A Holmesian Solstice

alexcat

apidologist

astudyin221b/ hitcounter1895

carrolldanvers / Wes

deelaundry

disfictional

dryadinthegrove

gardnerhill

ghostbees / Vernets

graycardinal/ Gray_Cardinal

guillemont

happyeverafter72

helloliriels

inatshej

jiavne

lilith / Inkfeathers

oraorahime / Gooolabatooo

pagimag

penaltywaltz

phoenixfalls

rowan / 221bhive

sanspatronymic

senmut / Merfilly

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

tepidspongebath

vtsuion

vulgarweed

write_out

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

From:

senmut

Thank you for hosting!

From:

What a lot of art we've had this round! And podfic! And a fic that also comes with a vid! And a great range of fandoms (about 15 different ones, if I count right?)

I'm only *now* thinking maybe I will, after all, manage to read/look at a few of the works (had a rare day off work today, so for once there's a wee bit of space to spare in my brain...) but if I do, I may be back with some guesses.

From:

The multiverse vid some kind soul gifted to me has expanded the list of fandoms by a fair bit, I fancy...

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Oh, good point! I hadn't gotten as far as considering treats yet. :-)

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I'm completely stumped! No idea who made what. I love it all, though!

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helloliriels

Thank you for hosting!! I wish I could guess mine - maybe it will come to me!

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write_out

As always, so many excellent works this round! I'm in the happy process of catching up on everything.

Just a note to my fellow BBC writers: I like to wait until reveals to give kudos/comment on BBC works just to make the guessing a bit trickier. :) I can't wait to throw love on your fics!

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Okay, I will make one guess: gardnerhill created Vulgarweed's gift, "The Working of Wonders."

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Whoof! Now that the bears of Yuletide have been sufficiently placated, and the serifs of Baskerville held to account, it's time to see what can be seen about this round's crop of stories.

Per the heading, we're too far into the week for me to work up a proper Spreadsheet of Doom (and I'm not at all sure how much help it would be on this round, anyway, what with the great variety of media and fandoms we've brought in, not to mention that I see a healthy number of newcomers - or at least, handles that I don't immediately recognize - in the mix of contributors).

So we shall instead fall back on the Cracked Crystal Of Pseudomancy™, and entirely too much of the guesswork to which Holmes himself would never resort.

Part The First: Creators

What did gardnerhill write?

My odds are very slightly better this time out, as for once I can't reasonably confuse gardnerhill with sanguinity per my usual habit. (While I miss having a contribution from wsanguinity in the present round, the omission is understandable given the semi-apocalyptic cataclysm they've been experiencing this past month. Compared to that sequence of events, Moriarty's plotting is pure amateur-hour.)

Anyhow. acorn_squash proposes that "The Working of Wonders" is from gardnerhill, and that's a very reasonable guess - if one assumes that gardnerhill wrote a BBC story. It's a very tempting guess, but I'm not so sure. We have quite a bit of BBC material in this round, and with that in mind, I'm inclined to look elsewhere. It would be very plausible to tag gardnerhill for "Spider Stories", because they're often drawn to the outlying adaptations and execute them brilliantly...but I don't entirely trust that guess.

I therefore think gardnerhill wrote "Holmes on Holiday".

What did iwantthatcoat write?

This is where many of our veteran guessers would break out the punctuation and vocabulary tells (especially the ellipses). By rights I ought to do this, too, but I'm just not wired for that sort of analysis. What's fascinating to me is that 'coat is, punctuation tics notwithstanding, something of a chameleon stylistically - and also someone who's very much committed to trying new things and pulling them off amazingly well. There are two works in the present round that strike me as fitting that motif - but one of them, I think, fits someone else even better than it fits here.

I think iwantthatcoat wrote "Spider Stories".

What did rachelindeed contribute?

I made the mistake a round or two back of thinking I'd pigeonholed rachelindeed's prose as having a particular tonal quality, and was proved impressively wrong when reveals went up. She turns out to be more versatile than I had thought at that earlier time, in the best possible way. That said, there's one story in this round that seems to me to resonate strongly with certain aspects of her wider background (now that I'm reading her DW journal more regularly). It's entirely fitting that it's also one of the most powerful pieces in this round's collection.

