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

[scfrankles]

Sorry I’m late to the party. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently making use of my Poor-But-Honest Shopgirl persona and unfortunately I’m now so deep undercover I had to help with the stock-take.

Anyway, here’s my first batch of guesses.

*flips open notebook*

Let us begin with The Curious Case of Rachelindeed. Ah, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel… I could point out that a particular fic is pretty much perfect for you and yet you have not left kudos or commented on it, nor have you recced it on Tumblr. I could point out it involves a favourite canon story of yours and a favourite character, Mycroft. I could add that the fic contains your trademark fresh ideas and rethinking of canon. However, on first reading I didn’t even need to get that far to identify it as yours, as the notes on AO3 began: Thank you for everything you do, colebaltblue, we’re so lucky to have you as a moderator for this exchange! If you want to hide your identity, madam, you’re going to have to get to work on curbing those good manners and generosity of spirit.

I think The Better Part of Valour is by rachelindeed.


The Adventure of the Retired Novelist: The Simply Unacceptable Version: This was a perhaps surprisingly easy one. Last Holmestice I got rather carried away and analysed one author’s formatting to a somewhat thorough degree. That author often used the distinctive pattern “word, double hyphen, space, word” and was fond of ellipses. In this fic, I have to admit we don’t see the pattern “word, double hyphen, space, word”. However, we do see the pattern “word, em dash, space, word” twelve times, and there are thirty-two ellipses. Also the writer has replied to comments. This always gives an investigator an advantage - the skilled writer can remove their personality entirely from a fic but they tend to be consistently the same person in headers, notes and comments. One last thing is that the use of brief chapters to break up a relatively short fic reminds me of a particular author’s fic As Romeo to Juliet.

I think The Adventure of the Retired Novelist is by iwantthatcoat.


In Heaven and Earth: Well, firstly this was presumably written by a non-Briton and probably an American. There’s ‘savored’, ‘humor’, ‘theater’, ‘a three-hundred-pound accounts clerk’, Watson refers to Cardiff’s ‘northern weather’ but Cardiff is down the other end of Britain and lies to the west of London, Mrs. Hudson’s brother is called ‘Augie’ rather than ‘Gus’. Also, this is an ACD fic but I counted quite a few nods to the Sherlock fandom, so I assume this is someone who sees Sherlock as their main Holmesian fandom. The author is, obviously, a Doctor Who fan. There are endnotes. The quality of the writing is high, and there is that extra touch of erudition of using Latin in the fic. Putting all that information together, I think this is a pinch-hit by marta_bee.


Making a Case: As this is a Holmes & Moriarty fic, and the recipient didn’t specifically ask for that pairing, it naturally immediately narrows the field to a particular couple of suspects--one of whom we now know has dropped out. But as back-up evidence, I recently noticed one of those two authors has one distinctive piece of formatting--they put a space after a word before adding an ellipsis. There is only one ellipsis in this fic but there is a space in front of it. I am pretty confident this work is by trobadora.


Podfic for Mentor: As thesoulofdiscretion/clearinghouse says in the comments, Though possibly that beta-listener should be REDACTED? Indeed the author probably should have asked for it to be redacted because a quick look at AO3 and it’s immediately apparent that gentle_herald is friends and literary colleagues with... oldshrewsburyian.


The Green-Eyed Detective: I noticed a little bit of unusual formatting in this. After a word or phrase in italics, the author leaves a space before adding any punctuation after it. They also use a single hyphen rather than an em dash. And this is an ACD fic but I assumed they saw Sherlock as their major Holmesian fandom because in the AO3 tags they have ‘Jealous Sherlock’ rather than ‘Jealous Holmes’. I had a couple of writers in mind and when I checked the AO3 fics for the first I immediately got a match for the formatting. I believe the author to be nottoolateforthegame.


Escapade: An author quickly came to mind for this fic. It’s a really unusual ‘verse. It’s written by a highly skilled writer. Some words are underlined for emphasis, which always makes me think of one particular writer. And this author hasn’t commented, even though this is an excellent fic and she tends to always be supportive with commenting during the exchange. I think this is by gardnerhill.

[rachelindeed]

Ha ha, the master deducer has arrived!! *cheers!* Thank goodness you were able to slip away from your persona as a mild-mannered reporter - er, a poor but honest shop girl, that is - and swoop in to solve the trickiest mysteries!

Regarding your guess about my own work - as well as graycardinal's guess - I naturally cannot comment. But I am as amused and impressed as ever to see the forensic analysis you have conducted on various authors' formatting. 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!

Well, presuming that your deductions are correct, I'm pleased that it looks like so far I only mixed up two authors - you have swapped the stories that I had assigned to gardnerhill and iwantthatcoat. To be honest, I'm still proud to have come that close to those two chameleons!

I look forward with great anticipation to seeing the rest of your roster :) In particular, where is sanspatronymic?? It's bothering me that I haven't figured that out...

[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 ^__^

[rachelindeed]

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

[sanspatronymic]

Or was it my identical twin, conpatronymic?

[graycardinal]

Possibly your evil twin serifpatronymic...?

[rapid exit, dodging thrown fruit, stage left]

[scfrankles]

*calls after disappearing form*

Or their relentlessly cheerful twin comicsanspatronymic...?

