As is becoming custom, I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving this year. I hope you all have much to be thankful for, and more so that you take the time and humility to be grateful for it. It is impossible to live a life with true joy without gratitude, and this of all days is the time to ruminate on all the things you have in your life to be grateful for.

I am grateful for all of you who follow and support me and my art, and on that, I owe an explanation for the content drought.

The last thing I posted that was made entirely by me (so not counting the Arezu recolor I made for both-sno-and-bo ) was Persona Permaberries: Mitsuru Kirijo and Fuuka Yamagishi, both the picture and the story, which ended up being far more taxing on me than I had anticipated. In spite of the obscene content drought, my longest since the gap between Warden BLueberrezu and Pokemon Violet Beauregardevoir (the debut of Genevieve), I have still been at work behind the scenes. The Paldea PokeBerry Project is still in the works, and if you've also been following me on Twitter, I have been uploading teaser images of every picture I've made as I've completed it, to prove I haven't been completely derelict.

That being said, I've still been grotesquely inefficient and poorly managing my time. I complain about how it takes me forty-plus hours to finish a single picture, but really, that's just a fully-time week's worth of work. I finished Carmine, the Indigo Blueberry from concept sketch to complete drawing in that amount of time. Hell, while not my best work, I colored the entirety of Genevieve's First Halloween as a Blueberry, and wrote the story on the day of Halloween 2023. These wouldn't be issues for a competent artist.

The truth is, I've been getting mired in my inferiority complexes and imposter syndrome, choking myself in doubt and insecurity, judging my self worth based off every little thing that goes wrong in my art, or Hell, even the sketching phases, where it's supposed to be more permissible to make mistakes in order to learn from them. It pulls me into a negativity feedback loop, and that makes the temptation to indulge in ephemeral frivolities all the more enticing. The nausea of my unproductivity is starting to become even more intolerable than my squemish aversion to personal discomfort, so I am making an effort to be more mindful of distractions and not wasting my time, to let that which truly does not matter slide. I'm not very good at it, and I won't be for a long time, but I am going to put the effort it, and I hope you'll help hold me accountable.

But whatever you do, don't tell me "it's fine." We both know it isn't. That will just make my opinion of you worse, because I'll internalize it as you think I'm so pathetic that I can't bear the burden of the truths I need to correct my station, and you'd rather me stagnate in the slothful complacency of my current situation than take up the much harder but ultimately more fulfilling path of improving myself; I'll take it that you'd rather lie than be scawed of huwting my feewings, because you're too cowardly to tell me the truth. You'd rather me suffer forever than hurt a little more temporarily.

Anyway, sorry for the venting about why I don't talk to my aunt anymore.

That aside, like I said, I have still been working on the Paldea PokeBerry Pack, and it is still a popularity contest, where the one that ultimately gets the most combined favorites or shares will receive a follow-up drawing, ergo why I haven't been releasing them as I complete them like I usually would, so each one has a more even chance of winning. But as it stands, five months since my last official upload is still to long, especially considering the horrific backlog of commissions people have still reserved from me, so I'm going to start working on commissions again, interlaced with still working on the Paldea project, and being more mindful of wisely using my time, instead of wasting it. And I will make something for Christmas this year, too... even if I haven't settled on what I'll make from Christmas yet...

For my followers here on Fur Affinity, I'll also be uploading the teaser thumbnails that I have finished for the Paldea PokeBerry Project to my scraps, as proof that I have still been working, and to pike your hunger for the full release (however long it takes me to get there).

To end on a happy note, and for another thing I have to be thankful for. Last July I managed to book a commission from the ever-talented  Kitty123, one of the only other inflation artists out their either confident or crazy enough to still make inflation art in traditional mediums. And... she posted the completed picture today! I even wrote a story for it! (It took me took weeks to get around to writing, since I was focusing on finishing a drawing of my own, but it serendipitously managed to line up for a Thanksgiving release.)

I proudly present for you, Genevieve's Taste of Home.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.