a large cat, or possibly the shroud of turin

Wow, it seems like only yesterday that a couple of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed fans announced the first JayTim Week. While those founding mods have since moved on, the ship week itself is still chugging along just as strong as ever—a whole decade later!

We had a lot of grand ideas while brainstorming for this year's JayTim week. There have been a lot of events (sometimes more than one in a year!), in a lot of different ways (longtime fans will remember the epic JayTim BINGO Month of 2019), and over the years we've had a heckuva lot of prompts. Why not pull on all that history to make something unique and special?

This year, JayTim "Week" will span 10 whole days, from June 19th through June 28th, 2026—one day for each year. To pick prompts for each day, our dedicated mods compiled the past prompts (all 301 of them), weeded out the repeats, and randomly divided them between the 10 days. Then, to mix things up a bit more, we made a picker wheel for each day.

To decide on your prompt(s) each day, simply spin the wheel and let fate decide. Since we don't have a free day this year, each wheel also includes a Free Day!, bringing the total number of possible options for each day up to a whopping 25 prompts (wow)!

Day 1 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 2 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 3 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 4 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 5 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 6 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 7 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 8 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 9 Prompt Picker Wheel

Day 10 Prompt Picker Wheel

summer rain. redrew parts of an old drawing

BONUS:

he did that on purpose. bonus bonus:

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.

Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.

Genre - Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slice of Life, Case Fic, etc.

AU - If it's an AU, what kind? What role do each of the characters play? How is it different to their canon role?

Parts of canon - If it's not an AU, what part of canon is it about? Is it set before, during or after a particular episode?

Themes - Are there any topics or ideas which you are trying to explore, or which come up repeatedly?

Minor Warnings - Is there anything you think you should warn for that isn't included in the archive warnings?

Format & Length - Is your work art, video, podfic, etc? Does it use a particular format like a Drabble or 5+1?

Characters - What is going on with each of your major characters? If you had to describe them with one or two adjectives, what would you pick? (Format as [Adjective] [Character Name].)

Relationships - What is going on with each of your major relationships? Are there any relationship tropes like Slow Burn or Enemies to Lovers in your story?

Tropes - Are there any tropes or common story elements in your story that haven't been tagged yet? If your work was on TV tropes, what are the first things you would add?

Sex - If your work includes sex, what kink(s) and specific act(s) does it involve?

been a while since I drew, reasons undisclosed

This is how I HONK

Er, how I make webcomics. These pages are part of the @screentonescast How I Create My Webcomic zine, which debuted this month for Nib & Ink Fest 2026!

NIF runs through the end of May. Since there's only a few days left, I'm sharing my section for all to honk at! Zine proceeds go toward the podcast's production expenses so we can keep sharing webcomic-making tips with everyone for free!

You can buy the zine here!

This tumblr sexyman is your son!

You’re allowed to care even though lots of things are going bad. Some things can’t be fixed or saved. But it’s okay to hold onto hope for something good to happen tomorrow. Good things are always going to pop up like flowers in war zones.

“The world is not on fire, there are just lots of fires.” Don’t lose hope that some fires can be put out. So much is still easy. Build a safe zone within the flames, and persist putting them out. Accepting we are in a bad place does not equal rolling over to let it get worse. No matter how bad things will get, you can still put out flames in different spaces.

You can give yourself the freedom of acknowledging life right now is in a state of unrest and we don’t know when the chapter will close, while also being happy we are here with other people and things that make it worth it. Because it is worth it. All hard things are worth it.

while realism means--exactly that, adherence to the specific logics of actual reality and its physics, logistics, etc.

There's a particular recurring discussion of "realism" in media that goes something like this: "okay, but realistically the heroes would always win because they'd just shoot the villain while they're monologuing" – while refusing to acknowledge the obvious follow-up question: "wait, but if monologuing reliably gets you shot, where do all the monologuing villains come from?"

i.e., what we're really discussing is not a milieu which has adhered to some notional model of "realism" ab initio, but one which was apparently governed by the conventional tropes of its genre right up until the moment the character the person framing the scenario wants to win walks into the room, whereupon "realism" asserts itself.

Heck, there were folks doing this song and dance in the notes of the post this one is following up on, trotting out hypotheticals like "in a realistic fantasy setting the twelve-year-old chosen one would always lose because experience trumps skill and the power of friendship isn't real", implicitly taking it as given that in a milieu where this is true, people would still be handing out magic swords to twelve-year-olds.

for his war crimes and doesn’t

deserve any sex.