A Holmesian Solstice

lucygturpin

oui_oui

paradiseandcola

penaltywaltz

rabidsamfan
Rachelea

rachelindeed

ratinavan

sarahenany

spacepolicedude

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

tepidspongebath

thefruitviking

vulgarweed
Will/justin_case

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:

Oooh, this came upon us so suddenly!! I will have guesses soon!

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penaltywaltz

I have no clue who did it, but I'm so freaking happy with my gift! I hope my maker uplaods the podfic and art to AO3 so I can link it to the fic!

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beamkatanachronicles

I am so stumped for all the fic LOL. The lovely art of H/W and Mrs. Hudson shopping may be ghostbees, and the KAJ/Waterhouse Mycroft fanart might be oui_oui??? I love my gift very much but I have no idea who drew it!

From:

armchair_elvis

A few quick and dirty guesses before I fall asleep:

Luaidh mo chéile: Iwantthatcoat

The Really Final Problem: Gray Cardinal

A Mudlark's Tale: Rabidsamfan

From:

Not my work.
Unless, of course, I’m lying. In which case…well done, you!

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ghostbees

Abysmally bad at guessing but I'm in love with all the gorgeous art this round has! I adore my story and can't wait to know who wrote it :)

From:

I'm BACK, y'all...!

HOLMESTICE GUESSES, PART THE FIRST: ART AND PODFIC

I know it always seems like artists should be the easiest to guess (there are far fewer artworks than fics in Holmestice, plus individual artistic style is visual and generally distinctive!) but I always seem to have trouble with it. I can stare at two artworks endlessly, being like, I don't know, *is* the shape of the noses similar? maybe?

Also, in the past I've been able to find more past works by the artists to compare to the current works, but this time I could hardly find any! I think maybe all y'all have moved on to different platforms from when I was last fully engaged in fandom...or maybe I just no longer understand how Tumblr works ;-)

Anyway, so, I'm not super confident about the logical foundations of my art guesses, but nonetheless, here we go!

a helping hand for spacepolicedude (ART, Russian Holmes) by paradiseandcola
This one's a guess of the old-school sort; paradiseandcola is the only participant who offered both art and Russian Holmes in their sign-up but didn't comment/kudos this work.

at this season of the year more than ever for Edosianorchids901 (ART, Granada) by ghostbees
You amazing art folks all seem to know each other (from the Holmesian Discord?) so I'm sure you know each other's artistic styles, but I just couldn't decide if this is recognizably ghostbees! And that's even though I was able to find a few of ghostbees' past works from previous rounds of Holmestice, so I had more data to go on here than with most of the Holmestice artworks. But I just couldn't tell. Finally, I made my choice based on the way Holmes and Watson are making eye contact in this work, because I realized eye contact between the two of them is a feature of most of the other ghostbees art I was able to find.

Chasing the Adventure for GhostofNuggetsPast (ART, Sherlock & Co. Podcast) by lucygturpin
The art style here really seems to match a previous Sherlock & Co work I found by lucygturpin... So much so that of course I found space to second-guess myself. ;-)

Little Talks for write_out (ART, Mycroft Holmes series) by oui_oui
Old-school again; narrowed this down simply because oui_oui matches on having offered both art and the Mycroft Holmes series!

The Meeting of the Minds for beamkatanachronicles (ART, Granada x Agatha Christie) by helloliriels
This is where I was going back and forth endlessly about which artwork was helloliriels and which was ghostbees. But I finally assigned ghostbees to the other one and thus helloliriels here. Yes, that's how advanced my capability to recognize art is. :D

In Another Life for FruitViking (ART, ACD) by Egg_in_Hell
Feels kinda like cheating, but once I knew the information I couldn't unknow it: The mods posted a note about FruitViking potentially getting two gifts (one from a pinch hitter and one from the originally assigned creator), which made it clear that there had to be a work that's for FruitViking and by a pinch hitter... And Egg_in_Hell is the only pinch hitter this round!

I Need You for iwantthatcoat (ART, Sherlock & Co) by ratinavan
This lush, intricate work seems like it's got to be unmistakably in some specific person's style...but like I said, I couldn't find examples of art by almost any of the artists who signed up for this round of Holmestice. So, is this piece in ratinavan's style in particular?? I don't know!

5 o’clock flattery for oui oui (ART, Russian Holmes) by spacepolicedude
This seemed like the most likely match, given that spacepolicedude offered both art and Russian Holmes, and especially once other creators had been attached to other works. (My notes literally read, "seems like the best match on fandom and I *think* the style matches okay?" I'm so good at understanding art, you guys!)

