Tess is Surviving the Horrors

@mothmother.com

3224 Followers 1921 Following

Neurospicy disabled anarchist trans girl. Recovering academic 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ 🎵Music, books, games, poetry: MothMother.com/ 🎮Theory, speaking: TessTanen.com/ 🫟Ink, art, pottery: cauldronFireStudios.com/ Patreon: patreon.com/MothMotherTess Etc.: linktr.ee/MothMother

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My POV looking down at myself and my two tattoos. I'm lying on my back, holding the phone in my teeth, and pointing it down along my body, and my arms are held out in front of me. On my left forearm is a gender fluidity sigil I designed and got years before my egg cracked (but there were no signs!)- it is circular, with a triangle and a smaller circle within. Coming off of the inner circle are a half moon, an arrow, and a plus sign. On my right forearm is an eight pointed star of Innana, also in a circle. Also visible in this image is my cleavage, which is begging for matching ink of some sort!
A transition timeline showing Tess's annual no makeup selfie from 2019 to 2026, followed by a fast paced slideshow of dozens of recent selfies of Tess living her best life!)
Tess stands at podium holding a microphone. A sticker encrusted laptop is open in front of her. She wears a Witchy hat and glasses. Behind her, is a large screen with a slide that says "we need to talk about magick".
Tess in a dress standing in front of a large screen that reads Designing playful rituals of resistance to the oppressive normative social order through transgender worlding and Magick
The Kogitsune-maru, a sword with 9 fox tails sprouting from the pommel. The guard and hilt are an ornate basket weave. A pink gem is set into the guard. An ornamental section connecting the blade to the hilt has a blue gem inset into it. The blade widens slightly along its length, and the tip ends in an asymmetrical flick, with a trailing point on the tip, pointing up.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” she asked. I scanned the racks, still distracted by that first encounter, and by that feline voice. “I’m just browsi…” I started to say but my words caught in my throat because there she was! Seiko-chan’s Kogitsune-maru! A pang of unexpected longing shot through me. This was the sword! The one I didn’t think anyone still carried! And it was perfect! The pink Maiden Gem in the guard was cast in resin, with whorls of iridescent glitter creating the illusion of otherworldly nebulas within its depths. The blue Spark of Inspiration glittered where the blade met the guard. The handle was wrapped in real leather, and I suspected that if I peeled back the flap at the center that there would be a replica of the bloodbond needle beneath. Even the nine miniature foxtails on the pommel were perfect! I realized I had stopped breathing as I drank in all the little details that had been worked into the replica, from the inscription along the runnel to the ghostly handprint (seared onto the metal by the Dark Seiko during her escape from the nightmare hospital). It was beautiful! “So,” a velvety voice said by my ear, snapping me out of my weeb reverie, “you have a thing for magical girls…very interesting…”
A poster for the In Queery speaker series. "Designing playful rituals of resistance through transgender worlding and magic" Theresa Jean Tanenbaum Ph.D. composer, consultant, speaker, and scholar. She/her July 17th 6:30 pm Cafe Santa Rosa 5901 N Prospect Road, Peoria IL 61614-1395, United States. Hosted by Peoria Proud. Community, not Commentary Podcast . Webinars . Live Panels . Workshops
A screenshot of a google docs grammar suggestion for the sentence "You gals want a lift?" the word "gals" is underlined in blue, and a suggestion bubble has offered "guys" as an alternative.
A light skinned women in a straw hat, glasses on necklace, dark green tank top, and blue lounge pants with a belt in dappled sunlight.
Disability Pride Month flag overlaid with the words “Disability Pride Month Bundle - 33 Scifi, fantasy, and horror books for $33 - July 1 - 17” and the covers for Moonshadow’s Guardian, Inarora's Excursion, TEMPEST, TAKE ME HOME, Beyond Bringers, A Stage over Ruthless Stars, Sidetracked Part 1, LET THIS UNDO YOU, Where We Converge, The Old Goat and the Alien, Their Village, Their Fortress, Valyo Rising, A Study on Magic and Crystals, Behind the Mask, Carved by Water, The Tenderness of Being Alive, GULA: A Poem for the End Times, Haunting the Scavenger, Lessons in Life & Love among Centaurs, Abominations: Poems of Feminine Monstrosity, Transformation, and Horror, Enemies to Enemies, Testing Grounds, Demonic Resonance Therapy, and more
A light skinned transexual woman in pink and red striped scoop top and short jean shorts.
Left: Egg Tess, sometime in 2017 or 2018, at 38 or 39 years old. She is so desperate to see a thing that she believes is impossible. There is so much potential in her that she cannot recognize. Right: The FaceApp version of Egg Tess, with just enough of the curtain peeled back to start to give her a hint of who she might actually be.
