[{"content":" I am honestly starting to doubt that these status updates are even worth writing - does anyone even read them? Or benefit from them? Do I learn more about writing by doing it weekly? I am not sure, but I will do so anyways. There are several projects that I\u0026#39;ve been working on and I\u0026#39;ll cover all of them.\nStruggle for the System progress I have completed all of the characters (though I may come up with more while writing the story itself) and I\u0026#39;ll start writing the collisions between everything: the chemistry between characters, the conflict that challenges everyone, and how the characters will change. Part of me feels like I am procrastinating on writing by setting up the world and characters, but part of me also thinks that this will make writing much easier.\nI won\u0026#39;t spoil everything (even though this story will likely be no good lol), but if you are wondering about the plot, it is about a regular merchant ship who has been working with the Belt Trade Union for some time and has been asked to extract a strange alien technology from an asteroid. They are the most suited for the job; Trade Union ships extracting it themselves would arouse suspicion and spark conflict; and this ship is the most available at the moment and also very skilled. I haven\u0026#39;t figured out the plot fully yet; the main attraction of this story for me is the world itself which I figured out beforehand pretty well. But I\u0026#39;m excited to start writing next week!\nJust Roll With It If you are unfamiliar with what Just Roll With It is, you can visit the official website. In short, it\u0026#39;s a role playing game about personal growth (in real life).\nYesterday, I accidentally deleted my \u0026#34;Just Roll With It\u0026#34; document, so I must start again, but I have been making good progress on becoming the person I want to be, which is a more connected and creative human. Here are the practices:\nReach out to three people per day This one was first one I started, because at the start of my journey, I had been struggling with friendships. And when I read Platonic (by Marisa Franco), I realized that it was up to me to take the initiative - ask people to hang out, join clubs, e.t.c - so I did so. This has been a success! Even though I don\u0026#39;t build social plans most of the time after reaching out, I do increase my confidence. At the start, part of me feared that my friends didn\u0026#39;t quite like me and would reject me, but as I reached out, I realized that that couldn\u0026#39;t be further from the truth. Write a short story after Duhr This was a practice I started sort of out of desperation; at the same time that I struggled with anxiety, I also watched a struthless video (I can\u0026#39;t remember which one), and thought that creativity might \u0026#34;save me\u0026#34;. So I started this practice, and I haven\u0026#39;t regretted it. Since writing stories, even short ones, takes a surprising amount of time, I haven\u0026#39;t yet finished a single one though I have started three. This may be because I spend too much time on story setup, so from now on, I will only spend five minutes on it, and after that force myself to write prose even if the setup is incomplete Gratitude journalling As my brother once said, roughly paraphrased: \u0026#34;gratitude is necessary for all of the principles you\u0026#39;ll need in life\u0026#34; - it gives you strength and perspective. So I started practicing it and it has been working beautifully - I now find it easier to recall the good things in my life when things get hard (which they will). A few days ago I decided to add an element of mindfulness to it; not just writing out what I am grateful for but noting how it feels in my body. Make a card for a loved one Since generous people tend to have better social lives, I have decided to start practicing generosity by making cards. I am an artist so it fits perfectly! progress on the Alphabet Album For a while, I actually gave up on the Alphabet Album because I forgot about it… and when I came back it felt demotivating trying to get back to it. But with some encouragement from a fellow community member on the Struthless Community Discord server. My current song is \u0026#34;Quicksilver\u0026#34;, which is a racing song. And I hope to complete it by next week.\n","permalink":"https://trogiashub.netlify.app/posts/progressreport2026_09_19/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI am honestly starting to doubt that these status updates are even worth writing - does anyone even read them? Or benefit from them? Do I learn more about writing by doing it weekly? I am not sure, but I will do so anyways. There are several projects that I\u0026#39;ve been working on and I\u0026#39;ll cover all of them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"outline-container-headline-1\" class=\"outline-2\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"headline-1\"\u003e\nStruggle for the System progress\n\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"outline-text-headline-1\" class=\"outline-text-2\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have completed all of the characters (though I may come up with more while writing the story itself) and I\u0026#39;ll start writing the collisions between everything: the chemistry between characters, the conflict that challenges everyone, and how the characters will change. Part of me feels like I am procrastinating on writing by setting up the world and characters, but part of me also thinks that this will make writing much easier.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"My current progress on my many projects [2026/09/19]"},{"content":"It is the morning as I write this and I feel quite sluggish, yet I have decided to write anyways. Because easy choices lead to a hard life and hard choices lead to an easy life. And writing every week will improve my writing by practice.