Fated Encounters for penaltywaltz (PODFIC, Star Trek x BBC) by ghostofnuggetspast
Here I think I did actually find a voice match to another podfic I found by ghostofnuggetspast! Plus, it doesn't hurt that ghostofnuggetspast's sign-up offered *only* podfic or limericks...and I don't think there are any limericks among the works. ;-)

From:

ghostofnuggetspast

Dear Starfishstar, You think you've pegged me, but have you heard of crypto-limericks, where writers show off their cool coding tricks? You must find the start inside of each part of the prose you are reading before it clicks. Maybe you should look closer.

Edited Date: 2024-12-21 04:18 am (UTC)

Re: Part 1

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starfishstar - Date: 2024-12-21 01:28 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Part 1

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ghostofnuggetspast - Date: 2024-12-22 09:37 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

ghostbees

I don’t know any of the artists this round and I was so surprised at everyone’s gorgeous pieces, truly wonderful to have so many visual treats this round to balance the great writing. I think because I’m not posting much lately so what I tend to share is a bit different from what I used to, if that makes sense? Glad you puzzled me out with the loving gaze though!

Re: Part 1

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starfishstar - Date: 2024-12-23 08:41 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

My dear Starfishstar, I was all set to rush in and mention how I had offered Russian Holmes art, and while I only do art on occasion, I have certainly offered it up for Holmestice before (and it’s often sneaky of me to do so, which is arguably my greatest delight in Holmestice…although there are also other things I like doing just as much…) but I had forgotten that I had indeed kuddosed this early work! My enthusiasm that we were underway with a new round of Holmestice once more got the better of me this time.

Edited Date: 2024-12-18 08:25 am (UTC)

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Aha, foiled by kudos-ing! I love it :D :D :D

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HOLMESTICE GUESSES, PART THE SECOND: “MORE HOLMES” FIC

Colourless Skein Detective Agency LLP: Introductions for ratscanwrite (Sherlock & Co. Podcast) by deelaundry
OMG, when I read this fic, I was so sure it was written by Iwantthatcoat! I was so sure! But this fic is one of the few places I was able to fit DeeLaundry, and Coat also seems to fit better elsewhere, so here we go. (Also, the author's vioce in replying to comments didn't quite sound like Coat? But Coat is such a known chameleon that I couldn't quite count on that.) DeeLaundry, if you indeed wrote this strange and wonderful piece of world-and-character-building, please know what a compliment it is, to my mind, that I mistook you for Coat!

crystallization for sarahenany (The Great Mouse Detective) by Blistering_Typhoons
There are a lot of folks in Holmestice now who are new to me, so I don't have much to go on besides my old bag of tricks of glancing at various works and trying to find a match in terms of punctuation and such. Blistering_Typhoons seems to match on punctuation and tagging, plus that uncapitalized title helps. :-)

The Final Adventure of a Problematic, Lying Detective (Aka Oklahomo IV) for DeeLaundry (NRK Sherlock Parody (Oklahomo)) by Iwantthatcoat
Iwantthatcoat was the almost-too-obvious choice here, in terms of someone the mods would have matched to recipient DeeLaundry, since the two of them match on an almost absurd number of fandoms. I kept trying to make the facts fit my theory that Coat wrote the Sherlock & Co AU above, but eventually had to cede to reason. If I'm wrong about Coat having written this NRK parody fic, though, then the other creators I considered here were vulgarweed (matches with DeeLaundry on a couple of fandoms) or tepidspongebath (only matches on BBC, but known for humor).

The Really Final Problem for armchair_elvis (Elementary x Mary Russell) by graycardinal
I hesitate to go for the obvious, but graycardinal was the only one to offer both of these 'verses, and the formatting does seem mostly to match. graycardinal, if this is indeed you, know that I used to recognize you a lot more easily by various things about formatting and author's notes, but I had a hard time with it this time – so you have gotten sneakier!

Scenes from Baker Towers for me!!! (221B Baker Towers) by sarahenany
This was actually one of my first guesses this round, since the creator of my thoughtful 221B Baker Towers fic was most likely someone who'd shown themself willing to dive into obscure 'verses (sarahenany didn't actually even offer 221B Baker Towers, but they offered the Shirley & Jamila series, a duo of middle grade graphic novels, and I VERY much bet that the mods matched us based on that extremely rare fandom!) And the author of my gift also seemed to be someone new to me, who hadn't written for me before (we who request the very obscure 'verses do tend to get to know one another...) so this seemed like a match all around. (Thank you, sarahenany, if so you be, for your gifts and your sweet enthusiasm!!)

