Summer 2025 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 20 (Baker Island time). 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! We have a bumper crop this round! 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.



a_candle_for_sherlock
Alec
armchair_elvis
beamkatanachronicles
Blistering_Typhoons
bluebellofbakerstreet
CumberCurlyGirl
deelaundry
edosianorchids901
estelraca
flowing_river
gardnerhill
ghostbees
ghostofnuggetspast
graycardinal
happyeverafter72
iwantthatcoat
KameoDouglas
kingstoken
lxvenderjewel
mom2boys
oui_oui
paradiseandcola
penaltywaltz
randomquadballpun
ratinavan
rudbeckia
snycock
tepidspongebath
vulgarweed
write_out





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

[write_out]

I am looking forward to catching up on all the great works! To my fellow BBC fic writers, I am waiting until reveals to leave kudos/comments, just to make the guessing a bit trickier. :)

[iwantthatcoat]

So am I. I’ll also wait to respond to comments on my contribution.
Or will I?
Let the lying commence!!!!
Or…not.

[write_out]

You and your trickery!

[iwantthatcoat]

I can’t guess, so I have to entertain myself during the guessing round somehow.

[ghostbees]

Fiend!

[gardnerhill]

No guessing - bluebellofbakerstreet did my gorgeous gift.

+1

[beamkatanachronicles]

Agreed! It was so lovely!

[beamkatanachronicles]

Either everyone hid their tracks really well or I've let our boy Holmes down with my observations because I have NO good guesses off the bat, save for some of the lovely art pieces with more recognizable styles. 😅 Gonna give it a think then try again haha

[beamkatanachronicles]

ghostofnuggetspast - The Inexplicable Matchbox podfic, I remember this voice from last year's podfic!
bluebellofbakerstreet - Rescue, a Walk in Hirosaki
oui_oui - One Evening
ghostbees - the GMD art treat & the Violet Hunter art treat
rudbeckia - The Adventure of the Baskerville Burglary (i see you oorsprong, did you beta?!)

[ghostbees]

I usually never do guessing because I'm not very good at it but I was so obsessed with how special my gift was that I had to be nosy this round. I think armchair_elvis wrote it for me, as unless I'm mistaken they were the only person who specifically mentioned this verse in their sign up, and it matches their beautifully evocative style. Oh and "Cunningly Fashioned" HAS TO BE happyeverafter72.

[ghostofnuggetspast]

I'm not super confident in some of these but...ok
The grapefruit one - CumberCurlyGirl
the pink walking lasses - Bluebellofbakerstreet
the Discworld humor casefic - Coat
Sherls smut pic - Ratinavan
10cc's of Sherlock & Co - lxvenderjewel

I know there are others but I'm out of guessing energy at the moment. :D

[iwantthatcoat]

Hmmmm. If I said I have never read Discword, would you believe me?

[graycardinal]

I fully believe that you have never read Discword.

As to DiscworLd, however....

[iwantthatcoat]

Hahahhahah! Was that a typo….or not?

[ghostofnuggetspast]

oHO A touch! A palpable touch!

[ghostofnuggetspast]

... Maybe

[(Anonymous)]

oh hello me mentioned ~vani

[iwantthatcoat]

Vani, they don’t know you are Vani

[lxvenderjewel]

dont they??????? My Bad

[randomq]

I am pretty sure that ghost chicken/nuggets were involved in the making of the wonderful podfic that I was gifted :D For everyone else I am a bit stumped at the moment

[ghostofnuggetspast]

MOI?!?! *fans self* Whatever would give you that idea?? Chickens don't even have lips.

[iwantthatcoat]

As a Mod, I will confirm it is true that chickens do not have lips.
(I don’t know about ghost chickens, however)

[ghostofnuggetspast]

ghost beak

[randomq]

Maybe that's how the ANONYMOUS READER managed all those different voices. A beak instead of lips and some ghostly help.

Part 1: The Art

[acorn_squash]

I'll do fics with art in a different comment.

The Necessary Calm - ghostbees

ghostbees’s style matches and they've done edits before. paradiseandcola is the only person to offer art in this fandom, but it's such a new game that it seems very likely some people finished playing it only after sign-ups were over.

