Nytefyre posted a comment on Saturday 23rd February 2013 1:16pm for All Good Things . . .

I understand the reason for the structure, and the gaps, but it was disjointing when reading it to jump around at the end. The end run seemed very rushed, being told in flashback mode seemed to move from a more action based telling to a recap mode, even for diary/letter entries. I liked the stories, and will be moving to Ever After next.

Thanks for posting.

BrightMikal posted a comment on Sunday 7th February 2010 12:01am for All Good Things . . .

I don't normally flame, but this chapter is a horrible ending. It doesn't fit in at all with the story! Did you get bored of the universe or something? The earlier chapters were really nice, but even then some of them were out of character.

Like Harry hiding things from Ginny, or not realising each other's emotions. The increased amount of diary/letter entries to cover time was really different too, and I think it was better if you just wrote one shots into the universe, rather than trying to write a overview of the years.

Sorry, but I loved TLOS, and this just isn't up to it's standard, I think. Your writing is great, (pretty awesome acutally, with the descriptive paragraphs, feelings, and characters you can really 'like'), but even that doesn't really help here.

Of course, you're the author, so you have complete control. As much as I flamed here, I do enjoy (most) of your work, and write more!

Dad posted a comment on Tuesday 1st December 2009 8:18am for All Good Things . . .

That was entertaining, readable and enjoyable, but like the intermission thing in your Letters of Summer, I thought it was a bit disjointed -O.K. you wrote it as you wanted, but I was expecting more. The Gringots battle was fabulous but the final battle with Voldemort, as explained, was a bit flat. I will of course continue to read the rest of you stuff, but killing off Giny and Ron sounds very upsetting.

Kokopelli replied:

Thanks for your thoughtful reading.

TLOS was supposed to be a long mega-story (in excess of 200,000 words).

SFSY was a) supposed to tie up some of the loose plot ends from TLOS and b) be an experiment is telling shorter stories - hence "stories from six/seventh year."   My goal was to make each chapter a somewhat stand-alone short story - rather like stringing beads on a necklace.   Many of my thoughtful readers complained about the ending - I was doing this deliberately - telling it from Madison's POV.   If I'd told it from Harry or Ginny's POV, it would have been much longer.   I wanted to finish this before HPDH came out, so I took the shortcut.

The end of this cycle is Ever After, which will not be published (at least by me).

cmburleson posted a comment on Monday 18th August 2008 4:52pm for All Good Things . . .

Wow, An excellent story that never got the proper climax or ending. I'd guess from the Authors notes that you just needed a break from this long, lovely series n hope that you will come back an redo the chapters to provide for a suitable final battle scene that would represent the strength and power of the characters you created.
I won't go into the shipper thing at the end, I don't see the point in appeaseing the disgruntled in the subscript and tossing out the pleased in one shot, alas to each their own. I will point out your missing details on 8 characters, which is why I do hope you revisit this excellent story and give it another go. Fine story till the last two chapters!

Kokopelli replied:

I'm glad you enjoyed the stories.   As I've written elsewhere, I had a choice to make - either abandon this story, or wrap up the threads and arcs in a compressed manner.   As to the shipping stuff - it's not appeasement - the TLOS story arc ends with Ever After - which is a H-Hr story.

I have a short story that needs finishing, and a short story that's begging to be written, but apart from that, I'm pretty much done with HP fan-fiction.   I have a job, a wife, kids, and a life that needs my attention more than Harry and Ginny do.   I also have a slim portfolio of original fiction (some mine, some collaborative) that needs to be shoehorned into my available time.   I will not be rewriting these chapters in the foreseeable future, if ever.

Grace and Peace,

JEC

IssaBissa posted a comment on Friday 1st February 2008 2:12am for All Good Things . . .

I absolutely love this story! Right up until the very last few chapters. Through out the series you writing has been well thought out and written with brilliant detailing. However, when start to approach the end of this marvelous series It appears that you were burned out in the the last 2 or 3 chapters. Your desire to just have the story done over took your desire for the well thought out details and plot enhancements that so famously stood out above many others. I felt the end was an off handed way to get the rest of the story out of the way so that you could just call it complete. Other then your disappointing end to the series Over all I would have to say that it was pretty darn well written. I would however like to encourage you in the future to push through and finish things the proper way and don't attempt to take a short cut to get there. Because its always noticed.

