critiquaire for @Sunclaw68 link to piece: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/929601083/ 305 words (after subtracting quotes) First off, this is very nice, and I love the direction you took with this daily! It definitely stands out among the others I’ve seen with this prompt. For someone who already has an understanding of these characters, I think this would be an awesome read, since there are enough hints to the characters’ outside lives that a fanfic reader would make the connections on their own no problem. However, as someone who isn’t familiar with the source material (other than a general understanding that these guys are detectives) I would like a little more context. Why has he received so many gifts before? What connection does Ms Hudson have with the other two? Do they all live together? Why do they seem so frantic to find out what the bouquet's meaning is? (I know it’s mentioned to be a boredom buster, but it feels pretty urgent). “the disorderly clump — for it could not truly be called a cultivated bouquet — of unconventional flowers was a welcome reason to stave off boredom, for both of them.” This suggestion may or may not be grammatically sound, but I think it would flow better to have “of unconventional flowers” before the em dashes instead of after, as it was a little unclear to me what the “disorderly clump” was. The sentence that this is a part of also runs a bit long, it could be easier to read if it was split at some point. I had a similar bit of confusion with this section. “The fire had nearly died down with no one paying attention to it. Dr. Watson noticed it first, actually […]” Here, it seems like Dr. Watson is noticing the fire dying down, as the actual thing he noticed isn’t mentioned for a bit. Finally, in the phrase “sitting so innocently on one of their armchairs despite having taken so much of their time,” the use of “despite” seems to imply that taking up time should make it harder for the bouquet to be sitting there. Overall, great job! The style overall feels pretty sophisticated, which works well with everything else.