\nTo be honest, I haven\u0026#39;t made too much progress on Struggle for the System since my last post on it. I have finished almost all the characters and they are quite strong and my world\u0026#39;s rules are fleshed out, though I think that I need to write locations (as I think doing so would make writing out the story easier). But I\u0026#39;m also tired of all this setup. From next week I will start writing the story itself.\nThe roadmap of this project is generally:\nWorld (rules established, locations to be written) Characters (three out of four done, though more may be written as I write the story itself) Arcs - conflicts, chemistry, and changes Writing Thumbnailing Drawing ","permalink":"https://trogiashub.netlify.app/posts/sfts_report2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt is the morning as I write this and I feel quite sluggish, yet I have decided to write anyways. Because easy choices lead to a hard life and hard choices lead to an easy life. And writing every week will improve my writing by practice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nTo be honest, I haven\u0026#39;t made too much progress on Struggle for the System since \u003ca href=\"./sfts_report1.html\"\u003emy last post on it\u003c/a\u003e. I have finished almost all the characters and they are quite strong and my world\u0026#39;s rules are fleshed out, though I think that I need to write locations (as I think doing so would make writing out the story easier). But I\u0026#39;m also tired of all this setup. From next week I will start writing the story itself.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Struggle for the System - Report #2"},{"content":"Two weeks ago a fellow RPG geek suggested to me the RPG \u0026#34;Just Roll With It\u0026#34;, which is an RPG that gamifies self-improvement and helps you track your own growth. Curious, I gave it a try. I loved it! I have been keeping up with it for the past three weeks because it makes progress on your goals fun and visible. So this post is about my journey through it, in the hopes that it might inspire you to check it out.\nYou play the game daily. The first four days of the game introduce you to what you must do. In it, you are a newly awakened \u0026#34;champion\u0026#34; sent to liberate Glimmerwood from the slowly encroaching force of Darkness, which is the living embodiment self-destruction. You must build powerful practices to guide yourself through it. Naturally, the first day asks you who you want to be. After then filling out your character sheet (and choosing a class) you then write what practices you need to do to become that person. The next few days introduce you to more mechanics - the most important is the quest log which is a sort of journal where you track your progress. Then there is the Arcanum for using various techniques to better accomplish your practices. Finally, there are spell scrolls that teach you about these various techniques…\nFor my part, I wrote on the first day that I wanted to be a warmer, more connected, and creative person and I summarized this in the calling \u0026#34;connection\u0026#34;. Not just connection to people, but also to creativity, then I wrote a few practices I needed to do to become such a person. Over the past three weeks, I went through Glimmerwood and learnt more about it (the worldbuilding is amazing, by the way) and learnt a bit more about myself - how I could improve on my practices. For a long time I have desired to grow but without a consistent program like this that keeps me accountable, I was rather lost. But Just Roll With It bundles fun and learning and I have made significant progress…\n","permalink":"https://trogiashub.netlify.app/posts/rolling_with_it/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTwo weeks ago a fellow RPG geek suggested to me the RPG \u0026#34;Just Roll With It\u0026#34;, which is an RPG that gamifies self-improvement and helps you track your own growth. Curious, I gave it a try. I loved it! I have been keeping up with it for the past three weeks because it makes progress on your goals fun and visible. So this post is about my journey through it, in the hopes that it might inspire you to check it out.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Rolling With It"},{"content":" Writing status updates is new to me and I feel nervous doing so because sharing your progress on your projects - and especially your mistakes - requires vulnerability. Making it worse is that as I write stories quite infrequently, so this is one of my first serious attempts at writing one. But sometimes, we must do the brave thing and write anyways.\nFor a long time, inspired by my favorite series like the Amazing Digital Circus or Inanimate Insanity, I have been wanting to produce a web series of my own, but procrastination held me back. A few weeks ago, however, I decided to take the first step and start. My attempts were messy at first and I had to cancel most of them, but I eventually started making progress, which is very motivating. And I\u0026#39;d like to share it online for those who are hesitating to start their own dreams. And much of this courage is because of the social support that I got and the communities that I joined, to whom I owe much thanks.\nworldbuilding While writing my story, I found out that my world was barebones and needed to be more fleshed out. A week ago I watched Brian (from Plot Luck)\u0026#39;s video on the five layers that make up a setting - the core rule (the premise or feeling from which every aspect of the setting follows), the systems layer (the rules of the setting - what is and isn\u0026#39;t possible), the social layer (how the people are in this setting), the political layer (how groups of people cooperate or clash), and the pressure layer (where things break and thus where the conflict - and story - lies). Fascinated by his framework, I decided to apply it to MY world.