Tess in 2026, at 47 years old. She wears minimal makeup, large nerdy glasses, and a simple blacktop. Her hair is much longer, and healthier. Her complexion has cleared up, there is no visible facial hair, despite having done nothing to shave or pluck in over a month, and there is a slightly mischievous, slightly surprised, look on her face, because even she doesn't believe what she is seeing on the screen.
Tess's coming out photo. She has stubble, and glasses, and is wearing subtle lipstick. Her hair has started to grow longer, and is bright purple, still swept to one side. She is wearing a purple top with white embroidery around the collar. There is the beginning of a light in her eyes.
Egg Tess at her mother's house, wearing a flowy skirt, weird black and white drapey top, and her favorite silver scarf. Plus fem shoes, and the denial beard.
Egg Tess wearing a unicorn fur headdress, entirely "ironically"!
Egg Tess, still in the egg, but presenting even more feminine. Because "gender is just a performance man, so what if I prefer it to wear pretty scarves, and the occasional flowy skirt!?"
Left : slightly more evolved Egg Tess. Floppy hair now has purple hair dye, and is little longer, with a hint of an enby side shave. A dangly earring is visible from one ear. She wears glasses, and a scarf, but still retains the denial beard.) Right: (FaceApp version of Egg Tess: The hair is longer and feathered, the beard is gone, and the facial features are rounded out and softened, producing an inadvertently accurate image of what HRT would do to me in the first few years of transition.)
Left: Egg Tess (a light-skinned individual with trimmed denial beard, weird floppy partially bleached hair, and sunken dead eyes.) Right: FaceApp Tess ( a poorly algorithmically feminized version of Egg Tess, with genetic "woman" facial features, framed by messily extended hair, and no beard.)
Disability Pride Month flag overlaid with the Itch logo, the words “Disability Pride Month Bundle - 33 Scifi, fantasy, and horror books for $33 - July 1 - 17”, and the covers for Moonshadow’s Guardian, Inarora's Excursion, TEMPEST, TAKE ME HOME, Beyond Bringers, A Stage over Ruthless Stars, Sidetracked Part 1, LET THIS UNDO YOU, Where We Converge, The Old Goat and the Alien, Their Village, Their Fortress, Valyo Rising, A Study on Magic and Crystals, Behind the Mask, Carved by Water, The Tenderness of Being Alive, GULA: A Poem for the End Times, Haunting the Scavenger, Lessons in Life & Love among Centaurs, Abominations: Poems of Feminine Monstrosity, Transformation, and Horror, Enemies to Enemies, Testing Grounds, Demonic Resonance Therapy, and more
A collection of simple vector art images. Top row (left to right) Cat ears on a headband (Kitty), A hammer swinging through the air (Megan), and a sword with foxtails on the pommel (Seiko) Bottom Row, Left to Right: An egg with a denial beard (Kyle), An egg with a denial beard with a small crack in it (Kyle?), A clean shaven egg with a larger crack (Kyla), An egg with an even larger crack, that has been taped over (Kyla? No. Kyle), An egg with a huge crack in it (Kyla?), The cracked bottom half of an egg (Kyla)
Discord message from a girl I met last night at the open mic. It reads: "Hey btw yer like wicked perty"
A screenshot of the story creation screen on Scribble Hub. The title reads: "Help! I accidentally cracked the egg of the NSA agent assigned to monitor me and now she wants to date me!" Description: "Emily always suspected that her political activities would land her in an NSA watchlist, but she didn't have the spoons for proper OpSec. Now she's getting mysterious messages from someone who identifies themselves only as "Phil" who claims to be the agent assigned to monitor her. "Phil" has questions...not about her civil disobedience, but about how she decided to start estrogen!
Tess, a light skinned trans woman, with chaotic curly dark hair, wearing a nightgown and holding her chest with one hand. She is filtered to a high-contrast blue.
A short video showing a puzzle involving rotating gears inside of another gear shaped space made out of paper, with red and blue watercolor to denote different aspects of the puzzle.
Two young people on their wedding day. Both are girls, but one is much cuter than the other, who had not yet understood that she was a girl.
A gorgeous piece of Russian brutalist architecture: a round structure that looks somewhat like the sail barge in Return of the Jedi, extending across a body of water, and mirrored in reflection beneath.
A pencil sketch of a Soviet Brutalist structure with chicken legs, standing on a rock outcropping.
The final painting: Mixed media (acrylic, black walnut ink, watercolor, and ephemera) An image of palm trees on the beach, looking out across the ocean. The trees are silhouetted against a beautiful sunset. This guy is dark and filled with ominous swirling clouds and patterns, along with three birds. Three women drawn from a children's story book stand on an outcropping in the foreground comprised of strips of an old letter from the 1800s, and additional mixed media and paper elements are incorporated throughout.
