holmestice | A Study in Violin Deconstruction (Reply)

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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.