#themoth

[danniemolguin]

It's hard to believe this is happening on Thursday! I can't decide whether I'm more excited to share my story or to listen to nine other talented storytellers. If you're looking for a fun way to spend your Thursday night, I hear there are still tickets,  The Moth GrandSlam #StorySlam

[swimmingpoolsandmoviestars]

I told this story at The Moth's Snooping show on 5/7:

Last year I reported a story for a local NPR station about a Wedding Chapel in Long Beach. We’d been getting these press releases from the chapel’s owner and self proclaimed celebrity wedding officiant, Allan Katz, announcing he was going to offer $14 marriage packages on Valentine’s Day. You’d get married, you’d get some flowers and a photo shoot. All for less than twenty bucks.

Something you should probably know about me is I am always down for the weird. So, the more he kept sending these grammatically incorrect messy press releases written in the third person, the more I needed to know who this guy was. And what kind of person gets $14 married. It took some convincing to get my editor to agree because she was not typically the kind of person down for the weird, but eventually she gave in. So, bright and early Valentine’s morning I headed to Long Beach in a blue Vivienne Westwood dress with a full skirt, because if you’re going to attend people’s weddings, you should totally dress up, right? And I get my gear set up just as people start coming in. 

Self proclaimed celebrity wedding officiant Allan Katz is there and he is larger than life. He’s like 6 foot 4 with a big paunch and he’s wearing a red suit jacket with white hearts and a matching tie and white pants. He’s loud, he’s excited, he tells the same hack-y jokes at every ceremony I watch. He is exactly the kind of weird I was hoping for.

Then there’s the first couple of the day, I’ll call them Chad and Laura. They told me they'd been together for five years and thought they’d take the deal and then have a bigger ceremony later with their families. Laura had picked up a sleeveless white lacy number at David’s Bridal the day before, Chad was in a grey suit. They had no guests. Laura said she liked it that way, thought it was more intimate with just the two of them. Let’s remember that bit for later.

Next up were a couple of personal trainers who had taken a white stretch limo to the chapel from Redondo Beach with their dogs and some friends. They were very fit. She was from Sweden and needed a green card, was sporting a spray tan, a see-through white dress with a visible bright white thong underneath and a pair of red suede booties, he was in a black suit. Their dogs were also in wedding attire. And this is more like what I had been expecting.

Then a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend were up! Their families seemed like they were more excited about the baby on the way than the wedding of it all, but they’d been together since high school and looked pretty happy and in love to me. They also brought a dog in a tuxedo.

At this point I felt like I’d found out what kind of people get $14 married. So, I reported live from the field and then called it a day.

Cut to a month later in March, when Chad, from the first couple of the day, sends an email to the website demanding that his and Laura’s names be taken off the story. We can keep the pics up, but could we please change their names to something wacky like Chaz and Endora? I tried to email back to say “Uh, no” but he had written from a burner email so it just bounced back, which was curious.

A little more time goes by and in April I get a message on LinkedIn from a woman I don’t know––we’ll call her Candy––saying something like: Thanks for adding me. I have a strange question to ask, I saw your Valentine’s story and was wondering if all the stories were true and if all the couples were really there that day. Yeah. I guess she’d been dating Chad for a few months until, while doing some internet sleuthing, she saw the wedding article and had broken up with him after he gave her some line about how it’d been recorded months earlier for a promotion. Candy did not buy that. I super wanted to know more, but I just replied: "Hey, I reported that live on Valentine’s Day, hope this is helpful.” She thanked me, we haven’t talked since.

Cut to May, Chad writes back AGAIN. But this time he’s a little angrier and he demands the entire story come down, not just a name change. But he wrote from a burner email again, so, my email bounces back again. Finally, a couple weeks later, Chad writes from a real address and says he works “in legal” specifically “confidentiality and privacy” and asked for my point of contact in the legal department. And now I, like Candy, am super curious about this dirtbag. I do some digging. Turns out, he is actually a “product manager” at Chipotle. So I loop my editor in, because this is just getting bananas, and she writes Chad back a long treatise on how journalism ethics work and why she won’t be taking his name off the internet. Never heard from him again.

You probably want some closure. Are Laura and Chad still married? Did she find out about Candy? Well, he hasn’t posted on social media since 2020 and her name is too common to Google, so we may never know. But on LinkedIn, I do see that Chad, who works “in legal” is still in his project manager position at Chipotle. And though unresolved, I have to say this story definitely gave me the weird I was looking for and then some.

