Summer 2024 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 this round. Being in this community with you is a joy and an honour.

Reveals and the Master List go up on June 20th. Until then, please enjoy and comment on all the lovely fanworks. (If you haven't thanked your creator for your own gift yet, please do!) Creators, please do NOT respond to Dreamwidth comments with your name attached or post your works elsewhere on the Internet until reveals go up in the community. You may of course reply to comments on AO3, which preserves your anonymity.

Meanwhile, stay tuned: treats are coming up! For anyone thinking of making a treat, we will accept treats until reveals, so if there's a prompt that inspires you, please have at it! Just use the regular submission guidelines and send your headers to holmesticemods@gmail.com.

If you'd like to guess who created what in this round, here's a list of all the contributors for the main gifts. (You'll have to put in some extra work to guess the treat-makers!) Go ahead and take a guess! It's all in good fun.




4thelneyj0nes
a_candle_for_sherlock
aceredshirt13
beamkatanachronicles
Blistering_Typhoons
catlock_holmes
deelaundry
dryadinthegrove
gardnerhill
graycardinal
happyeverafter72
inkonice
lucygturpin
mundungus42
ratinavan
rudbeckiasunshine
seaweed_writes
Spaghettifriend/Oscar
tepidspongebath
vulgarweed





Go forth and leave love for your fellow Holmestice artists, authors, podficcers, and vidders! See you again on the 20th, when we reveal who made what!

Comments

The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[graycardinal]

A number of our newer players may not know or remember this, but when I first signed up for Holmestice these many moons ago, I leapt headlong into the guessing posts by building a Spreadsheet of Doom™ in order to better work out who'd done what. Eventually, though, especially as the rounds got bigger and real life got busier, compiling the spreadsheets grew impractical - there was too much data and not enough time to type.

This time out, though - we're a somewhat smaller pool, there are fewer variables in play, and I happen to have a bit more spare time at the right moments this week. There is, therefore, a genuine spreadsheet here at the virtual Batcave, and I think I have some hope of matching up works and creators more accurately than has usually been the case. This will not, mind you, necessarily prevent me from playing the Comic Relief Guesser as has often been the case in the intervening rounds....

Before I start, I'll note a handful of interesting anomalies in the data. There's at least one work in the collection for a recipient not on the list of contributors, and there's one contributor listed for whom I can find neither a signup nor a gift. (Logically, that's the description of a pinch-hitter, but in the past we haven't usually seen pinch-hitters named openly in the guessing-post contributors' lists.)

Part the First: Art

So - let's begin with art. We have four art submissions this round in three fandoms plus one (The Hobbit being outside the Holmesian spectrum), and I counted five offers of art among the pool of contributors. A couple of these individuals offered both art and fic, and on that basis I dropped one of the five from the art-grid (I'm morally certain that person wrote fic for the current round).

That leaves four artists and four excellent works in a range of fandoms that seems to me to sort itself out neatly. My guesses are as follows:

# inkonice • "Yet Another Brain-Wave" (for ACD)
# ratinavan • "May the Fourth" (for Sherlock & Co.)
# 4thelneyj0nes • "Beloved Embrace" (for My Dearly Beloved Detective)
# lucygturpin • "A Present for Smaug" (for ACD and The Hobbit)

More to come....

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[holmesticemods]

(Logically, that's the description of a pinch-hitter, but in the past we haven't usually seen pinch-hitters named openly in the guessing-post contributors' lists.)

Not quite true - the contributors' list has always been everyone who made a gift posted before the end, whether they were an original signup or not. It's always included pinch-hitters. We don't identify them as pinch-hitters pe se, and we haven't done that this time.

The list of original signups and finished creators has never matched perfectly.

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[(Anonymous)]

I would have to disagree on your predictions I believe that lucygturpin drew the "May the Fourth" piece, but I don't think that ratinavan drew the "Present for Smaug" either... I definitely agree with your placement of 4thelneyj0nes but you have placed inkonice as the artist for "Yet Another Brainwave" however, this is made for them? I think you may have to rejig some of these

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[graycardinal]

you have placed inkonice as the artist for "Yet Another Brainwave" however, this is made for them?

And this is why I retain the title of Comic Relief Guesser. :-/

You're obviously correct that inkonice did not create their own gift; if you are also correct on both your other points, that would mean that ratinavan did "Brain-Wave", and inkonice created "Smaug".

That's not a bad matrix...but I'm inclined to stick with my original guess for "Smaug", and that creates a really tricky chain of dominoes. If I'm right about "Smaug", and you're right about "May the Fourth", then one of us almost has to be wrong about "Beloved Embrace" (and I note that 4thelneyj0nes did offer for Sherlock & CO., whereas inkonice did not).

Revised guesses for art:

# inkonice • "Beloved Embrace" (for My Dearly Beloved Detective)
# ratinavan • "Yet Another Brain-Wave" (for ACD)
# lucygturpin • "A Present for Smaug" (for ACD and The Hobbit)
# 4thelneyj0nes • "May the Fourth" (for Sherlock & Co.)

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who is familiar with art from 4thelneyj0nes, I still believe that they did the Beloved Embrace, and if you look at lucygturpin's profile picture, you can see that the art style lines up with that of the May the Fourth art style. So, politely, I am going to stick with those two

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[lucygturpin]

And I did learn my lesson: no more drawn profile pictures lol.

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[a_candle_for_sherlock]

But it’s so cute ;_;

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[lucygturpin]

[Insert heart emoticon]

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[ratinavan]

To be fair, mine is also drawn but no one guessed me correctly! I’m just very familiar with your art :)

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[lucygturpin]

Oh? Should I be scared?/j
Love your profile pic.

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[(Anonymous)]

This also implies that you are correct in your choice of four artists, which leaves no room for pinch hitters, the remaining person who offered art, or the improbable but not impossible chance that two of these were made by the same artist (e.g., one that they were assigned and one pinch hit)

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[graycardinal]

All of this is quite true; as yet I doubt any of us can say, for instance, what the enigmatic Spaghettifriend may have added to the collection.

That's the nature of the game, though, and I am content to wield my spreadsheet for good or ill whatever the outcome. Others of us live and die by the telltale ellipses. All will be known soon enough (though I hope the mods will give us part of the weekend to play sleuth before the final moment comes).

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[ratinavan]

I tried to warn you I didn't make art, but alas, good try anyways B)

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[graycardinal]

You did, and I did, and I cheerfully retain the title of Comic Relief Guesser. 🥸

I also made a couple of critically incorrect assumptions in the process of creating the spreadsheet, which enabled one particular creator to fake me out in dramatic fashion. But that's entirely all right; I have now learned a key lesson for future rounds.

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[lucygturpin]

I genuinely loved reading this. I did laugh like a maniac but it was super interesting to see everyone's deductions. Hopefully the second time I participate in Holmestice I'll make some myself.

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[deelaundry]

Yay a spreadsheet!

Re: The Spreadsheet of Doom™ returns!!

[a_candle_for_sherlock]

I love a spreadsheet!!!