~ IssaBissa
Issabissahpmail@yahoo.com

Kokopelli replied:

Ask for a refund on your way out. ;-)

I started writing fan-fiction in the interregnum between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix.   I had a decent start to a story that absolutely fell apart with OotP, for a number of reasons that I've discussed elsewhere.   So I picked myself up and started writing a different story.  

Order of the Phoenix left us with a number of issues:

1) Dumbledore is directly responsible for most of what's painful in Harry's life - Harry has to resolve whether he's his own man or Dumbledore's puppet. Harry also has to sort out his grief and guilt over Sirius' death.

2) "the power the dark lord knows not" is love - so how does Harry figure this out?

3) Voldemort has the ability to invade Harry's mind, seemingly at will - so Harry's got to figure out a stop to this.

4) Voldemort is a very dangerous wizard who has dangerous minions - Harry has to get dangerous and get allies.

And so I wrote a "summer after fifth year" story which addressed these four points - and if I say so myself, I think I did a fairly decent job on this.

When I'd finished TLOS, I still had plot issues that I wanted to resolve, but I wasn't inclined to write another 200,000 word saga.  

Stories from Sixth (and Seventh) year was an ongoing experiment - rather than writing one long multi-chaptered story, I'd take my JKR adapted settings and characters and write a bunch of short stories that could stand on their own, or could be strung like beads on a string to make a longer narrative.

As HPDH approached, I found my desire to finish SFSY to be very low - I'd moved on as a writer - I was spending most of my time and energy writing original fiction and betaing other writers (not in equal amounts!).  

So, I could either abandon SFSY (which I'd resolved to not do) or figure out a way to compress things.

Building off of the write-a-stand-alone-short-story theme of SFSY, I decided to wind things up using Madison (an OC I'd grown fond of) to tell the story as a retrospective.

If I were writing this for money, I'd have sucked it up and just finished the story so I could get paid and start on the next book - but I'm not getting paid - my fan-fiction is my writing laboratory where I've honed my skills as a writer for the past five years or so.  

So, given the fact that it was either compress things, or consign this to the ash heap of ' yet another abandoned fan-fic,'   which should I have done?   Writing another 50,000 to 60,000 words was not an option - my life will not support that right now.

So, given this knowledge, how do you view the last chapters now?

J

Taegeous posted a comment on Thursday 31st May 2007 9:50am for All Good Things . . .

TLOS was one of the first fanfic stories I ever read, back on another website I shall not name, and it remains in the top 5 of my all-time favorites. I thought SFSY was a great sequel, with all the intelligence of the original and a satisfying plot...right until the end.

I did not connect with the last chapter at all; it didn't seem to match everything that came before it. The last chapter felt like it was centered around the OC's life, rather than being focused on Harry's story. Maybe that's because you plan to do Ever After, where we will get the real story and not a summary by a 3rd party observer.

As for Harry, with all his training & power, his great plan to stop V was so lame that Malfoy was going to rape Ginny's "dead" body, if not for the unforeseen and timely intervention of a second year who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. When he returned, he just shrugged off the fact that Ginny, his love and bonded mate, was almost raped and he wasn't there to stop it. Seems pretty callous to me.

I felt the religious overtones of the story were well thought out and given just enough weight, blending nicely into a world based on magic, until Harry goes back in time to the beginning of the creation where he is glad to assist some angels in saving the Snow Dragons. This is a far cry from the earlier aspects of the story: attending services, going to confession, communion, etc. Up until that point, it had seemed quite believable and I could relate to. Religion is about faith after all, not being the repairman that God rings up when he's in a tight spot.

All that being said, I've truly enjoyed all your works, outtakes, and intermissions; I appreciate the hard work that you put into them. I'm looking forward to reading your newest posts, especially Ever After, whenever you decide to take it up. Thanks for the stories.

