I was super anxious about the outcome when I was in a three way tie - and not because I don't have a theme idea. I just didn't want to win with an idea I just pulled out of my earhole one day. Or at least I didn't want to win over Slanputin, with the gobs-macking
Loom.
As for the author guesses, I made a few assumptions (which were wrong) about who had entered, which threw me off somewhat.
But here are my cryptic lines, who and what they refer to, and the mysterious Boblogic behind them.
He comes from empty tunnels to reveal the emptiness of form.
My First Error - which compounded another. I thought Y'ttar / Ratty had clamped his renowned comical rat-thing claw around the throat of Cold Blooded dignity with "Blasphemy". If I had known thedarkfourth had put in an entry, I might not have been so hasty to assume that the unknown comical style came from another subversive source. Cryptic logic - the empty tunnels referred to the sadly deserted story tunnels on the UnderEmpire forum, and the emptiness of form was meant to indicate hollow religious observance. Poignant, but wrong.
When there is no time there will be bananas
Point. Easy Essmir wrote the lovely Day in the Life. The reference was to his fake "don't have time to enter" whine and the unfortunate crotch banana discussion from elsewhere. Ask an adult before you use the forum search tool.
He needs no halo to show his divine mastery of the crystal fragments
Point. Xholanka the lost one wrote a continuation of his story from last comp. Easy. Cryptic Reference - The artist formerly known as Oxytol (Now Xholankha the lost one) once famously asked for "help" but his spellcheck software substituted a plea for a "halo". The crystal fragments were in the first lines of
Changing Times.
Afterwards he will pass through the grove of fangs.
Point. Pendrake wrote t
he Monument, hopefully because of the clamour for him to write more after he won a comp with
Rogue Skink. Reference - the story intro and finish occur after the events in Rogue Skink, but the meat of it happens in flashback long before Rogue Skink. I am amused / amazed that various critiquers have taken a vastly different interpretation of the story away because they didn't have the context of the broader narrative. As for Fang-grove trees, and spine-burls, and harkle berries, Pendrakes signature is to include little botanical details which make his world richer without actually expending a lot of words. I have copied him over and over in my writing - including as recently as today.
T
he Ancient One has placed his seal, bringing an Ixti grub to a knife fight.
OK this only meant something on the day it was posted. It wasn't about the comp, but rather because
@Crowsfoot randomly bumped the "like" button with his zimmer frame again. I was implying that geri-attic painters had no legitimate point of view in the excessively intellectual fluff forum. Even before Scalenex wielded the comic-timing-nerf bat, this made no sense. I'm not even sure that the demented senior citizen even noticed
T
he Legend of the Stymphalian Bird.
Fail. I assumed that
@Hyperborean would enter, and I attributed Seraphon Legend to her. The blood spraying, head lopping and guts sizzling fun should have told me this was Bowser's. Reference - I once thought the "real stegadon" avatar was a bespectacled stymphalian bird, "bird" = "Gurl", + Legend.
Acceptable losses - no big deal.
Point. Discomute and
Certainty. I didn't get it until a few comments pointed me in the right direction, but ambiguously evil / not evil characters are a Disco trademark. Reference - the story was the only one which was really discussed acceptable losses, and Discomute's Blood Bowl avatar proclaims that he is a Big Deal.
Its a who? An old, blood soaked veteran with a new twinkle in his eye.
Easy Point. Oldblood Itzahuan wrote "Sunblood". After his excellent "Ghosts we Have" last time, I had my eye out for something atmospheric, well researched and well written. Reference - read the first 6 words of the clue out loud, and the story was about an old blood who became a sparkle.
H
e was weft behind when he started his cwoss stitch.
Gimme point. Slanputin with "the Loom". No one writes mood, light and shadow like this. I affirm that this was my favourite for the sombre mood it captured. Reference - "Weft" is weaving term (? the horizontal strands/) and left behind with "Cwoss (cross) stitch" refers to his late entry last comp with "One thousand crimson crosses" which I think would have won. Deadlines and word counts are not Slanputn's strong suits.
We drown under double-moon tides. We surface with the new wave's crest
Fail. I was sure that Trociu would enter the comp, and by process of elimination I concluded this was his. I'm glad Y'ttar accepted as a complement my English-not-first-language comment. And by the way, I attributed "Blasphemy" to him because the humour seemed very English. England is "Old Blighty", Skavenblight means rats and why are there hairs on the bar of soap beside the spawning pool? Boblogic is impeccable.
The Lost One
Technical Point. I forgot to do a clue for it, but by now everyone should know that Tlac'natai knew that I knew that everyone else suspected that I had an inkling that he wrote "Sun Turns Gears of War". I enjoyed it so much that I wrote a fanfic before the voting period was up.
7 author guesses correct out of a possible 10 (guessing my own would have been impossible - I was being too sneaky) Y'ttar and Bowser because I was expecting other authors, and TDF because there was no way he had time to write something this good
. 7/10 is twice as good as usual for me.
Conratulations to all of the worthy entrants and Y'ttar. HUGE Thanks to Scalenex for lifting his feeble hand from his death bed to click "post reply". And for helping many of the authors polish their entries so that their stories weren't obscured by a miasma of redundant apostrophes.
.
I thought i'd gotten quite good at who wrote what, but i got most of my predictions wrong this time. Congrats to the other authors for eluding me so! 
) was mine all along.