[testifyatx]

Todd Roth, Jet G, Jeff Knight, Lauryn Darci, Solis Rough, and Mark Gifford are the storytellers for our April 12th storytelling show, That’s My Song.

[onlineviolence]

I need to see gmail lighting a blunt on sisyphus's head please you painted an image into my head that NEEDS to become real. I beg of yee

:3

[torantuga]

since u us e procreate is there a similar brush to the one yiu use but for ibis paint

okay buddy i tried my hardest to give an explanation for all of this u asked so hopefully it makes sense

i used my oc angie to explain it since to me he's pretty easy to draw:

i didnt like any of the damn brushes ibis had to offer except this one - ik it's not really the same BUT its fun to use (i used both pen and finger so that you coukd see how they work)

but yeah i selected the vector dip pen - which mayyyysound scary but its not it's pretty easy to draw with

FOR FINGER USE SIZE 7.O-8.O BUT WITH PEN USE 2.O

and as for my palettes - i've spent so many hours of my time drawing with unsaturated color palettes and let me tell you - saturation w warm colors it's where it's at (for my taste)

i started using main colors for my characters and it's very useful.

since we usually stereotype colors and connect them to certain emotions - using main color schemes is a very VERY useful tool to learn in order to make your characters stand out and help the viewers attribute their personalities by only their designs. with this knowledge you can also make twist characters, like orange or yellow palette characters that are evil (which we usually attribute to characters of darker palettes, like black or purple)

this doesn't affect character skin colors, by the way. the accessories and things character's dress themselves with or have (like scars, birth marks or hair) are what attribute them to different color schemes.

but yeah! thats it^^

[welcometohomeworld]

Mother with Small Abyss Blue

[ringleaderising]

My my those eyes like fire // I'm a winged insect // you're a funeral pyre.

As with all art I get I require a backup post, so here's my dragon OC Starling and my friend Cotton's Moth by the incredible Razrroth over on FR! I am absolutely over the moon, I've been looking at them since i got these back and I'm literally vibrating with affection for my knife hucking son and his mean pirate boyfriend.

[shahhrriar]

god!

[idontevenlistentomitski]

Just reminding you all that canonically this is the last year Tracy McConnell is still alive

[ayangr-blog]

Someone's watching The Mother (2023)

[p3rf3ct1mp3rf3ct1on]

#NowWatching The Mother (2023)

[testifyatx]

Join Testify and hear the Kent Cummins story, "Halloween Horror Hop."  Kent is one of our storytellers for our March 2023 show. The theme is "Up All Night," True Tales past your bedtime.

Doors open at 7:00, and the show begins at 7:30.Tickets are $10 Online, and $12 at the door.

 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/testify-presents-up-all-night-tickets-532681152667  

[onlineviolence]

I gift you a bug

He has a pink filter because he wanted to feel cute

Do you like his mustache?

i love his mustache

[hekkoto]

The Mother, High Priestess of Crystal Temple! Here comes one of Creators, beings who created universe of Terroether! Damn, Im so excited to finally be able post this! Damn, so soooooooo many months passed >XD yeah, one of my arts for my diploma work!

BIG UPDATE: Yo, Im speedrunning getting job as game tester ;p not gonna lie, Im just amazed that they seem to want me so much that it goes so fast! I hope background check will go right and I will get that job haha It was such nice feeling to see my recruiter to be amazed with my knowledge ;p not gonna lie, I have a lot of experience and knowledge in that field cause I do related stuff since years ahahaha If I get this job that means I will have way less time for art. So yeah, I gonna push it to the side a bit but donut worry, I feel like getting job might increase my productivity + Im person who takes sketchbook everywhere so I guess expect a lot of traditional works? ;D we will see how exactly this will work but yeah, I guess stuff might slow down. I will be still working on my big upcoming projects like my universe and comic set in its world, I started working on some vid game. And many more ;p I will make some changes, probably less uploads or less 'big' arts uploads and more sketchy like ones. But we will see!

Damn, last week brough so many changes to my life o.o its....odd. But I feel more calm now. Less stressed that stuff might fall apart. I archived a lot and Im proud of myself

I wanna thank you a lot for your support <3 especially lately, I wasnt too active cause so much was happening but I still was getting love from you uwu

wanna support my evil dark empire? Im accepting souls on Patreon and Ko-fi! -> Hekkoto Huge thanks to all of my Patrons and people who donate 🖤

[welcometohomeworld]

The Mother- Abyss Black . I really wanted to draw her, I always use her in rp, but I never really draw her