Those of you that have read my author's notes know that I do slightly obsess over Emmy And Me's ranking numbers. I like when it climbs in the rankings, and get out of joint when it gets a rating bomb that sends it down a bit.

And the 0.5 ratings (inevitably on the prologue) really do an amazing job on the ratings. The story was at #244, got a 0.5 and it got sent right back down to 318th place. It takes a lot of 5.0 ratings to bring it back up to where it was before it got bombed.

Anyway, you guys all know this, since I've talked about it before.

Apparently, many writers have bitched to the management here at Royal Road about the rankings, so yesterday they threw a curve ball. I checked my dashboard and saw that Emmy And Me was ranked in the top 250-500 stories on Royal Road.

"That's interesting," I thought. Now instead of giving us exact numbers, they're giving us ranges. Which, I guess, reduces some writers' obsession with exact numbers, but really doesn't change the overall picture. I was a little bummed out, since at #307 last I check Emmy And Me was closer to the 250 mark than the 500, right? So it made it seem as if it was a bit lower than it really should, but whatever.

I logged into the forums here on Royal Road (I don't know if any of you guys have checked them out. Mostly they're just wonky discussions of how to promote your story better) and saw a discussion thread on the topic.As it turns out, most of the people in the thread were some degree of pissed off at the change.

Some were miffed because of the way it was done, just completely out of the blue, but more were upset that they now had no precise way of knowing if their story is reaching a wider audience or now. A few pointed out that as premium members they were paying for the analytics, and suddenly having a major one disappear was infuriating.

By the time I got home and logged back into the discussion, the mods had already caved and reverted the rankings back to the way they had always been, for better or worse.

Reading through the discussion, two things really stood out to me. First off, people (besides me) really are obsessed with the rankings. As I said above, I'm a little obsessed, but some are very much so. The rankings are an inherently zero-sum game. For every rise, others must fall. This is the way. Some seem to see it as a relative merit of their story vs everybody else. Again, I will admit to a bit of that in my case, especially since I know my story is niche, and very much against the grain here at Royal Road. If Emmy And Me does well in this field, I think of it as an accomplishment.

The second thing that struck me is that Emmy And Me is actually kicking serious ass here. A lot of the others in the discussion were talking about there stories being in the 3500-3000 range, and being pleased with their position, but hoping to improve.

Emmy and Me has been in the top 300 for well over a year now, with a few bumps below that when it gets rating-bombed. That means it's in the top 2% of all stories on Royal Road.

It's not me who put it up that high- it's you guys, my lovely and talented readers. All of you, who've read all 800,000 words to get to this point. You, who've given it more 5 star ratings than anything else. You, who've written reviews, you, who've given me amazing feedback in my not-chapters. You, who keep me at this crazy project.

I love you guys so much. You, our little community of readers and commenters. You, who keep me pointed in the right direction.

Thank you guys. I really mean it. Thanks a lot for holding my hand through this journey. I needed it, and you guys stepped up.