Thursday, May 27, 2010

Commissions

So, I've decided to take commissions. Here's some info for you, if you're interested:

Payment:

Paypal only.

Prices

Bust Sketch:
Bust Sketch- $10
Bust Coloured- $15
Waist up sketch:
Waist Sketch: $10
Waist Coloured= $15

Fullbody sketch:

Full Body Sketch- $20
Full Body Coloured- $25

Chibi Characters:
Digital = $10
Coloured= $15
Additional characters (in the same sketch) = +$7 each
Flat Colors = + $10

These seem fair to me. For a clean, finished work, there will be an additional 20$ fee. If you want a hard copy of the work, you will be expected to pay not only for shipping and handling, but the price it'll cost me to get it printed on nice glossy paper for you at Staples. Thank you for your understanding.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Angel of Death


"I am an Angel of the Lord..." This could possibly be considered a spoiler. Hope you enjoy. I coloured those swords once before, but the metal ended up looking like zebras, so I scratched that one.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Planet Titus


The Titus world map. Please enjoy. PS- Parthia is the continent the story is taking place right now,

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Walking


Warning guys, HUGE file. Seriously. Just a fun little exercise that went a little too far, and yes, I'm well aware of all the mistakes. Thanks. I just wanted a group drawing, so you guys can get an idea of what the people on the planet of Titus look like. I used a lot of the same colours on everyone to promote more unity in the drawing, and no, none of them are really wearing anything they'd wear in real life. From left to right, is Apollo Neeweb, Valesti Nietzsche, Rhiannon Vander, Erimenthia (Eria) Eleniak, Rue Ajidagba, Tobias Kinkade, Lieza Mayfield, and Job (Joe-b) Labino.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Compulsion

DISCLAIMER: Journaling about some abusive issues, nothing graphic, just some feelings and observations.
***

There's some really strange phenomenon going on in my life right now that I think should be addressed. I'm doing some things I know I really shouldn't, and they're kind of insignificant in a broad sense, but... well, it's weird and so not normal that... well, it's anything but normal for me.

I want to talk about a lot of different things in this particular post, so please bear with me.

As you all know by now if you've been reading, I'm trying to clear up some of the foster/ government issues from my childhood. There is good news on this front- I need to make another phone call and such, but like, I have a representative now, and an investigator into my case, and I'm very excited and scared. The reason I bring this up is because it's making me think very actively about what happened to me, where I come from, and the stuff that just sort of... balled up together to make me who I am. And because of all this, I've been thinking of my hometown, some of the homes I've lived in, and thought about contacting them.

I knew it was a bad idea, and I kept putting it off. I knew it couldn't end well. I talked to a good friend of mine, and while they never said outright it was a bad idea, it was hinted and alluded to. This put off the urge for say... like, two days. But I couldn't hold back anymore, and I contacted a woman I lived with outside of foster care, a priest. We talked for a long time, and she apologized to me for losing contact with me, and it was all well and good. Until she mentioned the 'spirits' of abandonment and such that are undoubtably attached to me. I believe it myself, to be honest. It would certainly explain my alarming track record with loss of people. She didn't say anything too horrible, but it didn't change the fact that the next day I was a monster to be around, and a sobbing mess. (Then I had some chocolate, my friends came over, and I felt better.) I'm not sure what triggered me so badly.

Suffice it to say I never learnt my lesson, because a few days later, I made yet another call to Saint George. This time, to a Baptist ex- youth minister. He's a nice man, and someone I lived with for a few months in my fostering days. The conversation was fine as we played catch-up. Then he mentioned all the 'healing' that was taking place at the St Mark's Anglican Church. I remained skeptical, but listened. He recalled to me the prayer meetings he had with me and a few others over my past abuse issues. In truth, I had almost forgotten he'd had a part in this travesty. He said something along the lines of how they were helpful, and he hoped I got healing from it.

"Are you kidding me?" I wanted to ask, but said nothing: My typical fashion. This man is sensitive and genuine, and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. So I said nothing. I've been grinding my teeth ever since.

I think at this point, I need to backtrack for those of you who might be confused. When I first started living with fellow Christians instead of the old nutbars I'd lived with before, I was insanely relieved. No longer would I fear drunken, rowdy nights. No more would parents be throwing dishes at each other over the latest affair. And hopefully, no longer would I be punished for getting something to eat. All those things were true, but at a price. In fact, a price that might've been just as hefty as the problems I'd left.

Living with Christians, if you've had my upbringing, can be very demeaning. They're quick to remind you where you come from, and the fact that you'll never quite be as 'whole' as they are blessed to be. When I first moved in with this Baptist family, it was a great change of pace. I was in Church every day, right up until it was 10:30pm. When it wasn't Church, I was in school.

