May 04, 2025
I saw this on May 4th, so I gotta say... Noooooooooo! Meming aside, I get where you're coming from. Burnout can be a real bitch, especially when there's a deadline. Both for stories I've submitted to contests and ones that I didn't, I've suffered my fair share of burnout. I know that rushing things for the sake of getting things out on time can really degrade the quality of things. Heck, I can pinpoint many strings of chapters in EPGM where that's the case. The fact that you're deciding to forgo the contest in favor of the quality of the story is admirable and worthy of praise.
But now that you're officially bowing out, allow me to discuss something I've been meaning to discuss about the story for a while; that being that I felt at times it wasn't sticking well to the contest prompt. Even though you wove it into the plot, the story honestly didn't feel like a "The end is now" type of story. In fact, I feel it was a stronger contender for the "Love transcends boundaries" category at times. Those thoughts aside, I look forward to when this story will continue. Take your time and upload at your own pace.