I think rachelindeed wrote "Harrowing".

What did senmut (aka Merfilly) write?

This is a difficult call, as there are very few Holmesian variants I'd count as genuinely beyond possibility here, and several (very) different stories that could very well be assigned. The Cracked Crystal gives one answer, whereas the Semi-Magic 9-Ball™ has another, and the Imaginary Fortune Cookie of Prophecy™ offers a third choice. [No, I did not order any of those from Acme. I like to think I'm smarter than the average animated coyote....]

I have a hunch that senmut's contribution is "The Working of Wonders". (For the curious: the 9-Ball went for one of the Elementary stories; the Crystal opted for Holmes/Watson ACD, and the Fortune Cookie suggested a different BBC story....)

What did starfishstar create?

Note the change in wording here; as we know from prior rounds, starfishstar is wholly capable of having given us podfic this round as opposed to prose...and I have not had time to listen to much of the podfic we have before us. I shall therefore assume, for no good reason whatever, that we're dealing with fic rather than podfic for the moment, and guess accordingly.

There are a handful of stories in the round that draw my attention as prospects here...but one of them was actually gifted to starfishstar, and the mods are not usually quite that sneaky where the matching is concerned. So unless the correct answer is "a podfic I haven't listened to yet" (which is very possible)...

...I think starfishstar wrote "Astrakhan, I Perceive".

////

And that will do for the moment; I'll try to return later to make some guesses as to particular stories.

Edited Date: 2022-12-20 05:23 pm (UTC)

From:

So happy to see you jumping in before reveals to get in some guesses! I am honored to see my name among your suspects! :) And for what it's worth, although I haven't quite finished reading it yet, I heartily second your guess for starfishstar's work. That fic is so tremendously unique, culturally rich, and at once tongue-in-cheek and heartfelt (perfect for starfishstar, a self-proclaimed lover of crack taken seriously) with such a carefully tailored narrative voice and a deep rooting in history. I think it must be hers!

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Back at last before seeing to one more batch of holiday cookies (it has been a busy week here, and also a decidedly Arctic one). I am, as usual, amused - I was intuitive enough that my little group of stories mostly did belong to my little group of writers, just not intuitive enough to make the right individual matches. It's the sanguinity mismatch syndrome all over again, and it's spreading!

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I wish I had those vid skillz! I would never be able to create something as entrancing as Spider Stories. But, thank you for thinking I did! I read this and thought…oh…the other one must be Astrakhan. It’s unusual. I wonder who he put it under?
And I have no patience for checking ellipses either, it seems ;)

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Yes I *thought* that whole "I haven't had a chance to listen to much of the podfic" thing was a bluff. ;)

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Heh. Not at all; I actually still need to listen to the rest of the podfics. OTOH, there should be time in the next day or so, as I am presently camped out at home against the coldest and iciest weather this part of Oregon has seen in next best to forever. Most of the buses and all of the light rail trains are parked, and even the Postal Service failed its saving throw vs. snow and sleet today, having declined to pick up the package they were supposed to pick up and send south with the first of the holiday cookie batches.

From:

sanguinity

Not to rub salt in your lack of postal delivery, but I was stunned to see the mailman pull up this morning and deliver us a package!

He said, however, that no mail but packages made it into town last night, and so the only patrons who are getting mail service today are those who had a package arrive...

From:

Not to worry; the way my last couple of weeks have gone (not badly, mind you, just unreasonably complicated, and wholly pleasant compared to your adventures), the "will it get there by Christmas" ship had sailed well before today in any event.

And amusingly, in the half hour since I started this wave of replies, a UPS delivery has landed on my doorstep....

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sanguinity

Christmas is traditionally twelve days; I'm sure your cookies will arrive before the feasting period has ended! Not that I've ever known anyone to refuse Christmas cookies for arriving too many days after the event...!

