To begin, I told my fiancé Seán (who had begged me to write something for months on end) that I'd write something once I reached 700 fans. That day is finally here, and follower number 700 is @Cyberdevil. Thank you for all the support ;_;

I'd been mentally shot for a long time, and past newsposts can explain why.

My birthday fell on the 12th, and it was a good one. An intimate party with Seán and six other friends in the house, having pizza and playing Cards Against Humanity. Outside of the chocolates and alcohol that I received, I also got a project book, a small case of art supplies, and a toy bow and arrows! (Adult-sized, of course, and with rubber tips on the arrows. Still gotta handle with caution.)

I'll be using the project book for music video projects and anything of a large scale. Speaking of music videos, there is one I'm planning right now. #ReReveris

I am also in the midst of reworking https://troisnyx.co.uk/ -- so you likely won't see any updates from there for a while yet. Those of you who have been following the progress on my Discord server and in other chats will have noticed that I've been drawing and trying to figure out what the new layout should look like. I've been heavily at work of late -- just unable to express it all in words, and it's been hard to write this post because of all the ideas swimming in my head.

Here, have a teaser of what it might hopefully look like. Yes, I use Wix. I don't think it's any secret, really.

Now, on to Newgrounds-related stuff.

First:

The Newgrounds Audio Portal 15th Anniversary drama is plodding along; the music is coming along reasonably well for people mostly stuck with exams. The voice actors for Pico, Nene and Darnell have been confirmed -- namely @Raayo, @jessieyun0404 and @RealFaction. Work has begun on the voice acting.

The person chairing this project -- @Whirlguy -- and I, we both have been keeping track on all the workings of the project. Jessie Yun is still casting minor roles, if I recall correctly. @SourJovis is ironing out inconsistencies in the otherwise finished script, and I have been doing my best to assign music to people according to the script.

There are meant to be four episodes of the audio drama, each lasting about 40 or so minutes long. Hopefully, all being well, Act 1 should be up around the time of Pico Day. We'll release the others periodically thereafter.

OH BY THE WAY: Are there any female voice actors out there who can pull off, or have a native British or Irish or continental European accent? We are looking for one female VA with any of these accents to join us!

Second, moderating.

With everything that I've been involved in, moderating has slowed down for me. I do occasionally see the flags and remove what's on there, and sometimes I've been proactive and looked for tags containing potentially offending songs (e.g. NCS, Daft Punk) in the search bar. But of course, my priorities at the moment to go my bigger projects. One of them is the audio drama I spoke of above. The other is right below.

I have been taking part in a doujin circle called A Reyvateil's Melody. Which has something to do with the Hymmnos language from the Ar tonelico games.

Yes, after seven years of not touching Hymmnos and Ar tonelico with the end of a barge pole, I got drawn into it; I was actually invited into the group in January this year after its members had watched the Mio/Homura music video.

Now they're quite new to the scene if I remember this correctly, and the last thing they did was called COSMOCRYSTAL II ~ clalliss re leat, maya re pat - 奏響濫色 (Soukyou Ransyoku). The kanji has multiple meanings, but one of its sounds means 'reflective indigo'. Among Hymmnos circles we call this 'Side Blue' because through all the games, the soundtracks have been released in two halves with separate themes, Side Blue and Side Red.

I had no involvement in Side Blue, but the crossfade of what they've released so far is below.

I will, however, have involvement in Side Red -- I have composed, and am in the midst of recording the opening track to Side Red. It's called Ocurp Omnis, which in the Hymmnos language means 'the flow of everything.' You can hear a short, relatively unmixed preview of it here.

A Reyvateil's Melody are completely nonprofit. None of us individuals earn a penny from the distribution of this. Any and all sales are basically handled by our publicist in Japan, and all doujin creations basically get distributed at Comic Markets (or Comikets for short; you may have heard about those). They take place in a few parts of Japan and happen during the summer and the winter. We're hoping to get Side Red of COSMOCRYSTAL II distributed at the Summer Comiket. All the proceeds basically go into a kitty that allow us to produce more -- and again, the publicist handles the funds altogether. As for the rest of us? We do it for love of the music.

I do have one thing to say about the doujin culture: only in Japan will you get people making comics, whether for profit or otherwise, about Batman fighting Godzilla, and none of them will be slapped with a takedown request, DMCA, or any of that shit. Doujin is like self-publishing, but with a lot more respect attached to it -- and there's an immense grassroots movement for indie support. Doujin is either original or parody under Japanese laws, and this enables it to flourish. Look up "Comic Market" on Wikipedia and you'll realise just how immense the gatherings are; that's how much they're supported. If something like that were to happen in the West, it'd be slapped down immediately -- unless, of course, there's a big enough lobby that supports something like this and gets it going and makes it an annual thing.

