It's sulfurbunny's birthday week!
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sulfurbunny

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~From the desk of EtherKyu, posted by Silval58!~


Twelve Years.


While writing this I suddenly had a strange realization. VictoryFire is now officially older than its own protagonist, Jen! Or is Jen now twelve years older than she was when the comic started? Hmm..


In any case, this calls for a big celebration! So here, have some nice cake from Team Meanies (brought to you by the talented Paige (https://www.deviantart.com/rosesarehip), one of the artists on the Continuation Team!)

Paige1
Paige2
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But that’s not all.


A lot has changed since the last anniversary post. So I want to use this occasion to inform fans of the comic ( that is you :] ) about the progress on the Fan Continuation of VictoryFire!


First things first: we are still making slow, but steady progress! The Continuation Team achieved solid advancements in researching the material of the comic. But also the writing has seen good progress. Which means we have to begin to focus more on character refs and the general visual art side of the project.


So yes, expect more visual behind the scenes of the project in the future! In fact… You can take a look at some special anniversary sneak peeks right here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15LeMAOp4VGeK9sazb3h_m0G244LmtTxP_91aRtNirHM/edit?usp=sharing


That’s why I’m happy to announce that we are forming a new art team with Projekurai (https://www.deviantart.com/projekurai) as Lead Artist (you might remember her from last years post)! This way we hope to realize our common goal, to give this story a proper ending. With a quality that VictoryFire deserves!


Further, this means we are now searching for artists that are interested in helping with the project. So if you are interested, let us know in the comics Discord Server (link is in the bio)!


With that being said I also want to use the moment to thank each and everyone of you. It’s wonderful to see that Sulfurs work, even after all these years, still receives this amount of love and dedication from its community. Together we are holding up the torch and flame that she bestowed us with VictoryFire.


As a fan of Sulfurs work I know how heavy the uncertainty of her fate and whereabouts weigh on us. And that with every year this uncertainty grows. But I wholeheartedly believe that wherever Sulfurbunny may be, whatever happens, she would be very happy to have a community like you folks.


You are the best!

Paige5
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~From the desk of Etherkyu, posted by Silval58!~

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(Posted by Silval58)

~~written by EtherKyu, lead moderator of the VF Discord Server~~

Yesterday marked Victory Fires eleventh anniversary! Time seems to fly, the 10th one feels like it wasn't that long ago, right? And that also means it has been 4 years now since the comic went into hiatus. That’s why we want to use this occasion to lift the mood a little bit :)

As many of you might be aware, the community is working on a fan continuation of VF. Last year we started sharing a first glimpse into the behind the scenes, during our VFAutumn event. And today we want to share a little bit more about that with the rest of the community!

Thanks to Projekurai, work on the character references for the comics continuation has progressed!

VF Anniversary Ref Compilation 2023

The refs can also be seen in detail here: Projekurai's Stash


But that’s not all! Thanks to the work of Snepril and the help of the admins over at lakevalor.net, an important artefact of VFs history has been restored! An interview between her and the Sulfurbunny team! The interview was originally conducted in 2014, but got lost to the sands of time in the following years. But luckily for us, it resurfaced a few months ago! So, if you are interested in this unique aspect of VFs history, you can now read it here!

And last but not least, we want to use this moment to also welcome all the new fans of Victory Fire! The fact that the community is still growing, despite the hiatus, is something that probably only very few of us anticipated. But it truly shows what a unique and wonderful work Sulfurbunny has created. To this day, people reread the comic, spread the word and discuss the characters as well as their various motivations. That wouldn’t be possible without a healthy community.

Together we keep the flame of Victory Fire alive.

So thanks to all Victory Fire fans out there!

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Hello Victory Fire fans! Silval58 here.


We know things appear to have been in a slump lately in the Victory Fire Community but we in the Beta Team have something fun up our sleeves for you. We’re going to be doing an Autumn Blaze event to reignite your fires!



- The theme of the event is Autumn! So everything about the windy season, from spooky Halloween to Thanksgiving!


- Submissions have to be SFW (Safe For Work)

- Submissions have to be related to the Victory Fire comic

- All forms of art are allowed (yes, that includes music!)

- Only the creator of the work is allowed to submit it

- There can be multiple submissions by the same creator

- The event ends on 25 Nov 2022 23:59 UTC Autumn Blaze Countdown, after that submissions won't be possible

- You can submit your art here:Autumn Blaze 2022 Submission Form

- Submissions will be posted on the event website VF Autumn Blaze 2022

- Submissions unlock goals with special content, these will be posted on the event website as well!


- After the event ends we will also determine a winner, who will receive a prize in form of custom portrait character art from Projekurai !



Everyone and all skill levels are welcome! We hope you will participate and use some of their creative fire to make some wonderful fan art of our favorite comic!

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(Posted by Silval58)

~~This wonderful post was written by our good friend Etherkyu, lead moderator for the VictoryFire Discord! They have been working tirelessly with the team to create an ending for the comic and hosts the current VFCraft minecraft server. Thank you so much for this tribute! ~~

On the 3rd of March 2012, the first page of a Pokemon Fancomic got posted here by two best friends.

