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I started my Transformers solo play this week, And thought I would log in with some brief talk about how it went because, eh... My blog?

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Traveled with my mom and grandma last week (and one of my mom's friends and my stepfather). We went to the (brazillian) south in Canela/Gramado and Bento Gonçalves. I'm tired, so I'll mumble a bit.

We stayed for two nights at Bento in an Airbnb before staying another two nights at Canela. A lot of it was seeing some Wine places, but there was some historical part of it, at Bento they are very proud of their Italian background and it has a lot about the families' migration there.

There is a semi-museum/theatre-like experience about the life of a couple that took a ship to Brazil when Portugal was trying to get cheap workforce. My Grandma's grandfather was an Italian immigrant, and it was interesting to hear her talk about the story he would tell her about his trip as a kid by ship. [TW for something a bit depressing] They used to have one casket where they would place the bodies of those who died during the trip, but would only throw the bodies overboard and keep the casket, my grandma told me that he would sit next to a small hole in the cargo area to watch the bodies fall, he would cry telling it but my grandma was too young to truly grasp the severity of the feeling.

A more positive story she told me while we were visiting another wine place, more about that in a bit, is of an uncle of hers who moved... west...? (sorry, escaping me now.) then more jungle, as a colono to build a living. Using parts of one of the carts they build a house and would use other carts to make two-day trips to the market, stay overnight, and then back through the then-still forest. She told me they had a (female) horse who would invade the pantry to steal the salt and seeds, and that her cousins would steal Polenta before it was done (That bit makes me wonder if that's why my family is used to making Polenta that is more wet to eat with chicken than more solid like it's originally...)


The rest of the trip was more about eating and the view, and also wine. There are tons of Wine places there. How I said the one I mentioned above is from a family that has been there for a very long time, the woman who runs the place is building a place of the history of the family on the stone house her... gran-grand-grandfather (?) built when first moving here. There was also a famous three that had a small cavern-like space at the roots where supposedly a family lived under before being able to build a stone house near it (that is a restaurant now, we didn't eat there).


We took the train there to Carlos Barbosa and then drove to Canela, where we took another Airbnb, the one we took previously was simpler, from an older couple who offered my mom and stepdad some homemade wine, we offered a soup my grandma made back. The Airbnb we took later was fancier, the bed was nicer, but it was narrower and the bathroom waters were frustrating to deal with, we were unable to truly figure it out.


Canela and Gramado are more tourist cities, so pricier.... and IMO not as scenic, but they still have great restaurants, we visited a very beautiful Lavanda garden there, and I got to see NASA's museum. I do want to explore other attractions, but we are out of time and tired as hell. It's a lot colder there, but the last two days the temperature skyrocketed and the last day of our trip was driving all the way back to the airport, we did make a few stops, where I went into a labyrinth and got to get some interesting teas at a tea shop. Then took a one-and-a-half-hour flight, then another trip back home. I wasn't even able to go directly to my apartment because we got home very late and my sister had the key. These two days was me resting.

Anyway... I've been playing a solo journaling game called Delivered! and playing tons of Voices of the Void. I still have some cleaning to do, and the heat is fucking killing me. ugh.


Also, the little Aliens statues... I kept seeing them EVERYWHERE during our trip, but sadly this was the only picture I was able to take of them, lol.

Just some blogging!

I've been reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I still have The Thief's Gamble and V'ALEN to finish (I have never been good at finishing books), but I stumbled by a video of someone watching the movie Ant Bully, and in the comments someone mentioned that they don't care about the movie but the idea of exploring the advanced ant species was cool and someone mentioned the book. I'm a sucker for Spider behavior, and I love watching Dave's Little Beasties, in particular, the pairing videos because it's so fascinating to watch spiders interact with one another.