The Responsibility of All Humanity for Vulgarweed (Dust and Shadow) by estelraca
And now I am boring again...estelraca was the only one to offer this 'verse. :D

Was There a Shadow, Was There Nothing for gardnerhill (Watson and Holmes Comics) by rachelindeed
Iwantthatcoat is the obvious choice here (matched with recipient gardnerhill on literally 10 different fandoms...including this, the Watson and Holmes Comics) but I'm pretty sure I've placed Coat elsewhere. (I think??) And vulgarweed is the other person who offered the Watson and Holmes Comics, but I think I need to place them elsewhere, too. (See below.) So that left rachelindeed (didn't offer this fandom, but matched with gardnerhill on plenty of other fandoms and seems like someone willing to branch out into a new one) or beamkatanachronicles (an excellent match for gardnerhill on numerous fandoms, including rare ones, but someone I don't know and can't guess whether they might have jumped to a new fandom). So I took the safer bet, rachelindeed!

Blood of the Covenant, Water of the Womb for rabidsamfan (Saberhagen Holmes-Dracula File) by vulgarweed
This one gave me trouble too, because only graycardinal offered this rare 'verse (the Saberhagen Holmes-Dracula File) but I'd already placed graycardinal elsewhere, for an even more niche fic (Elementary x Mary Russell crossover). (Also, this Saberhagen fic is Holmes/Watson – would graycardinal have written Holmes/Watson?) So I am cautiously placing vulgarweed here. But if I'm wrong, and graycardinal wrote this Saberhagen work, then vulgarweed wrote the Watson and Holmes Comics fic above!

Edited Date: 2024-12-18 04:01 pm (UTC)

From:

Joining in on the fun!

Wellllllll…..I will admit, Colourless Skein does read like me.
And the comments absolutely do not read like me, (they don’t read like DeeLaundry either, tbh), *which, therefore, absolutely does read like me*. But my calling attention to this does not read like me. Or maybe it does. Come to think of it, it does.

Hmmmm what else was possibly me?

Oklahomo! Well the author does imply they didn’t intend to write in it and saw it and said yes I want this to exist. And I don’t think I offered it as such, but many of our older members are well-aware of this pretty obscure fandom. I will say, newer members are tending to skew a bit younger, so maybe not so much them. Let that inform future deductions! Could be me. I will say I am very happy this exists in any case because if we ever do get a S5, it seems to me it will not be anything NRK takes up again?

Was There A Shadow…also a good guess because I adore Watson & Holmes. I adore them so much I have been talking them up over on the Sh&Co Discord so…a lot of new members..who are Not Me are now aware of this verse. As Sherlock is often portrayed as POC in that fandom, I might send you that way. Or. I may just be deflecting from…myself.

I love guessing posts!

Re: Part 2

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starfishstar - Date: 2024-12-18 09:44 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Part 2

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iwantthatcoat - Date: 2024-12-18 11:32 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

graycardinal

I'd twirl my mustache, but (a) it was never long enough to twirl in the first place, and (b) I shaved it off earlier this year.

That said: if you're right that I wrote the Saberhagen piece, and vulgarweed wrote W&H, then who wrote Elementary and Russell? (I'd think the most likely way for that set of dominoes to fall over is via 'Coat, but we have enough newer players nowadays that I hesitate to rule any of them out, and unlike the Saberhagen, neither of those two fandoms is all that obscure.)

I will also note that sanguinity regularly (and with no little justification) often called me out for insufficient levels of sneakiness in prior rounds....

Re: Part 2

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starfishstar - Date: 2024-12-19 11:42 pm (UTC) - Expand

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HOLMESTICE GUESSES, PART THE THIRD: BBC FIC

I apologize that this section of the guesses is going to be pretty boring on my part; almost everything amounts to pretty much, "I think the math works out this way?"

SH-221 for helloliriels (BBC) by catlock_holmes
The formatting seems to match (and there were only a couple other possibilities here, Rachelea and penaltywaltz, and I ended up putting them elsewhere).

Mrs. Turner's Problem for rachelindeed (BBC) by tepidspongebath
This one must have been a process of elimination, because it seems I haven't even left myself any notes about it! This must have simply been where I could best get tepidspongebath to fit.

A Small Request for Rachelea (BBC) by write_out
This is one of the only fics I was able to attach write_out to (as someone who offered only BBC) and the formatting more or less matches. And the only other possibilities here were tepidspongebath and iwantthatcoat, neither of whom seems all that likely.

