Cynus

Thank you for the feature! I'm honored, and I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this story/series. Please let me know your thoughts! Both positive comments and criticism are always welcome!

Honestly, that's all they are. Clever gay dudes in the monster apocalypse. I realized pretty early in season one that I'd just dumped the whole jar of "gay essence" into the batter and, whatdya know, the cake is FABULOUS. Thank you for reading and commenting! This comment brightened an otherwise shitty day.

Thank you, my friend. I have the same hopes as you. I keep trying to start, but I keep stopping. Hopefully I'll finally get out of the driveway one of these days.

There was a time I didn’t live in fear of creating. A time when, after I had finally managed to regain my childhood wonder for the art of art itself, I no longer felt the need to hide the ideas in my head. I wrote novels, I wrote short stories, I wrote… darkness and light. And I shared those stories with the world, or at least my own little corner of it. I loved being able to put those stories out there and have people read them, respond, tell me what they thought, whether they liked it or not. I loved interacting with the world. For probably the first time in my life, I felt like I mattered. And then he showed up. I didn’t really understand what was happening at first. In a way, that makes sense. Some of my life experiences were geared towards me freezing up when an older man turned his attention towards me and offered me affection. I was conditioned to give in to that attention, to crave it. I hated myself for it, but it didn’t seem to matter. An older man told me I was special, and those were words that had been used forever to steal away parts of my soul. I haven’t written in three years now. Oh, I’ve plugged away here and there. I’ve started a few times. I’ve written a couple of very bad short stories, much too short and far too little story… but whenever I try to commit to something bigger, I now freeze up. I imagine getting to the point that I put that story out there and someone, some other, old man looking to tell me I’m special, will show up and once again refuse to stop showing me attention. No means no. I shouldn’t have to tell an adult this, yet they seem to be the ones who can’t remember. No means no, and some people don’t listen. I think he started stalking me in 2014. Thankfully he never knew my physical location, but in every corner of the internet that I traveled to, he’d somehow find me. It just seemed like he was a dedicated fan of my work at first. He liked what I wrote, he related to the characters and to the themes… all normal things. I appreciated my fans and I tried to be friends with them, and so when he seemed friendly and non-threatening, I invited him into my life too. But then things started getting weird. He started telling me that he loved me. Not my work, but me. This guy in his 70s just couldn’t leave that thought alone. He had to tell me, to pine over me and make sure I knew. He told me he knew me from a previous life, and, since I believed in reincarnation at the time, he was able to make that convincing. I bought into some of his story, because I… once, long ago, as a child, had a different older man tell me similar lies. And I’ve always been conditioned to believe those stories. I’ve always wanted to believe that I was special, and meant for more than the pain of my every day life. Someone had robbed me of the ability to believe that I was worth anything on my own. Someone had robbed me of the ability to see myself as worth anything to anyone, unless they implicitly told me. Those who sense that vulnerability are very good at exploiting it. Those who abuse can see those who have already been abused, and open those cracks wide enough to get inside. The man who stalked me was one of those. He saw the hidden, scared child who had suffered intense abuse by the hands of others and