Toots for ljwrites@writeout.ink account

Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-02-01 at 03:31

Setting up #SyncThing on #SteamDeck's desktop mode went without a hitch--I now have Lines of Flight: Capitalism and Mental Illness on the Deck, ready to read! https://booksirens.com/book/TXGZ2H9 I would have been happy to keep using ShareDrop.io to share the occasional file, but alas, it choked on this heavy-duty PDF so I had to set up actual file-sharing. Just as well, since this means I can send book files more easily to the Deck.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-29 at 16:59

In my continued saga of weird Steam Deck problems, I had no audio in gaming mode even after I got it working again in desktop mode. Turns out that switching to gaming mode automatically changed the audio output device to Rembrandt. Once I took online advice to turn off the Rembrandt card in audio settings I got sound back in gaming mode.

All this is a lot more software troubleshooting than I ever had to do for Nintendo Switch which required pretty much none, but then again I have a lot more versatility and options on the Deck so it's a fair trade I guess. I'm not going to be reading ebooks or playing games bought off Itch.io on the Switch, not without a ton of hacking which would no doubt introduce its own complexities and bugs.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-29 at 15:58

One thing I didn't anticipate when I got hot water bottles was that my kid would also become an enthusiast. Now our preferred term for them around the house is "warm" because that's how he refers to them, and at night he's often the one to request them, emptying the cooled water out of his preferred bottle so it can be filled. It's a nice little ritual to share with him, literally a warm memory :blobcat_love:

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-27 at 09:47

Language is such a scam, you hear of "loan words" but are they ever given back? No! Rampant theft and cons, I tell you

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-26 at 09:21

More Steam Deck weirdness, though fortunately one with a simple enough solution. I was getting no audio on an Itch game I was playing on desktop mode, though the Chrome browser on desktop mode had audio and the game's own audio settings & volume were normal. After looking up a few threads I found out that individual apps might be muted from volume control (a commonly-mentioned problem was this happening to the Steam app itself) and could be unmuted while the game is running.

And what do you know, pulling up volume control with the game running in the background did in fact show the game app to be muted, even though I'd obviously never muted it myself?? Anyway, game audio came right back when I unmuted it from volume control. Whew.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-25 at 04:25

[#]WritersCoffeeClub Feb. 24 - How long is the longest story you’ve ever written? Can you link to it?

Shadow of the Dragon King, an Avatar: The Last Airbender pre-show #fanfic at almost 160K words. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6821006/1/Shadow-of-the-Dragon-King (yes I need to post this outside fanfiction.net, but it's daunting to edit & repost). I have an even longer draft of the big WIP kicking around at 260K+ words, but hope to pare it down significantly in the rewrite.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-23 at 15:38

Today in niche technical problems, I've been unable to use the desktop mode of my #SteamDeck for a few days because the screen would go blank on switching, which was a problem because it's been my main e-reader lately since the demise of my stalwart old Kobo Glo. I actually like it better than regular e-readers in a few ways because I like using the controls rather than the touchscreen to turn pages.

Fortunately I finally solved the problem by opening the terminal from Game Mode with an external keyboard and deleting the contents of the .local/share/kscreen directory, as found in this thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/7198510808230711684/ I think the command needs to be "rm -rf *" without the quotes? "rm -r *" worked for me, at any rate. Also, on this particular Logitech keyboard I needed to press the fn key for F5, which is evidently dual-function with Search.

Switching to Desktop Mode worked without a hitch afterward, and I'm continuing my read of Let This Radicalize You 💖 After I'm done with this one I think I'll load a few of more books onto the Deck, including other books from the Haymarket Books sale and the liberated Kobo books from the Ursula K. Le Guin sale.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-19 at 02:57

I have an unusual amount of energy this morning after a really tired and anxious day yesterday. Maybe it's from Yoon's detention, maybe it's from doing some freewriting last night. I'm trying not to stretch myself too hard and end up exhausted, so I made just a little headway clearing the home office verandah and am going to try some freewriting again to see if doing it more regularly helps.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-17 at 05:59

Some background: I mostly like my current Hugo theme, PaperMod, and was even complimented on its accessibility by a Blind user. However, I also read elsewhere that a non-scrolling overlay UI element is a HUGE (so to speak) inconvenience for users who need to magnify the screen a lot, so I'm thinking about simply ditching the button though I have had no direct complaints.

Still, if having a back-to-top button is necessary or useful to some users I'm reluctant to simply get rid of it without any alternatives. I don't need it myself because I have a keyboard shortcut, but I know that's not the case for everyone. The trend toward disappearing and tiny scrollbars doesn't help, and not everyone can grab and pull a scrollbar anyway.