Fluent in Silence for mercurialkitty (BBC) by justin_case
Not much to go on here, because this is someone I don't know at all! But the author's note says this is this person's first fic, so it did have to be someone I'm not yet familiar with. :-)

A Desire For Future Progeny for justin_case (BBC) by penaltywaltz
Tagging matches well; I questioned whether penaltywaltz would write Sherlock/John, since I know that's not their main thing, but it does seem they've done it a few times before.

The Devil Himself for Catlock_Holmes (BBC) by Rachelea
I made a kind of wild guess here that this might be Rachelea, based on the description of the fic matching some of the interests expressed in Rachelea's sign-up. But then this match continued to work even as other pieces got put into place around it, so I guess I'm sticking to it!

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From:

justin_case - Date: 2024-12-20 04:15 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

spacepolicedude

Soo im not sure who drew my art, but i swear i recognised this style… from tumblr…But oh boy im absolutely in love with it

From:

spacepolicedude

I just know that when it reveals ill be slapping my hand across my face as in “OF COURSE-“. I saw you, mysterious person, i did

From:

“The Devil Himself” mostly matches rachelindeed’s patterns of punctuation. (Of course, someone may have taken to imitating that excellent writer to throw guessers off their game, which would not surprise me.) The quotes are curly rather than straight, but this could be explained by a switch to new word-processing software. The dashes are - rather than —, which can’t. In any case, for an author to dive back into BBC Sherlock fandom after a decade of silence would be unexpected… but not impossible. And the writing is as stunning as I’ve come to expect from rachelindeed.

Actually, never mind. I just filtered previous years of Holmestice for “Eurus Holmes.” The only person participating this year who’s written Eurus in previous years is Iwantthatcoat, who’s an equally stunning writer. I’m changing my guess to Iwantthatcoat for “The Devil Himself.”

(For the record, I'm not editing this comment; I just write in a conversational style.)

“conductor of light”: I guess Vulgarweed (a known fan of magical realism).

“The Fish That Never Swam”: I guess gardnerhill.

“like lightning (make the earth like day)” is written in third person, present tense — atypical for ACD Holmes — and I’m pretty sure I remember somebody who does that all the time, but for the life of me I can’t work out who. This is going to bug me for the rest of the day.

(...probably it's somebody who wasn't participating this year anyway, but what if it wasn't???)

“Chain Reaction”: I guess happyeverafter72.

Three people wrote Shirley & Jamila fic, a fandom which previously had only two works (three if you count rachelindeed’s multiverse vid, which wasn’t tagged with the fandom). None of the new works are in the same style as the old works. I just want to point that out.

That’s another thought — “reichenbach done right” could be by rachelindeed, who we know is aware of the fandom. Okay, yeah, rachelindeed for “reichenbach done right.”

As for the art…

“The Meeting of the Minds”: I guess ghostbees / Vernets.

“a helping hand”: I guess paradiseandcola.

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HOLMESTICE GUESSES, PART THE FOURTH: ACD AND ACD-ADJACENT FIC

Very quick and dirty, before it's too late!!!

Chain Reaction for estelraca (Granada) by edosianorchids901
The tagging and summary style matches, also punctuation. FYI I slotted this guess in pretty early and then stuck with it, so if I'm wrong about this one, I'm probably wrong about much else!

hold on tight to me, darling for paradiseandcola (Bert Coules) by themonstrumologist
Here too, the formatting all matches.

like lightning (make the earth like day) for tepidspongebath (ACD) by armchair_elvis
Apparently I didn't leave myself any notes about this. I wish I remember why I made this match! It was probably something about formatting!

Luaidh mo chèile for happyeverafter72 (Rathbone) by thefruitviking
Only thefruitviking or Iwantthatcoat matched this fandom, and I was pretty confident about having placed Coat elsewhere, and the formatting does seem to match thefruitviking.

the night shift for Blistering_Typhoons (ACD) by beamkatanachronicles
The formatting matches, especially the use of two hyphens then a space, and there's also the lowercase title.
.
.
.
Then come these final four ACD fics that gave me so much trouble and chewed up so much more time than anything else!

The Fish That Never Swam for vernets (ACD) by gardnerhill
I had four creators left and four ACD fics, and I just could not find anything concrete to grasp onto. This fic doesn't have any hallmarks I would think of as typical for a gardnerhill fic, but it does have a bit of formatting that matches: a hashtag as section break.