Good Boy, Sherls - ratinavan

I knew this one was a pinch-hit as soon as it was posted; it's just such a perfect match for ratinavan's style.

One evening - oui_oui

I remember this style from last year!

A Walk in Hirosaki - bluebellofbakerstreet

bluebellofbakerstreet has a distinctive style that I recognized.

Fic Covers for Four Fics - randomquadballpun

I couldn't match these pieces with anyone's style. I also couldn't find any art by randomquadballpun. So... maybe?

A night of contemplation - paradiseandcola

The style matches, but the real giveaway is that there's an image description. (Psst, other artists: You could throw people off by writing an image description for your art next winter! Heck, message me and I'll write you one.)

Part 2: Vid & Podfic

[acorn_squash]

deelaundry - Ride

Dee_Laundry was the only person to offer vids this year and the style of this vid has some similarities to a previous year’s Holmestice vid.

(For those inclined to go sleuthing, I'll save you the trouble: This video was posted to a shared account. Here's an example from a previous Holmestice.)

ghostofnuggetspast - The Inexplicable Matchbox

There's only one person who didn't offer art, fic, or vids, and I think the voice matches ghostofnuggetspast's podfics. That being said, I can’t find any samples of gardnerhill’s voice, so I can’t discount the possibility that they sound very similar.

Part 3: Fic

[acorn_squash]

I've decided to try the thing starfishstar does, coming up with a guess for every work in the round. We'll see how I do.

a_candle_for_sherlock - 10 CCs of That

A_Candle_For_Sherlock doesn’t usually do this sort of format, but it has the quiet, subtle emotional stuff that she’s so good at. I think this is her, trying something new this year.

Alec - a study in violin

The punctuation matches (specifically, a comma placed after a dash), as does a fondness for the word shatter.

armchair_elvis - I’m the board, the lightning, the thunder

armchair_elvis wrote the only sign-up that mentions The Silk Stocking. gardnerhill is familiar with the fandom; however, I think anyone besides armchair_elvis who was inclined to write The Silk Stocking fic would gift it to armchair_elvis.

beamkatanachronicles - The Cantonese Interpreter

beamkatanachronicles offered Mycroft Holmes and has done this type of crossover for Holmestice before (The Adventure of the Gentleman and Players). They do dashes like-- this, but that would convert to em-dashes in the right word-processor. The comments are written in the style that she favors.

blistering_typhoons - The Decades

This is another one that I guessed based on punctuation.

cumbercurlygirl - When Life Gives You Grapefruits…

For this fic, it was the word “sensual” that tipped me off — it’s appeared in some of CumberCurlyGirl’s previous fic.

edosianorchids901 - Reinforcements

edosianorchids901 has written Granada Holmes hurt/comfort before in the same style.

estelraca - The Protection of Broken Wings

The word choices are similar to some of estelraca's fics.

flowing_river - Knives and Necklaces

The blank line between paragraphs says flowing_river to me.

gardnerhill - Traffic School

This kind of multiverse-gone-wrong thing is gardnerhill’s jam. Further, of this year’s Holmestice writers, gardnerhill was one of only three people to write Sally Donovan/Molly Hooper between 2017 and 2025. (After 2017 I got bored and closed the tab.) The others were penaltywaltz and the recipient. gardnerhill uses hashes as line breaks; penaltywaltz doesn’t.

graycardinal - The Affair of the Statutory Duel

The framing device used in this fic reminded me of a podfic from a previous Holmestice, so I went digging and found The Kincardine File (later recorded by flashforeward).

happyeverafter72 - Cunningly Fashioned

The obvious place to start is in the Polari tag. Three people participating in Holmestice this year have works tagged Polari and Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms. rudbeckia usually writes in the third person, and Iwantthatcoat can never truly be ruled out, but on balance, I think it much more likely this story was written by happyeverafter72, whose writing style is the best match.

For the sake of completeness, estelraca also offered Rathbone. However, estelraca’s Sherlock Holmes fics almost always contain one or more of a short list of tropes or keywords, none of which are in this fic.

iwantthatcoat - The Beekeeper's Picnic - A Sherlockian Fanfic; "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane"

The author gave this cryptic hint in the comments: “i think my Holmeses always feel like they deserve to be traumatised, which may be the biggest clue as to who I am.”

