Guessing Post

[holmesticemods]

Thank you so much for another wonderful round of Holmestice! The mods want to say THANK YOU to all the creators who joined us for this round. You put in a lot of hard work and made some really great fanworks.

Reveals and the Master List go up on June 28th. Until then, please enjoy and comment on all the lovely fanworks. Creators, please do NOT respond to Dreamwidth comments or post your fanwork elsewhere on the Internet until reveals go up in the community. (You may of course reply to comments on AO3, which preserves your anonymity.)

But we're not done yet -- treats are coming right up! We'll continue to accept treats right through until reveals, so if there's a prompt for which you want to whip something up, please do! Just send it to holmesticemods@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 contributors -- including treat-makers -- is below the cut. Go ahead and take a guess! It's all in good fun.

ETA: Eeep! The earlier version of the list of creators had some errors, but it should be right now! (We hope!)


a_different_equation
alexcat
ancientreader
angelqueen04
camillo1978
clearinghouse
colebaltblue
discordantwords
dogandmonkeyshow
dryadinthegrove
gardnerhill
graycardinal
ireallyshouldbedrawing
iwantthatcoat
marta_bee
monkiainen
nairobiwonders
nottoolateforthegame
oldshrewsburyian
rachelindeed
sanguinity
sanspatronymic
tazlet
trobadora
valdavermillion
write_out


Go forth and leave love for your fellow Holmestice authors, artists, vidders, and podficcers. See you again on the 28th, when we reveal who made what!

Comments

[sanguinity]

One of these rounds some ambitious contributor will have to pull a "Reigate Squires" feint and try to elude you by calling in a partner and writing alternate words throughout their story!

Or use scfrankles's documentation of her guesswork as a stylesheet. These are virtually instructions for how to disguise oneself as another participant!

(Although I have to say, when I consider doing it myself, I twitch hard at changing how I format em-dashes or ellipses, or at casually referring to a non-Beeblock Holmes as "Sherlock." Because apparently these sorts of telltales are just that deeply wired. Which, I presume, is why Frankles had such success with them last round!)

Ah, yes, sanspatronymic...! *feigns extreme puzzlement*

[scfrankles]

I might get another group of guesses done tonight but in the meantime... ^__^

If you go to a certain writer's Tumblr and you put peregrine into the search box, you will get this post:

sanguinarysanguinity: Am I permitted another? Holmes/Watson, peregrine.

Since that comic you posted all too nicely handles the falcons, here’s the other definition of the word:
–
In the foothills of the Himalayas, there is an Englishman who lives as a wandering pilgrim. He sits in his lowly hut, writing letters he does not dare send. They always begin the same way: “My dear Watson, please forgive me.”


sanspatronymic wrote Peregrinations.


I couldn't remember the exact context but as soon as I saw the fic I remembered sanspatronymic talking about peregrines on Tumblr ^__^

[sanguinity]

And what were your handful of deductions? You certainly don't need a complete slate to play!

[bag_of_onions]

Ah, they were these, going by some patterns in tagging and writing style:

The Case of the Missing Detective — alexcat

Née Kitty Winter — ancientreader

Houdini and Holmes — gardnerhill

By Any Other Name — graycardinal

In darkness, I call your name (and you, mine) — trobadora

Carpe Vinium — write_out

Necessarily, I didn't write any of these myself...

[sanguinity]

There's no "necessarily" about it -- more than one person in this exchange routinely lodges "guesses" for their own work! However, we duly note that you are an honest soul who would never indulge in such a strategem... ;-)

[rachelindeed]

Oh, brilliant! You appear to have found the smoking gun on that one :)

[rachelindeed]

These seem like excellent guesses to me! I'm glad you're joining in the madness! <3

Doom, Act 2.5 - Course Corrections

[graycardinal]

ACD is still pending (family has arrived in town, which is going to co-opt much of my attention temporarily), but two issues require a bit of course correction.

