Over the next few days to a week, I'll be reworking the setting and ethos of the Solarpunk AU to fit more in line with the massively utopian setup we've talked about in the thread. I haven't been a solarpunk for long, but it's already very dear to my heart and I want to get this right. There's a lot of stuff I didn't include because I couldn't see how to maintain the pacing... but the pacing's gentle anyway and I think I was trying to convince myself it wasn't just being rushed out.

I have been desperate to contribute something to the panoply of PPC AUs ever since I first read the Trouserverse stories. I'm keenly aware that I don't write many stories at all, and the ones I do write I don't finish. I wanted to... well, I wanted to show off my shiny new toys, and I forgot to look before I leaped. What this story was was a really, really good... draft. And you guys deserve the finished product.

So I'mma finish it.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and constructive criticism. I couldn't ask for a better sounding Board. =]

Over the next few days to a week, I'll be reworking the setting and ethos of the Solarpunk AU to fit more in line with the massively utopian setup we've talked about in the thread. I haven't been a solarpunk for long, but it's already very dear to my heart and I want to get this right. There's a lot of stuff I didn't include because I couldn't see how to maintain the pacing... but the pacing's gentle anyway and I think I was trying to convince myself it wasn't just being rushed out.

I have been desperate to contribute something to the panoply of PPC AUs ever since I first read the Trouserverse stories. I'm keenly aware that I don't write many stories at all, and the ones I do write I don't finish. I wanted to... well, I wanted to show off my shiny new toys, and I forgot to look before I leaped. What this story was was a really, really good... draft. And you guys deserve the finished product.

So I'mma finish it.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and constructive criticism. I couldn't ask for a better sounding Board. =]

<3

Since hS basically said everything that I would have said, as well as things that I never thought of but now makes sense, I'll just jump right into the corrections:

1) Yes, ma’am. Still a bit stiff, but it’s just his way. He’ll be right, no worries.
I believe you mean to say, "He'll be alright".

2) The Male Gingko
I believe that this is the PPC's first ever mini-Flower! (The correct spelling is "Ginkgo".)

3) And if there’s anyone vulnerable to people going a bit flamethrower-crazy, it’s a five-foot pitcher planet with a nervous disposition.
I believe you meant "pitcher plant," unless Victreebel decided to role-play as part of a planetarium for some odd reason...

I've read this, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. The writing's good, but something's bugging me and I don't know what. It's probably just me, though.
That said: what is up with the Pokémon AU? That one has a lot of promise and looks like tonnes of fun.
Oh, and, related to that: what 'mon should I switch Talonflame for if I want to take Leader!Des' team and use it for Monotype battling (Talonflame is banned in Monotype)?

... trying to pin down what bothers me about this story.

It's not the worldbuilding. I love the worldbuilding (and the name-drop of Tree Fu Bom, don't think I missed that); the idea of RCs growing their own produce and trading it around fits in very nicely, and the smell-alert is a lovely concept.

I think I've figured it out, though. At its heart, this is still very much a PPC story. I didn't feel like I was exploring a new world - I felt like someone had changed around some of the technology.

Obviously, it's your story, etc etc. But the reason I enjoy things like the TCDA, or the FPF, is that they feel... different. The stories you can tell in a 'PPC' running around in spaceships are very different to the ones you can tell in HQ.

Like I say, it's not the worldbuilding. I wouldn't have done it how you did (why not go all the way and just set up HQ outside?), but that's fine, different people write different things, and I can understand your desire to keep things in a building. But the feel of the story... wasn't 'move quietly and plant things'. It was 'the PPC'.

-You have (star, even) an Internal Affairs department in a supposedly laid-back setting. They act (per the Tiger Lily) just like a police force. Where's the calm, soothing aspect of that?

-People go flamethrower-crazy often enough that the term exists. Why? This is the calm, gentle PPC; why is there still enough stress to make people snap?

-You still have a DoDAEG in a solarpunk setting. Why not take the opportunity to invent something new? (Random notion: they don't like doing it, but in the event of severe solar/water outages, the energy folks have emergency biomass generators. When the suns get dim, people have to start donating fruit as fuel...)

-You still kill Suvians (even if you do grow blue-green algae off their bodies). I can't think of a less blunt way to say this: what's the point of being calm and soothing if you're keeping the violent murder part of the setting the same? ;P

I liked the worldbuilding. I liked the writing. I just feel like this is a halfway-story, not a full-fledged AU.

hS

Unless you're, say, allergic to pollen.

Also, I'm curious as to how much of the stuff in this setting is based off modern technological innovations.
Crazy stuff happening, and all.

And I didn't see any problems, myself. ^^

Thank you for writing!

I always love seeing AUs of the PPC. In this case, I like seeing this softer, more relaxed take on the PPC. It's a nice change of pace considering that most of the PPC AUs I know of (including the ones I created) tend to run along the lines of "everything is terrible and will probably continue to be so."

There's also some very top-notch world-building, which is another thing I love. Growing chairs with magic and using them for trade, the scent-based console alerts, and the 3D printers are all nice touches. My one complaint regarding that would be the second-to-last paragraph. That last bunch of additional details felt shoehorned in considering that nothing I saw beforehand indicated Lola had any questions about how the universe worked.

To sum up, well done! While this is not something I myself would write a story in, I'm glad it exists.

I just wanna say right now that I love love love the smell-alert. It's beautiful, and somebody should make that a thing in the Prime-verse. ^_^ Though I don't know what they would do for, say, the Sunflower Official or the Lichen. They're not particularly smelly.

Anyway, it reminds me of the Brothers, a collective species (I think that was the term, but am not sure) found in Greg Bear's The Anvil of the Stars, who communicate partly by scent. They are pretty much awesome. I'd write a Brother agent if I had actual ideas besides "that would be cool."

Now I shall attempt to finish reading the story before I have to run off to work.

~Neshomeh