Only two people, aside from the recipient, offered The Beekeeper’s Picnic this year: Iwantthatcoat and EdosianOrchids901. An additional three offered “any” or “try me”: Vulgarweed, ghostofnuggetspast, and gardnerhill. Of those five, the fic writer must be someone who can write an excellent pastiche. Someone who is comfortable breaking the fourth wall. Someone who habitually writes dashes like— this. In other words: Iwantthatcoat.

I left a couple comments on Iwantthatcoat’s other fics, left a comment on this fic, and then left some more comments on Iwantthatcoat’s other fics, as a test to see what the replies would look like. I have a reply to my comment on this fic, no replies to the other comments I left at the same time, and a claim from Iwantthatcoat that she hasn't replied to any comments on her Holmestice fic(s)... and, honestly, I'm not in any way dissuaded from my guess. As Iwantthatcoat says, she lies a lot.

kameodouglas - The Pubs of London

This fic has the author’s note in the main text, as Kameo (Brainygiirl) is wont to do.

kingstoken - Singularly Unique

This is the most random thing: This fic has a blockquote in the summary, which is something kingstoken sometimes does.

lxvenderjewel - you had to go (i know, i know, i know)

lxvenderjewel’s a pinch-hitter who hasn’t written any Holmes fic outside of the Sherlock & Co fandom.

lxvenderjewel - A Secret Thought

I really do not have a good guess for this fic, but A Secret Thought is tagged in the exact same style and with some of the same tags as the fic I think is written by lxvenderjewel, so... weak evidence?

mom2boys - I Dream of Sherlock

Yeah, I have no clue for this one, but I couldn’t come up with any other guess for mom2boys.

penaltywaltz - Rumor Has It

This is the only Discworld fic in the Holmestice collection on AO3, so I couldn't try finding authors that way. I decided to look at crossover authors in general and found out that penaltywaltz has written over six hundred crossovers. Seems solid enough to me.

rudbeckia - The Adventure of the Baskerville Burglary

Only two people who signed up for Holmestice this year have previously written Raffles: Vulgarweed, rudbeckia, and the recipient. Also, oorsprong, rudbeckia’s perpetual coauthor, left kudos before anyone else. It's weak evidence, but at this point, I'll take it.

snycock - The Ballad of the Abbey Grange: because in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

This is another one that I guessed after narrowing down the pool of possible authors to almost nothing.

tepidspongebath - Gone to Ground

The style of this fic matches a previous fic tepidspongebath wrote in the same fandom.

vulgarweed - Hole in the Sky

This guess is mostly based on the fact that Vulgarweed’s written Cthulhu crossovers before.

write_out - Afterglow

This one was hard to narrow down. I ended up settling on it on the grounds that, of the authors who offered sexual content, write_out is the only one who’s previously used the M rating like this. A seeming confirmation is that there’s no replies to comments yet.

Re: Part 3: Fic

[iwantthatcoat]

Impressive deductions, Acorn!
I am not even going to refute your guess at which one I created.

Re: Part 3: Fic

[ghostbees]

Great deductions, as always!!

I also thought gardnerhill at first for "I’m the board, the lightning, the thunder" but to me it didn't feel like it fully matched and my gift from the previous round was already by gardnerhill. Couldn't be anyone but armchair_elvis for sure.

I don't think the two stories for mom2boys are by the same pinch hint, the style is too different, but I could be wrong!

(Also thanks for pointing out image descriptions, I didn't submit one but I will definitely add it after reveal and for further rounds.)

Re: Part 3: Fic

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah - plus, we wouldn't get the "two gifts" scenario if they were both by the same person. One would be posted as a treat.

I've thought about it a little more. I initially rejected edosianorchids901 as an option because that author so rarely writes romantic H/W, but after further review, A Secret Thought is actually in approximately the same style as Until the Sunlight Hits (written earlier this year for kingstoken). Also, while I don't know who most of the pinch-hitters are in this exchange, I know edosianorchids901 wrote me a lovely fic (Destiny) as a pinch-hit in Unsent Letters last year. I'm switching my guess to edosianorchids901.

