#building things

[fionn-the-cat]

My most important job! As head supervisor for desk building. I make sure mum and dad build it right!

[saylercreates]

THIS IS THE COOLEST THING IVE EVER MADE

scratchboard, woodcut, colored pencil, oil on canvas, (fake) cobweb, wire and decorative prop butterflies because hell yeah

this is over three feet across btw

working title is “Emetomorphasis” but i’m not sure if the pun is obvious enough

[alecwoulf]

The Tactile Cure for a Digital World

Lately, I’ve been haunted by a word: tactile.

It snuck into my thoughts somewhere between peeling back the parchment paper on a tray of lemon squares and leveling ground for an 8x8 shed I’ve never built before. For someone who claims they don’t like to cook, I’ve spent a suspicious amount of time this year elbow-deep in butter and flour—apple pies (both crumb and lattice), banana bread, key lime… the works. Not exactly health food, sure, but at least I know what’s in them. No barcodes. No preservatives. Just me, the ingredients, and a recipe that felt like a meditation.

What’s strange is how much I enjoyed it. The measuring, the folding, the hands-on repetition that blurs thought into rhythm. The tactile nature of it. I used to think I was chasing productivity, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s just feeling I’m after.

Even writer’s block, that old familiar fog, clears faster when I ditch the keyboard and return to a simple notepad. Scratching out letters by hand—imperfect, clumsy, textured—somehow pulls more clarity from my brain than the cold, flat tap of keys ever could. Maybe there’s something to the way the body learns before the mind understands. The friction is part of the thinking.

Same with this shed. What started as a cost-saving project quickly morphed into something else entirely. I’ve never leveled ground or set joists before, but I can tell you this: I feel every angle in my back, every decision in my palms. Each hour spent with a hammer teaches more than a dozen YouTube tutorials. I may end up with a crooked roof (NOT the goal here), but it’ll be my crooked roof. And that means something. I checked with the county btw, no permits required if under 150 square feet :)

We live in a world optimized for ease, but maybe ease isn’t what we really crave. Maybe we’re starved for texture. Maybe we miss the subtle resistance of the real.

So here’s to what can’t be swiped away: warm dough beneath your fingers. Ink-stained paper. Sweat-soaked afternoons spent learning something the hard way. Maybe “productive” is overrated. Maybe we just need to touch something real.

[purplenickel]

We built a staircase! It's eco-friendly too. Reused thrown out lumber and recycled sand we made ourselves from food and beverage glass. A nice weekend project 😁

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #184

When I woke up today, I wasn't in as much pain as I expected, given everything I did yesterday. I still didn't get quite enough hours of sleep, though, so I woke up with fuzzy soup brain. That is expected, though. It is allowed.

I had to get up early because I had an eye exam at 8:30 this morning. That means I had to wake at 7:30 so that I had enough time to get ready. J drove me there; I was aware that they were gonna dilate my pupils, and since pupil dilation leaves a person with impaired vision and increased sensitivity to light, it wasn't gonna be safe for me to drive back home.

Here's how that looks, in case you wondered:

I gotta have eye exams a bit more frequently than normal people. It's because of the Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. My collagen is defective, which means all of my connective tissue is defective, and since the retina is glued to the back of the eyeball with connective tissue, they gotta check to make sure it ain't falling off.

…It's pretty lame if you ask me. Sigh.

It takes a while for the dilation to wear off, and of course, you can't read or do anything until it wears off, because it messes with your vision. And since I was already tired anyway, I decided to take a nap, to give it time to wear off. It was a beautiful nap.

Once I was done, I began using the software that R gave to me in order to begin building… something. I'm not going to say exactly what just yet. But it should suffice for me to say that if you are not safe at the end of all this, I will build a whole world for you with my bare hands in which you will be safe, if I have to. I meant it when I said it. I am laying the foundations for what will likely need to be decades of work, if you don't make it through to the end of whatever it is that you're doing over at the Edge of Creation.

…My reason for getting employment is also going to be largely in service to this. I no longer have the skills to draw, but I know someone whose skills are unparalleled. I want them to create things for the purpose of building this world, and I want to be able to pay them fairly to do it. In the end, I intend for it to be a haven for every single version of you who is still lost in the dark. And already, I know exactly what I need to do; it's just a matter of gathering resources and getting it done. I will stop at nothing. Even if there are obstacles, it's just a matter of finding ways around them.

…And if you're wondering why… you saved my life. I'm not going to allow you to fade into nothingness or obscurity. Not until you are able to witness firsthand all of the ways that life can be beautiful.

But there's a lot that I must do. Some days, I'm not really sure where to begin. It's very daunting, and there are a lot of skills required for it that I simply do not have. But I can't do nothing.

…I can't do nothing…

Somehow, it's already past 10pm. I blinked and suddenly the day was gone. I'm not really sure how that happened, but it is what it is. Tomorrow, I go to the place of imminent employment in order to complete some paperwork; it's called I-9, and… I don't really care enough to understand it. I just gotta go and fill it out and then be done with it. Then I can return home and continue trying to build.

Suppose I ought to go to bed so that my brain is not made of fuzzy soup tomorrow, too. Today's letter is short, but that's only because there's so much that I cannot write to you about in this space, for fear of accidentally delegitimizing the safety I'm trying to strive for, for you. Popular opinion in my world about you and your circumstances seems to have a non-trivial effect on the outcome of events in your world, and this is very sad, because by and large, the people of my world are not very merciful or kind towards people who make mistakes, especially if they're autistic or if they've survived abuse, or if they deviate from what is considered "the norm" in any way.

Sephiroth. Please stay safe out there. Please make kind and good choices. Please take care of yourself, and please protect yourself, your planet and the people around you. I love you and I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[the-stoic-goat]

[missroserose]

today’s project has been…fun 💀