Then summer came. This family had three kids- two boys and a girl. The eldest (boy) was my age, I think 17 at the time. Then were was the 15 (or so) boy, and the 11 or so girl. I got home from church, and went to go in the house, when I found it locked. That was the day I learnt that I apparently wasn't allowed in the house unless the parents were home.

Ouch. What'd they think I was going to do, molest them all at the first opportunity? I asked my ex- social worker Moe Walsh about it. All she had to say about it was that it was a great, wonderful approach to having me in the house and would reccommend it to any foster family who had a child with a past history of being abused. Obviously, I never approached the subject again.

So they were having these prayer sessions for me. Originally, the plan was to pray for help in the healing process, which I DO think is important. I remember the first day I was brought into it- I walked into the warm Sanctuary of the St Mark's Anglican church. Admittedly, I was nervous, but not scared. After all, this place was a safe haven for me. I was at home here.

Then I saw the group of people- like 5 or 6 of them, men and women- sitting and talking. The room seemed to heat up by several degrees, but I thought, "They're just talking to -so and so- they'll leave.

The Priest stood with a welcoming smile on her face, and the room was shrinking, and I couldn't force myself to move. It's like it happened yesterday. I still vaguely remember the smell of the room, the way the last of daylight shone through the windows. They were all there to pray for me. A lot of these people never knew I was abused until the priest informed them about it. I should've walked out then and there. I should've said it was unacceptable.

Anyway, halfway through prayer, they switched gears. Instead of asking for God's help, they started thanking God for getting me through what I've gotten through. I was so incredibly offended. I still AM offended. I got through that on my own, I thought. Yes, by God's grace I was/ am alive, but the steps I've taken since then should be MY victory. I did this. I survived. I feel like it makes me a victim again to take that tiny, fragile power away from me. I want the credit for what little I've accomplished, as egotistical as that will sound to any Christians reading this.

Anyway, from there they switched pegs again, and it took me a few minutes to notice- I was still upset that they took power from me. Suddenly they were praying off demons and spirits from me, and I just sat there and allowed that to happen. I should've said something, but never did. I already felt like a demon, a monster, and here they are, aggressively reminding me of that 'truth'. I remember feeling very... detached by this point, and I vaguely remember crying. I wasn't like, sobbing, it was more just tears streaming down my face, and they were all happy, thinking that God was moving through me.

No. Just your hurtful and derogatory comments.

They prayed, then, for purity of mind and spirit. For God to 're-virginize' me. I'm still insulted when I think about this, and even now my face is all red and hot. I was so angry I didn't hear most of the praying for my 'purity' back. Thanks a lot, jerks, for reminding me so forcefully of something that's been so crudely stolen from me. Thanks for bringing back his smiling face, his smell, the sounds he made coming up the stairs to see me. Thanks a lot for reminding me of something I don't remember ever *having*. Thanks a lot for reminding me how much that other man hated me.

Why do I feel like need to get into contact with these people? I was nothing but a potential pariah and predator to them, a ticking timebomb. I was afraid, all the time. I had this idea that when I turned 19, I would wake up, and something inside me would break. My old self would crumble, and this new abuser would form, aware of the old me, but much too powerful to be threatened. I thought it'd be like I was stuck inside myself. I thought I'd have no control- why else would people abuse? I remember wanting to severely hurt myself- I'm against suicide, but I didn't want to hurt anyone. Which was the bigger sin? I was/ am convinced I'm going to Hell, so what was the loss?

Obviously I never went through with it, and I realize I'm getting off topic. Why do I want to contact these people who threatened and scared me? People who constantly made me question every thing I did, every way I looked at a person? I was scared to really look at anyone, particularly if they were younger than me. Why am I so determined to have a relationship with them? What is the underlying issue?

I don't know. Since I've called St George, it'll hopefully curb my desire to want to call them again for a long time. I feel like I'm being pretty spleeny about this- it's not like these people were rude or outright mean to me. It could've been worse, and I'm grateful it wasn't. I don't know. I'm kind of hoping this whole investigation of my childhood thing just... gives me closure or whatever so I can just move on with my life again. I hope it can fix the student loan issues, because I really do want to go back to school.

Thanks for listening to my pointlessness.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Games



DISCLAIMER: This post is relatively harmless, but abuse and survivor's rights are mentioned.

