It was another one of those drizzly afternoons in the Pacific Northwest, the kind where the grey sky seems to blur right into the pine trees. I was sitting in the living room, mostly just watching Ari—Jaiden’s green-cheeked conure—do laps around the ceiling fan, when Jaiden finally emerged from her studio. She was rocking her usual look: a pair of black techwear cargos with enough straps to double as a parachute and an oversized purple hoodie that she’d probably been living in for the last three days of straight animating. Her dark hair was down, slightly messy from her headphones, and she had that specific "I just finished a 12-hour grind" sparkle in her eyes. "Okay," she said, leaning against the doorframe and narrowly avoiding a fly-by from the bird. "The video is rendering. I’m officially a human being again. What are we doing? Coffee? Or are we finally going to try that cursed Pokémon challenge we talked about?" I looked at her, then at the rain hitting the window. It felt like one of those days where things were either going to be incredibly chill or absolute chaos—with Jaiden, it was usually a bit of both.