Yay, a delivery! *hums the Wells Fargo Wagon*

From:

Just wanted to say again that I am SO DELIGHTED with your podfic, and also at how completely unexpected it was that you would branch out into a whole new medium for my sake and pull it off so wonderfully on your first go! *STANDING OVATION!!!* I would never have guessed it, what a lovely surprise! Yours remains the definitive Mycroft performance in my books.

And I also want to add that, although I did not write "Harrowing," it really was an exceptionally good guess based on my love of Supernatural and Castiel! And as I'm sure Sang would agree, it is a great honor to be mistaken for gardnerhill :)

Wishing you very happy holidays, and thanks again for my beautiful gift this round!

From:

The rosy cheeks you see are the result of the genuinely polar temperatures outside (well, all right, that would be true if I were actually silly enough to go outside in this weather, even with triple layers of clothing and a fuzzy hat over my ears).

Sang would certainly agree that I have a gift for producing brilliantly scrambled guesses. Possibly next year I should buy a dart board and attempt to use it as a predictive tool....

From:

write_out

My guesses as follows (no in-depth analysis, just flying by the seat of my pants!):

vulgarweed - In the Prison of the Gifted. This is my gift, set in the Mycroft Holmes series 'verse. I LOVE this, so much.

starfishstar - Chasing Waterfalls [From the Journal of Jon Watson]. This is set in the Watson and Holmes comics series and yeah, it's brilliant.

sanspatronymic - Harrowing. ACD, so gorgeous (I still need to leave a comment on this one, reminder to self!)

a_candle_for_sherlock - Heaven and Earth. Beautiful ACD-post Reichenbach.

From:

write_out

I see by other comments I am likely way off on starfishstar's work! We'll see! :)

From:

Indeed; this is where I miss the input from scfrankles, aka the Supreme Commander of Guessing, as they're much better at actual deduction than most of the rest of us.

From:

I regret very much that I cannot offer many guesses this round -- some real life stuff has required the lion's share of my attention this month and I am just going to have to catch up with most of these wonderful works over the holidays. However, I can venture guesses as to the two beautiful works that were made in response to my prompts this round!

I suspect it is phoenixfalls whom I have to thank for the utter delight of a podfic I received, with such a *marvelous* performance of Mycroft!!

And, although their name is not on the list for the main fest, I believe the *fantastic* treat Brother Mine is probably a gift from mightymads! The pitch-perfect prose, the confident historicity of the Victorian setting, the insightful characterization, and the fact that the prompt came not from Holmestice itself but from the 221b-victorian blog that mightymads runs all provide telling clues.

I am so grateful for my beautiful gifts and very much looking forward to reading through more of the fest very soon! Congratulations to everyone for such a lovely exchange!

From:

As I have occasionally done before, I offer two truths and a lie regarding the current round:

I have more than one work in the collection.
I did not make a vid.
T. Rhymer has failed to comment on my contribution(s).

From:

And to add to the 2 truths and a lie theme:

I have more than one work in the collection.

I did not make a vid.

T. Rhymer has commented on my contribution(s).

Not that anyone would believe me anyway, as I have a certain reputation for deviousness.

From:

I'm game to guess that 1 and 2 are the truths, thus making 3 the lie, though I have no idea which work in the main collection is yours :) As for the treats, kitten!Holmes seems very much your cup of (milk) tea!

From:

but I wanted to say how happy I am to the the good ol’ Spreadsheet of Doom, albeit in a modified form.
By a writer’s theme, by their ellipses, by their US spelling, by their bittersweet sensibilities— by none of these things can a story’s authorship be plainly revealed.

From:

Holmestice friends!! I won't have many guesses this time around, because I've barely had time to look at many of the works, let alone engage in my in-depth analysis of days of yore. But I want to render at least a few guesses, and then maybe there will be a few more later if I manage before it gets too late tonight. But for now:

GUESSES ABOUT MY OWN GIFTS

I was gifted TWO works this round, an unbelievably perfect pair: a beautiful, thoughtfully rendered, deeply moving fic (plus vid!!) in the serious fandom of my heart, 221B Baker Towers, and a silly, charming fic in the silly not-even-quite-a-fandom of my heart, the one I guess we've taken to calling "kitten!Holmes".