Whenever I go somewhere with a group of people, there is a game that is always played. I privately call this game ' memory lane'. What are the rules? You recollect for the audience a certain memory. Sometimes it's your funniest, or most painful, or something to that nature. Most people reading this will think this is no big deal. After all, if you've had a 'normal' childhood, you can play this game with the best of them. If you have had a normal childhood, you would never notice how often this game is even played.
Sometimes I feel that the people I'm with sense that there's something I'm not 'allowed' to share, so they feel as if they need to bring it up. You know, to ensure I feel left out. I know that isn't necessarily so, but that doesn't change how I feel about it.
There's a strange phenomenon about abuse. Whenever it's spoken about, it's a subject of deepest shame. Sexual abuse especially is one of the few crimes where the victim is more frowned upon than the actual person who did the crime.
I need to talk about this because nobody lets me talk about it.

Imagine, not being able to share a large portion of your life with anybody. Not your parents, your best friend, or your spouse. You can't tell a soul. A person is a sum of many things- one of which is his upbringing. Most of you, if you are lucky, have had a good childhood. I hope you recognize how incredibly lucky you are. Even if you were neglected- when I was alone, I was better off.
If you had a good childhood, you're really not going to understand how lonely not being able to talk is. How strange and deformed you feel. How ugly and worthless. Most people dress up, wanting to look goth or whatever so they can complain about how people look at them. People want to be different from each other.
I've always been jealous of normality. How I've always wanted to play the childhood memory game! After the first person has shared ("My most painful memory was when I was building a tree house and I hit my hand with the hammer") I panic. I can't breathe anymore. I look around the classroom or whatever, thinking that everyone must know, somehow. My first thought is, 'I need to make something up before it's my turn'. I'm terrible with making up good child memories.
So instead, I choose a memory that I see as harmless, or even funny. This is where it's really, painfully obvious that I'm different. The room goes quiet. People stare, and there might be a nervous cough. I'm the only person laughing.
I find it insensitive. I'm sharing my most 'innocent' memories, and they're still not good enough! I have this desire to tell people to suck it up- if I can laugh about it, the least you can do is laugh with me! I hate having to hide who I am all the time. It's tiring and degrading. It reminds me of what a monster I feel like I am.
I want to be who I am- completely and truely- with someone. Preferably more than one someone. Christians go to church, comic fans go to conventions, gay people have villages and a flag and a parade. I want that. I want a place that people like me can go to and feel, for once in our lives, like we're not being judged. I want to be able to share my darkest, most terrible memories. I want to feel normal.
We deserve a flag. If you're reading this, you or someone you know has been through this.

We deserve conventions. 1 in 3 women are sexually abused before we're eighteen, and that's only the people who actually came out about it. Know what that means?

We deserve parades. We make up at least a third of the population, after all. Most of the people who read my blog are my friends, and I can guarantee that I'm not the only one you know who it's happened to.

The Wounded Heart

DISCLAIMER: Still talking about my childhood feelings and such. May bother you, and some of the language is (somewhat) graphic. Also, this will be the last time I mention the 'Wounded Heart' book, for the sanity of my readers.

I've been thinking about the nature of abuse lately, even more so than normal. I guess it's understandable, it's a subject that cuts close to home for me. I'm taking steps right now to try to patch up what happened to me, so maybe I can get a sense of closure. It's becoming painful, and I'm thinking about those people a lot. I'm thinking of home a lot, and if you can believe it, I'm getting homesick.

I tried calling someone I used to live with last night (from St George, my hometown), and I tried a few different times. She never answered the phone. Why am I doing this? It feels so compulsive. I put those people- or at least I thought I did- behind me for many reasons.

So anyway, I told Joseph my feelings of loneliness and isolation. How it makes me feel that I cannot share my childhood memories with people because I'm afraid of upsetting or offending them. There is nobody I can completely share myself with, and I imagine many other survivors must feel the same way.

My last post, I mentioned a book called 'The Wounded Heart' by Dr Allender. I've read through it more than once, even though it's distasteful. (Another compulsion, perhaps?)

In some ways, this book has made me feel grateful. Some of the people he's worked with are complete nutjobs- people who can't get aroused unless they're pretending they're getting raped or something. People who felt their bodies respond to the abuse (because that's how God made our bodies, remember) but I had sent up a prayer right then- thank you God, that I only experienced terrible pain and fear.

I never thought I'd be thankful for that one.

This Dr Allender thinks he's entitled, because he believes he's been abused. Forced masturbation at a camp (how on earth..?) a 'homosexual invitation' he turned down in Boy Scouts ( I hardly think an invitation to anything can qualify as abuse, especially when he's turned it down) and a sexual assault at a football camp. Okay, the football camp thing might be valid. Hard to tell, with what this guy considers abuse.
What is abuse? According to Dr Allender, sexual abuse is 'any contact or interaction (visual, verbal, or psychological) between a child/ adolescent and an adult when the child/ adolescent is being used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or any other person'.

