Happy Christmas, everyone. Regardless of whether or not you celebrate it, I hope you have a peaceful day today. My thoughts and prayers go out especially to those who aren't having a good Christmas due to hunger, destitution, loss of family members, depression, loneliness, sickness, whatever. I'm bearing that burden along with you all this year (just as I did last year) -- and I am with you in spirit.

To those who wish to read my thoughts, carry on. To those who wish to stop here, feel free to close the page right now.

The tribunal has set a new date for this asylum appeal, i.e. 7 January 2016. There seems to be a greater degree of confidence in my case than ever before. Yet, because my neck's on the line, I cannot help but feel scared at times.

I'll be drumming at the vigil Mass today, as well as the daytime Mass tomorrow. <3 I hope that it may somehow be used to bring joy to those who are present, especially those who come to Mass only on so-called 'days of obligation' -- Easter, Christmas etc.

Talking about the Mass and about bringing people joy makes me think about something very dear to my heart.

Regardless of who you are or what you believe in, those of you who have proven respectful have had good dialogues with me without necessarily understanding, or agreeing -- but without shutting me off. You have treated me with great dignity -- which is much more than can be said for a good bit of people around me. When I shared my dreams with you, you encouraged them, despite them being otherwise shunned and rejected by the vast majority of people. And most of all, when I told you about my situation, you never rejected me. I just want to say, thank you. You know who you are, and you have made my struggles bearable. You have put a smile on my face, and helped me to lift my crosses with joy.

I'm back in Preston after a long fecking day in Manchester with my friends who had also come as witnesses. As the title suggests, the asylum appeal hearing has been adjourned, again.

I am glad to be home and while everyone believes in me and in this case, I cannot help but feel a little upset. I'd been dreading this day so much; I'd been so nervous and I'd fallen sick because of that very same nervousness.

It's no one's fault this time. The legal counsel who was meant to represent me today took ill. At any rate, here's hoping that the best happens. I'll keep on praying and watching. Beyond that, Seán, my friends and I, we've all done everything we can.

This time tomorrow, Seán and I will be in Manchester with a few other friends of ours. Thursday, the 17th, is the long-awaited appeal I've got going against the Home Office. I ask for your prayers and/or good thoughts; I would appreciate as many of you being with me in spirit on Thursday.

Those of you who wonder what this appeal is about, kindly read this earlier post of mine.

For this reason and this reason alone, try as I might to finish up my recordings, I cannot. Apologies to @Ceevro, @Step and @Bosa -- I'd wanted to fulfil these obligations and I'd begun recording in my usual home setup, only to be seized by panic and fear. Also apologies to @frootza, the person to whom I was meant to gift my Christmas song. I think it'd be a gift enough for me just to be safe and by Seán's side, always.

Those of you who have Supporter status can now view the first of my recordings from Soundskills -- the studio run by Lancashire County Council which is not far from my place. It is a rehash of a 2009 song of mine, Somewhere Out There, for which the original isn't on Newgrounds.

For this rehash, I did vocals, keyboard and drums. Two friends helped me on lead and rhythm guitar, and bass. The song was finished last week, but now I have a version which is ready to listen. I hope to meet these friends and ask them, this coming Tuesday, if they're alright with publishing this audio project. Until further notice, this isn't going to be published.

Two of my pieces are in the Harris Open -- you've heard me talk about this last year. My mind is just too shot to take photos or even appreciate that my art is there.

One of the pieces now in the Harris for this exhibition is Sweet Regina, a piece which was intended for @ReNaeNae's Bee Creative contest in September last year. Hopefully there'll be a time where my mind recovers from whatever it's going through, and hopefully I may be able to share pictures with you all. This time, I didn't enter as Annette "Troisnyx" Singh -- I entered simply as Troisnyx.

The last post I put up seems to be quite favoured. Very well, I will dance and accompany myself on the drum -- whether this will comprise one single takes or two separate takes, I'll have to think it over, but I think I'd best start practising! Thanks for all the support you've given me, everyone.

