UPDATE

Firstly, for everyone who sent in sweet, concerned messages: I am fine. The world is certifiable right now, but I'm not sick, I'm not injured, and I'm doing as well as can be expected at this time.

I know updates like these can be excruciatingly frustrating, especially for dedicated fans who hoped for an end to a prolonged, indeterminable hiatus. I am sorry to leave you all hanging like that. Life happened, and then life continued to happen, and then I made a new game-plan for my internet work and decided to post a single update when I had all my ducks in a row. The ducks are moss-pitting. They will not be herded. It is a thing.

The Forgotten Fear is not dead, just…reborn. After revisiting earlier chapters, it hit me that I had written myself into several corners going forward, and if I was going to rewrite those parts, there was a lot I wanted to fix—like the fact I had somehow managed to criminally shaft Samantha Foster, and that is just unacceptable in my eyes. As future outlines flushed out and evolved, this draft became more and more obsolete until I had to start from scratch. What began as a surface edit became a complete rewrite, but I must say how much happier I am with where I sit right now.

The Forgotten Fear was separated into two chunks. The first, The Goddess' Gambit, will focus on the plot you are all accustomed with: Percy adopts a false name and persona to deceive Camp Half-Blood on a bet with Hera. It's a reasonably low-stakes plot where the characters are not under a constant threat of death, and it offers me an opportunity to establish the constants of The Scarred Hero 'verse.

The second, The Forgotten Fear, is now much more aptly named, but I won't tell you that plot now, as it spoils elements of the first.

I also resolved to finish all installments and edit them, in full, before posting them from now on. It's much less stressful for me and I'm far happier with the product.

Lastly, and this part guts me worst of all: When The Goddess' Gambit is finished, I will not be posting to this site. I am moving, exclusively, to Archive of our Own. That site just feels safer and more genuine to me. The reviews I receive are always thoughtful to at least some extent, and I have yet to see one from there where the reviewer is nasty. I can always shrug off the pointlessly hurtful reviews and delete them, but my mental health is at a place that that can be very, very difficult for me, and it saps my creativity for a while afterward. Think what you will about me because of that, I don't care. I'm choosing the course of action that is best for my mental health.

For those of you who hesitate to try a new site, for a while, I juggled both. So far, Ao3 also seems to have a lot more well-written, thoughtful stories on average, and the community is far more welcoming. I encourage you to give it a try.

I will still post an update here letting you know when The Goddess' Gambit is finished and being posted so you know when to look for it. My Ao3 username is the same as it is on here: thein273. I already have a completed, dark time-travel trope PJO fic on there called widows & thieves. I'm mostly done with a third part to the canon-concurrent short stories I've been posting on here, following Not His Home. I'm thinking about a Percy-centric short loosely set in canon where he comes to terms with his asexuality (because Percy Jackson is ace in my mind and you can pry that head-canon from my cold, dead fingers), and for anyone who watches Thomas Sanders' Sanders' Sides series Youtube, I am working on a prequel head-canon idea for that fandom.

I will still check this account for a little while, and if any of you have requests for stuff you would like to read from me to maybe pick up your spirits, because I know we're all a little stressed out right now, feel free to shoot me PMs or reviews. I can't promise I can write your suggestions, but if they spark something in my mind, you might see something go up on Ao3. Maybe here. I'm thinking about rounding out a few things on here before I finalize the switch, but The Goddess' Gambit will not be posted on this site.

I'm sorry for the hiatus and the delays, and I hope you are all doing phenomenal. Good luck in these coming months.

Sincerely,

Thein273