining ACD fics, Return and And Wake Up in Tears. sanspatronymic mentioned pining in their sign-up, and I suppose at a stretch pining could lead to Return, which I guess leaves me with And Wake Up in Tears for colebaltblue? …but that’s based on zero things about anything, so that’s not actually a guess!

[rachelindeed]

Thank you for that guess about swissmarg's fic -- I had been wondering where she was, but now that you say that I'm sure you're right. Like her other ACD fic, Pitch Perfect, 'A Good Memory and a Tender Heart' deals with misunderstandings and lack of self-knowledge on Watson's part that cause them both pain, but ultimately their love is strong enough to overcome those obstacles. I think that theme fits swissmarg to a tee, plus look at the painfully gorgeous writing style. It's her, I second this guess, well done!

[starfishstar]

part three:

BBC

I throw my hands up here. Here’s what little I’ve got:

I wonder if The Magnificent Division is by fridaythegowerstreetcat – who offered "Cabinlock crossover"(!), "Mystrade", "BDSM (with appropriate consent and aftercare)"…seems to tick several boxes for that fic!

For Incidents with Dogs, Curious and Otherwise, others have suggested discordantwords; I wouldn’t have come up with it myself, not knowing all the writers here well enough to guess from a standing start, but there’s something in the tags that makes me think it may be true. :-)

I wonder if Pursuit of Closure is by marta_bee, who seemed open to writing gen, and interested in exploring gaps and backstory in canon.

I think yeomanrand and shinychimera wrote An Unkind Breach, with its thoughtful threesome and strong Mary.

There are two Mycroft/Lestrade fics, A Long Game and Love Letters, and three folks who offered that pairing: alafaye, monkiainen and servicerevolver, but I don’t think I can narrow it down any more than that. I’m quite curious who wrote the gift to me – A Long Game – because that’s Molly/Anthea in addition to Mystrade, but hardly anyone offered femslash at all… Which means you wrote an f/f pairing only because I asked for more female characters, which is awesome of you. Thank you!

I could start trying to winnow out who offered magical/fantastical AUs (Son of Demeter, No Friend to Hades; Thundersprite; The Keeper; Unmarked) and who didn’t (the remaining realistic fics: But the Cover Was Blue! and Knit One, Purl Two – and yes, I am curious who wrote Molly/Lestrade, since hardly anyone offered that pairing), but I think I’m going over the event horizon here… There’s just too much BBC fic to say much that’s sensible about it, and I’ve already said too much that was probably less than sensible!

[gardnerhill]

I'm afraid I'm up a creek when it comes to distinguishing authors. I can go "Mmm, that's good," or "Oooh, nicely written" and that's about it. (Had the same problem in college - wrote a glowing essay about Hemingway but referenced John Steinbeck's work. ...I think I got an A anyway.)

Art's more unmistakeable as another's work - a Van Gogh, even an early one, doesn't look like a Rembrandt, and a Khorazir doesn't look like a Reapersun.

And I have no clue who podficced my story so nicely!

[phoenixfalls]

All right, I'll make my few last-minute guesses. The rest of you guessers put me to shame in the amount of thought and investigation you put into this game!

I think my gift fic, "And So Live Ever," is by disheveledcurls, who likes writing Joan/Sherlock as an established relationship.

I decided "Nostoi" must be by sanguinity as soon as I saw that it was a Holmestice fic with dinosaurs, and when I read it it still sounded like sanguinity in my head, so I'm sticking with that guess.

And I didn't find any fic that sounded like language_escapes to me in this exchange, so I will join with those guessing that they did the podfic for gardnerhill.

Beyond that, I have no clue, and am very much looking forward to the reveals!