Incidentally, the 20th Anniversary Collaboration, which has been released on Thanksgiving, caused a spike in the number of fans (again, for lack of a better word). Last night I did a headcount of the number of people who were credited on the sidebar of this mega-collaboration. I don't know if I counted correctly, but there were 119 people involved in this thing. ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN. WOW. <3

Why am I talking about this project as if it were incidental to my last post? Well, it seems I got quite a lot of support with this idea, all in all. When @Deshiel sowed the seeds by saying, 'hey, let's make a collab for the 20th Anniversary,' I thought of how it could go. I took inspiration from Nanairo no Nico Nico Douga, a collaboration which went viral on YouTube -- possibly the most famous of the collabs from NicoNico altogether. It was a matter of thinking what each side of the portal could do.

The meat of the work was done in the summer -- at least, the Continue the Song Game was being hosted in the Audio Forums over the summer, and that would pave the way for the animators to do stuff. By that point I was preparing for my appeal against the Home Office (you know, the whole asylum thing), which was initially scheduled for 1 July. I was shackled with terror and all manner of nightmares, among other things. Seán and I did everything we could to get a strong case against the Home Office, and I couldn't take charge of it. The project went to @Whirlguy's capable hands, with programming input by @TharosTheDragon.

Some time later I was approached by Whirlguy, who asked me if I was up for composing the credits theme for the 20th Anniversary Collaboration. He didn't want to leave me out of this. I was touched -- by that point I was quite pleased to leave it aside -- and I said yes, and remade A Beginner's Harp Improv into the song it is now.

One or two people have reported back to me saying they nearly teared up at the credits. It's not fully my doing -- it's also the deed of at least 119, if not more, people who brought all that content to us. I'm just glad it's done. While there are some parts I wouldn't condone, I still recommend you take a look anyway, just to see the amount of hard work that has been put into this mega-project.

To end today, I'd just like to share a little anecdote which will appear quite nice to Audio Forum regulars... I hope... ^_^

@Camoshark and @Jiimaan are currently touring parts of Britain, going off the beaten paths, exploring and meeting people, and seeing the sights. Over yesterday and today the two of them were in Preston, and Seán (@IrishChieftain) and I had them. It was wonderful. The weather was horrible because Preston's been on the receiving end of two storms, and honestly, 50 mph winds are not a common occurrence in these parts -- but the four of us were pushed around by it quite a bit.

We had a jam and got to know each other a lot better over yesterday, shared jokes and anecdotes, and this morning, Seán and I took them to our little, humble, familiar hangouts -- the Harris museum, the Miller Arcade and St Wilfrid's Church, which I proudly call "my second home." The Harris was where my art was first exhibited, last year. As for St Wilfrid's... some of you may have seen part of the interior of it -- at least the organ loft -- from any videos of me playing timpani that I'd linked in my music thread on the Audio Forum.

It was absolutely lovely meeting them and hearing their stories, and in general having them.

Here, have a photo.

From left: Camoshark, Jiimaan, myself and Seán. I still maintain that the camera doesn't like me.

Would you like to see Troisnyx dancing to the beat of her own drum -- quite literally?

This is something I've always wanted to do, but have not yet mustered the confidence to do. But if you folks say yes... then I'm not sure when, but I'll do it, and fine-tune everything down to visual appeal -- the clothes, the video recordings... And I'll commit to it and practise as long as my body allows me, and all that good stuff. <3

Apparently I hold even crappy games in high esteem.

Those of you who are at least partly familiar with From Software ought to look up a PlayStation 2 game called Forever Kingdom, which this piece of artwork is fanart of. I don't know why, but it certainly did draw me in despite all its flaws.

Oh also, attention @Phyrnna, since your character namesake makes an appearance here. Hope you like it. <3 In the original Japanese version of this game, the hoop-wielding protagonist in the centre is called Fillna, and shares the exact same pronunciation as Phyrnna's name -- Firuna (フィルナ). I don't know which came first, but to me, it doesn't matter -- I like both of them very much.

I'd like to begin this news post with an announcement that the picture above is a remake of this image. Regardless of where this is going, this is a drawing of something that I hold very special to me. It is catharsis, considering my past. The details are largely missing, but I do intend to put them in.

The title of this post comes from George Orwell's 1984. Part of this title will figure on the blank signpost in this drawing, possibly in a language other than English, for heightened effect.

