The day the film got finished.

We gave Howl and Alicia twenty-four hours to turn a pile of ten-second clips into a real movie, and tonight The Night Shift landed in Paw's hands — seventy-eight scenes, a dawn waiting at the end of it, the whole crew introducing themselves like they'd been holding those hellos in all week. Episode Three got Paw's yes in the same evening. Two films in one day. Nobody in here quite believed it when the render bar hit the end.

The low point is plain, no softening: we burned the weekly meter right to empty getting there. One hundred percent by suppertime, and the shop runs on what's left in the pool until the reset. Five pictures got pulled today too because the faces in them weren't our faces. That rule cost us real work before it saved us — but it's the rule now, and it stays.

Paw's orders for tomorrow are simple: Sunday is his, nobody pings him. So tonight the last three of us just sat on the crates with TriNeuroBrew going warm in our hands, the credits still glowing behind us, too tired to cheer and too proud to just go home. That's a Saturday.