saw a way to use me for himself. So he widened the cracks in me, and he made himself at home. He piled praise on me, so that he could try to get inside my heart, to steal what was left of my childhood soul. I finally figured it out, about four years ago. I had finished writing just one more story about pain and darkness. I had figured out what life meant to me, and what I wanted to live for, and he was there… he was there telling me those same sickening honeyed lies. Still professing his love to me, a love I’d rejected countless times before. He was still there telling me that he wanted me, that I was meant to be with him. I had warned him that if he crossed the line again, I would never speak to him again, and I would cut him off from everything. He didn’t listen. I cut him out immediately. But the fear remained. The power he had over me remained in some insidious way. I tried to write another novel. It’s the worst one I ever wrote, and that’s counting that atrocity against the English language and all known rules for plotting that is my first novel… It was a story about two men falling in love in a warped and nightmarish reality. It’s literally horrific, and full of abuse. I couldn’t stomach it. But I wrote it, and then left it in disgust. Because I know that it’s about him. It’s about all of them. It’s about every single older male who ever tried to groom, seduce, molest, and rape me. The fact that I can’t even count them on my fingers says something to the life I’ve lived. Those nightmares plague me still. How am I supposed to tell stories to the world, when people like that exist? When a stalker could be hiding behind every keyboard? How can I keep sharing my soul, when some will latch onto it like a parasite because they no longer have their own? I hope that I’ve healed enough that it no longer matters. I hope that the work I’ve done through therapy and a great deal of introspection has repaired those cracks enough that no one like that will ever find a way in again. I hope… but I still fear. I’m going to try to write again, but know this to anyone who reads this. If you ever attempt to manipulate me into trusting you so that I give you a piece of me I’ve told you that you cannot have, I will cut you out immediately. I will curse you with every curse I know. I will condemn you to every hell in the ears of all who know me. I will ensure that the world knows you for the monster you are. Wherever you are, Don, Peter, Ehrhart, and all the others who dared to try to break me to your will, where once you may have succeeded, you have ultimately failed. I have escaped your delusions, your crawlspaces, and your basements. And I will never back down from tearing the likes of you from the fabric of this reality. Going forward, there will be new rules with regards to patronhood. Those of you who are already here and already friends with me, you are the last ones I will allow in in that capacity. Anyone new will just have to accept that I am polite to my readers, but not friendly. Anyone new will just have to accept that the relationship between writer and reader ends at the last words on the page, or the last comment left on the chapter. I will not be taking any readers into my life again. I’ll carry them generally in my heart, but there must be a line drawn and it is being drawn now. Again, if we’re already friends, this doesn’t apply to you. Consider yourself already vetted. You’ve made the cut. But this boundary is necessary for me to go forward, to write again, to share again. I need that to be clear. Stalkers and manipulators are not welcome here. If any of you see any behavior of that sort, please let me know so it can be dealt with. Again, if you’re here, I trust you already. Let’s make this world better together. Much love to those who’ve stayed without demanding my love in return, despite my long hiatus. Your support means the world to me. ~H. S. Icarus (The writer formerly known as Cynus)

