A Holmesian Solstice

So, I make it 45 gifts (not including treats) and 42 creators. And I think amindamazed is the only person on that list who didn’t sign up… So there are three internal pinch-hitters? (Or up to three - one person might have been very busy indeed.) Well, that doesn’t make things complicated at all ^^”

OK - a few guesses to get started.

The Five Doctors: Come on - this is definitely by gardnerhill. If it isn’t, it’s by someone going out of their way to pass themself off as her ^_^ Some evidence to back my guess up. The title is a Doctor Who reference, and gardnerhill used UNIT in her previous Holmestice offering. The use of ‘disturbing medical details’ as a kind of leverage also makes me think back to that previous fic and the use of menstruation discussions as a (very funny) form of torture. A female character takes centrestage in the fic, and the fic touches on sexism and racism. Multiple ‘verses are used with skill and confidence, and there’s clear affection for all the Watsons and Holmeses. Those lists of Dramatis Watsonae and Dramatis Holmesae make me think back to my own gift fic from gardnerhill, which was set in the Lego Hound ‘verse and which ends with a list of dramatis personae, including pictures. And finally, a minor bit of formatting - underlining is occasionally used for emphasis, which is something I associate with gardnerhill.

The Case of the Sleeping Servants: Must admit I guessed this was by smallhobbit from the header. But the first few paragraphs confirmed things for me - Small Hobbit has used the amusing headcanon of Watson disliking Wagner before. And it’s all just unmistakably her style.

The Cake Dilemma: I think this is by okapi1895. Okapi is possibly the most creative writer I’ve ever met. There is very little she won’t have a go at - when faced with a new challenge she essentially gives one firm nod and says quietly, “OK, then.” So I can really see her coming up with a fic that combines finger puppets and Greek tragedy. And there’s darkness but humour with it, and there’s the use of verse - Okapi writes a lot of poetry too. There’s the puns - I have been a bad influence on Okapi in that area. Also, there’s the HHH hotel, which suggests to me the hotel constructed by the serial killer HH Holmes, and I do have the advantage of knowing Okapi has read about this.

A Ride in the Park: I was reading this and enjoying the crossdressing and the erotic tension, and I managed to completely miss another important theme. I’d got to He will be mounted on a striking chestnut gelding with two white fore-legs, and I thought to myself, “Why are these colour terms so flaming confusing? Let’s see… ‘Chestnut’ is the colour of wet sand… A ‘bay’ is the colour of a chestnut…” Whereupon my brain yelled ‘HORSES!’ at me. This fic has clearly been written by someone who knows their stuff in this area. Which immediately made me think that it must be by tripleransom.

Nanti Polari: The More Holmes ‘verse and the quality of the writing made me wonder if this might be by one or other of the More Holmes writers I already knew. But the style did seem entirely unfamiliar to me. And I noticed a couple of idiosyncratic uses of formatting that I hadn’t come across before - instead of an em dash, the writer uses a double hyphen and then adds a space before typing the next word. Also, they favour ellipses but they seem to be inconsistent in how they choose to use them - sometimes they add a space afterwards, sometimes they don’t.

Armed with this knowledge, I looked back at the sign-ups, found who had offered to write in the Rathbone films ‘verse and then went to AO3 to look at their fics. (I genuinely don’t get out much.) And on my third attempt I think I hit gold. I found a writer who was an excellent possible match for the style, and for the formatting. I am pretty confident the writer is iwantthatcoat.

As Romeo to Juliet (podfic): Well, this sounds like sanguinity’s voice so I assume it’s by sanguinity ^__^ But this may not be the full story of course. sanguinity is a very likely person to have been a pinch-hitter as well as one of the original batch of creators, so I’m wondering if she’s written a fic too... I shall have to have another think.

I’m completely stuck at the moment on who’s written my own gift fic but I’ve got a few clues that I’m going to use to investigate further, and I will make a guess before the reveal. And I have to say that graycardinal’s statement is rather intriguing. I may have to rethink my guess there before I commit myself.

Back to guess the author of my gift fic!

Police of Penzance: I was puzzled by who had written this one but there were some clues for me to go on. There is a little American English in it. The author is knowledgeable about ACD canon and is comfortable writing an ACD Holmes. But there are also at least three nods to the Sherlock ‘verse, which suggests to me that the author sees Sherlock as their main Sherlock Holmes fandom. And of course, they really, really know their way around a joke ^__^

So this led me to make the assumption that their sign-up would offer ‘ACD’, ‘Sherlock’ and ‘humor’ - and possibly ‘crossover’. This didn’t narrow creators down a great deal but it did narrow them down a bit. I looked at some people’s other fics but I wasn’t really making a match. In the end I did have someone pencilled in as my guess because we seemed a pretty good match in general, but it turned out they’d dropped out of the exchange. I had also previously made the assumption my gift fic was unlikely to be a pinch-hit. Doing a crossover would be adding an unnecessary layer of difficulty when time was tight, the fic was fairly long (though as the creator points out, parts were taken complete from Pirates), and the unrevealed fic appeared in my AO3 gift list pretty soon after the deadline.

However, I have now had reason to revise this assumption ^_^ nottoolateforthegame let me know that iwantthatcoat had let it slip they’d written two fics - which put them back onto my list of possible authors. I went back and looked at the formatting for ‘Police of Penzance’. And it has to be said it is far more idiosyncratic than the formatting for ‘Nanti Polari’ - there are em dashes as well as double hyphens, and there is a lot of variation in how ellipses are used. But there are a fair number of ellipses and the pattern ‘word, double hyphen, space, word’ does occur eight times.

So taking this information and going by the quality of the jokes and the quality of the fic in general, I’m going to say ‘Police of Penzance’ is a pinch-hit by iwantthatcoat.