I love the dialogue you made for Frag and Norion, especially the part where Norion threatens Danny and no one takes her seriously.

I'll admit I'm biased towards Danny's story because of their cameos, but both of the interludes were quite enjoyable. Laura seems like a very fun character to write, albeit not a fun one to get in the way of.

Personally I really enjoyed the whole thing, although I think Danny's interlude interested me more than Laura/Rachel.

Really love the idea of the club, and hope you'll get the chance to explore it more in the future, as well as seeing it in some other stories too.

... Would cover the short version of my response, but for the sake of me trying to write some-what more in-depth opinions, I'll use a few more words.

I liked the description for the Pennacook Club. My mental image was of the exclusive hunting club in The Beast Within, A Gabriel Knight Mystery. That said, I do agree with Phobos, that a little more info on who else might be in it would have been nice. After all, in an asari, a krogan, and a troll can be in it, I'm sure ti has plenty of interesting and upscale (as the PPC can be) individuals.

I really liked that one of the Flowers showed up. Unexpected, fun, and gives them some more depth then just being the nasty bosses. The idea of her sitting in a blub with the others, sipping some fancy drink and rolling dice is a very fun mental image.

Laura. Laura, Laura, Laura. Very funny, and certainly TF2 Soldierish. She is the best kind of teacher, one who will be the hardass driving force, but also someone you can blow things up in glee with. Rachel is as excitable and fun as ever (and also showing some good knowledge).

All in all, it was well worth the time to read it. Good job!

(Also, in response to Phobos, I know a couple of pen and paper RPGs that have plenty of class(es)) :P

First off, let me just say that I am very behind in my PPC related reading. As such, this is the first I've read of Danny, Laura, and Rachel. That being said, I think these two short stories were excellent introductions for the three of them.

Let's first look at Danny's story...since it is first.

I liked the thought that you put into the bars in HQ. While I am not convinced that we need that many bars, I still appreciate the way you gave each one a personality. I've been to a number of bars in my day, and each one is different. So, spot on with that.

I would have liked more information about this club they are a part of. Who runs it? What else was going on in the room? Was anyone else even there? You had some nice details, but the bigger picture would have been nice, as well.

You managed to give pencil-and-paper RPGs a bit of class, well done. I liked the in-game scenes with their Superhero characters. Was that a specific system, or just something you made up?

All of the interactions were well done. I got a real sense of the group dynamic.

The best part of Danny's section, for me, was the arrival of the Rose of Sharon. It had not even occurred to me at that point that a Flower would be involved in something like this. So, well done for surprising me.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Danny's section. It appealed to my inner nerd, as well as to my outer nerd.


On to Laura and Rachel's section.

The set up of this section was a lot of fun. Reminded me of Meet the Soldier from TF2. You did an excellent job of making Laura's seriousness funny.

Laura makes a good point about the brain being the most important weapon. If you have nothing else, at least you have your brain. Sometimes, that just has to be enough.

The Wii-mote bit was quite well done. You had a lot of tension and energy going and you were really clipping along, and the the whole thing kind of dissolves into silliness. It was an excellent use of tone shift.

I couldn't really find anything wrong with this one. It was a very strong piece. The interactions were solid, the characters were fun, and the tone was spot on.

Well done, all around.

-Phobos

I can't imagine you ever asking for concrit, chiefly because I really don't think you need it. I mean, for cryin' out loud, you wrote the Sandwich!Stu mission! It doesn't get much funnier than that.

These are a good pair of interludes. I think I preferred the Laura and Rachel half of the story, since that had a lot more energy to it than the other one. For Danny's interlude, I thought they were planning on doing an Ocean's 11 kind of thing before I realized they were playing a weird sci-fi variation of D&D. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, though, because that lent itself to some nice energy.

And the rapport between the characters? Always nice.

Just out of curiosity: did you co-write Fang and Norion with Firebird?

I put these in the document disclaimer, but I might as well put them here too. Many thanks to doctorlit for betaing and to Firebird776 for allowing me to use the characters of Frag and Norion.