Pencilfangs

MASKS: A NEW GENERATION (powered by the apocalypse engine, 2d6 core resolution): Play as teenaged superheroes! Emulate the feel of a comic book or animated TV series like Young Justice, Teen Titans, etc. DEATH IS NOT A STAKE (unless you’re The Doomed): emotional trauma is instead! FAST, narratively driven combat; complex antagonists; sessions structured by “scenes” instead of encounters to encourage roleplaying and story above all else! Perfect for folks who love superhero stories, exploring adolescent angst, and colorful combat.

URBAN SHADOWS 1E (powered by the apocalypse engine, 2d6 core resolution): A political urban fantasy game about the debts you owe, and the lengths you’re willing to go to seize power in a seedy city. Think Mortal Instruments, Twilight, etc. Play as a werewolf, vampire, hunter, wizard, etc. all vying for power. A corruption mechanic encourages backstabbing and betrayal between PCs, with the hanging sword of PCs who go too far retiring as NPC threats. Perfect for evil parties and social intrigue-heavy campaigns.

QUEST (d20 core resolution): A fantasy, medieval-suited but genre-expansive system that can replace D&D pretty fluidly, and makes for an easy transition from one system to another. No stats, only features that classes can invoke at will or with a single, unmodified d20 roll. All PCs have the same health and deal the same base damage, making combat a breeze, freeing the GM up to focus on the story. A sliding scale of success from 1 to 20 instead of a binary pass/fail like D&D!

These are just a few systems I’ve either played and/or have run, and can recommend based on my personal experience. Either way, it’s worth looking into other systems to improve and expand your own GMing chops for D&D if nothing else.

Other TTRPG systems you should check out that I don’t have the time to delve into right now: Monster of the Week (PBTA like above, 2d6 core resolution, emulate the feel of an episodic monster hunting show like Supernatural, Buffy, etc.), Numenera (complex system comparable in scope to D&D), Fiasco (GMless, improv only, card based, over the top Coen Brothers movie generator), Root RPG (play as woodland creatures!), Bluebeard’s Bride (play as different aspects of the same woman surviving a murderous pirate!), Vampire: The Masquerade (play as scheming vampires fighting back your thirst!), Call of Cthulhu (classic eldritch horror TTRPG), Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall (play as a Chinese immigrant family fighting racism and hopping vampires!), Ald-Amura: Monster Care Squad (HEAL monsters instead of kill them; threat clocks advance the story); Star-Crossed (2-player, GMless, Jenga tower based game about forbidden love, PERFECT for couples), Dread (Jenga tower based horror system), City of Mist (similar to Urban Shadows — gritty modern fantasy), and more!!

Monster archive here, though none of the examples I doodled for this are actual existing monsters; I just thought this would be fun to make! Like the opening says, these are the things I do for this setting, not the things I think you should do (or even what I do in other settings) but if you design things at all, for any reason, think about what “principles” or “guidelines” you would list out yourself.

If you were directing another artist to match your work, how would you explain it to them?

What interests and tastes are repeatedly expressed by how you design things?

What would “generic” examples of your style look like?

If you have multiple series or settings, do they all share the same set of visual trends or do they differ?

Can you think of any personal preferences you would be happier to indulge more? Is there good reason you haven’t?

Maleficent worked, okay, she worked because she was a pretty mysterious character to begin with; her goals and motivations in Sleeping Beauty were vague enough that there was room for character exploration. but Cruella? 

the reason Cruella was such a fantastic and fantastically funny villain was just how BASIC she was. 

here’s Cruella: she designs clothes, she thinks a puppy-skin coat would look cool, she kidnaps a bunch of puppies because she’s rich and spoiled and used to getting her way. that’s it. that’s all there is to her. that’s all there needed to be, because a. her voice actress was god-tier b. her design and animation was flawless c. the story was pretty simple and didn’t need a villain with complex motivations and d. she shared the villainous spotlight with Jasper and Horace (who i might actually be interested in seeing a movie about tbh, just because ‘a weird old rich lady hired us to steal dogs from another rich lady and her husband and now the dogs are fighting back why is this happening where did my life go wrong’ is a fucking hilarious premise) 

my point is WHY NOT URSULA

SERIOUSLY. URSULA. 

there’s SO MUCH you could do with Ursula. not only does she have all the charisma and visual flare that Cruella does, her motivations, like Maleficent’s, were always a touch unclear. 