Kokopelli replied:

Hmm, where to start.

TLOS has been posted at: PhoenixSong.net (still there), SIYE (still there), SugarQuill.net (pulled at my request), and WizardTales.net (pulled at my request).

The last chapter was an epilogue of sorts.   My fan-fiction has been more or less one continuous experiment in the mechanics of story-telling - telling stories through letters, experimenting with point-of-view, telling long stories, telling short stories.   As HPDH approached, I saw that I had a window of opportunity, I could either figure out a way to compress the last part of the narrative and wind up all of the loose ends, or HPDH would appear, and I'd no longer have the heart to work on a story, that, frankly, I wasn't all that committed to finishing.  

So, for the sake of my readers, I decided to go for the epilogue-on-steroids approach, telling the story through Madison, who really was one of my favorite characters in SFSY.  

As for Harry's plan - he did stop V.   Malfoy wouldn't have been able to violate Ginny's body - the magic protecting her would have stopped that.   Harry knew that, I knew that, but Madison didn't.  

As far as the Snow Dragon bit, that was planned from the beginning - it's not that God needed Harry's help - it's that God put Harry into this situation so that Harry would have something to do - which if you see things from a Christian world view, is perfectly sensible.   The Snow Dragons were angels that were no longer immortal, having been wounded during the War in Heaven.   Harry was used as the template to take a spirit and pour it into a mainly spiritual/partially physical construct, which is what the Snow Dragon's were - they were not immortal again, but being now partly corporeal, they could reproduce, and could live on through their offspring.   If it didn't work for you, you can always ask for a refund.

Ever After?   Maybe it'll get written - someday - but I wouldn't   hold my breath if I were you.

hptrump posted a comment on Wednesday 18th April 2007 12:43pm for All Good Things . . .

Yes, I am one of the Harry & Ginny purist but I would not hate you for it. I just would not read it.

elizabeth d posted a comment on Tuesday 27th March 2007 9:51pm for All Good Things . . .

I NEVER read works in progress, because you never know when a story will be abandoned. However, I loved TLOS so much I couldn't resist starting this one right away. Thanks for finishing the saga. The way you brought the "Servant of Light" full circle was nicely done. I didn't see it coming.

Kokopelli replied:

I don't abandon stories - never have.

Deborahsu posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 5:17am for All Good Things . . .

I have truly enjoyed this series/universe. Thank you for sharing it with us! I do look forward to the bits & pieces you add along the way.

irile posted a comment on Monday 19th February 2007 10:16am for All Good Things . . .

Thanks for sharing this wonderful story, when I read TLOS I was captivated by it and loved the snow dragons, Abelard and Jasmine. SFSY was a very nice way to make the story whole and I enjoyed very much this last chapter. What I really loved about your story is the way how you incorporated religion; with respect and knowledge, kudos for you.
Laura

vivekgk posted a comment on Monday 19th February 2007 9:31am for All Good Things . . .

So, Finally, SFSY is complete. To tell the truth, I am disappointed with the sequel. TLOS was more about H/G than the war itself, and SFSY started out in the same vein. Halfway along, it switches course and focuses on Voldemort, bringing in the hocruxes (horcruces?) into play, so as to make it conform to HBP canon. This is one of the stories in which I feel that the author has sacrificed the core of the story to bring about a quick ending, and 'get the thing over with'. It's too rushed. Frankly, it doesn't even come close to TLOS. The characters seem vastly different in the two stories.

TLOS left the reader with hope, whereas SFSY leaves darkness. Maybe, Kokopelli thought he needed to darken it a bit to match Rowling's tone.

The sudden switch at the end from H/G to H/Hr also irritiated me, as did killing off the characters without a word. I don't think the H/Hr pairing would have seemed so wrong if Harry hadn't been referring to Hermione as his sister throughout the story.

There's also the fact that the author seems unsure of what to do with all the Snowdragon magic he gave to Harry and Ginny. In the end, it was not just the two of them, but all of them. Harry going back to the time of creation seems too super-Harry-ish for my taste. And I don't see why there has to be a 'price' for killing Voldemort. The way I see it, Harry's already paid the price, by losing his parents, his godfather, and having a horrible time growing up.

