Yeah, well, it's a tv-show and movie sequel. Mal and Inara were doing well. Harry and River kissed in Chapter One. Sheesh. And she kissed his cheek this chapter also. I just didn't have it in me to address Harry's 'dirty old man' issues which I'd have to if I were to have given you a meaningful piece of face sucking.

Doing one of those long epilogues down the road, just means you're ending the series. And the payoffs of seeing say Kaylee and Simon's baby, or their further down the road nuptials, or Harry and River's date, or even Mal and Inara's future bickering, how the Alliance plays nice, wizards start spreading more, etc... aren't worth it.

But you're right, Frank/Serenity is the one true pairing. Long live Frankenity!

 

You said that this lasted a great deal longer than you planned on it going for, Did you have any problems finishing it?

I will admit that some of these chapters were boring, and it never seemed to go anywhere. So, while I had lost some motivation reading it, I couldn't imagine the motivation lost while writing it.

I know you haven't done any haitus', or none that I have seen, so I couldn't see you writing another story in the middle of this one. But, I was worried that your updates would slow down, and I was greatly suprised when they didn't

Anyway, my main question would be, did you really enjoy writing this story till the end, and if so, was it boring to write at all during the story?

Wonderful ending by the way. Nothing overly fairtaleish, and nothing overly emoish, it just ended, perfect.

 

It got pretty tedious to write quite often. My weekends have been spent almost entirely sitting in front of my laptop forcing myself to grind out the chapters. But it really was the constant and frequent reviewers and encouragement I got. The feedback from my yahoogroup and on this thread too. I had several pages of plans that kept getting longer and more detailed as I wrote, working in all the scenes and bits I wanted to.

From my perspective, knowing where we were going, and with an idea of how to get there, none of the chapters felt like pointless filler. Even if it was simple stuff, like laying the ground work for future characters or encounters, or purposes for their existence. Things like the goblins surviving, because they'd be so useful in restarting the wizarding world, as well as providing protection because there were only a handful of magically capable people. At the time, reading about goblins living in the vault may seem less important. Or the clues about where wizards were, or where they disappeared to. The need to bring up genetics, and the M-gene. Introducing "Harry Fullerton" as a long assumed dead character before his appearance. Duncan being able to give them some jobs at the end of the fic, so they'd have a reason to get back in the air where Serenity's real home always will be. Or early on, establishing trust between Harry and the others, while putting him in situations where Harry's wizarding status was useful.

And I didn't want to just magically snap my fingers to make space travel a breeze for wizards. But at the end it sort of did allow them to make their first magical accomplishment towards adapting to the future.

The closer to the end though, the more detailed my last few chapter plans were, and I was seeing all the scenes I knew I needed before ending the fic. Not much imagination left at that point.

I simply never expected this much response to the fic, and when I got it and kept getting all those reviews, it made me want to try and include everything I'd theorized or considered could work. With it now done, I wouldn't be surprised if I could knock off fifty thousand words of fic without hardly changing a thing. I'm not planning to at the moment, but I never would've set out to write a nearly 300,000 word fic. That's just excessive.

And I did manage to get a chapter out every week, with a few weeks having two. That consistency was the work. I think my next fics are going to be a lot closer to done before I post them.

 

I know I'm probably in the minority in this, but I didn't find this fic boring.

Although I've always enjoyed long chapters so don't go on my opinion, I've been hooked since the first chapter.

I'm actually a little worried about watching Firefly now, incase I get disappointed by it (I've still not got around to watching it yet ).
Thank you for taking the time to provide such regular updates too.

Litha

 

Well, I already criticized this story a few times, but to summarize: certain parts/chapters weren't so much boring, as... mellowed down.

It started with heavy humor and good nonjonesque atmosphere. But as more dramatic elements unrolled, the story started leaning away from comedy and more and more towards a plot-driven light drama... a drama that had practically no danger, no romance and very little action. After a while, I stopped really looking forward to new chapters, because I knew (or at least suspected) that nothing drastic, exciting or engaging would happen. Sure, well written mild humor and character interaction was interesting to read, I'm not sure I'd be willing to go over it once again, like I did through nonjon's other fics.

Other major downside is lack of balance between Harry and Serenity crew. There was no point in Harry being their pilot once his true mission became known and the surviving wizards were recovered.

This imbalance is perfectly symbolized in the very ending, where the crew flies away in Serenity, desperately trying to live through the "good ol' days", all the while conveniently forgetting that they have a half-god covering their backs against any petty smuggler they might encounter, not to mention a road to a complete safety (and backup) in form of a certain vanishing cabinet... The imagery of the ending is nice, but my brain keep telling me they're not exactly a lone smuggling ship trying to get by in the cruel world anymore.