First, there's the problem of "The Blue Parrot", as I had failed to note the complimentary comment from gardnerhill on that story prior to assigning that guess.

Second, I note on rechecking the posts that I have accidentally made two different guesses with respect to the podfic of "Mentor". I believe both were valid when made, but the second, crediting rachelindeed is now contra-indicated by the presence of AO3 kudos.

It's extremely tempting to solve this problem by simply attributing "Blue Parrot" to rachelindeed (not least because it would help deal with another anomaly we'll get to in a moment). But that just doesn't feel quite right. While she certainly could have written that story, based purely on technical and literary considerations, the prose just doesn't feel like hers.

No, if "Blue Parrot" isn't gardnerhill, and if I haven't strayed too far afield in the rest of my assignments, then there's just one Rathbone volunteer left open on the Spreadsheet of Doom:

The Blue Parrot (revised guess): a_different_equation

////

Now I just have to work out why I have six ACD stories to assign, and eight players available to fill those six slots....

[graycardinal]

As much as I admire (and fear) the technical acumen in these deductions, I think I have to stick by tazlet for "The Retired Novelist". A crossover featuring Dr. Stephen Strange from a writer who openly solicited a crossover featuring said Dr. Strange in their signup strikes me as entirely too specific to be coincidental.

Re: Doom, Act 2.5 - Course Corrections

[iwantthatcoat]

Unless I wrote my gift for myself. Heh heh heh.

Doom, Act III - ACD at last

[graycardinal]

This actually turned out to be somewhat less difficult than I expected, although some may argue that in relying on AO3's kudos and comment data for one's deductions is less than sporting. (One cannot leave kudos on one's own work, and in the present state of the collection, one cannot comment by name on one's own work. This served to eliminate a great proportion of the choices left to me by the Spreadsheet of Doom; indeed, in one or two cases it narrowed the prospects down to a single work.

So -- guesses first, then brief discussion.

Better Part of Valour: alexcat
Green-Eyed Detective: : nottoolateforthegame
In Darkness, I Call Your Name...: gardnerhill
In Heaven and Earth: rachelindeed
Née Kitty Winter: ancientreader
Peregrinations: sanspatronymic

Oddly enough, gardnerhill was my first fill in this group, as the only ACD story on which they've left no kudo/comment-fingerprints is that named above. I bow to scfrankles' superior detective work as regards "Peregrinations", and the dominoes then fall over for two more of these guesses. I was left at the end with two stories and four authors. I strongly suspect that monkiainen may have been forced to withdraw, which narrows this to two and three. At that point I must throw up my hands in one case; I have no idea what iwantthatcoat produced this round, but I'm fairly sure it wasn't an ACD story. And between alexcat and rachelindeed, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind which one did not write "The Green-Eyed Detective".

And that, as the expression goes, is a wrap.

[scfrankles]

Another batch!


Lilacs: I had a relatively small group of Sherlock authors to pick from this time. So I did a little compare and contrast with the AO3 formatting for who I had left and I think I’ve got it. This fic has two notable aspects: ellipses always connect two words and don’t leave a space, and when a sentence ends on a hyphen, the author uses the distinctive pattern ‘word, space, hyphen, space, final punctuation.’ I will also add the back-up clue that the emphasis on books makes me think of a previous Holmestice offering ‘But the Cover was Blue!’ I think the author is dryadinthegrove.


The Strange Tale of Charon's Obol: Just really going by style and who is likely to have written a Study in Emerald fic, I think this is by alexcat.


The Adventure of the Blue Parrot: I’m not sure I would have got this if Rachel hadn’t stated her guess but… Well, all other creators who have explicitly said they wanted to write a Rathbone fic I’ve assigned elsewhere, and the formatting and writing style match. So I’m going to join Rachel in guessing this is by tazlet.


The Norbury Possibility: Just going by the rare ‘verse and what was offered in sign-ups, I think this has to be by angelqueen04.