Kokopelli replied:

Even in magic, there is no free ride.   Yes, Harry did wild things at the end of SFSY, but at a price.   Part of this price was the knowledge that his friends were freely sacrificing part of their life energy to help him.

As to the shipping stuff - feh, I don't care any more.

CootiePatootie posted a comment on Sunday 18th February 2007 2:28pm for All Good Things . . .

How absolutely BEAUTIFUL. Just beautiful. I do look forward to reading Ever After if ever it is written, because I want to know what happened when Ginny died (the whole dragon-bonded thing). Wow oh wow oh wow oh wow. Also, I LOVE the way Voldie moldie was defeated. That was SO cool. I wish I had money to be your sponsor; I could read what emerges from your amazing imagination all day long.

ta,

Cassie

DrT posted a comment on Saturday 17th February 2007 12:54am for All Good Things . . .

Interesting ending (not that I, of all people, can com plain about it).

"T"

Orion posted a comment on Friday 16th February 2007 5:16pm for All Good Things . . .

I enjoyed the "looking back" form of an ending - it shows your talent that you were able to pull it off so well. Great fic.

pnthrgrl343 posted a comment on Friday 16th February 2007 4:00pm for All Good Things . . .

I must say that I've thoroughly enjoyed the TLOS universe.

Excellent ending to an excellent story. =)

anonymous5 posted a comment on Friday 16th February 2007 12:57pm for All Good Things . . .

Beautiful. Delightfully thought-out, remarkably original... I could go on and on with the adjectives but you get the point. Thank you for sharing the story of after; I sincerely appreciate the years of storytelling you've seen fit to share with those of us you'll never meet except through these reviews.

seeker77 posted a comment on Friday 16th February 2007 12:41pm for All Good Things . . .

outstanding, Cant wait for you to work on Ever After. I thuroughly (?) enjoy your writing, keep it up.

Nyeshet posted a comment on Friday 16th February 2007 12:24pm for All Good Things . . .

An interesting ending to the series. I'm not too sure about your H/Hr aspect to the ending however, as it seems to contrived - coming out of no where. Also, bound as they are, I find it difficult to believe that Harry and Ginny didn't die at the same moment. Thus the reason why, after saving this page, I edited out the two sentences and one paragraph in the story (and the two paragraphs in the author's notes) that deal with that situation. Excluding those bits, the chapter is quite excellent and informative.

In any case, congratulations on the completion of your wonderful story. It has been an interesting ride, with truly original aspects amongst HP fanfiction. Your skill as a writer has noticeably grown since the beginning, and I will strongly consider reading any future works you produce. (Yes, even Ever After, for while I mostly read H/G, I occasionally read a well written H/HR, and you've more than proven your skill as a writer.)

Kokopelli replied:

I think you are mushing together concepts from different stories - TLOS makes it quite clear that the dragon version of binding does not mean that the bound partners expire together - that's a concept from a different story - one of my Harry-Gabrielle stories, actually.

Aberforth's Avatar posted a comment on Friday 16th February 2007 12:12pm for All Good Things . . .

I very much liked this piece. I am somewhat sad to see the end of the TLOS saga,but I really like the way that you wrapped it up. Especially nice was your using Maddie's POV. I enjoyed her as a Firstie, and like her even better as an adult. Wizarding Britain is poorer for having convinced her to leave.

I hope that you do get around to Ever After eventually. I like your take on Harry and Hermione as characters, and would love to see you explore that relationship.

As always, thanks for sharing this story with us.

Wolfric posted a comment on Friday 16th February 2007 12:02pm for All Good Things . . .

Thank you for all the pleasure You have given me(and presumably many others) with your efforts. I look forward to any future stories you may write. W.

Kokopelli replied:

Thanks for your reply.   The level of interaction from my readership base is dwindling - and I don't know why, given that I have 2667 or so people who've requested e-mail updates on my stories, why do I get 15 reviews to the end of a supposedly popular saga?