[ancientreader]

Or maybe their perceptive twin lucidasanspatronymic?

[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.

[scfrankles]

We shall see... ^___^

[colebaltblue]

[graycardinal]

But does the popcorn have anchovy butter?

[rachelindeed]

Hee hee! As usual your accuracy is astounding :) Although I have to tell you, I laughed so much when I read your deductions about my fic because I honest to goodness edited my author's note down in advance, solely with the idea of not giving myself away! I cut out some of what I'd originally written - 'don't be too effusive' I counseled myself, 'you must try to escape the bloodhounds!' - and I kept things to what I thought was a pretty bare minimum. I am deeply amused that thanking colebaltblue for moderating was sufficient to give me away, lol!?!

Although, to be honest, I wasn't expecting my entry this round to be too difficult to guess. You've certainly ID'd me for much trickier works. As you say, Mycroft's presence was rather a giveaway (although it really wasn't my fault! Canon says Melas and Mycroft were neighbors, it would have been stranger not to include him). Plus I said in my sign-up that I loved Mr Melas and was fond of outsider POVs. So I pretty much figured the game was up long before my work was even posted. But I'm flattered that, in the end, you didn't even need to go back to my sign-up or my formatting, but recognized me more by the story itself. That's quite a compliment :)

[scfrankles]

I am deeply amused that thanking colebaltblue for moderating was sufficient to give me away, lol!?! Well, choosing to thank colebaltblue is the sort of thing you would remember to do. And you do tend to be rather bouncy and effusive in comments - the exclamation mark, and after the thanks, adding the extra information of we're lucky to have colebaltblue is very you. But to be honest I didn't have to analyse it - as soon as I read the sentence I 'heard' your specific online voice (you have an English accent in my head, btw ^_^). I'm just so familiar with it at this point.

And you know, I did wobble a bit about my deduction while reading your fic. Because you essentially wrote out Mary and I had to ask myself if you'd be comfortable doing that, and I felt the fic was a little... grittier? ...than you normally write. But I had all the clues that I mentioned above and also your fics always move me, which is very handy while deducing ^_^ I can often read something and think in abstract it's beautiful but your fics seem to plug straight into my emotions too ^^

[rachelindeed]

But to be honest I didn't have to analyse it - as soon as I read the sentence I 'heard' your specific online voice (you have an English accent in my head, btw ^_^). I'm just so familiar with it at this point.

What a delightful idea, that my online voice is English! I love that <3 <3 My real voice tragically lacks such an accent, as my recent foray into podfic attests :)

you essentially wrote out Mary and I had to ask myself if you'd be comfortable doing that

Interesting observation! Yes, for this story I needed Holmes and Watson to give the strong impression of being attached even before Reichenbach, which raised the problem of 'what about Mary?' Personally, I'm much more comfortable writing Mary out - 'she is another literary trick Watson uses to shield Holmes's and his private affairs from public suspicion' - than I would be in writing a version in which Watson hurt her or took advantage of her. I would never write Watson marrying her under false pretenses, or being unfaithful to her. My own personal headcanon is that, in this story, Mary is another of Watson's literary inventions. But of course there are plenty of other possibilities that readers can bring to the work - perhaps Mary is lesbian and the marriage was a mutual bearding; despite appearances, maybe Watson is not fully aware yet of the nature of his feelings for Holmes and thus both his marriage and Holmes's adoration are sincere; or perhaps they are all three happily polyamorous...basically I left it wide open so readers can fill in their preferred 'what's going on with Mary?' explanation. Mr Melas was never to know :)

I can often read something and think in abstract it's beautiful but your fics seem to plug straight into my emotions too ^^

What a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much <3

[marta_bee]

The reveals are out, so I suppose I can admit you had me nailed. I'm touched you (a) thought the fic was well-written, and (b) associate high-quality writing with me. That made me blush!

What made me blush in a less-positive way: that geography snafu. How embarrassing! Somewhere I've picked up the idea (entirely wrong obviously) that the constituent parts of the UK are arranged essentially vertically (so England then Wales then Scotland) - I actually know exactly where I got that impression, but that doesn't make it any more accurate. Thanks for bringing it to my attention so I can fix that detail before posting to AO3.

[scfrankles]

I'm glad you're OK about me mentioning Cardiff being in the wrong place ^^" I'm certainly not one to talk - my geography skills are atrocious. I am truly ashamed of them. If I was given a map of the British Isles right now with the smaller islands missing and asked to identify where the Isle of Man or the Isle of Wight is, there would be a very, very long pause ^__^ And every time a US state is mentioned I have to discreetly look up where it is. But I do have a sense of where Cardiff is, and it just jumped out at me.

And I can always be certain in my deductions that you will produce a well-written fic ^__^

[starfishstar]

(popping in very belatedly...)

My gosh, you are SO GOOD at this, SCFrankles! I knew you were good, but...wow.

I doff every hat in my wardrobe to you.

[scfrankles]

Thanks ^__^

It's really just being familiar with some of the writers and taking the time to look at AO3 and do a bit of formatting analysis. I've a feeling it might be getting a lot harder next time ^^"