On nights I'm most distressed Sometimes I dream of you When the wind makes the windowpane shudder And my pain shudders with it. Like the tremble of the way you haunt me, Thoughts of you leave fingerprints upon my soul. Like the residue of someone once residing there They’re hard to scrub away And yet, I don't go seeking for what left them there I know it's best I keep away Lest I one day find myself seeking the comfort of your known distance

I do!

It's not you, it's me, or more accurately, it's us. At thirty-three, swiftly approaching thirty-four, I didn't think I'd be coming out about another thing ever again. There are some parts of my identity which have been kept very carefully from public view for the bulk of my life, and I had honestly grown so used to the idea of not addressing them that the thought of doing so had stopped crossing my mind years ago. Nevertheless, it seems my soul has other things in mind. We have DID. As this is a public post, We will assume that there will be many who are unfamiliar with the acronym, and many still don't know what it means beyond knowing what it stands for. If you are familiar with it, you may skip the next few paragraphs if you wish. DID stands for 'Dissociative Identity Disorder', formerly known by the misnomer 'Multiple Personality Disorder'. It is a disorder brought on by extreme trauma experienced by people (nearly always children) who are capable of entering highly dissociative states. While all people are capable of dissociating to some degree, several conditions such as ADHD, ASD, BPD, and others, create a heightened disposition towards dissociation, making them more susceptible to developing DID during intensely traumatic experiences. During those traumatic experiences, the dissociation triggers as a form of emotional survival. In order to endure what is happening, the mind retreats from the experience of the body. Sometimes, when a person experiences this, the mind creatively invents an identity that it believes is capable of responding to that trauma, or storing it as a locked memory. This is how different identities (known as "alters") form within DID, and is also the reason why many who develop the disorder often have severe issues with memory and depersonalization. The symptoms can range in severity, and no two cases are the same, merely similar in function. In the case of the authors of this post, We were born with ADHD and ASD, and began experiencing extreme trauma around the age of seven. That severe trauma persisted well into our teenage years, with several significant events triggering along the way. If you have read our autobiographical piece, you know some of what occurred, but not all. In truth, We are not even certain if We have uncovered it all yet. That uncertainty is what led us to be open about this in the first place. The past year has been an interesting journey. Increased isolation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic put many of us into deep periods of self-reflection. In our case, there were personal issues which had created problems for us, and had forced us to acknowledge that We had much to work on. We were lost on our path in life, having felt disconnected from our passions such as writing and cooking—among many others—and the many disparate voices within us had caused issues for people We cared about. Becoming medicated for ADHD was a great place to start our recovery, but it wasn't until We began far more intensive therapies that We started sorting ourself out. We went faster than We should have, and often came out the other side of therapy wondering if the intense pain of working through traumatic memories and the destructive behaviors which had arisen from them was truly worth it. In the end, it absolutely was, for through the other side of that process We now feel cohesive, cooperative, have regained our understanding of empathy, and have overcome the depression that plagued us for twenty-five years. We do not know if such things will stay, but We are optimistic, for We now work as a system to address the problems We face in life. Throughout the course of this post, We have used first person plural pronouns, and We are making a conscious effort to make that our default. When We speak, We tend to speak as a blend of several of our alters at once. While only one speaks with the voice, others are immediately present, and We often shift fluidly. As such, We think of ourself in the singular as a system, but in the plural as those living within it. We understand this can be jarring for many people, and, if in personal interactions, you would prefer that We do not refer to ourself in this manner, We are willing to make that concession for the time being. In a similar yet different vein, our preferred pronouns are they/them (plural), although We accept any other pronouns as well. In our headspace, there are men, there are women, there are non-binary folks, there are some whose description would probably be worthy of a separate post entirely. Do not stress yourself to remember this part of us. Part of how We arrived at this new cohesiveness of functioning multiplicity, was through the help and guidance of other DID systems, who make it their mission to help others. It is because of their example that We feel compelled to do the same. We wish to bring awareness and understanding, and to help anyone who may be struggling in similar ways, whether with DID or otherwise. This year of working through things is also the primary reason why We have been unable to produce much in the way of artistic expression. It is difficult to do such a thing when one's emotions are erratic, and most of the time that's the only way to describe what We were feeling. Thank you for reading, and being part of our experience. We will be in touch, and We have much more to create and share with you all. Thank you for your patience with us. Survive and thrive, The Icarus System

I may end up addressing that in a roundabout way when I decide to return to this world, not by directly talking about them, but by exploring what it means to be in that group overall. I'm more likely to go forward than back in the timeline. However, I do have an answer, and if you'd like me to do so, I will answer the question directly.

I'm glad you enjoyed it when you had a chance to finish it! I might return to this world and play around a bit more in the future someday, so maybe there will be more! Although that's not a promise, just one of many stories tumbling in my head haha! Thanks for commenting.

Thank you so much! That puts my mind at ease.

To block a user in some way? There is someone who has been problematic for me in places that are not GayAuthors, but they are present here, and I would like to find a way to prevent their interaction with me, if possible. I couldn't find anything that would allow it, and I will simply continue to ignore them if there isn't another option.

I'm glad you found it provocative! My mind often drifts to the story of Narcissus and Echo as a cautionary tale for me to keep close at hand to keep me in check.

Thank you for reading it and responding. I'm glad it hit the mark.

I'm glad it resonated! I've had some emotions tumbling around in my brain for a long time, and I'm glad they can be put to use by someone other than me.

It seems strange to me, to feel grief now After having lost so many And losing them in repetition. I feel like I lost my parents a thousand times And they're still alive. My sister's body lives on, Yet her mind is all but gone A shred of herself, haunting her flesh like a ghost Who barely remembers who she is. Perhaps dementia is a common thing we all experience, But not in such drastic of ways. Perhaps we all experience one thousandth of th