I do like how the book approaches this, both as an exploration of a "what if" for an, sort of, alien species and as a mirror to our own misogyny and discrimination in general. Males seem to be treated worse after the first (second?) time skip around them, while also having hints of some progress being made. (With the very first Portia still seeing the male as a partner, then the second that got the crystal, they still have a hole in society, while the third they are either second class or trinkets for the females but now it's frowned upon to just hunt them.["But girls will be girls"])

Normally gender dynamics in fantasy/alien species aren't my main interest (I tend to really like extreme equality/equity in these scenarios), but it's a fascinating world build. I'm not sure if we'll have another time skip, but I kind of hope we get to see a chapter from the POV of one of the male spiders, it's very obvious that we are not supposed to accept everything Portia has to say about males, and that it's supposed to be sexism from her part. ("They can't keep their mouths shut" being an example of mirroring our sexism.)
Anyway, talking about Alien worlds, I've got a few TTRPGs to try to solo this Pocket Quest, most of them are short rules-lite adventures, like Abducted by Franco Lopez and Delivered! by Rage Kage, I wanted to try Delivered! since I haven't tried a journaling game yet, and they are very popular in solo spaces. I also got Expedition to Darakon Island by Diane Ramic, which is an illustration game, not particularly made for solo but I doubt it'll be that hard too. (I did also get some stuff on my wish list I'll keep my eye out to)

I also² took the opportunity to pick up Pocket Space RPG. I really wanted to find something for a solo idea I had, of an Isekai situation, with a human character ending up in an alien world, but I wanted it to be very alien and odd, I looked a few places for TTRPGs that may have something of what I'm looking for but no luck. I've thought about maybe Mechanical Dreams, which seems to have some odd aliens and the world I was sort of thinking about, but maybe I'll just find a way to use Pocked Space RPG for this with an Alien Generator.

Obviously my Doronai Nui game and Transformers game is on hold, I mean, I still playing through Troubled Waters with three characters, but only until I find a system that would fit my idea or go back to Doronai Nui. I really really liked Renegade's TF system, I'm enjoying the flow of it and the rules, buuut... I have no idea where to get my characters to. I was thinking of maybe I could get my "main" character to level 3 and have her solo through an adventure around Cybertron or another alien world, or create another group to play in a G1 TF in Brazil setting. But nothing is really getting to me.

Its been really fun getting into solo-TabletopRP. I surprisingly stumbled upon the Brazillian Solo circle, I didn't think it would be so big here and have been having a blast casually playing a lot a solo oriented mini-systems of 1 to 10 pages stuff.

Last month it was National Brazillian TTRPG month/week/day (I actually got a bit lost about it) and played Space Hunters by Igor Moreno, which is a 1-page narrative-heavy TTRGP (a little more RP, tbh) but very fun for it, that I found while researching his new one, that had a kickstarted, called Aquele Jogo Da Masmorra Com Dragões & Tal, That sadly isn't out and the kickstarted ended already but looks insanely fun to play. It's an actual booklet and you don't only create your characters but also a bit of the system and monsters while playing if I got it right.

I'm still exploring stuff, but today I was thinking of playing this one called Morada Dos Reis Feticeiros since I've been in a Medieval-fantasy/dungeon exploration mood.

That said, I do want to get back at my Doronai Nui Campaign, I didn't get to really-really finish the last one, because I had to give it a pause and then accidentally deleted the file with my character sheet and stuff. The system had gotten an update though, so maybe it wasn't that bad. I've been planning a campaign for this one, I don't want to make it too detailed since it's solo and the point is that it's random, but I've got an idea that will bring in some canon characters and want to have their sheet ready as well as a pirate stronghold (just the outside, the inside will be random).

Anyway, Happy New Year! I hope I can do more stuff this year. I wanted to get to commissions this year as well as maybe learn something new, I was thinking about 3D modeling or maybe basic animation, but idk yet.

Hey, what's up? It's been slow from my end (what a surprise) but that's alright.

Recently I've been getting into Solo Tabletoping, and have been running a campaign with a fan-made Bionicle system (Doronai Nui by Red Star) + Mythic GM and some extra things. Because I'm just relearning some TRPG principles it's been slow, (tbf, maybe going for a fan system that expects you to already know what you're doing, wasn't a good idea) but I've been having a blast!

Right now my Matoran character, who is cast away on an abandoned island, is exploring a, presumably, ancient Toa Training temple. I mean, is what I assume the place may be, with the generated information given by the dungeon generator I got + Mythic. You would think making adventures with generators would end up with a mess, but I guess because it depends on you to interpret things, it fit things together really well while still making it feel unpredictable.

