I'm completely swamped with work right now, and have had very little time to write. I wish I could keep up with my update schedule, but until I get this wrapped up (hopefully by this time next week) I have to admit a temporary defeat.

That said, I do have time to read comments, so this seems to be a good time for a little soul-searching with feedback from you, my dear readers.

First, a little background. Before the Atlanta chapter, Emmy And Me was solidly in the mid-200 ranking on Royal Road. #246, to be exact, before that chapter went up.

A lot of readers were traumatized by the events on that and the subsequent chapters. Quite a few abandoned the story. Quite a few more gave the story low ratings, too. The story has just about the same number of Followers and Favorites now as it did then- essentially flatlined.

The story currently sits at #758 in the rankings- quite a serious drop overall.

Now, as I've said before, the rankings mostly matter because Royal Road promotes the higher-ranked stories, and shines very little light on stories lower in the rankings. Emmy And Me is still on the Trending List for Contemporary, but not Romance, Drama or Fantasy anymore.

Of course I knew that there would be fallout in the readership from Angela's death. I sincerely hoped it would be shocking and traumatic. Hell, it was traumatic for me to write, and I dreaded it as the time approached.

Stolen story; please report.

Several reviews of Emmy And Me have been posted expressing anger and dismay at "the direction the story took".

So that's the background for my question to you, my lovely and talented readers, you who've stuck with Emmy And Me despite that shock to the system.

Heartbreak and loss were strong components of the story from the very beginning. Chapter 3, in fact, is when the theme was first introduced. It came up again quite a few times after that, as you may remember. Leah's anger, resentment, and sorrow over the loss of her father when she was very young weren't simply throwaway backstory details. When Emmy vanished, those feelings re-emerged, but never went away- I'm sure you can recall a few moments when Leah expressed some of those feelings of heartache.

Married life with Emmy (and then later with Angela as well) were mostly good for our narrator. She was happy and pushed those melancholy thoughts to the back of her mind, even going so far as to compartmentalize thinking about Emmy's Moon-Kissed issues.

"Live by the sword, die by the sword." Leah was too cavalier despite Grace's experience as innocent victim and Angela paid the price. Emmy and Leah have also paid in their own ways, of course, but Angela was the one who died as a result of Leah (and Emmy's) life choices.

Leah's reaction to yet another loss in her life is part of her maturing and learning to cope with what is inevitable for all of us. She's been dealing with it (in my opinion) somewhat poorly, but that is the way she is.

I know plenty of you saw Angela's death coming, at least in general terms. I dropped so, so very many hints along the way, but still- am I the asshole for the way I plotted it out? Did lulling everyone into the warm, fuzzy feelings of a happy life distort the readers' expectations of what the story was all about?

Anyhow, thanks for sticking with the story and thanks for contributing to the little community we've built up here. I love you all.

Genevieve

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