she fucking hates the king of the sea and it’s never really explained why. she fucks around with two monarchies seemingly for the lols. she can do magic but she lives alone in a cave with only her prisoners and her two eels for company AND she actually loves her eels and is legit sad when they die. she’s weird and mysterious and sneaky and badass and there’s just. so many cool paces you could go with her! does she have a reason to hate the king? why is she the only octopus person we see? why do people still make deals with her given that she’s made a horrifying living garden out of those who couldn’t pay up? she turned herself into a human so she’s a shapeshifter, holy fuck, is that something she’s done before? 

https://www.doitwithoutdues.com/

Thought I would make a lil challenge for October so here’s MONSTERTOBER/ 

Every day for 30 days, draw/sketch/paint/etc a monster based on the prompt of the day. If you want, use the tag #horrificmonsterchallenge so that everyone can find your work! Some of the prompts are pretty vague, so let your creativity run wild!

I made an eldritch-themed list of prompts for Inktober. Tried to pick things that were evocative and a little abstract rather than just “draw a Shoggoth.” 

Feel free to use, share, etc! I’ll be following the tags “Weirdtober” and “Weirdtober 2019″ and I’d love if you tagged anything you drew for this with one of those so I can see it. Text list under the cut for those who need it.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, SISEA is a bipartisan bill introduced in the US senate by Ben Sasse (R) and Jeff Merkley (D)

It includes a series of overly strict regulations to be imposed on the online porn industry, and would basically have the same results as the tumblr porn ban, but internet-wide.

Here’s just a few of the rules it proposes:

Requires verified ID and signed consent forms for everyone involved in the production and uploading of adult content

Requires the PLATFORM, not the user, hosting pornography to include a banner or notice on the site that tells you how to request the removal of content if you didn’t consent to being in the video

Prohibiting VIDEO DOWNLOADS on all platforms that host pornographic content within three months of the legislation passing

These platforms are ALL required to have a 24hr MANNED hotline, staffed by the platform, for content removal requests. (No clarification on how the person requesting the removal would be expected to prove their identity, and this is IN SPITE OF the rigorous verification process the proposed law ALSO REQUIRES, so this is likely to be abused by trolls)

Requires removal of flagged videos within TWO HOURS.

Requires all platforms to have an algorithm to prevent videos that have been removed (by the host, not the uploaded) from being reuploaded after removal

The above is to be enforced by the FTC

Creating a DATABASE OF PEOPLE who do not consent to being in adult videos, which must be checked BEFORE ANY NEW CONTENT CAN BE UPLOADED, the specifics of which are to be decided by the Department of Justice, and failure to comply with this requirement will be punished with a fine

So I’m sure by now that everyone has an idea of how bad this will be for not only sex workers, but any and all platforms that people use to post adult content, whether it’s the platform’s intended use or not, as well as anyone who consumes said content.

The rules concerning digital content, as many are probably wondering, are incredibly vague. Here’s a breakdown on twitter of why these rules in particular would be disastrous:

So, you’re probably wondering

“What can I do to stop this from being passed?”

Right now, I haven’t seen any petitions about this particular legislation, but I 100% advise and advocate for calling your state’s representatives and senators and demanding they speak out against this bill and it’s absolutely impossible requirements.

Here’s a list of current US Senators and their official contact info:

Here’s the info for US Congresspeople:

And here’s the article where I originally heard about SISEA, because I don’t see many people talking about it yet:

Look, we remember old filthy tumblr, right? And how SESTA/FOSTA absolutely wrecked it? Because the path of least resistance was to be overly restrictive.

For SISEA, the easiest and cheapest route to compliance will simply be to ban anything NSFW. Boom, done. Fan art, erotic sexting, you name it - it will get nuked.

The group orchestrating all of this, Exodus Cry, is a far-right-wing organization: https://medium.com/@justinethalley/the-siren-song-of-exodus-cry-d507a594c05d

The US Congress has been so absolutely wrecked by getting nothing accomplished that this would be an easy win for them, legislatively. This could coast alone on the need to show that they’re bipartisan.

Please reach out to your representatives. This will be disastrous for sex workers who are already disproportionately impacted because of the epidemic. It will censor social media platforms with impossible requirements. It will absolutely stifle creativity and sexual expression.

Acting like every person who escaped the alt-right and is trying to move on is just “fake-woke” or just trying to sweep their past under the rug not only becomes ammunition for these hate groups to use to keep their members radicalized and isolated (”see what the left thinks of you? They’ll never accept you so you have to stay with us”) but also ignores the very real problem that is how often young men are being targeted and groomed into the alt-right in online spaces especially.