Re: Part 3: Fic

[acorn_squash]

(Augh, forgot to log in.)

[beamkatanachronicles]

I will neither confirm nor deny, but I will admit to changing punctuation around in the hopes of throwing off the scent. 🤭 Clearly I should be getting more creative than that!

I do agree on my gift being from rudbeckia, though. oorsprong being there that quickly made me instantly suspect them as the redacted beta.

[iwantthatcoat]

Yeah I changed all punctuation to match what my beta suggested because I know I have distinct dashes but I never seem to remember what is *correct* spacing. TBh I don’t think I ever learned it.

[beamkatanachronicles]

It looks like most style guides say no spacing—like this—is correct, but some will accept spaced en dashes. I'm going to continue breaking the rules... just maybe not for Holmestice lol. I'm pretty sure my dashes-- like this-- gave me away last time!

[acorn_squash]

An em-dash with no spacing is generally accepted, yeah. However, AP Stylebook mandates an em dash with spaces on each side, which is my preferred style — though perhaps not for Holmestice!

Re: Part 3: Fic

[bluebellofbakerstreet]

This is some pretty impressive research and reasoning - and it'e very entertaining to read! :)

Re: Part 3: Fic

[write_out]

Wow, I am impressed with all of these guesses!

[cumbercurlygirl]

I think "A Secret Thought" was written by Snycock. I'm not confident in this assessment. I just have a gut feeling.

A Study in Violin Deconstruction

[graycardinal]

I am, as usual, behind on my reading (not least in this case because some brilliant person wrote me a 25K novella (!!!)).

But who is that someone? One of our illustrious players has guessed Alec, who's one of our newer players whose work I know less well. This is a Thing about having been active in Holmestice for as long as I have; many of the writers whose work I've learned to recognize have moved on or are sitting out the round, so that now I'm confronted with (still excellent) stories largely by folks who are first- or second-timers in the exchange. It's great to have fresh talent participating, but it seriously complicates my life during the guessing phase.

So, anyhow...

There were not, as I recall, many offers for Elementary this time out; it is at this point a closed canon and has been for some time, and as such is - not precisely less popular, but perhaps a bit more insular as folks look towards the Next Thing. (Which reminds me, I also still need to catch up on Sherlock & Daughter....)

It is probably not armchair_elvis, for match-related reasons best not examined too closely (and also because they've commented on it, though that is a dangerous assumption in this gaggle of conspirators). It is certainly not rabidsamfan or mundungus42, who are capable of a work of this kind but are not playing this round. If it's one of our newer players, I am probably doomed to overlook them as candidates, just because this is such a dense and thoughtful story.

It can't be acorn_squash or any of the other folks who've left well-deserved kudos on the story (thus, evidently no chicken lips were harmed in the writing process).

It could be gardnerhill - who is both a known Elementary fan and very much capable of writing this kind of deep character study. I'm awfully tempted to make that guess--

--but I'm going to resist that temptation.

I think this was written by someone who's shown tremendous versatility over their time in Holmestice. I think it's someone who likes to change up their game regularly, and do things that are unexpected. I think it's someone who's written longer works before, and understands story structure better than they sometimes let on (even if they don't always admit it to themselves).

And I think this may have been written by someone whose assignment was changed at the last moment, but that's utterly speculative on my part.

I think "a study in violin" is by iwantthatcoat.

Re: A Study in Violin Deconstruction

[graycardinal]

And now I am second-guessing myself, because a Certain Person I'd eliminated from consideration on what seemed to be very solid grounds has been demonstrating a rather curious mixture of silence and volubility over the last day or two, and one of the likelier explanations for that would be that That Person picked me up as a pinch hit at some point.

I am not going to name That Person here, because if I'm right, they know who they are (and it will be really obvious after reveals, at least to our veteran players). And alternately, if I'm wrong, it will prevent me from looking sillier than I usually do once reveals go up (and as a certified Comic Relief Guesser, that's usually pretty silly, but I'm good with that).