Spider stories – it seems almost too obvious to say this must be by

rachelindeed! As the only other person besides me to express interest in 221B Baker Towers this round, as someone known for thoughtful, heartfelt, beautiful work, as one of our few resident vidders... Who else *could* it be but rachelindeed? It seems so obvious that it kind of makes me doubt myself... Sanguinity could have been a contender, as a fellow vidder and the person who originally introduced me to 221B Baker Towers, but Sanguinity doesn't have a work in this round. I considered Iwantthatcoat, too, our known chameleon. But in the end I'm sticking with my guess of rachelindeed. And if it turns out I'm wrong, and someone else created this beautiful piece? Well, just know I've paid you a high compliment by mistaking you for rachelindeed, whose work I invariably love to pieces!

(BTW, please, everyone read that fic and watch that vid – I can't recommend it highly enough. Doesn't matter if you know the fandom or not, doesn't matter anything really... It is stunning.)

A Foregone Introduction – my delightful treat! In this silly, silly barely existent "fandom" that I keep mulishly requesting for Holmestice and was sure I would never receive...! Here, too, the first guess seemed almost too obvious:

graycardinal is the only person besides me whose sign-up mentioned kitten!Holmes (though admittedly on the requests side and not the offers side). And the author's note on this fic is word-perfect unmistakable graycardinal. However! I can't even remember why or what first made me think this, but it occurred to me that this fic is 100% either by graycardinal...or by someone deliberately *masquerading* as graycardinal. Again, Sanguinity could be a suspect (deliberately ending on a pun just to prove to us she can do it now??). But even more, I thought of Iwantthatcoat. Our known chameleon. Who 100% could fake an author's note in graycardinal's voice. Also, little details in this fic give me the feel of someone who has BBC Sherlock as their primary Holmesian arena (as opposed to ACD or other adaptations), and that says Coat to me, but not graycardinal or Sang. So I'm rendering that as my official guess –

iwantthatcoat for kitten!Holmes – but I'm fully prepared to be proven wrong!

Oh, and "A Foregone Introduction" has a very particular use of an ellipsis that does indeed match to graycardinal. So again...it's either graycardinal or someone masquerading as graycardinal. Which is not terribly helpful. We've all gotten too clever for ourselves!

From:

I didn't expect to confuse anyone for long with "Foregone Introduction", so I was actually grinning as I watched you talking yourself out of tagging me for the story. (And of course you'd be quite correct in noting that I am not primarily a BBC/Sherlock partisan....)

From:

Glad to provide amusement! Frankly I'm pretty amused, too, that I managed to talk myself out of the most likely guess by assuming it was surely *too* obvious.

Thank you so much for writing me a treat!

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GUESSES ABOUT PODFICS

Going for this next, because it's a small subset and thus the only one I've had a chance to look at so far... (I'd love to dive in and analyze the art (7 artworks, 12 people who offered art of which 5 offered ONLY art, it's eminently doable!) but I'm just not going to have time to dig into all of that this late in the game. Anyway, podfics. There are three:

The Lighthouse Keeper, for gardnerhill – I'm guessing

phoenixfalls, who offered ONLY podfic this round, and matches very well to gardnerhill on fandoms. (As in, this is a likely choice for someone the mods would have chosen to match to gardnerhill.)

Art in the Blood, for rachelindeed – my guess is

graycardinal. I know, he didn't offer podfic! But the notes on this work do say it's created by someone who's a novice at podficcing, and graycardinal matches so well to rachelindeed – even having offered Murder By Decree, the very rare fandom in which this work is set! The mods could well have matched these two on rare fandoms, and then graycardinal decided to branch out on type of work.

The Stress of Her Regard, for vulgarweed – my guess is

gardnerhill, who I think has offered podfic every round, at least for the last while, but I don't think has done one yet? Maybe this is finally it? This fandom (The Affair of the Mysterious Letter) features a strong female character, which is very much in gardnerhill's wheelhouse, and also a good dose of absurdity, and I see gardnerhill offered, while not this fandom, some others with a high absurdity quotient, like whale!Holmes and the Norwegian parody.