\nFirst, I wrote the core rule, which is \u0026#34;space merchants in the 30th century Solar System with many (non-alien) species other than humanity\u0026#34;. There are many pieces of media that inspired this - the Expanse (with its gritty political intrigue), Endless Sky (with its vast feeling universe), NAEV, and the Orion\u0026#39;s Arm Universe Project (which inspired the element of having artificial species in the setting). From this I had to answer a few key questions: why would humanity go to space? why do artificial species exist?\nAnswering the first question gave me lots of insight into my world - humanity goes out into space for resources, perhaps something that is happening on Earth forces many to leave it, and advanced space travel technology (such as torch drives) makes going to space easier. Naturally, I started writing a skeleton for the history of the setting, starting with Luna and going outwards to the Belt. As for why artificial species exist, perhaps humans already started getting comfortable with genetic engineering in the early 21st century, and a logical extension of that would be interest in MAKING species.\nThen I had to move on to fleshing out the societal layer of this world. I started with jobs, which I usually don\u0026#39;t consider in worldbuilding, but as Brian covered them in HIS live demonstration of worldbuilding in his video, I decided that it would be worth a try. Engineers and farmers would be essential to all societies. But some cultures might glorify explorers as well who are seen as pioneers of the frontier.\nAll societies have divisions, and writing about them easily built the factions, which segues nicely into the political layer! I came up with five, and wrote their motivations and methods as well:\nSolar Alliance\nwhat do they want? the Solar Alliance wants to advance the interests of its polities - exploration, defense, and unity how do they get it? it\u0026#39;s not a government but rather a supranational union (like the European Union of today); it pools together resources for a common defense constellation, to send probes out there (and subluminal scientific missions OUTSIDE of the solar system as well), and keeps itself united by encouraging cultural mixing Megatech\nwhat do they want? to sell products and make as much money as possible and also to keep their dominance in the solar system how do they get it? they have agents almost EVERYWHERE and so can pull strings. they also supply most of the goods to the Solar Alliance The Belt Collective\nwhat do they want? the Belt collective has member polities from several religions, though almost all of them are monotheistic - only three are polytheistic and only one is nontheistic. their main interest is to keep themselves spiritually pure and ward off \u0026#34;outside influences\u0026#34; how do they get it? propoganda and lots of church. also there is a certain level of syncreticism between religions Worker\u0026#39;s Union\nwhat do they want? to make sure that workers (including engineers and farmers) have their rights how do they get it? they believe in taking rights by imposing, so they have a very militaristic culture and a strong constellation. Platinum Nomads\nwhat do they want? to explore the Solar System and beyond and archive information how do they get it? by going out! Keep in mind that this is a rough first draft! I\u0026#39;ll clean it up and flesh it out further and I hope that in the next status update I\u0026#39;ll be able to say that I have wrote something that feels like a living breathing universe. But I am proud of my progress so far and I look forward to thinking up conflicts and thus writing the actual story.\n","permalink":"https://trogiashub.netlify.app/posts/sfts_report1/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWriting status updates is new to me and I feel nervous doing so because sharing your progress on your projects - and especially your mistakes - requires vulnerability. Making it worse is that as I write stories quite infrequently, so this is one of my first serious attempts at writing one. But sometimes, we must do the brave thing and write anyways.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nFor a long time, inspired by my favorite series like the Amazing Digital Circus or Inanimate Insanity, I have been wanting to produce a web series of my own, but procrastination held me back. A few weeks ago, however, I decided to take the first step and start. My attempts were messy at first and I had to cancel most of them, but I eventually started making progress, which is very motivating. And I\u0026#39;d like to share it online for those who are hesitating to start their own dreams. And much of this courage is because of the social support that I got and the communities that I joined, to whom I owe much thanks.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Struggle for the System - Status Update #1"},{"content":" Introduction A few months ago, I watched Koko\u0026#39;s video on leaving your creative comfort zone, and in it, as an example of doing so, she showed how she worked on a short beat as she has wanted to for a while. Inspired by this, I started messing around with a DAW (and applied a few tutorials from Alex Rome) and gaining a newfound interest in EDM, I resolved to make 26 tracks over the next 26 weeks, each based on a unique letter of the Alphabet, all part of an album named the Alphabet Album. Now halfway through this challenge, I have decided to write about my progress.\nGeneral Process When making a song, I start with playing around with notes until I find an eight bar series of notes that convey the mood that I want. Then I turn them into chords and work on them as needed to further enhance the energy - I may move thirds or fifths (the notes above the original \u0026#34;root\u0026#34; notes) up or down an octave, add a pedal tone (a note that plays throughout the entire chord progression and does not change), or write a topline melody. This is the intro.