Today we know that this page would become the start of a long journey. A journey of unforseen events and twists. Some of them tragic.

But against all odds, it became what would make this story unique.

It became the story of Victory Fire. Your story. Our story.

So lets use the occasion to take a step back. Let us look into what happened since that first page got posted ten years ago.

It's early 2012.

Pokemon Black and White are the newest Pokemon mainline games.

The Wii is Nintendos current console.

The Nintendo 3DS got released just a year ago.

And Grumpy Cat (RIP) will be born in about 1 month.

Amidst all of this a team with the name Sulfurbunny, consisting of two comic authors, are about to release their first pages of a new PMD fancomic: Victory Fire.

These two, "Night" the co-author and "Maggs" the author and artist worked on this for a while now. They even made a limited test run on another website.

And despite the comic being "only drawn in MS Paint" the response is very positive. So they begin to plan the public release.

Little do they know that ten years later hundreds of people are wondering what happened. What happened to them and their common project?

But they don't suspect any of this. They are busy getting their project going.

They decide to finally post the first five pages of their work on two websites:

On Smackjeeves, a little website for webcomics and on Deviantart, since they find the former site a bit unreliable at times.

The Victory Fire is ignited!

It will take a few weeks, but slowly but surely the first comments start to appear. And it looks like the readers are interested where the story leads.

So work continues!

About two month later they hit 100 fans on SJ.

One month after that 25 watchers on DA.

This might not sound like much with todays standards, but it meant the world for them.

This motivated the team to continue. And they were able to keep their planned release schedule of publishing a new page every Tuesday and Friday.

Things were looking bright.

Unfortunately this wouldn't last long.

Nights mother suffered from cancer. And it had become worse. At the end of the same year Night would face serious financial trouble.

Paying the rent became a serious issue for her.

Yet, they pressed onwards. Not missing a single release day.

And so in December of the same year they were able to complete book 1 of their story.

Soon after that page 100 followed.

And soon following the first anniversary, with the first major event with a special distributed Pokemon as a prize.

This event wouldn't be the last of its kind and these became iconic for the close interaction between the Sulfurbunny Team and its readers.

A good example is the event that followed in late 2013, which called for cameos. An overwhelming amount of more than 50 submissions were made.

The comic hadn't even finished its second book at this point.

Things were beginning to look better again. Things could have been good.

In 2014 side projects like "Victory Fire: Explained by the Cast!" would follow. Along with further explanations to questions about the worldbuilding of the story.

Once again the Sulfurbunny Team had a lot of fun interacting with the community and answering to criticism.

(Note: I highly recommend reading "VF Writing Process and Gengar's Competence Level" from around that time)

And despite loosing her computer in mid 2014, Maggs was able to keep the schedule, thanks to a good buffer.

Things were loogking good.

Until a few weeks later in August.

Nights mother had lost the battle against cancer. And her family had lost their home and had spent all their money. They were broke.

Which was a big problem because they only had 60 days to get $1000 for the burial.

Maggs had helped out her friend, for a while now. But this was just too much.

So an emergency event was hold, to save Night from financial ruin and for her family to afford the following funeral costs.

Over 70 people donated. And so together, the community was able to raise the money!

In this fateful time the community stood together and saved the day.

This was Victory Fires darkest, but also its brightest hour. And it's worth remembering it!

Still, after this things would never be the same again. Night had to deal with her situation.

And so she stepped back from her position as co-author and Beta reader.

From that day onward Maggs became slowly but surely the sole creator of Victory Fire.

At this point the third book of Victory Fire had just been completed.

Nevertheless over the following months Night was still staying in touch with Maggs. And together they held (now lost) interviews on other websites and further developed the story.

Also around this time Maggs started to further increase her interaction with the community, often with providing insight into her opinions regarding writing and the process of creation.

But now, being more or less alone on the project, Maggs started to experience problems of her own.

These were mostly, but not exclusively, of monetary nature.

She never wanted to beg for anything and made that point clear. More than once. Reluctantly, but with no other option, she devised a plan.

With the good experiences from the last community fundraiser in mind she came up with a new side project.

This project would become "Victory Fire Quest"!

So on the first day of the new year the community would wake up to a new journal on Sulfurs account: "VFQuest: The shape of 2015"

The plan was simple. The money would be raised through an interactive comic adventure. And the readers would be in charge!

But the final outcome of said adventure would be dependent on the amount of money collected.

However it wasn't long until first problems arose.

Now Maggs didn't just have to work on one comic, but two!

And although VFQuest began to become popular amongst the fans of the main comic, the willingness to donate for this cause was sobering.

Within the first three weeks there was merely only one donation. In other words: Maggs had worked extra shifts but with more or less nothing in return.

Still, through all of this Victory Fire kept its schedule.

And while all of this was going on, things began to further fall apart for Maggs.