From:

Hee hee, I am chuckling to myself only because we appear to have come full circle on "Art in the Blood." It was a story that I wrote as a gift for graycardinal in an earlier round of Holmestice, which is probably why it seems like a strong match! :) If he did branch out into podfic for my sake, I will be tickled pink! But I believe I will stick with my original guess of phoenixfalls for that one. All will soon be revealed!!

From:

Arggh, and I've just come back here to say that now I'm doubting myself because: sanspatronymic offered podfic AND Murder By Decree. Making sanspatronymic a stronger guess than graycardinal. This is what comes of making guesses before I've had a chance to examine every iota of the data!!

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Ooh, that's another very intriguing possibility!! LOL, this is what happens when none of us have time for spreadsheets, the guesses really are just guesses :) It will make tomorrow's reveal all the more exciting!

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Oh my goodness, you were *right* about graycardinal branching out into podfic for my sake, and I *am* tickled pink!!! What a really lovely surprise!!! And a perfect double-bluff, as I was too quick to write off the good match as being explained by the story's origin as a gift for him! Diabolical, ha ha!

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That bit on guessing who did The Stress of Her Regard was some A+ level deception. I am impressed.

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My only worry was that it wound come across as protesting too much!

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Very quickly indeed, as I must be elsewhere all too soon--

Part Two: Specific Works

Who wrote "Building Blocks"?

I can't very well fail to make a guess as to the thoughtful work gifted to me - but it's again a tricky case, as there are any number of candidates, veteran and newcomer alike. At a complete and utter guess--

I'll nominate alexcat for "Building Blocks". (There are at least two other good candidates, however.)

[looks at watch]

Gah. I would dearly love to cover another couple of guesses, but my time is well and truly up for tonight. See you all in the morning....

From:

sigh

And with benefit of hindsight, I can now observe that in fact, Merfilly/@sharpest_asp was one of the two other candidates I had in mind above.

From:

A last few lightning-round guesses, and then I must to bed...

Astrakhan, I Perceive – this is my guess for

iwantthatcoat! Tackling a really culturally specific story and doing it with panache? That says iwantthatcoat to me.
In the Prison of the Gifted – surely

vulgarweed, as the only person to offer this fandom?
Holmes on Holiday – my guess is

dryadinthegrove PURELY because this has 5 chapters, and I feel like I remember Dryad writing a 5-chapter fic for a previous Holmestice? Yes, I know it's flimsy.

It's driving me crazy that I can't place either of the BBC f/f stories, since that's a fairly niche market. But, yeah, it's gotten too late and I just don't have the time. Good night, Holmestice!

Edited Date: 2022-12-21 06:08 am (UTC)

From:

Hmm, on the strength of this guess, I quickly scanned "Astrakhan, I Perceive" for ellipses, and I believe I have been convinced to change my guess. I will back you up on Coat as the author there! It's either them, or you pretending to be them, so I guess we'll see if anyone actually had energy for a double-fake-out this round or not! :)

From:

I swear I had someone beta and told them to be especially aware of ellipsis errors, but it *still* had them? I give up. Well, at least it gives someone a good guess. I did try to punctuate the other story differently so one of them might be done correctly. Hah.

From:

Oh no worries, your beta did not fail you! The ellipses were all perfectly correct! There were just rather more of them than tend to be found in an average story, and the spacing around them wasn't always consistent. But I'd never have noticed it if I hadn't gone looking in response to someone else's guess. While reading I was entirely too caught up in the storytelling to think about it at all! I am still playing catch up on so much of the fest, but that story is truly amazing and I love what you did with it!! Will be reading and commenting more soon!

Going totally undetected on 2 out of 3 this round, those are very good stats! :)

From:

I think in ellipses.
But I did say check the spacing. Maybe she has the same ellipsis spacing blindness I have?
Anyways, I don’t view it as criticism. It’s just an odd quirk of mine. And if that is how it comes down on paper, so be it! I think I took them out of Holmes for the Holidays just to be sneaky, but the narrative voice in Astrakhan is too strong and it does whatever it wants ;)

From:

Hey thanks for the wonderful compliments! I was thought to be you twice in this round and I was thrilled!

From: