Hi, this is Haley. @@;; I think I want to explain why we've been avoiding dA for the last year. It's all very troublesome, so I didn't want to bring it up, but all our kind friends keep attempting to message us despite us never replying. OTL I feel so guilty and bad about it. We were avoiding "the truth" that we haven't really been drawing at all this whole time. (Well, Hope has studied and improved. But, I haven't at all. I was ashamed to admit it. I've been learning Japanese instead of improving at all.)

Okay, after our friend died, we couldn't bring ourselves to lift a pencil. Months later, we realized we had to try harder at art, but basically were "too afraid to get back on the horse." Instead, we've been working at improving aspects of our "in real life" life (basically trying to get organized and happier). Overall, it's sort of working, but our janitorial job at the mall has been dragging us down.

It's too demanding for one person to babysit food court while tending to the rest of the mall (spills, restrooms, puke, lost stuff, etc.). (Only 1 janitor and 1 security working at a time, basically.) It gets SO isolated-feeling when working with a coworker who seems cold, so it's like being trapped in your mind beating yourself up about every tiny mistake. Me and Hope's schedules are the complete opposite of each other (she works really early in the morning, and I work until 11:30 pm). So, we're just exhausted all the time and can't coordinate together to get personal stuff done.

It doesn't help that there are mean teenagers there who hate us for calling security on them and purposely make messes for revenge. Hope has a stalker who followed her from her last job, too. He comes to watch us seriously 3-8 times a day and asks Hope to date him even though he's like 70. We're stressed out about it. Last night, he was sitting outside the mall, even though it had been closed for about 2 hours, watching Hope clean windows. We're afraid to get him banned, because he might kill himself. *wants to pack bags and move to Alaska* *cough* My motto has seriously become, "It's not a complete day unless I cry at least once at work." Arrg! I warned you it was kind of overall pathetic to bring up. T_______T;;;

Anyways, we're gonna try to get hired somewhere new, but it's hard cause our esteem is sort of low, but we'll try to fight it for the sake of happiness, art, and friends. e__e;

The good news, though, is that Hope is trying very hard to watch tutorials for our 3D software for our new style of art. We decided we'll just focus on comics instead of stand-alone pictures from now on, too. As for me, at least I can say that my Japanese has improved /a lot/ since before, so this year I'll attempt to take The Japanese Language Proficiency Test, N5 (the lowest level). XD;;;

The end~. Thanks for reading and being concerned about us. I feel like I can move on from hiding after admitting this, but I hope everyone will be okay with watching our humble attempts at art improvement.