After a fall her dad had to be rushed into hospital. The diagnosis: brain hemorrhages.

So she stayed to help her family, doing all the work her dad used to do.

But not without excuses to the community for not being able to work on VFQuest (which she still barely profited from).

Luckily during this time in early 2015 she received the support of Silval, her new Beta Reader for VF.

Silval was able to help out with posting the pages.

And once again, Victory Fire stayed on track.

Mid 2015 was a turbulent time, but the steadily growing community began to do work of its own.

That was when the first VF fanclub got created by a reader. A testament to the connection the community felt with the project.

And Maggs was no doubt noticing it. Which lead to a second episode of VFQuest!

But even though adjustments were made, just like the first time, the results were far from what Maggs had hoped for.

Nevertheless she pushed onwards and completed this one as well.

All while keeping in touch with the community through little events like "drawing stories" and continuing work on Victory Fire.

Then in early 2016 Maggs decided to host a Minecraft Server for the community. The now somewhat infamous VFCraft.

And although it wouldn't last longer than three month, it was the first time the community interacted face to face with eachother.

It somehow further linked the community and Sulfur together.

Little did we know that years later this would lead to another community server. This time by the fans.

At this point Victory Fire was four years old. And the community was still growing.

A lot had changed, but Sulfur stayed. Keeping close ties with her readers and fans.

Unfortunately this wouldn't last long. In late 2016 Maggs posted her last Journal on DA.

From there onwards her situation became increasingly dire. The once very communicative Sulfur slowly became silent.

Nevertheless, from time to time she would post about her situation. Allowing the community to get a glimpse into her worsening situation.

Her fathers condition worsened and the entire family became dependant on help from the government.

And Maggs herself has been on disability help for years at this point.

But amidst all these struggles Victory Fire continued for more than another year.

Although with an increasingly worried community.

In late 2018 reality caught up with Maggs.

She was under so much pressure that for the first time in the then almost 7 years of Victory Fire she couldn't keep the buffer up anymore.

And so on the 4th of January 2019 the buffer ran out of pages and the latest page so far got released.

During all these years, and for a total of 356 weeks (!) she never missed an update.

In all this time, there was a new page of Victory Fire every Tuesday and Friday.

Week for week.

Month for month.

Year for year.

For over half a decade.

Then something happened:

In early 2019, just after updates had stopped the community came together to celebrate Sulfurbunny and their work. This was the beginning of a new chapter.

And it began with "sulfurbunnymonth"

However with no further message from Maggs, Silval had to publish a journal on Sulfurs account, informing all of us about the uncertainty of Victory Fires future.

After this Maggs still made sporadic contact with Silval, but things were only getting worse for her. Until contact basically stopped.

This could've been the end of the journey. Like for so many webcomics before.

But thanks to the fans of Victory Fire it was not.

In mid 2019 the journey continued with another Minecraft server of all things. The idea was simple: the old VFCraft was fun, so why don't create a new one?

That was the start of "VFCraft Chapter II"

What followed was a series of unlikely events. More people than expected joined. To coordinate the MC server a Discord server had been created.

Slowly the community began to realize that even half a year after Sulfur vanished, the community was still there.

Ideas about the comic and the whereabouts of Sulfur were exchanged. The future of the project was discussed back then.

All of this led to the decision to keep Victory Fire alive. This time not only for the community, but for Sulfurs sake as well.

Should she ever come back to us, we will be there to help her.

So in mid 2020, a new Discord server got created.

This time with the purpose of not only keeping the Fire alive, but to give the comic the ending that it deserved.

The Victory Fire Continuation Project was born. A project that is still going to this day.

Furthermore, another community event was held in late 2020: "vfadvent2020". And once again we saw that there were still many out there that cared for the comic and its author.

Many discussions and theories about the possible future of the story developed on the new server. Slowly but surely progress was made.

And this has not stopped since.

Even though there were minor setbacks, like Smackjeeves going down in early 2021 and constant attacks on the project and its members (you know who you are): the project lived.

And so, with the combined effort of many and against all odds: The Victory Fire is still burning to this day.

This is not the merit of a few, this is the result of everyone involved.

From the artists that are creating Victory Fire related art to the theorists that come up with ideas about the true motivation behind the actions of the characters.

And of course also the readers who share the comic to other communities and spread the word about Victory Fire!

You are all doing a fantastic job.

And for that I want to thank you on behalf of the community.

You, that you read these lines. Thank you.

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Hi everyone! Beta reader Silval58 here!


Work on the comic storyline is coming slower than we would like but it is being worked on. In the mean time, we have some good news.


We now have a mirror for the comic over on MS Paint Fan Adventures! So those of you who find DA hard to navigate or slow to load, you now can enjoy the comic over there!

-> https://mspfa.com/?s=42766&p=1


And don't forget, we do have our discord server as well, where folks who enjoy talking pokemon and/or Victory Fire can meet up and have fun!


-> https://discord.gg/N8QuRwkuPq


We wish everyone a happy holiday season this winter and a happy New Year!


~Silval58

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