By Any Other Name: Last Holmestice I noticed a huge tell, far too late, for one particular writer--they had their hit counters disabled on AO3. And unfortunately it seems they got wise to that and re-enabled them. Very sneaky. Very, very sneaky. So, it’s just lucky for me that they carried on using their trademark disclaimer at the beginning (‘Disclaimer’ in bold; the actual disclaimer in italics), used their trademark statement in bold to set the scene, and used their usual three hashes to end the fic. How do you like ‘em apples, graycardinal? ^___^

[scfrankles]

We shall see... ^___^

[graycardinal]

Three observations:

(1) The trouble with explaining one's deductions is that you can only play that sort of card once.

(2) I believe that constitutes a direct offer, much as a certain other player was offered cookies some rounds back, and subsequently received them. O beloved moderators, may I have a ruling on that one?

(3) That being the case, should your deduction prove correct, the answer is "in deep dish pie, with ice cream". [I admit that in the prior case, delivery was made easier by the coincidence of the offering and receiving parties living just across town from one another. But I am sure that a just and enterprising sleuth will be able to find a solution....]

[sanspatronymic]

Or was it my identical twin, conpatronymic?

[write_out]

All I know is that I'm in complete awe at the guesswork, as always. The deductions are cracking me up too. I can't even begin to make reasonable guesses for most of the stories myself.

You'd think only having 4 Sherlock stories would make it easier to match up authors, but nope. I see the majority of you making guesses have pinned me as author of Carpe Vinum, but am I really?? AM I??

That said, I do agree with the guess of ancientreader for "Née Kitty Winter."

[graycardinal]

Possibly your evil twin serifpatronymic...?

[rapid exit, dodging thrown fruit, stage left]

[sanguinity]

My ruling is that this is not Faerie -- where one must be very careful of rhetorical utterances lest they become binding agreements! -- and if you want a bet with SCFrankles, then you should just propose a bet with SCFrankles. Which I believe you just have.

And Frankles? Speaking as someone who has won such a bet with Graycardinal: he's an excellent baker, if that influences the matter any.

[scfrankles]

*calls after disappearing form*

Or their relentlessly cheerful twin comicsanspatronymic...?

[scfrankles]

The thing is, graycardinal appears to be saying that I have to give him apples if I guess correctly - preferably in the form of a pie with added ice cream.

That at first seems rather unfair. However, the 'apples' in the phrase 'How do you like them apples?' are in fact projectiles thrown at an enemy, which I'm more than willing to do. I believe you both live in the same city - if I do guess correctly could I nominate you as my proxy to go and chuck a Red Delicious or two at graycardinal? I'd be most grateful.

[scfrankles]

1. No point being clever if you can't explain to everyone exactly how clever you've been ^__^ (Though to balance out the boasting I've now realised I've mucked up all the fic links in my comments ^^") And I want you to come up with new ways of fooling me - no fun doing the same deductions over and over again ^_^

2. It is merely a saying, as you well know, and any attempt to hold me to its literal meaning would never stand up in court. Sanguinity backs me up on this.

3. But I am sure that a just and enterprising sleuth will be able to find a solution.... I certainly will. See my reply to Sanguinity below ^__^

[colebaltblue]

graycardinal's and scfrankle's very clever methods of deduction aside, I do feel the need to point out that they can only figure on the likely creator of a particular work based on the evidence at hand. If a creator were to say, create for something they didn't sign up for presuming that the original match was for something that they did, then it sure would throw things off a bit on the guesses?

Re: Guesswork of Doom (Act I)

[colebaltblue]

Hmmmmmmm.

Two truths and a lie:
1) one of the creators above did, in fact, create one of the stories you named above, but your guess is incorrect as to which one
2) that creator created two gifts, the other which is also incorrectly guessed at
3) I am lying above one of the above facts

[colebaltblue]

[colebaltblue]

I may be wrong, but I do remember one time being astounded that someone correctly guessed my contribution and named the reason as writing style. It's one of the few times (if only) that my contribution has been correctly guessed. I didn't think I had a distinct enough writing style to result in a correct guess.