\nNext, I derive the buildup and drop or climax from the core chord progression. I increase energy as needed by introducing new instruments, putting the progression on a faster rhythm, or using more energetic drums. Drums themselves are simple - I use patterns that I feel work well in every song, such as the Four on the Floor Pattern or my favorite, Reggaeton.\nFinally, I add bass and automation tracks to make things more interesting; I might vary the cutoff of the main instrument (or the side instruments) to vary the intensity on a finer scale. It always adds texture!\nThe Naiad Theme All of this I did for the Naiad Theme. I first experimented with the settings of my synth (TripleOscillator) until I got a sound that felt sparkly. Then I searched for a chord progression based on A# major that felt euphoric neutral, and expanded upon it as needed. For the drop, I added a topline melody based on a dotted quarter rhythm that resolves every bar. Pauses are important in melodies as they give them room to breathe. Additionally, I tried a few arps to add even more texture to the song, and I found out that adding an arpeggio side instrument to the buildup strengthened it well.\nThroughout this I also got feedback from the Discord server \u0026#34;On Prod\u0026#34;, specifically from the channel #feedback-4-feedback. This was invaluable for improving the song and encouraging me to work on it.\nApologies if the writing of this first post is disjointed! I have no idea what I\u0026#39;m doing but I think that as I write more, I will learn and produce better posts over time…\n","permalink":"https://trogiashub.netlify.app/posts/aareport_n/","summary":"\u003cdiv id=\"outline-container-headline-1\" class=\"outline-2\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"headline-1\"\u003e\nIntroduction\n\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"outline-text-headline-1\" class=\"outline-text-2\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA few months ago, I watched Koko\u0026#39;s video on leaving your creative comfort zone, and in it, as an example of doing so, she showed how she worked on a short beat as she has wanted to for a while. Inspired by this, I started messing around with a DAW (and applied a few tutorials from Alex Rome) and gaining a newfound interest in EDM, I resolved to make 26 tracks over the next 26 weeks, each based on a unique letter of the Alphabet, all part of an album named the Alphabet Album. Now halfway through this challenge, I have decided to write about my progress.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Alphabet Album Report #1 / Naiad"},{"content":" About 3 months ago, I started the Alphabet Superset challenge, imagined by struthless. The challenge is to make 26 pieces of art, one per week, and all of them in a single theme, style, and medium. For my challenge, I chose the theme of sophonts from the Orion\u0026#39;s Arm Universe Project playing games, used 3D modelling as my medium, and pursued the style of semi-photorealistic. Now six art pieces in, I believe I have learnt a lot. I write this in order to share my lessons online, and perhaps others may be inspired to take up their own supersets. I must also mention an acquaintance of mine, Worldtree, who helped me with feedback and supported me along the way. As well as some others…\nmodels Adumbrans Adumbrans were the simplest sophont to model. They are essentially sapient utility fog entities that shape the weather systems of planets. They can be many kilometers long and are a few hundred meters at least. I started off strong with this one. I enjoyed making my image of them! But I believe they are not as good as I could make them. But as they take forever to render (due to requiring Volumetric shading) I am content with them as they are.\nBitenic Squid Bitenic Squids also went off strong. It is through modelling them that I truly started gaining confidence in my modelling. And also got comfortable with rigging en masse. These sociopathic cephalopods deserve the utmost care when being modelled!\nCaleb Calebs were harder to model, because their shape is generally more complex. But I pulled through. For their game, I decided not to pick a specific game but rather show them playing various games seperately.\nDyglufsare Dyglufsares were my favorite to make.\nSophants Fractaroni Spaghetti Worms Goliaths ","permalink":"https://trogiashub.netlify.app/posts/asreportapril/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAbout 3 months ago, I started the Alphabet Superset challenge, imagined by struthless. The challenge is to make 26 pieces of art, one per week, and all of them in a single theme, style, and medium. For my challenge, I chose the theme of sophonts from the Orion\u0026#39;s Arm Universe Project playing games, used 3D modelling as my medium, and pursued the style of semi-photorealistic. Now six art pieces in, I believe I have learnt a lot. I write this in order to share my lessons online, and perhaps others may be inspired to take up their own supersets. I must also mention an acquaintance of mine, Worldtree, who helped me with feedback and supported me along the way. As well as some others…\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Alphabet Superset Report [April]"},{"content":"This is my first post on this website! I don\u0026#39;t know what I\u0026#39;ll do with it but I\u0026#39;m excited to find out.\n","permalink":"https://trogiashub.netlify.app/posts/hello_world/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis is my first post on this website! I don\u0026#39;t know what I\u0026#39;ll do with it but I\u0026#39;m excited to find out.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hello World"}]