And for the part of A Reyvateil's Melody, we're quite new on the scene, having been only active for... is it two years? three years? and there's at least 1,000 Japanese fans, to say nothing about the scant few international fans scattered in different parts of the world. It's mind-boggling that we got that kind of support that quickly.

With regards to other things, like Une Nouvelle Chance, those are coming along. We're just having trouble mixing them. But hopefully, we should see some results by the summer!

I also have a few original things planned, but will go into them in more detail after some of the pressure has been taken off my shoulders.

Anyway, that's it from me for now. How have you all been?

Subscriptions: @Mich @ADR3-N @Akuaitance @ChazDude @RealFaction @BraydogNG @Cyberdevil

First of all, happy Pixel Day. Apologies for not being able to post anything for the event; in between the events of this newspost and my mic going absolutely kaput (yes, the Blue Snowball's packed in now), I've not yet been able to finish anything. Not yet.

But, dun dun dun duuuunnnn....

UNE NOUVELLE CHANCE IS GETTING A REMAKE!!!

By the way, I painstakingly made the cover image for this song on PowerPoint (yes) after the original was done for Pixel Day with MS Paint. The new cover for this song is now something I'm quite proud of. There's hints of the vintage in there, and you may soon hear why.

Those of you who remember the inaugural Pixel Day will remember that I took part in the music and art competitions. I didn't place for art, but I placed second in the music competition with Une Nouvelle Chance. Now, I am in the midst of working on it with several friends at Soundskills. One of our friends (you'll remember the name, Greg Slater) put down a sweet, sweet guitar to complement the 8-bit goodness that I made sure to keep in the remade track. I had to transpose it down a few keys to be able to sing it, and for it to have enough impact.

This link will take you to a progress upload, meaning an unfinished version, of the remake of Une Nouvelle Chance. Now, I've advanced since then, having recorded proper vocals and a preliminary drum track. The vocals were recorded over the course of yesterday. Our mixer, Jason Beardsworth, is probably going to put down bass on this and then shred some rhythm guitar on this. The idea is that the final track should be loud, powerful and fat.

I'd only shared it with a few people before, but I think it's time I shared it with everyone who enjoys pixels and things. It's not a participation per se, but it's a remake of a participation of mine from years past.

Subscriptions: @Mich @ADR3-N @Akuaitance @ChazDude @RealFaction @BraydogNG

Seán believes in me, so I will believe in him. He wants me to not give up my solo work even if I feel I have to put a moratorium on things. No. That's not the way for me to live, of course, just putting a halt to everything because of whatever trauma is there.

The next song to be posted here will be another little project for the indie game in development hell, Song of the Firefly. I got in touch with @Hoeloe and another of his teammates last night and told them about it, and I also mentioned that I'd drawn some fanart for the project, which I will scan in due course and hopefully, with some pointers here and there, turn it into a PV for YouTube. While Hoeloe and co. work on smaller projects to raise funds for Song of the Firefly, I will wait patiently and carry out my New Year's plans of singing songs related to this game, songs that I've put off for years on end.

Seán and I are still fighting, and together we will emerge victorious. Of that, I have little doubt. No draconian law in the universe will stop us.

So in two hours it'll be Christmas Eve, and I normally do my Christmas update on Christmas Eve, but I'm going to have a very long day ahead of me tomorrow. I'll have three Masses to sing or play at in 24 hours, and that's just the start of it.

The most important recent development is that Seán, my fiancé, started a petition on my behalf, which seems to have done a little more than just smoulder. After suffering the incompetence of the Home Office multiple times over the last few years, Seán had had enough. (Well, so did I, but I was actually terrified of said petition. I put up a newspost about it on NG earlier but I didn't dare put it on the front page, and if I signalled people to it, I did so via private message because it was so hard for me to talk about it.)

But now, I shouldn't be afraid anymore. This thing is going FP.

And the news that really made it start to feel like Christmas for me was that I received a letter from one of the canons of the Archbishop of York (yes, John Sentamu, the one who famously cut up his collar upon hearing of Mugabe's abuses, and wore it back when Mugabe resigned). It looks like the Archbishop's going to write on my behalf.

The news came to me as a pleasant surprise, and I'm just grateful.

