Living Between Code and the System

Noctalia started in July 2025 as my solo project. Shortly after, Ferreo joined and shortly after is the time that Lemmy joined working on Noctalia. This turned into a small team of 2 people who have been putting in ungodly amounts of hours into the project.

Some days, we both end up putting in 12-hour stretches or more, completely absorbed in building, breaking, fixing, and improving things. Everything we do has a purpose that we can see. Noctalia is where we can really work. Open source, creating tools that people actually use, that is where our focus and energy make sense.

On Support and Bureaucracy

Being in Germany and working on open source projects while relying on state support is… strange. Donations, no matter how small or big, come from people who care - but the system can make even that kind of support more complicated than it should be.

Why We Do This

Noctalia is not just something to pass the time. It is precise, tangible, and ours. We can make decisions, see results, and improve things in a way that feels real. We can experiment and push ourselves without anything getting in the way.

Writing about it is not complaining. It is not asking for sympathy. It is simply putting into words what works and what doesn’t, what draws me in, and what makes sense to me. It helps me understand what I am doing and why it matters.

Code and Chaos

I will keep working on Noctalia, and alongside Lemmy we continue learning, building, and sharing. I navigate the friction between doing something I love and the systems around me, and that will not stop.

Posted on January 23, 2026.