That said, the fic was still an extremely enjoyable read. Some humoristic scenes were brilliant and the very plot that connected the fandoms is a shining example of how crossovers should be written. But then again, that's pretty much a given, considering who wrote it.

I'd say the final grade is between 4 and 4.5. With some more polishing, it might inch closer to 5, but the whole light-drama-no-danger thing will, at least for me, always keep it a hairbreadth away from the full marks.

 

Nonjon I must say that the best thing about this story was the update rate. I am amazed that you managed to update once a week for that long and actually end the story in a believable way. I will admit that the story did have it's moments were it was pretty boring, but for the most part you kept me wanting to read it, which in the end is what counts.

Whenever I watch Firefly or Serenity now I almost expect Harry to be there, which of course says how well you were able to keep every one in character.

Congrats on a great ending.

 

I will agree with IP82 on all the points he mentioned, they were well said, better then I would have explained them.

I neglected to add my input earlier in the story like I should of, and I am sorry lol. Most of what I would have said has been mentioned at one point or another during the story, so you didn't miss much.

The story did have a few slightly lower points, but you got through them, both to mine and probably your own relief. And then near the end, you got it back up to its top and impressed me.

Another great fic by you Nonjon, and I really enjoyed it.

Rating: 4.5

-Void

P.S. Wouldn't you have found it more entertaining to sick some of the captured reavers on the rest of the "Secret Orginization"?

 

An absolutely amazing story nonjon. I don't have anything negative to say about it, I liked everything, even the slightly boring parts. Maybe this wasn't as much of a comedy as some of your other stories, but that doesn't make it less enjoyable.

4.99 from me

I can't wait to see what yor next project will be (hey, it rhymes )

 

Thanks for all the comments. I especially appreciate the criticisms as they help me improve and see the weaker parts that I sometimes can't objectively see. I think I did a pretty good job in that for every negative comment on one area, someone else seems to approve or like the same thing. Can't please everyone all the time, but I think overall I succeeded far more than I failed. Over a quarter of a million words, eight months of consistently writing in my free time, 662 pages long and the best part is I can say it's done. And I got tons more feedback than I ever expected to receive. Still feeling proud of myself.

For those interested, I've put a few odd omakes on my yahoogroup (you don't have to join to read them):
A couple about Harry's Animagus Form...
The H Drawer...
Sweet Dreams

(Christians and Catholics without a sense of humor should avoid The H Drawer. Consider yourself warned.)

 

Those were kind of weird........ but in the funny sort of way.

 

I'm rather sad it's over now. I hope for another story, perhaps a smaller one, set in this universe. Only one thing dissapointed me about this story, toward the end, the humor seemed to run out. Other than that it was great.

 

I admit that the story had its weaker points, but overall it ranks as one of the best HP fanfics that I have ever read. While some parts were not as tight as they could have been, Overall, I thought the fic was excellent. It is rare to see a fic over 150,000 words long that has any amount of quality to it. But in this case, I think that quality did not suffer at the expense of quantity. I think that Nonjon's laying the groundwork, while not neccesarily moving the plot ahead, did make for a much more realistic story. It lent a certain believability to the story that is sorely lacking in many other fics. Too many other authors assume that the readers know what they do. The reason this fic excelled was because even though I'd never seen Firefly/Serenity, I was able to follow along and enjoy the fic.
Congratulations on an amazing work Nonjon.
5/5

 

I have just finished reading this and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. So very funny. I was sceptical about the crossover with Firefly/Serenity (despite how much I love crossover fics), but the way in which you wrote completely ignored any attempt I may have put forward about how the two would not go well together.

This was a truly amazingly well written fic.

 

Holy CRAP

 

So, who do we have to kill to get a post epilogue, epilogue?

 

Can we start the killings with Yuthirin and Xarxisk?

 

Sorry. No epilogue plans. It's like an episode of the tv show. I can change a few things, kill a character or two, but at the end of it you should be right back where you started, with a wide open door for more episodes. Epilogues kill that.

I will admit though that I catch the occasional Firefly episode on the HD channels and my muse begins stirring. I've even scribbled down a few details on how and what sort of sequel I could write.

I have no plans to at the moment, and more than likely never will write a sequel. But there have been a few ideas and while unlikely, it is possible.

 

You just wrote that ^^ to keep people hoping, didn't you?

 

Maybe a little. Give them a bit of hope and see if others express strong interest or demand more. Because frequent pleading requests for a sequel can't help but stir the muse to try and come up with a plausible plot for one.

Personally, I don't think it's really needed. And I'm not sure I'd even want to revisit this futuristic world. But the feedback and reviews this story has gotten have been far more rewarding than most one-liners telling me a story is funny.

It's tempting.

Just not too tempting.

 

This story really captured my attention. Everything about it. You just have so many great concepts and I love the new society they're creating on Miranda. That you've made this by meshing two of my favorite universes only makes it better. In short, you rock.