Over the last four weeks or so, the Soundskills people and I worked on a Christmas parody song, called Another Flippin' Christmas Song. I discovered today that the song's been frontpaged, and it put a little smile on my face. Thanks to whoever did this.

Suffering Home Office incompetence this month made it even harder for me to finish recording said song, but we all persevered. Seán is determined to not have me give up on my solo works at all, even if I feel like due to my dwindling mental health I've had to put a moratorium on solo works for the time being.

This year had one major project which went successfully, that is to say, that of Mio/Homura EXTEND ver. and its associated music video.

It would not have come to fruition were it not for Seán begging me, over the last few years, to revisit this. Past newsposts of mine reveal all the emotions I went through prior to the release of this song, and the positivity it brought when the video was finished.

This year also saw Seán and me move into our new home together. It has been a blessing for us to be together all the time, as opposed to families and major illnesses tearing us apart.

But otherwise, this entire year was a shit year. My mental health's worsened, Seán's physical health has worsened, I have been plagued by nightmares in my sleep nearly every night this year, and have been fucked around by bureaucracy in spite of having nothing to hide with regards to my past trauma and my engagement to Seán. I've had people happily assume that I'm something I'm not, over the course of this entire year, that I'm somehow making my past up.

I wish I made my past up. I wish I did, so that I don't have to bother people with these bad news stories that cannot escape my mind. I had an abusive family, I grew up in an abusive state, and I still reel from it every single day, with the memories and nightmares coming back to me unbidden. On many occasions I'd wanted to kill myself, and nearly did so multiple times too, because I was very much crushed, and I still don't know what justifies this sorry excuse of a life, or even its search for freedom and vindication. The only person keeping me alive right now is Seán, and he is also the person driving my creativity forward where I cannot do so on my own.

And as if it isn't bad enough that I feel like I'm carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, Seán did not recover the Mio/Homura dress when he moved out of his old place and now it's gone forever. There has been so much confusion and I'm fucking sick of it.

I wish for none of this to happen to anyone, not even to Seán. So to those of you who have indeed had a shit year, the least I can give right now is a virtual hug, and a shoulder to cry on. This is the one gift I think I can give NG this Christmas.

Now I'd best end this post, because I'm up early for the 4th Sunday of Advent Mass tomorrow, and I will be drumming again for the Christmas Vigil Mass in the evening. I hope Christmastide treats you all as kindly as it possibly can this year, and I hope that the new year shall bring hope. But even I am doubtful of that.

As I have mentioned previously on Newgrounds, I am still struggling to be allowed to stay in the UK with my fiancé, Seán. My newspost history, if you look through it yourselves, has many allusions and even direct references to what's been going on.

Seán started a petition on my behalf today. It's probably brazen of me to ask of this, but I'd be grateful if you could sign it. It's very, very hard for me to talk about this, and I appreciate any and all help from you on NG.

https://www.change.org/p/theresa-may-mp-visa-for-my-fianc%C3%A9e?recruiter=11986399&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_twitter_responsive&sharerUserId=11986399

As I mentioned on my own Discord server a few times, I've been moving house. The move's been complete two weeks ago, but in between tiredness, struggling to find a routine and suffering with many a PTSD attack, I've not been able to go online much. Now, here I am, and I hope to settle into some sort of routine.

It's a ground floor flat, shared between me and the fiancé, Seán -- albeit on separate beds because we're Catholics and we don't do the cohabiting thing and the closest thing we can do to avoid that is to have separate beds.

Two Wednesdays ago it was bare and Seán and I were eating chips in packets off the floor. Now, it looks a lot more like a home. It's still a work in progress, as you can see by the loose wires here and there, but it's a place we can truly call our own, and for this, I am really grateful. <3

Subscriptions: @Mich @ADR3-N @Akuaitance @ChazDude @RealFaction

With apologies to: @Whirlguy @BiPolarBeat @Chris354 @Kalviter @Kwing @Mawnz @Septyrikon @1f1n1ty @AceMantra @alternativesolution @Azhthar @Biggyzoom @Bosa @Ceevro @Ectisity @EverReverb @FGK2015 @Jassummisko @jaysummers759885 @JordanKyser @LadyArsenic @DarkRoxy @NekoMika @Rahmemhotep @SourJovis @I0TA @TheDukeOfJuke @Theepicosity @ToxicGeek @ChronoNomad @Rahmemhotep @Saminat. I have been away from the net for a fair bit and now that SourJovis is going to Draft 3 (or is it 4) of the script, I hope to see you all on the NGAP15 Discord server soon. How's tonight sound? I promise to be on at least a few hours a day, and I'll try and schedule it -- and then periodically check in either on the phone or the PC to see how everyone's doing.