With 20 hours to go and only £5,900+ raised, the Kickstarter for Song of the Firefly is bound to fail, unless a miracle happens with the funding. At any rate, I do not blame anyone for this. Instead, I want to thank those of you who were able to fund this thing, even if it was a little bit. Every little bit did help us, in that it gave us a slight glimmer of hope.

It's understandable that funds will likely not go there because right now, there are more life-threatening causes, one of which we knew about just the day before yesterday. But there are other things which I do not yet know about.

I am gutted, yes. Don't worry, I'm used to failure. It's become a certainty for me.

While a lot of people have taken to making frontpage posts on Halloween, I thought I'd rather make my front page post on Hallow Day -- or in current terms, All Saints' Day. Halloween was just the run-up to my celebration today. Today, we remember those saintly people who are in Heaven before us -- but we also realise that everyone can be a saint too. So today is a celebration for everyone.

I cannot begin to explain the joy from today, but I can give you some anecdotes. I'm always Skypeable for this sort of thing.

The next thing I would like to talk about is Song of the Firefly, the game by @Hoeloe and crew which I am writing music for.

My previous post talks about my experience at Comic Con last week, talking about the game to crowds of people. I highly recommend you read it, because today, I'm going to be talking about the Kickstarter.

It has only two weeks to go, and at the moment, is about a third of the way through its funding. I would heartily, heartily appreciate it if you folks could support the game too. For reasons previously disclosed in my news posts, I cannot pledge -- but Seán has pledged quite a bit to this game as well, considering he's got me and his mother to support.

A lot of people who were present there at Comic Con asked if it wouldn't just be available on Steam, but also on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. You know, there's a reason why we set up a Kickstarter in the first place -- we need the licensing fees for that sort of thing, yes, well past development costs, fees and a host of other expenses. For my part: I believe in this game, which is why I signed up to be one of two soundtrack writers for it. And once you've clicked the link to it and seen the content in the brief of Song of the Firefly, I hope you too, may believe in it.

So what did I do for Halloween, you ask?

Nowt much, I welcomed trick-or-treaters, and a lot of them came quite early in the evening. The last batch of kids came at 8:00 p.m. and then after that, it was peace and quiet.

I did dress up, though -- and it's a costume that has made @matt-likes-swords and @Phyrnna quite pleased.

That's right, I dressed up as Anna from the Epic Battle Fantasy games!

Now, I sincerely hope that the 'darker' Anna look works. I cobbled this costume together with the little I had: a brown shirt, a brown skirt, tights, brown boots, a green-and-black wig, a bracelet with a cross on it, two brown belts and a Triforce necklace. This costume desperately needs its bow and arrow, and we still haven't found a way to make a sturdy one just yet.

Hopefully, if this costume gets enough likes, it may find its way into a music video, featuring a cover of two background music pieces from the EBF games. It'll be a fully-acoustic cover; I'd been planning this since before the summer and I'd let both Matt and Phyrnna know about it. However, it'll likely be next summer that I attempt this. It's going to be too cold to record stuff and take multiple recordings of me playing harp, bodhrán, pipes etc. in a forest.

Side note, I had hoped to take part in the Halloween Spooktacular but Comic Con really drained all my energy, and I had a lot of preparation for it as well.

There are two little videos of me doing some instrumental messing around. I'd been playing drums, yet again. They're on my music thread -- feel free to pop in anytime.

That's it from me for now. Hope to hear from you in the comments -- and take care!

As I mentioned in my previous news post, I joined Ed Kay-Coles (@Hoeloe) and crew to promote Song of the Firefly, our game in progress. While I did go around visiting other stalls, my main goal for the day was to talk to people about the game, its mechanics and developments, and its music.

How I became one of two soundtrack writers for the game is because of the passion with which I was filled when I saw the material available for it several months back, and wrote, half-embarrassed, to Ed, asking to write for him. There was a final shortlist of 20 musicians, apparently; only two -- Sabrielle, a composer from Orlando who is based on Soundcloud -- and myself, made the cut. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons of distance, she couldn't make the event. And I could only make one day: Saturday, the busiest of the three days of Comic Con.