I've been watching this youtube called Geek Gamers, a generic name but she's good, about Solo-TRPGs, and I'm already planning and taking notes to run more campaigns in the future, either with more solo appropriate systems or not. When I saw the new Transformers TRPG by renegade I was pretty excited to try a TF one, but then I heard they are somewhat infamous for having messy rulebooks. But whatever, Transformers has been around since the '80s, someone somewhere made a good fan-TF-TRPG for free by now, I'll look into it later.

The last time I tried TRPG was long long ago with my cousins and a dude that lived close to my grandmother's house, it was a lackluster campaign because no one know wth we are doing, but it was very fun to play every or so week that I was there. Sadly my cousins moved away and I lost contact with the guy. There was a sad attempt at school when I was doing fashion with a small group that was on games, but only I and another girl (in a group of DM+4) really took it seriously, and obviously, the DM wasn't happy about it. The last attempt was a 3D&T campaign with my sister that never took shape, she was actually a 3D&T DM for the longest time and did a few campaigns with others but had to stop because of family. Then I stumbled upon this video about Solo Playing and was like "Fuck it, may as well try it" and I'm glad I did and to know there are so many resources about it.

Tried to break while going too fast on my bike and got fucked up, I'm fine tbh except for my hand a little, but the omelet I made for lunch turned scrambled. (Also my bike got a little crooked, a security guard that was close by helped me fix the front but I still have to fix the right brake)

Have things to draw but really don't want to, all I want to do is listen to music and daydream of whatever, it's starting to heat up again, can't wait for the next rain week. An excuse to stay home. anyway, yeah.

I was able to find some Bokles for sale, I'm waiting for Gali and Lewa, 2 Vahki, and some Metru Matoran (Now I just need Nuhrii and Tehutti) and hoping to find more Metru Toa (I only got Onewa and Matau) since I've found more Metru. I'll keep an eye out in BR sites, but will resort to US sites when the dollar goes down. I was trying not to want to collect, but of course, my loser ass wasn't able. all of them are cheaper than Transformers tho.

Going to try to doodle and get the courage to post things. XOXOXO

Hello, how's it going? was out from DW again, Plurk just became easier for strings of random thoughts I have, but here are some things.

The last-last week I went to see my grandma that lives on the coast, it was nice to see the beach again. I have been in the mood for beach/islands recently. [and yes, it's because of Bionicle, shut up, I'm that simple...] My grandma is in a relationship with a guy that fishes around there so we got a boat ride in one of the fishing boats. It was really fun, going through the waves was like a roller-coaster but without seatbelts. I got some videos and pics. sorry if the videos look like weird interned ARGs.



(  in other less special ramblings;[More average life+fandom] )

just some doodling from a while agoo. (+recent unfinished) Just to post some art.
BW + TFP Arcee.

Outside of the Transforming robots news:

I and my sister are sharing an office space now! It's mostly for her (she gets the bigger part for her stock) but my dad was never fond of the fact that I stay home too much so he convinced me to take the smaller side. At first, I thought it was a waste of money, but it's working pretty well, I'm trying to go there every day, and my progress has been way better! Hopefully, I'll keep it up, even went yesterday very early with lunch to stay the day. My only transport is an electric bike though, so can't go today because of the rain.

I'm falling into the pet-spiders youtube videos blackhole. It started sometime back with a random recommendation for how to take care of a jumping spider and yesterday I got recommended "Giant Japanese Funnel Web Pairing" and someone feeding his Tarantulas. It's hypnotizing to watch, especially with the commentary he gives, they are just really pretty animals to me.

Now on Transforming robots news:

Talking about Tarantulas, I've finally got to the new IDW comics, both the G1 and BW, I enjoy them a lot! Slow-moving compared to most Transformers media. I like the slow escalation but I see why some would complain. Everything is going in an interesting direction with characters, story, and lore. Still reading Galaxies, just finished Gauge's part, but my favorite was definitely Cliffjunper's, Nice use of Deathsaurus too [fucked up ship, anyone?].

I've been double enjoying Beast Wars, it gives me a TFA feel, probably because of the most stylized art and the direction they are going with Optimus Primal. I'm glad they kept the Beast Wars style of humor and story instead of an edgier storyline. I don't mind edgy, but I love the original BW way too much. I saw some people complain about the art style, but personally, I really like it, I think it's great for BW of all things. The beast forms can look a little weird, but it fits very well with what they want.