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The Astral Plane

  • happy birthday!

  • happy birthday hunter! hope it's a good one


    BrumalHunter Oh, thanks! Haha, I knew not even my family would celebrate it much this year, so I jokingly told them it's cancelled and I'll just jump straight from 25 to 27 next year. XD
    Jul 16, 2023

  • I already gave a long victory speech on the club wall, so I'm just including it in here. XD

    Omni wrote:Everyone! It has been a long time coming, but we have finally reached the end of LMS Round VI!

    The final week of Blizzard was hard fought, and hard won! First off, please give a huge congratulations to every Warrior who made it to the final week of Blizzard and wrote for it! @BrumalHunter @SilverNight @WeepingWisteria have all been through so much and came out of the raging snowstorm stronger than before.

    Congratulations to @WeepingWisteria for getting third place with 15033 words!

    Congratulations to @SilverNight for getting second place with 22150 words!

    And Congratulations to @BrumalHunter for getting first place with 40076 words!

    BrumalHunter is the Last Man Standing of LMS Round VI!


    Link to original comment

    BrumalHunter wrote:The first time I participated in Last Man Standing was during Round II, which took place in 2015 and 2016. My novel was about an Electrike going to school and learning to become a Pokémon battler as part of a team. It was a lot of fun, but it required a lot of work, both in terms of research and in terms of posting. I got distracted during Week 30 and fell out, which was a shame, but my best friend @TinkerTwaggy ended up winning the round while he was visiting me in South Africa, so I have no regrets there!

    After that round, Tenyo created Blizzard to shorten the competition's length. With three rounds having passed since I last participated, I decided last year that sure, I would join Round VI and see if I could prove to myself that I have what it takes to survive the original icy hell. I again went with a Pokémon novel, called Pokémon Purgatory, but I learned from my mistakes last time and adapted to the current environment. I specifically crafted a setting that would allow me to not only follow the story yet write as much fluff or rubbish as was required to just keep progressing, but also to make it possible to write the insane amounts required by Blizzard. (I did my due diligence and checked how the previous three Blizzards had went, naturally.) I was determined and ready.

    I was the first to submit on Week 1, but even just two weeks later, I was waiting until 21:00 or 22:00 on Sunday night to write my thousand words for the week. I abandoned all pretence of formal submission and just went with spoilers in my posts in the threads. So it continued until Week 38, at which point I switched gears and prepared myself for the madness ahead. I was determined and confident, and as Blizzard commenced, I felt I stood a very good chance of actually succeeding in my goal.

    The third week of Blizzard was already a tough one. The progression from 1K to 2.5K to 6K to 13K was manageable, but I expected the fourth week would be around 20K. Unfortunately, the final week got impatient and ate that particular week, so any thoughts of warming up perished with it. I knew, as a result, that I'd likely write a decent amount earlier in the week but leave most of it for the end, yet I didn't — couldn't — expect how the week would ultimately turn out.

    I didn't sleep on the final day and wrote for nearly 20 consecutive hours. I had set myself two goals: reach a word total of 100K for my novel, and if possible, submit 40K words by the end and set a new LMS record. I succeeded in both of these, so regardless of whether I would win or lose, I was satisfied. The spoilers below show videos from a rhythm game I play, with thematically appropriate maps and songs; the first spoiler represents how I thought the final week would go, but the second spoiler represents how it actually went.

    I ended up winning! I had proven to myself that my determination was enough, for once in my life, to actually complete an important and very demanding task within the deadline. My preparation had paid off, and I possessed the skill to see it through. I've grown immensely from this experience and I will cherish it forever; I will not be doing it again. XD

    Thank you to the organisers and other participants for making Last Man Standing: Round VI possible! And thank you especially to TinkerTwaggy for your undying support. I wish the best of luck to all future participants, and as Pokémon Purgatory is still far from done (would you believe me if I told you the first chapter isn't done yet?), you'll probably see me around as a Rogue, still pumping out my weekly thousand words.

    It's over. BUT NOT FOR ME! ;D

    Spoiler! :
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    Spoiler! :
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    Link to original comment


    alliyah Congratulations, what an amazing achievement!
    Jul 4, 2023

  • I wrote 40100 words this week. Of that, 18720 were written in the last 24 hours (16:00 to 16:00 GMT+2 on 2-3 July) and 10140 in the 24 hours (1-2 July) before that. That's almost thirty thousand (28860) words in 48 hours. I've had four hours of sleep during that period.

    This is the closest I'll ever come to godhood. I'm glad it was for writing.


    winterwolf0100 Oh my GOD? Are you okay?
    Jul 3, 2023


    BrumalHunter Thanks for asking. <3

    I'm in a mindset I think is best described as "Determination". (Think Undertale.) I'm serene and perfectly calm, yet I'm extremely emotional and suspended in a state of elation and sorrow. It's actually a little fascinating.

    I had this song on loop for at least twelve hours. It applied to several characters and I think it applies to me too. It especially applies to this current mindset.

    phpBB [media]

    Jul 3, 2023

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  • People like saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". There's a caveat to this.

    Exercise, vaccines, and mild hardship make you stronger. But injury, disease, and trauma? These don't make you stronger; they make you weaker. For these things, things that are not mild, it's better to stick with the adage "prevention is better than cure".

    Some things that don't kill you make you stronger, but other things that don't kill you just… kill you more gradually. Be safe out there.

  • I must say, it gets pretty confusing when I haven't posted anything on this wall for more than two years and all you see is happy cake days and birthdays and cake days again. I had to do a double-take to see where one anniversary ended and the other began. XD

  • It's your cake day you special special man oh boy oh boy


    BrumalHunter Just two days prior to the start of our friendship! ^_^ <3
    Apr 2, 2023

  • happy cake day <3


    BrumalHunter Thank you! <3
    Apr 2, 2023


  • gremlingeodes
    Mar 28, 2023

    Happy Birthday.


    BrumalHunter *YWS birthday. ;P

    But thank you! :D

    Apr 2, 2023

  • Happy Birthday :)


  • MailicedeNamedy
    Jul 15, 2022

    Happy Birthday!!! :D 🎂


  • winterwolf0100
    Jul 15, 2022

    Happy birthdayyy!!


  • MailicedeNamedy
    Mar 29, 2022

    Happy belated Cake Day!!! :D


    BrumalHunter Thanks! :D
    Apr 5, 2022

  • Happy belated cake day! It's wild that you've been on YWS for 8 years.


    BrumalHunter Right?!
    Apr 5, 2022


  • winterwolf0100
    Mar 28, 2022

    Happy cake day!! 8 years! Here, HAVE CAKE 🎂🎂🎉🎉


    BrumalHunter I'm old enough to be an actual primary school student, good grief. XD
    Apr 5, 2022


    winterwolf0100 XD you are!
    Apr 5, 2022



I didn't know beards could do that ;)
— ShadowVyper