A Letter From France for graycardinal (ACD) by rabidsamfan
This fic is so intricate and thoughtful, and the WWI setting made me think of a gorgeous prior WWI epistolary fic by rachelindeed...so I considered rachelindeed for authorship here...but surely that was unlikely, to write a fic again covering similar ground? And I was really, really having trouble placing rabidsamfan anywhere, so finally I ended up with rabidsamfan here. (It was slightly based on something about paragraph length, I think?)

A Mudlark's Tale for Alec / themonstrumologist (ACD) by happyeverafter72
Another fic where I just couldn't find particularly telltale signs to attach to any specific creator! But as some of the others started to fall into place, I thought that maybe it would be reasonable to think happyeverafter72 might be more likely than some of the others to have used the Queerplatonic Sherlock Holmes/John Watson tag?

conductor of light for Lucy G Turpin / MarianafortheWin (ACD) by rachelindeed
Debated about this one for a long time! It just wasn't pinging for me as clearly any one person's work. (For example, I tend to think I'll recognize rachelindeed's work more readily, which is why I initially didn't consider rachelindeed strongly here.) But as my options narrowed, I reconsidered: This fic has fantasy/magic, a genre rachelindeed loves, and it's gorgeously written and intricately thought out – certainly attributes I associate with rachelindeed. And then, at last, I found some formatting that fits! (Two asterisks as section breaks.) Oh, and lately rachelindeed has somewhat frequently used lower case titles, so that works too.

.
.
.
That's all, folks. starfishstar, over and out!

From:

"The Fish That Never Swam" actually felt really distinctively gardnerhill to me. I can't say why exactly, but something about the combination of fluff, tongue-in-cheek humor, nature, finances, and diegetic metacommentary makes me think of them (? I'm just now realizing that I don't know anyone's pronouns).

Re: Part 4

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starfishstar - Date: 2024-12-21 01:39 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Part 4

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beamkatanachronicles - Date: 2024-12-22 08:18 pm (UTC) - Expand

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Mods, can we get a !guessing post tag?

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Ooh, while we're talking about tags: Could we also get the "!master list" tag back? I was trying to look back through past rounds' master lists, but it was hard because in recent years not all of them have been tagged as such. (Looks like Summer 2021, Winter 2022, Summer 2023, and Winter 2023 got the tag, but not the rounds in between – for example, Summer 2024 doesn't have it.)

Thank you, mods!!

<3

(no subject)

From:

holmesticemods - Date: 2024-12-21 08:47 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

graycardinal

This will be spectacularly scattershot and incomplete, but I really, really wanted to get in a few bits of guesswork prior to reveals.

A Letter From France: ???
This was the gift work written for me, it is extraordinary on both an emotional level and as well-researched history, and any guess I make as to authorship is sheerest throwing-up-hands speculation. There are simply too many newer players or others whose work I haven't seen enough of, and likewise too many excellent veteran contributors in the game. If it's a veteran, my guess would be gardnerhill or rachelindeed, or maybe iwanttnatcoat; if it's a newer writer or someone I've been overlooking, perhaps estelraca or happyeverafter72. (If it turns out to be armchair_elvis, I will thwack myself on the forehead for no reason in particular save "I should have seen that!")

Blood of the Covenant, Water of the Womb: rabidsamfan
As one of the serious Saberhagan fans in the gallery, I can't very well overlook this (really good) story (that is, assuming that I didn't write it...and while I grant that it would be an unlikely work for me to have written given the pairing, whoever did write it has at least as deep a grounding as I do in the Saberhagen canon). This is again a pure guess, rather than any sort of deduction....

conductor of light: rachelindeed
As this round's purest out-and-out fantasy, I think this almost has to be rachelindeed's work (unless, as with others of my guesses, its author is someone new or someone whose work I've paid too little attention to over time). I made the mistake a round or two back of not considering her for a work of somewhat similar tone; this story makes me think of that error, and thus encourages me not to make it again.

Various treats for Basil of Baker Street/Great Mouse Detective: mundungus42
mundungus42 wrote a really, really fascinating Basil/Ratigan fic a round or two back that got quite a bit of attention (and deservedly so). They weren't signed up this round (being very, very busy in RL this yaer), but I have to think a couple of the multiple treats this round have their fingerprints attached.

And now to bed....

From:

I am clearly out of practice at this game, because we both guessed rachelindeed for "conductor of light" but your guess is so much more confident than mine!

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From:

deelaundry

I am not a good guesser but am THRILLED to see the analyses of people who are!

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Before it's too late, anyone want to play Two Truths and a Lie? I'd start, but I didn't write this year. (I could lie about that, sure, but it feels unsporting....)

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