I can't seem to bring myself to believe that. My father would often leer at me, make comments about my body, ask if my boobs felt a certain way, and so on. I could agree that would be verbal/ emotional abuse. Sexual? Not so sure. The doctor says that 'sexually abusive words produce the same damage as sexually abusive contact'. Strange. I'm pretty sure I've never stayed up crying over the things my father said to me, even though they were inappropriate.

Dr Allender calls for strange things in the name of 'healing'. He says to trust people (in a chapter beforehand, he says that many victims trust too much, which gets them abused again) and to love unconditionally. To love every person unconditionally. I think this is asking too much of any person- whether or not they've been through something like this.

He says to love your abuser. I've come a long way in my journey of healing. It may not seem that way to people close to me, because I still feel the need to talk about it. (I suspect it's something to do with the fact I can't talk to anyone about this) I've confronted with my main abuser, which is what this book recommends. I can understand that it could give the survivor a sense of closure. My abuser pretended like he didn't even know what I was talking about, which is pretty painful. (Oh, sorry, I guess I imagined it. Give me a break)

This Dr Allender though, believes you need to not only approach the abuser, but to love him (or her). He says that you should seek a relationship with the person! You know, because the law doesn't already favour the abuser, and because the family doesn't already prefer the abusers side of the story. Talk about a kick in the teeth.

I have managed to put a lot of stuff behind me. I forgave my abusers long ago, but the fact that this guy is requesting this of people is asking too much, I think. I forgave the man who hated and beat me, and sent that other man up to hurt me- doesn't mean I want or need him to be a daily part of my life. How is any person supposed to grow beyond this kind of betrayal if the person who did it is sitting at your dinner table?

How could you ever put it behind you?

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, least of all a person with a traumatic past. The bad completely outweighs the good, especially with Dr Allender's holier- than- thou approach. I'd like to see him invite his football camp people to HIS supper table, just to see if he can practice what he preaches.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Different Tangent

DISCLAIMER: If the subject of abuse bothers you, then you either have to suck it up, or just don't bother reading this particular post. It happens, get used to it. In all likely hood, it never happened to you, so grow up. Now, on with the show.

My fiancée bought me this book a while ago, 'The Wounded Heart' by Dr. Allender. I had mentioned something about my feelings of isolation. I'm the only person I know in my life situation right now. It's like being the only person in a crowd with an obvious limp or something.

Dr Allender is a Christian psychologist, and that was the other reason Joseph bought me the book- see, we'd be on like, on the same wavelength. The book was insulting, and definitely written in a holier- than- thou tone. One of the reasons it was insulting?

Ignoring the fact that it was telling me that I should actively pursue a relationship with my abusers (which I've actually tried before. I was more insulted on the behalf of other people reading the book), I was insulted at the insinuations that Satan was at fault for what these people are doing.

I was abused by many people, for many years, in a number of ways. When a person says that 'Satan' caused these men/ women/ monsters to do these things, it feels to me like you're saying that they shouldn't be held responsible for their actions.

It's also like saying that the abuse was the fault of the victim. Why is it that our society heaps all this blame on the victims?

I have been held accountable for my abuse- as if it was my fault and I had orchestrated it to happen somehow. (Oh yes, I was so very conniving when I was three.)

I don't understand why I feel so much guilt and shame for what happened.

I don't understand my overwhelming sense of isolation. I'm glad that most people I know haven't been harmed in this way. Yet... yet I crave to be around people like me. Alcoholics get a group. Gay people get parades and a flag and villages, and maybe even special rights. Religious people have churches, mosques, and synagogues. Everyone has a community they go to and they feel accepted.

Christians (I am one, as well) don't tend to like people like me. A lot of them just see me as something that was sullied, and therefore not marriage material. I understand, to a degree, emotional baggage notwithstanding.

But I never asked for it to happen. I was told by an Anglican priest once that my abuser was attracted to the demons I was carrying. When he did what he did, he also transferred more demons into/ onto me. She also assumed he was gay. (Because a gay man abusing a girl makes oh so much sense)

Why do I have these feelings when my abusers do not? Why am I the one who has to feel this?

Why, after all these years, do I sometimes feel like the wounds are still fresh? Why do I feel like I'm the only one? (Especially when I know I definitely am not?)

I desire to meet other people like me, who have this 'dark mark' on their soul. To admit this makes me feel... ashamed. I feel like a freak.

I feel like there's something wrong with me- I should be happy that I'm surrounded by normal, decently- adjusted people.

But all I feel is alone.