Tess in a dress. She's in her bedroom. She is light skinned, and has dark curly hair and glasses. The dress is black, with pastel pink and green flowers on it. Tess stands with her arms at her side.
Tess, in a low cut tank top, and loose pants, leaning towards the camera, as if to say "Hey babygirl, do you want to show me how good you can be for me tonight?" Her dark curly hair has a streak of purple in it, she wears an honk around her neck, large nerdy glasses, and light lipstick but no other makeup.
A slow pan over the mammatus clouds above our house.
Orange sky with wild mammatus clouds stretching to the horizon.
Tess, from behind, arms raised up And outward, and flexed. Showing off her shoulders and ass.
Tess, again, demonstrating muscles.
Tess, a light skinned woman, lift's a muscular arm and flexes it to show off her bicep. She wears tight grey pants, a belt, and a blue paisley top.
A row of paperbacks lined up on a desk. These include: An issue of Fiddler's Green Peculiar Parish Magazine, Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente, Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings, Dan Da Dan volumes 11 & 9 by Yukinobu Tatsu, Magica Riot Full Bloom, by Kara Buchanan, How to be a Dragon, by Johanna Masters, Initiated: Memoir of a Witch by Amanda Yates Garcia, Drawing Down the Moon, by Margot Adler, Japanese Folktales edited by Royall Tyler, Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Ranma 1/2 volumes 1-4 by Rumiko Takahashi, My Dress Up Darling vol 1 by Shinichi Fukuda, and Princess Jellyfish vol 1 by Akiko Hagashimura.
Tess: a ight skinned woman with dark curly hair and glasses in a black velvet dress, punk rock belt, and witchy necklaces. Her booth is visible in the background
Moth Mother, Surviving the Horrors.
An overhead photograph of a table with many prints of my illustrations scattered across it.
A mirror selfie of Tess, shot over her shoulder to highlight her arm and shoulder muscles.
A full image of my father's violin in its case sitting on a red fabric couch.
The violin in question, in close up, in its case.
An exchange with somebody on Discord who listen to surviving the Horrors. They say: "Listening now... i especially love the sound of your beats, like the hollow sound on track two and the resilient bounce on the title track. These feel like landscapes to move through, not just take in. Vibing out 🙂"
Dreamwalk (2026) Theresa Jean Tanenbaum Black Walnut Ink commissioned by Inkspark games for the Unwritten Expansion to the MYST TTRPG. An Illustration of a vehicle that looks like a Romani caravan with articulated Janesson linkage style legs, lumbering into a swirling portal in the air.
Moth Mother - Surviving the Horrors A dark mountain landscape in black walnut ink. Strange creatures can be seen wandering the environment, and radio towers, power lines, and observatories are silhouetted against the sky.
A super closeup of Tess's face. She's on her side, eyes half closed, mouth open, tongue partially out, and upper teeth visible.
Mugwort, in all his floofy majesty, hiding his face behind his paw.
Close up of the best cat face.
A picture of Mugwort, a fluffy black cat. He is sprawled on his side, asleep, and is making a genuinely goofy grimace.
Can you believe this hot bitch is 47!? Or that this fierce velvet dress was purchased at Hot Topic in 1998? Both are true. The ankh around her neck? Also a late 90s Hot Topic acquisition! The breasts that are spilling over the top of the low cut neckline are more recent (thanks estrogen!). Her curly dark hair Cascades forward over her shoulder, and a stripe of it is purple. She wears glasses, and opalescent purple and pink eyeshadow and lipstick.
Two side by side images of a black and white wood cut from the blue fairy book of three women dancing around a tree. The one on the left is unpainted, going on the right has been water colored in pastels shades
A watercolor and ink story book style drawing of a dragon, sleeping by the side of a body of water, with a tree growing out of its butt, and a castle in the distance against a cloudy sky. A window, hatch door, and chimney stick out of the dragon in various places.
A draft alert from me: The GOP: "We're going to to burn your house down, shoot you in the face, put your children in camps, shit in your hair while you sleep, and then masturbate over the footage while fucking your pets." Centrist Dems: "We're only going to do these things to SOME of you...while dunking on the GOP."
A picture of an unlit bonfire in a meadow with woodland on three sides, looking up a hill at the house in the distance. A green tractor/mower with a yard cart is parked to one side.
Herbs in pots in one of our other mini greenhouses.
Some of our chickens, exploring the porch.
Our ducks inspect the new run I built for the chickens in our front yard. It is a wire fence, around a small collection of shrubs and trees, coming off the front porch of the house.