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]

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? ^___^

[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....]

[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]

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.

[ancientreader]

As chucking is the only thing Red Delicious apples are good for, I applaud this proposal. Without animus toward graycardinal, of course.

[write_out]

Only chiming in to say HARD SAME about Red Delicious apples.

[graycardinal]

What is this "enemy" business being bandied about all of a sudden? Surely the relationship in question is more akin to that of "friendly adversary" -- comparable to that of Holmes and Irene Adler as opposed to that of, say, Holmes and Milverton.

There's clearly a misunderstanding here. I was asked a direct question ("How do you like ['em] apples?"), to which I supplied an honest answer ("In deep dish pie, with ice cream.") while requesting an opinion on whether the asking of the question constituted an offer. That opinion was that no, it didn't ("This is not Faerie..."), thereby taking the matter of actual pie wholly off the table. And since there are no genuine enemies here, the question of chucking apples -- of whatever variety -- at an enemy surely does not arise.

Not that one could easily find a Red Delicious apple in Oregon nowadays, anyway; our growers have mostly moved on to more palatable hybrids. The most prominent supermarket varieties are probably Fuji and Gala, with a brisk trade in Honeycrisp at the higher end of the scale, and quite a few Granny Smiths in the mix (good for making applesauce).

[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 ^__^

[sanguinity]

Congratulations on your fine slate of guesses! I think Charon's Obol was your only miss? Perhaps colebaltblue should be your next target in your ongoing quest to recognize everyone's unique tells...

[scfrankles]

I did have a go at working out colebaltblue's tells but to no great result ^^" She'd pretty much told Rachel that she'd written The Strange Tale of Charon's Obol but I couldn't be certain. And even if she had written that I was wondering if she'd written Time Best Spent as well. But the formatting wasn't matching... and I wasn't sure about the styles... And I couldn't confidently match up the remaining fics with authors. In the end I was too confused and ran out of time ^_^

colebaltblue really doesn't seem to have any obvious tells. There's one piece of non-standard formatting but it isn't particularly distinctive. I'm going to have to dig deeper... ^____^