Also, the way my theme is laid out, with site navigation and a table of contents at the top of articles, makes a quick return to top even more useful. Maybe what I need is a non-scrolling navigation bar with a TOC reveal button, though I can see these becoming annoying on their own at large enough magnifications :blobcat_think:

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-17 at 04:41

Is it useful or necessary to have a "back to top" button on a #blog that stays in a corner and doesn't scroll off the page? (To see it in action, go to https://ljwrites.blog/posts/queer-premodern-korea/ and scroll a little way down for the button to appear.) More details in thread. #IndieWeb #accessibility #a11y

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-17 at 03:15

The works of V and others is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, btw, when I said "I’m still as fannish as ever and more happily so than I ever was. I simply shifted the lens of my obsessions from a focus on for-profit corporate media to smaller, queerer, more liberationist works, often created by friends I trust and regularly talk to." https://ljwrites.blog/posts/fanfic-writing-history/

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-17 at 03:11

I #amReading @vicorva 's Space Dragons: Luxorian's Crew and really appreciate the quiet details of everyday life & work. Lux's thoughts about the place of dragons in human-dominated societies and pondering alternate ways of life resonate with me, while the constant physical reminders that the human world is not built for dragons call back to situations where I felt out of place. The specifics of Lux being on a mission with their crew are another nice touch that help ground the world, from the uncertainties and dangers of space travel and uncharted planets to finding shelter and concerns with ecological disruption after landing.

This attention to everyday specifics was something I loved about V's other space fantasy The Old Goat and the Alien as well, but it hits different this time because the world of Space Dragons is much more capitalistic and less utopian than the Geminus of Old Goat, and unfortunately feels much closer as a result. #bookstodon

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-16 at 05:26

[#]WritersCoffeeClub Jan. 13 - What's your favorite trope? Do you lean into it for your work or shy away?

A recurring one is the idea of the anti-hero or maybe anti-villain, one who does terrible things out of sympathetic motivations. I have a fascination with the psychology of destruction and harm, why people keep making these choices and justifying them. People also hurt each other in more everyday ways and we are all sometimes the villain in someone else's story. I like the whole idea of the blurred lines between good and evil, that people cannot be so easily categorized.

I definitely lean into this in my own writing, as my stories very often have this kind of ambiguous/sympathetic character who does real harm. It's one reason I have no plans to publish a lot of fiction, because I don't want to repeat myself a lot and become predictable.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-13 at 08:30

This rant brought to you at this specific time by listening to a lecture about Syngman Rhee and what a giant piece of shit he was, but I'm sure anyone can pull up many, many, many examples.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-13 at 08:28

Strange when you think about it, how "product of their times" is only used to defend a person's bigotry, mass murder, slavery, atrocities and so on, and never to argue against celebrating them in THIS time. Okay, sure then. That enslaver, genocidaire, tyrant, bigot, etc. was a product of their times, so let's leave them in those times and stop valorizing them. Put the statues and plaques in museum storage and let them stay historical figures to be understood in perspective like any other. Shouldn't be so hard to do since they're figures from the past. Right?

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-13 at 06:43

[#]WritersCoffeeClub Jan. 12 - Do characters use words not in the language you write in? Italics for this, or not?

Yeah, there are some non-English words. I mostly write in eras long before modern English existed and even longer before it came to be known in the regions the stories take place in. Names are mostly transliterated, with maybe an initial notation of their meaning ("Nurudal the Master of Long Ridge..."). Common nouns are mostly translated, but a few such as forms of address are transliterated because they are difficult to translate. "Big brother/sister" simply doesn't have the same ring as "Onni," for instance. I don't italicize because these words are not foreign to the speakers.

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-13 at 05:04

Long ago on West Dongting Mountain (西洞庭山) there lived a young woman called Biluo (碧螺), and at the foot of the mountain a young man named Axiang (阿祥). The two loved each other from afar.

One year, an evil dragon arose in the Great Lake and demanded Biluo as tribute. Axiang fought the dragon with a harpoon for seven days and nights until they both collapsed. Biluo cared for the unconscious Axiang herself.

Biluo went looking for herbs one day when she came upon the scene of Axiang's battle with the dragon and found a young tea tree. She raised the tree and brewed tea from the leaves to give Axiang, and he grew better by the day as they fell more and more in love.

Sadly, Biluo herself lost her health and died in Axiang's arms. In great grief he buried her next to the tea tree, which was named after her. This is said to be the origin of the famous #tea Biluochun. #MythologyMonday #mythology #folklore

Source: https://www.sohu.com/a/259328205_100027664

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-12 at 08:43

I discuss how I removed #DRM from #Kobo books on #ArchLinux using a #Calibre plugin, #Obok. https://ljwrites.blog/posts/kobo-drm-removal/ The tutorial may be applicable in parts to other #Linux systems and Mac/Windows, too. #LjBlogs

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-12 at 08:03

Me: Hey I got this chocolate-and-marshmallow "impeachment snack" pie from the protest! It should last months in the package, how about we open and eat it when Yoon's impeachment is final?

Husband: Sure, if you want.

Tater: (Immediately tears the packaging open to devour the pie)

Me: Oh well. Maybe it's better luck this way? 🤷

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Written by Author-ized L.J. on 2025-01-11 at 01:50

"I’d call my #fanfic writing years a creative career of itself, right down to making no money from it but getting plenty of fulfillment."

"In a way I’ve lost fanfic and #fandom, but in another sense I haven’t lost them at all. I simply moved on and found people and spaces that better fit the shapes I’ve come to take, that allow me to stretch out in ways that make sense to me."

From the thoughts of a (mostly kinda) ex-fan on the #SnowflakeChallenge2025 prompt, "Tell us how fandom has helped you." https://ljwrites.blog/posts/fanfic-writing-history/ This retrospective is fond and personal, but is also critical of Anglophone fandom and takes particular aim at fandom racism. #LjBlogs

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