If my records are correct, today is my ten-year anniversary as a M:EMber. It was on March 13, 2013, that my poem "Blasphemous Act" was voted into the Archive, making me an official part of this little party we have going on here. So, I hope you will all forgive my self-indulgence in this instance, but I would like to go over some of the things that I feel I've brought to the project over the years.

In the ten years I've been hanging around here, I've written over 300 pieces between Novels, Novellas, Short Stories, Poems, Songs, Microfics, Musicals, and dossiers. Of these, 79 pieces of prose and 41 pieces of poetry (including songs) have been officially voted into the archive. Additionally, since voting has basically died out due to our numbers dropping, I have written an additional 17 short stories that could be canon, and an additional 85 pieces of poetry that could potentially be voted it. I have also written a variety of non-canon pieces (included in the "over 300" number) that includes 34 pieces for the M:EM Highschool. If you are in any way interested, you can find a relatively complete list of my works here.

The chart below shows my production over the years in terms of total works, word count, and the average word count per work for each year.

Year|Total Works|Total Words|Average Words per Work

2012|8|3170|396.25
2013|53|110,868|2091.85
2014|50|295,006|5900.12
2015|33|173,343|5252.82
2016|26|142,368|5475.69
2017|11|62,059|5641.73
2018|23|31,514|1370.17
2019|63|51,451|816.68
2020|14|19,085|1363.21
2021|8|14,498|1812.25
2022|9|21,087|2343

That's an average of between 77,037.42 and 83,752.64 words per year depending on whether you count 2012 or not, as I was not a M:EMber until 2013. Obviously, as you can see from the sharp drop-off in production in 2020, these averages were helped immensely by The War of the Wheel, which in and of itself was a little over 220,000 words (all of which was posted in 2014, thus the exceedingly high word count for that year). The oddly-high number of works I produced in 2019 is owing to my Raven's Rhymes thread, wherein I resolved to create a minimum of 52 poems that year, which I succeeded in doing.

Over my time here in the M:EM, I have participated in the vast majority of the threads that have gone up. By my calculations, I have made at least one post (often more than that) in 79% of the threads in the main M:EM forum. I have also participated in the votes for over 90% of all the voting threads that have gone up. The threads that I have not participated in have mostly been either worldbuilding threads or something directly involving canon, which I have fairly staunchly avoided ever since I fell out of love with the canon story oh so many years ago now. I have also created, if my count is correct, 177 unique threads, the most of anyone in the M:EM (which is not really fair, considering most of them are story threads...).

Speaking of threads I have created, I have tried over the years to create various threads to keep people engaged with the project, to varying degrees of success. I created the M:EM Highlights thread, which ran for three years and 32 pages of material. I created the M:EM High School, which has been going five years and produced 65 pieces of prose, art, and poetry over six or seven different creators. I made the Suppose Prose and the Throw a Gauntlet thread, which combined for 24 pages of short fiction across a variety of writers. I started games like the M:EM Hangman, M:EM 20 Questions, the Dialog Game (versions 1 and 2), The Flip a Plane game, and the VITAL Tournament, as well as numerous other threads that died much faster than those, or never got any participation (which is fine. They can't all be winners ).

I've created more characters than I can keep in my head at one time. There are six of the Arbagoth Eight, Daneera, Denner Fabellian, Antine, Kahr-ret-Taris, Penelophine, and Morgezka Shanak, most of whom have been used both by me and by others. There is Jade, Donagut, Nasperge, Sage, Ethal, Hepthia, Aurélie Cerveau and Henri Le Douce, Salkhi, Conath and Dathra LocTieran, Lady Nasina, Orida Vise, Scar, Kerik, Annalee V'ray, Oleetaka, Robert LaRoux, Urassaya Vath, Dyson Zymm, and Xeria. I've created villains like Syl and Chardis, Raiker Venn, Blink, Yeong Eode, Cyrryc Adda, Lucien, Dorn (as a collab with Yxoque), Antony (as a collab with Barinellos, and only arguably a villain), Thomas Cerveau, Glim Murkwisp, and Hanara the Harpy. Many of these characters have been utilized by others as well, whether in canon or off.

Anyway, I don't really have a point to any of this. But the M:EM has been a major part of my life, and my primary creative outlet, for a decade now. I have no intention of going anywhere, and I don't want anyone thinking this thread is any sort of goodbye or anything. In fact, assuming nothing goes wrong, you can expect a new Raven story at the end of the week, and it's a big one!

I love you all, and I just wanted to thank you for letting me be a part of this project for so long.

For all your fancy numbers, you can't quantify the most important things you've brought to us as a friend and comrade.


Cripes, but isn't that a feeling I know too well.


Yeah, I was getting a little nervous there.
Especially given statements made by others of our numbers, even recently.


You too buddy.

Congrats!

Oh, you mean the puns? Yeah, I thought briefly about counting those up, but they are, in fact, uncountable. I tried to make them a mid-level medieval nobleman, but nope: uncountable...




I literally had to go down the list of my stories in the Stark Raven Mad thread to remind myself of who I have. And there's still a decent chance I've missed some, especially when you go beyond planeswalkers (although I did not some non-'walkers in my list).


Yeah, I didn't really think of that until near the end of my post. I just wanted to do something to mark my ten-year anniversary here, and this seemed appropriate. Sorry if I worried you a bit.





Thanks, Helio! And thanks for reading and commenting on my stuff over the years.