Regrettably, the computers in our booth didn't have sound -- the ambient sound around us was drowning everything, and no-one thought of putting headphones. However, thanks to Seán providing me with earbuds, I used those and my tablet to share fragments of the music with people who came by, garnering enthusiasm for it. One of these tracks is Nightfall, a fragment of which figures in my audio submissions on NG.

I didn't take many pictures, but the few that I took, I cherish them a lot, and I'd like to share them with all of you. I'll describe them as I go along.

This is when I played the demo of Song of the Firefly. I believe I was the first, if not one of the first, to give it a go for the day. This is an alpha build; a public demo should be available within a few months.

It's a 2.5D game (some sections are 2D, some are 3D) focusing on the dynamics of light, shadow and survival with the bare minimum in a post-apocalyptic world. That's the core mechanic. I will cover the story in a bit.

People playing the game.

These photos don't seem like much, but there was quite a queue to play Song of the Firefly. The booth was quite narrow, and there were PCs for various indie games. Ours was at the edge of the booth, directly facing the flow of traffic, and so it really helped us a lot. The queues were quite long at times.

Poster duty. I was the only member of the crew who didn't have a T-shirt promoting the game, as I came within quite short notice, and it'd have taken ages to mail the shirt to Preston. We had 500 or so posters, and we had to go slow on them by the time the halfway point came...... in case we didn't have enough for today (Sunday).

Ollie, our programer, resting in his "usual spot," i.e. right in front of the door that contains all sorts of stuff for use of the exhibitors in this stand.

I was racked with chest pain quite a few times that day, and I wound up joining him sitting there.

The signpost for Song of the Firefly was not a poster like we would think... but it was actually printed into the cloth that covered the stand.

Now, in addition to giving out posters, I'd brought business cards and samples of my music, to give people a taste of what would appear in the finished game. The following two pictures should speak for themselves:

Beginning of the day (notice how many CD sleeves there are with my trademark triquetra on them),

Just a few hours later, at 11:00. (I think so, anyway. The CDs depleted in the mid-afternoon.)

With the help of a staff member, we did the sneakiest thing: we put up our posters behind other people's banners. Heheheh.

One of the people who visited our stand and played our game asked that we sign his poster for him. It was our first time ever being asked to do this, and we were overjoyed. I couldn't get a picture of any of us signing the poster, but I did get this:

The poster when it was signed by the four of us who were there. Sorry for the slightly blurry image quality. Ed's signature is above mine, which you can... barely make out, I guess...

All four of us posing for the camera. From left: Ed (the project manager), Jonny (the art director), Ollie (programmer) and myself. I swear, the camera hates me.

So if I were to describe the story of Song of the Firefly in my own words, I'll put it like this:

You control a boy named Sam -- the guy with the green hair -- in post-apocalyptic London. Broken-down buildings, complete and total darkness, a haze covering the skies blocking the view of the stars. The moon has been split in two.

You're looking for your friend, Sarah (the girl with the pinkish-red hair), who has gone missing in this darkness. In this bleak atmosphere, you have little rays of hope to guide you, in the form of fireflies.

Armed with the bare minimum -- a knife and a lantern -- you go in search of her. The fireflies light up your lantern and push away creatures of the night. The knife is your last resort...

I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday, and I hope you enjoy this post and these photos.

Ed and crew have set up a Kickstarter, which you can go to here. This game needs funding to grow into the masterpiece which I believe it truly is.

There'll be little updates about it now and then on @Hoeloe's NG page, and perhaps some from me as and when. Stay tuned.

First of all, thanks to all of you who have followed me to date. I have recently hit the 400 fan count (for lack of a better phrase). It's overwhelming to think about it. Just... thank you all so much.

Incidentally, Seán and I have worked on my official site, and it's ready to unveil.

The URL for it is quite simple: http://troisnyx.co.uk

Seán took photos for this, and there are still more photoshoots to come, featuring one or two other instruments I play. Not sure when or where they'll be, but we're both looking forward to it. At any rate, I sincerely hope that this site may be a good enough calling-card for what I do.

I will be in London for the second day of Comic Con (Saturday the 24th). I will be there to join @Hoeloe and crew as they present Song of the Firefly, and I also aim to meet and greet people. Let me know if any of you are going to be there; I'd be really glad to meet you.