Clicking on the image takes you to the track on Newgrounds. Thanks @DetiousMusic for letting me be a part of this, and congrats on 500+ fans!

If Soundcloud is your thing, you can also stream it here.

On a side note, it has recently surfaced to my attention that one of the mods who was responsible for frontpaging audio has FPed a stolen song. More to come on this issue at a later point. I have since taken it down as soon as it was pointed out to me, for I was so out of the loop, so badly out of the loop in fact, that I had said song in my favourites for a time.

Yes, an upcoming collaboration with @DetiousMusic. This is gonna be mighty fun!

Clicking on the artwork below takes you straight to the track on Newgrounds. I hope you all enjoy it!

As you may be aware, I do not normally put up a new post about a track of mine, let alone a frontpage post about a vocal track of mine, but this is one I hold especially close to my heart. This is as much as an outpouring of my heart as Mio/Homura was.

I sang this when I was sick, and going through a lot of mental distress. However, this piece is six years old; I composed the original instrumental back in 2011. The artwork above is that of Project Chaplaincy, a game I hope to make real. That, incidentally, also dates back to 2011.

Where was I during that year, both physically and in my state of mind?

Physically, I was in Hertfordshire, two months into my final year of my undergraduate law degree. I had met @Merlyne for the first time not long before, and we came up with Project Chaplaincy, or the idea of it, together, after I saw the artistic brilliance that was Okami. When doing the artwork for this I was in the university library, using their computers, going on DeviantArt and using their in-built Muro program to draw. I composed both at home and in the university library, and by that time I had already been gifted the Signature Bundle of FL 9, which later became FL 10 and then FL 11. We both dared to dream. He wrote, I drew and made music, and we needed a programmer, which, to this day, I still do not have yet -- but, I am waiting for someone on the programming front. Waiting, because there are several things he needs to do first, and in the meantime, I am working towards that high bar of musical and artistic quality I hope to achieve. I don't know if I ever will.

Mentally, I was still wrestling with my identity then. I was wrestling with a lot of harassment that my father, my paternal cousin and my extended family heaped upon me. I was struggling to come to terms with some of the things I'd been through. But, most crucially, I'd only been in Britain a year and a bit then, and much like someone experiencing freedom after having been in shackles for a very long time, I could not find the words to many of the things I needed to express. If ever I told people that I was a bad speaker, this was why. All the abuse I'd spoken of in previous newsposts of mine was still there at the back of my mind, but I'd not yet unearthed it the way I have now. If anything, it manifested in a zeal that I could not yet explain.

I have come a long way since then, and so has Re:Reveris. It is a vulnerability talking about spirituality and religion, a vulnerability that I try to sidestep by singing about it. Prayer has been cathartic as it has been fulfilling; sometimes I find myself surrounded with light and love, and sometimes, I cry bitter tears asking why things are the way they are. The past six years have seen me becoming more acutely aware of my vulnerabilities, and the past year alone has seen me becoming more able to put words to the things that I'd previously struggled to express.

In about two weeks, Seán and I will be moving in together (albeit on separate beds until we're married; you know, we hold fast to this sort of thing). Seán is leaving his unnecessarily large family home, a home which used to cater for five, but which now caters to just him.

It's bittersweet thinking about all the waiting and rejection before finally getting a home of our own. It's bittersweet moving out from the friend's place, the friend who put me up when I was in great distress last year. Neither Seán nor I can repay the kindness and support shown by this individual. He does not have much, but he shared what he had. I want to do the same.

So this new place is a flat on the ground floor, with front and back gardens and all that you would expect of a two-person flat. It's decently sized. This new place isn't quite ready, but if all goes well, we should be getting the keys in two weeks.

I wish to thank all of those who supported me in my darkest hours. This isn't the end of my struggles by any means, but at least I'm making headway against the wind.

I hope to be back to sitting down at Seán's ahem, rather magnificent desk and producing (as opposed to doing so in bed, contorting myself in rather uncomfortable positions and causing my spine to hurt). So, you'll likely see the return of the MIDI keyboard. I'd not used it over the last year.

Anyway, I'm just overwhelmed with emotion right now. It's something I didn't think would happen for a long time. I'd never had a place to call my own before, and this is going to be the first.