I know, I know — I said multiple times that this wouldn't happen, that I'd continue with this story for everyone who's been commenting how much they're enjoying it. And I'm sorry that I'm now going back on that promise.

I figured I owed you all an explanation as to why I'm discontinuing Fear of the Thing Itself, so here you are...

First, please know this isn't a decision made lightly; I've been trying to make up my mind about it for quite a few months now. But the fact is, I regretted starting this fanfic pretty much from the beginning. The enjoyment of writing it was lost pretty quickly, and it became more like something I felt I had to do rather than something I wanted to. I put it on hiatus a couple of times to see if that would help, but it didn't really.

More recently, I've also found myself moving away from the Harry Potter fandom. I'm not sure if it's because of R*wling's transphobia souring things for me, or just because I'm five years older than I was when I first read the books, and the sort of things I enjoy have changed quite a lot — maybe it's a mix of both. Whatever it is, though, this loss of interest has meant I've been finding it pretty much impossible to write anything to do with the series, especially this fanfic.

I have one almost finished chapter of Fear of the Thing Itself, which I'll be publishing as it is in a bit. I also have the prologue and first sixteen chapters of the Fear of a Name rewrite completely done, plus the seventeenth chapter pretty much done, and the eighteenth one half done, so I'd be interested to know if any of you wanted me to upload those as a new book (with the understanding that it would be completely left alone after that).

I also feel like I should give a heads up that I likely won't be on Wattpad much (if at all) after this, and definitely won't be writing anything else on here. If you want to contact me for whatever reason, your best bet is my Instagram (@gcldensunlight).

And finally, I'd just like to say how incredibly grateful I am to all of you. Fear of a Name recently hit 400k reads, a number I never imagined reaching even in my wildest dreams, and I've had so many sweet comments about how much people have enjoyed it — not to mention the absolutely hilarious ones that helped get me through the times when my mental health was at its lowest. So thank you to everyone who voted, thank you to everyone who commented, thank you to everyone who added either of these books to their reading lists, and thank you to everyone who was a silent reader too. You're all absolutely amazing 😊

And with that, I'm going to end this a/n...

Tysm for everything,

~ Charlie 🖤