You’re right, it shouldn’t be normalized. Being a bigot shouldn’t be considered a normal part of childhood that every kid is just naturally inclined to, and nobody should use that as an excuse to clear themselves of wrongdoing. I will say though that being wrong and having bad opinions is most definitely a normal part of childhood, because when you’re a child you’re easy to imprint on and often change your opinions a lot because you’re changing a lot as a person. I was an antifeminist when I was 13 because I was impressionable and heard my parents and smug youtube people say it so I just assumed it to be true because everyone told me it was. The only thing that isn’t normal is when that part of your life where you’re most impressionable is used to radicalize and brainwash you, which the alt-right often does.

So no, actually there are a LOT of people who went through a “nazi phase” or any other right-leaning phase that they moved on from after finally being able to break free from alt-right propaganda, and there’s no shame in that because they were literal children being manipulated and targeted by grown adults. I’ve seen people in the notes saying that it shouldn’t be used as an excuse for past behavior, and I couldn’t agree more. There is a reason behind it though, and people reaching out to talk about how they were manipulated into the alt-right doesn’t make them fake progressives.

Here’s a really good video explaining this much more eloquently than I could. The phenomenon is often referred to as the alt-right pipeline, or sometimes pewdiepipeline named after pewdiepie and how he became a starting point for many young men’s interactions with alt-right ideology:

OMENTOBER. A SOUTHERN GOTHIC PROMPT LIST.

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GIVEAWAY!

I’m having a giveaway over on twitter, but I wanted to hold one here too on tumblr because even though I don’t have “the numbers” here, I feel grateful for all of you who enjoy my work regardless, especially those that have stuck around for so long! I mainly post here for myself as an archive, so I’m always floored by the reception of anything I post.

Winner will receive: - a colored sketch/messy painting drawing of their request - 3 pins of their choice from the shop http://shop.ohnooo.net/

(And because the tumblr crowd seems to like Zinru the most of all the SNS platforms, and all the tags on reblogs bring me so much joy, I’ll also throw in a Zinru pin and a double sided not-for-sale charm as extra as an optional gift, exclusive to this tumblr giveaway. Thank you for putting up with my oc spam lol)

To enter:

Reblog this post

Must be following me

DMs must be open for contact

No giveaway or private accounts please

(optional: tag #zinrutoo to get the extra pin and charm)

I guess I’ll do one of these as well

With a lot of stuff to do, I probably wouldn’t be able to join in myself this year but you know when a “haunted house” in a cartoon or video game is like an entire spooky world with just EVERY conceivable horror trope crammed under one roof? One of my favorite examples is the little known Braindead 13, but there’s lots more, so this challenge would be to populate and stylize your own! What would we call that? I guess a 31 Day Horror House!

The only rule is that every character has to be some kind of monster, and ideally a different “species” of monster every time, or at least “subspecies” if for example you wanted both a Dracula-style and Nosferatu-style vampire under one roof, or 31 different interpretations of a “space alien!” Whatever!

You could also give all of the monsters an additional theme. Maybe they’re all also plant people? Or object heads? Or different animals? Or hybrids of two different monster tropes? Maybe the house exists in some other fictional setting, like what the heck would a haunted monster mansion look like in the Star Wars galaxy or Spongebob? Whatever makes it more fun and more unique.

Day 01: a wild, feral monster that stalks the surrounding woods

Day 02: the gatekeeper of the weird old mansion you’ve found

Day 03: the butler/housekeeper who guides you around the house

Day 04: the groundskeeper/gardener

Day 05: the handymonster they might assign to “fix” your car

Day 06: the master of the household’s faithful pet

Day 07: the head chef who makes you a “nice” dinner

Day 08: some kind of pest that infests the house

Day 09: something dangerous lurking in the gardens

Day 10: something dangerous lurking in the pond, pool or fountain

Day 11: something horrible inhabiting the guest bathroom

Day 12: something they keep under a trap door to dispose of guests

Day 13: a resident that only SEEMS harmless and pleasant

Day 14: the only resident that is harmless and genuinely helpful

Day 15: a conniving double-crosser that could be helpful

Day 16: the night watch/security chief

Day 17: waste management

Day 18: the resident medical expert

Day 19: the librarian

Day 20: a scientist or inventor

Day 21: the scientist’s creation

Day 22: a more defective creation

Day 23: an artist

Day 24: a young child monster (or several)

Day 25: a nanny or on-site schoolteacher

Day 26: a pair of monstrous lovers

Day 27: something so horrible even they keep it tightly locked away

Day 28: Anything you want!

Day 29: The Head of the Household.

Day 30: What the head of the household really answers to.

Day 31: what the “main character” (or even you!) becomes when their escape fails and they join the house.

ADDITIONAL STUFF: