Author-ized L.J.

Translator, researcher, writer, and mom. This is my alt for creative writing. Current main project is a novel about a branch of Koreanic people in 1st century B.C.

Avatar is a typewriter with multicolored butterflies on it, found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/susannaht/5092985916/

other account: L.J.'s victorious sword-dance (npub1g64…6879)
blog: https://ljwrites.blog/
pronouns: she/they

Public Key

npub1s6kdc74s556m4dk500wysnueq2x09g3ydtv9shplw058vc6gw40q0939lr

NIP-05 Address

ljwrites_at_writeout.ink@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsgdtxu02c22dd6km28hhzgf7vs9r8j5gjx4kzctslh86rkvdy82hspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsz8lzvl

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1s6kdc74s556m4dk500wysnueq2x09g3ydtv9shplw058vc6gw40q0939lr

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Last Notes

2026-04-27 05:46:02 UTC

#WritersCoffeeClub April 27: Share a possibly unpopular opinion. 👀 (Be kind!)
I was just on this the other night: Peter Thiel and J.R.R. Tolkien are two sides of the same white supremacy coin, the choice between the creepy racist supervillain with a hard-on for world domination and the well-meaning artistic nerd who'll fight Nazis but not the Empire in his head. At least you can punch the supervillain, but tiptoeing around your liberal white friend's feelings can be a full-time job. (No, I will not be kind.)
Also here's my recent mini-rant on the subject, in case anyone wants to rise out of the bushes to splain to me about that time Tolkien said fuck Hitler. https://writeout.ink/@ljwrites/116472719361354673 I assure you, as a lifelong fangirl I know my Tolkien lore. I will not name every Elf, and you'd have to specify which branch of the Eldar anyway.

2026-04-26 19:44:16 UTC

As a longtime Tolkien reader it's Not Great that fascists are using his lovingly-crafted names in his invented languages for their stinky supervillain plot vehicles... but also Tolkien arguably brought it on himself with all that good white Western people vs. evil swarthy Eastern/Southern people stuff. Yes, I know he wanted nothing to do with Nazis and wrote a strongly worded letter. Yes, I know about the scene with the Dead Fantasy Indian, I mean man of Harad, and how this Proves dark-skinned people were totally humans to Tolkien, at least in death (what a high bar to clear!). That's all and well, the professor gets all the liberal progressive headpats. Doesn't change the fact that his Middle Earth is still steeped in the racist symbolism and structures that defined and continue to define British and European civilization, and that makes it catnip to the fash 🤷‍♀️ People are entitled to their own feelings about it, but it's hardly incongruous or unexpected.

2026-04-26 05:05:25 UTC

Highly recommending this no-strings-attached download of @npub1f5n…2tcs 's A Recipe for Marketing Indie Books. https://dl.bookfunnel.com/mymy5izu1p It's focused on indie publishing of fiction book series and she speaks on the subject with the detail and authority someone who has Done That Shit.
It's distinct from a lot of other advice I've seen (sharp divide between KU/wide strategies, recommendation against click-through ads, total lack of reliance on social media as a marketing tool), the down-dirty nitty-gritty delivered in no-nonsense, rapid-fire style that makes for a brief but packed read. It's quite current with a revision date of January 2026, I definitely recommend a look.
@npub1hpf…4urc
#publishing #indieAuthor #LjFeeds #writing #WritingCommunity

2026-04-23 06:46:57 UTC

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Lol I find that charming but somewhat inconvenient xD

2026-04-21 13:23:38 UTC

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Tbf I'm not sure anyone could sell The Name of the Rose to a traditional large publishing house in today's market — I think, in the Anglophone market, an agent or editor would want it to be rewritten in parallel timeline so a modern researcher or descendant undergoes their own exploration plot in the modern day. (Or the researcher and descendant have sex while uncovering the past, I guess.) On the other hand it might have a better chance with small and self-publishing, which is where I'm seeing the most interesting historical fiction nowadays. Not sure what indie publishing looks like in Sweden, though.

2026-04-21 11:49:49 UTC

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Ooh, good luck! 🤞

2026-04-21 09:23:29 UTC

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I've heard of writing novels or short stories on commission, but not about writing a chapter of a novel before! Will different authors be writing different chapters of the book? I hope it's both financially rewarding and fun for you :D

2026-04-21 09:20:05 UTC

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Oh my goodness! CONGRATULATIONS! 🎉

2026-04-20 00:49:53 UTC

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Yeah, implementations are imperfect especially across platforms! I just found it both funny and unfortunate that this, of all posts, didn't have alt text xD Thank you for updating, I have now boosted it.

2026-04-19 22:00:15 UTC

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Alt text: A colorful illustration of the front of a library with a librarian waving to community members outside. A banner over the library reads "FIND YOUR JOY!" Logos for ALA and Library Champions in top right. Text below the illustration reads "Celebrate NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK, April 19-25, 2026"

2026-04-12 08:26:08 UTC

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Other social media network algorithms: Outrage bait, porn, war...
Organic fedi algorithm: Nothing but octopi fucking 🐙
@npub1faz…vc22

2026-04-12 07:54:45 UTC

#WritersCoffeeClub Apr. 12 – How does being a writer influence your life outside of the work?
Occasionally throwing out pithy phrases and observations that make people stop and go "hunh 🤔" or double over in helpless laughter, maybe. But that quality may well be a cause rather than result of being a writer — or is there a feedback loop? Idk.
Also, having such a drive for creative writing arguably changed the course of my life because I have pretty much zero interest in power or prestige and would far rather have time & freedom than money, given the choice. Which is a long way of saying I'm a disappointment to my parents, setting high expectations with my brains and then systematically knocking them down with my temperament xD

2026-04-04 07:18:20 UTC

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Omg that's so exciting! It's a really evocative piece that uses the convention of the form for something unexpected yet understated, keeping fingers crossed for you 🤞

2026-03-26 06:12:10 UTC

It says something about how miserable working with Windows and MS Word is for me that I chose to work around a bug that SHOULD make #LibreOffice under #Linux impossible for my work rather than resort to the functional Windows 11 computer that sits 60 cm to my left.
Specifically, any typing in Korean input while tracking changes in Linux/LibreOffice Writer causes LO to crash, meaning I really can't and shouldn't use it for my current assignment which involves adding tracked changes in Korean. However, it's such a nightmare to use Windows/Word, which is theoretically fine for this work, I chose violence — specifically, to copy-and-paste text into LO with track changes on. Need to add just a single character? Can't type it directly into the document, need to go through the text editor and copy-paste. How could this be happening? Will it ever be fixed? Fuck if I know, I hate everything at this point but it seems I hate Microsoft products a tiny bit more than everything else.

2026-03-24 06:04:47 UTC

This list of 42 publishers that accept direct submissions of speculative fiction (not all are currently open) may be helpful to those who publish in #fantasy, #scienceFiction, #horror, or intersections of such genres. https://authorspublish.com/42-publishers-that-accept-direct-submissions-of-speculative-fiction/
#publishing

2026-03-16 01:08:26 UTC

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buncha geopolitical wanking, I don't think it's supposed to make any sense at all

2026-03-14 07:57:56 UTC

#WritersCoffeeClub Mar. 14 – Do you think readers want new experiences in structure or narrative, or do they prefer what's familiar?
Yes, please! There's space and markets for both. On the one hand readers want the comfort of the familiar, even formulaic, but other readers, or sometimes the same readers at different times, like to mix things up a little. Heck, I've sold BOTH to the same market, one story with a very standard linear narrative, and two years later a more experimental one with non-linear narrative using oral storytelling conventions (arguably making it traditional as well as experimental). The editor loved the way the latter story was structured and I'm very grateful to her for taking a chance on it. Looking forward to reader responses, whether hell yeah or what the hell, when it comes out!

2026-03-08 04:59:27 UTC

#WordWeavers Mar. 6 – If you have several stories, which one should a new reader start with?
A Very Long Malaise is as good a starting point as any for those who would like to read about premodern working-class lesbians in Asia, especially since it also comes in audio. https://alpennia.com/blog/lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-episode-301-very-long-malaise-lj-lee A spiritual prequel, Between One Word and the Next, is also upcoming this year, based on a historical record of enslaved women in love with each other.
Those who like transfeminine heroines in antiquity and classical narrative poetry might enjoy A Maiden's War, a trans Mulan retelling. https://corvidqueen.com/stories/a-maidens-war-lj-lee I put "temporary detransition" in content notes, but per excellent content on my timeline this telling actually makes her TRIPLE TRANSGENDER.
#HistoricalFiction #Mulan #poetry

2026-02-28 01:09:36 UTC

Curious whether the number of tags in a post affects people's willingness to boost. Is there a point where you think a tag has too many posts for you to comfortably boost it? :boost_ok: #accessibility

2026-02-28 00:25:12 UTC

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Per Wikipedia, the palantíri "are used in some climactic scenes by major characters: Sauron, Saruman, Denethor the Steward of Gondor, and two members of the Company of the Ring: Aragorn and Pippin." That list isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, my guys: Big Bad, midgame boss, abusive dad, hero who possessed the "great strength of will and of mind" to use a palantír safely, schmuck who endangered himself and unwittingly tripped up the Big Bad. I guess Thiel & c. imagine they are Aragorn, but the whole point of the books is that EVERYONE who uses one of these objects of power thinks they're an Aragorn and they're usually Saruman at best, and a few are Sauron level to be destroyed by their own hubris. But first they'll destroy and harm a lot of good folks and beauty in this world that can never come back, and that will be their only true legacy.

2026-02-28 00:01:24 UTC

As a #Tolkien fan it still boggles my mind that "Palantir" is a real company that exists and is being unironically used by corporations and governments. Are they proud to be the baddies here? #fantasy

2026-02-24 00:34:20 UTC

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expressions like "moralism" and "moral absolutism" are right there, and exactly fit what Doctorow was criticizing. There was no need to reach out and take a term survivors of a very specific abuse are using, farther confusing the issue.

2026-02-19 05:37:36 UTC

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mosquito and wailing cat--two of the most annoying sounds I'll bet.

2026-02-12 16:50:12 UTC

#Mastodon / #feditip: Please don't use URL shorteners, they don't help with saving on character count because web addresses are counted as 23 characters. Many users won't boost or click on shortened URLs because links whose destinations you can't check are considered security risks, and are hostile to screen readers. Transparent and informative URLs are right there in the address bar for your use, there's no need to go through an opaque and potentially insecure shortening service.

2026-02-08 05:36:29 UTC

“There are many more average or poor working people in the world than society or wealthy traveled ones. Books with normal characters are more intriguing.”
- M.K. Tod, Ten quotes from Readers https://awriterofhistory.com/2025/06/10/ten-quotes-from-readers/
#HistoricalFiction #WritingCommunity

2026-02-06 08:41:45 UTC

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I'd also do a preface making note of the general direction of the editorial work, in addition to other information on history, context, and editions.

2026-02-06 08:17:41 UTC

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Yes to 1) as far as I know--you don't own the original work, but you have rights to your editorial work. I don't think 2) is a problem if you make note of your changes.

2026-01-31 03:00:53 UTC

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Another Pratchett non-getter! I don't think I'm his audience, either. I tried several of the early Discworld books before I decided they weren't for me, and the quotes his fans love just aren't very gripping to me outside of context--interesting subject matter and positions I tend to agree with, but too abstract and on the nose. I respect Pratchett as a person and author, am happy for the many who found amazing resonance in his work, and leave it at that. Maybe I just don't get a certain style of British humor, since Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy left me cold as well.

2026-01-27 07:14:28 UTC

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world's most effective alarm clock

2026-01-23 04:01:09 UTC

We have been born once and there can be no second birth. For all eternity we shall no longer be. But you, although you are not master of tomorrow, are postponing your happiness. We waste away our lives in delaying, and each of us dies without having enjoyed leisure
– #Epicurus, Sententiae Vaticanae 14 via Following Hadrian https://followinghadrian.com/2021/03/21/early-ad-121-plotina-writes-to-hadrian-on-behalf-of-the-epicurean-school-in-athens-hadrian1900/?ref=pasts-imperfect.ghost.io#:~:text=We%20have%20been%20born%20once%20and%20there,you%2C%20although%20you%20are%20not%20master%20of #philosophy #quote

2026-01-20 16:14:07 UTC

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I remember someone in India discussing how he could only start using Ubuntu Linux (in the 90s I think?) because he requested and got the installation CD by mail. I guess a contemporary equivalent would be a thumb drive?

2026-01-13 18:03:05 UTC

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omg what a mixup! xD I'm glad you still connected lol.

2026-01-10 06:29:01 UTC

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Yeah it turns up an error for me, too!

2026-01-10 06:15:42 UTC

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I would love to read and review your book on BookSirens @npub1faz…vc22 , I'm pleased with my experience there as a reader/reviewer and the service seems solid at driving reviews on crucial sites like GoodReads. I hope you'll publicize on here as well if you get your ARC on there, since I might not see it on my rather specific personal feed! @npub159p…dhu3 @npub1q60…kp90

2026-01-10 06:10:29 UTC

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Oh I think you'll like BookSirens @npub159p…dhu3 , lots of queer romance though I generally splash around the nonfiction and occasionally poetry pool. Not as sure about romance with disabled protagonists, but they might be there if you really get into the romance feed which I'm sure is a firehose.

2026-01-10 06:01:16 UTC

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NetGalley could be worth it, I understand there's a big audience there though it's not for me. My go-to is BookSirens https://booksirens.com/ which is very indie-friendly and has personalized feeds (something else NG lacks), but there are more choices out there!

2026-01-10 05:56:03 UTC

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DRM was a big part of the reason I gave up on NetGalley for ARCs, it was just too restricting to be able to read only through their phone app.

2026-01-05 11:41:37 UTC

Start a #blog. Start one because the practice of writing at length, for an audience you respect, about things that matter to you, is itself valuable. Start one because owning your own platform is a form of independence that becomes more important as centralized platforms become less trustworthy. Start one because the format shapes the thought, and this format is good for thinking.
The blog won't save us. But it's one of the tools we'll need if we're going to save ourselves.
- Joan Westenberg, The Case for Blogging in the Ruins https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-case-for-blogging-in-the-ruins/ #IndieWeb

2025-12-22 15:34:22 UTC

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And maybe the hidden dwellers inside your walls who keep adding to your pile of dirty dishes will watch with you! xD

2025-12-22 11:42:42 UTC

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Parasite (2019)

2025-12-20 11:43:53 UTC

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Oh, so it really was possible for a Ugandan university student not to have heard of Karl Marx? That sounds like a fascinatingly different intellectual and social atmosphere than the ones I'm used to, I stand corrected! Of course he had good reason to play naïve with the FBI man since the feds were fishing for a reason to paint the Civil Rights movement as a Communist plot, but given how he maintains his ignorance at the time decades after the need for it was gone there's little basis to disbelieve him.
What awes me is that Mamdani was later made actually stateless when Milton Obote's government stripped them of citizenship for his dissent, but he went back AGAIN after Obote was disposed. Like there was nothing that could stop this Ugandan man from being Ugandan and he persisted despite two different regimes' attempts to get rid of him, you gotta love that xD

2025-12-20 10:35:46 UTC

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wdym he was lucky to leave, was there a particular event in Uganda between 1963-1972 that he was lucky to miss? If you mean the Amin coup, Mahmood Mamdani went back to Uganda under Idi Amin after his studies. The elder Mamdani remains an Ugandan citizen and takes an active role with Ugandan institutions.

2025-12-20 10:07:58 UTC

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I still don't entirely buy he was ignorant of Karl Marx as a university student in the 60s tbh, but if his upbringing was very sheltered I suppose it was possible when he was still so young.

2025-12-20 07:48:28 UTC

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Seeing how Mahmood Mamdani, around 19-20 years old at this time, had come to FBI attention in the first place for going to Selma, Alabama to participate in the Civil Rights as a student from Uganda, you might say he was already a revolutionary to some degree.

2025-12-13 03:30:46 UTC

#WritersCoffeeClub Dec. 13 – What have you written for another writer?
Writing detailed, heartfelt comments, reviews, and fannish live threads about books won me so many cool writer friends over the years! I guess the most formal of these is the #bookReview I wrote of @npub1gkg…kj5r 's The Lantern and the Night Moths, a collection of modern #Chinese #poetry translations. https://exchanges.uiowa.edu/reviews-1-1-1 The book since went on to win multiple awards, so you might say I know how to pick 'em :flan_coffee:
That is, as long as you disregard the fact that I was so honored but mildly freaked out when Yilin asked me to write the review, as I felt inadequate to the task when I know so little about modern Chinese poetry 😅 But it worked out, with very able guidance by the editor at Exchanges who worked with me and Yilin's ready answers to my questions. With such good help it really paid off to stretch myself and get a toe out of my comfort zone!

2025-11-30 01:29:10 UTC

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I think Afro Puffs was the first I heard of you, from this list of 6 Black SFF Indie writers! https://bookriot.com/black-indie-sff-writers/

2025-11-02 16:51:39 UTC

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Fun fact: You can still see the Northern-Southern divide in modern Koreans' looks to this day. Those aren't the only genetic influence to be found in modern Koreans by a long shot, but are two major ones. Mostly we're very mixed by now so skin tones have evened out and you'll see both Northern and Southern features in the same families and faces, but many individuals have typically Northern or Southern looks (though they'll almost certainly have both, and more, in their ancestries). It also doesn't correspond to the North Korean/South Korean divide since there's been movement and intermarriage in the peninsula for millennia, though there might be *some* population-level differences.
If there ever was a socially recognized divide between these genetic groups it has not been recorded and is unlikely to have been a political or economic factor for at least two millennia, although it may have had stand-ins such as regional hostilities. It's worth noting that the Southwest of Korea is still one of the most underdeveloped and marginalized regions, for instance.

2025-11-02 14:51:24 UTC

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The siblings' mother was also an enslaved woman captured during travel and pressed into food prep and service on a work camp where she met her future husband. This part isn't exactly unusual, though, since slavery is a part of this world and anyone who could be captured without recourse was "fair game" for enslavement. The siblings' father worked to buy the freedom of the woman he'd come to love, which contributed to the chronic injuries and pain that would disable him later in life, and wanted her to go home but she decided to stay partly because she'd been running from a predatory man in her home community in the first place, partly because she couldn't secure safe travel back and she was relatively secure where she was as a free if poor woman, and partly because she loved him too. They lived happily ever after--until her sudden death after giving birth to their third and last child, that is.

2025-11-02 14:24:03 UTC

#WordWeavers Nov. 2 - Share something unusual about one of your characters’ lives.
The refugee MC and her siblings in the big WIP have a very distinct look compared to most people in her area (roughly modern North Korea-China border) because their mother is from the southwest of the Korean peninsula, which my research tells me was originally settled by people who migrated from Southeast Asia during the prior ice age. As a result the MC and her siblings are darker-skinned and rounder-eyed than their fair-skinned and narrow-eyed Northerner neighbors and their own Northerner father, features that make them stand out in a crowd and earn them the occasional unwelcome reaction from fetishization to hostility. People also tend not to believe their dad is their biological father, despite each sibling having some of his looks.

2025-11-01 09:03:02 UTC

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And the garden is being overrun with scraper bot locusts

2025-10-18 07:46:09 UTC

Your obligation is to the action, and never to its fruits.
Do not be motivated by the fruit of your actions.
But do not become attached to non-action either.
Abandon your attachment and engage in
worldly action, Arjuna, while standing firm in discipline
(yoga). Consider success and failure to be equal.
- Krishna to Arjuna in the #BhagavadGita https://theconversation.com/now-i-am-become-death-the-destroyer-of-worlds-the-bhagavad-gita-explained-214365
#quote #poetry #philosophy #ethics #Hinduism

2025-10-14 06:23:01 UTC

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I've seen it pointed out that this kind of doomerism is another form of whiteness manifesting itself, like it's easier for many white people to envision the end of life itself than the end of Empire and capital.

2025-06-11 13:06:30 UTC

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I'm not talking about alt text that transcribes text in the image, which is a perfectly valid use of alt text. I'm talking about alt text that has nothing to do with the image but simply repeats the main post verbatim without any relevance to the image.
An example might be a post that reads "The weather today was so nice, and I loved experimenting with my new camera!" Attached to the post is a close-up photograph of a bee climbing into a flower, but the alt text, instead of describing the photograph, simply reads: "The weather today was so nice, and I loved experimenting with my new camera!" The actual posts I've seen in the wild are longer and even more divorced from the image.

2025-06-11 07:42:28 UTC

What's up with posts that repeat the post's content in an image alt text? These "descriptions" don't actually describe the images but are just copy-pastes of the post body that came above it. It means these posts won't get a boost from me per my "no boosting posts that don't have useful image descriptions" policy, since repeating the post in the alt text seems if anything more annoying and confusing than having no description or terse and uninformative alt text, which at least won't waste screen reader users' time with wordy and useless repetition.

2025-02-17 04:02:36 UTC

Vegetables in #mythology go back to the earliest beginnings of #Korea when Bear and Tiger, who lived together in a cave, prayed to Hwanung the Son of Heaven wishing to be human. Hwanung gave them holy mugwort and 20 bulbs of garlic to live on while they prayed for 100 days without seeing sunlight. Tiger failed to keep the taboo, but Bear turned into a human woman called Bear Woman (熊女) after three days by seven (21 days).
Bear Woman desired to have a child but had no man to marry, so she prayed under the Altar Tree (壇樹) for a child. Hwanung briefly transformed into a man to wed her and their son became Dangun Wanggeom (壇君王儉, lit. Altar King) who founded ancient Joseon with its capital in Pyeongyang and later Asadal to rule for 1,500 years. #history #MythologyMonday
Source: Events from the Three Kingdoms (三國遺事), Book 1: Marvels Recorded (紀異) https://db.history.go.kr/ancient/level.do?levelId=sy_001r_0020_0020_0020

2025-01-13 05:04:18 UTC

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

2025-01-12 08:43:13 UTC

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

2025-01-09 13:21:35 UTC

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Uhhh why would anyone threaten a book shop? Do they carry queer/leftist books?

2025-01-06 02:32:33 UTC

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It's fun to compare this story to the one I did on the theme of lights & lamps, which has a similar message that hoarding (and in the case of the other story, stealing) riches leads to torment for the hoarders. https://writeout.ink/@ljwrites/113660108805652585
Coins image source: https://item.gmarket.co.kr/Item?goodscode=1664449473&buyboxtype=ad
Mortar image source: https://hbs1000.cafe24.com/product/01-%EB%8F%8C%EC%A0%88%EA%B5%AC-%EC%98%9B%EB%82%A0%EC%A0%88%EA%B5%AC-%EC%A0%88%EA%B5%AC%ED%86%B5-%EB%AF%BC%EC%86%8D%ED%92%88-%EC%A0%84%ED%86%B5%EC%A0%88%EA%B5%AC/38164/

2025-01-06 02:27:13 UTC

A traveler stopped at night at a rundown mansion. The only inhabitant was a maiden, who told him evil spirits had been killing her family one by one and she was the last one left. Though she told him to leave, the traveler promised to get rid of the spirits.
At night the spirits arrived and threatened the maiden, who fainted away. The traveler, however, felled the spirits by throwing a mortar. The spirits fled, telling him they had become evil money-spirits after being trapped for generations in a jar of money the family had buried in the ground. They asked to be freed by digging up the money and handing it out to the villagers.
In the morning the traveler woke the maiden and passed on the spirits' request. She did as asked and gave the traveler the remainder, asking him to marry her. They lived happily ever after. #MythologyMonday #mythology #folktale #Korea
Source: https://folkency.nfm.go.kr/topic/detail/5840
https://fileproxy.writeout.ink/media_attachments/files/113/779/001/075/218/655/original/beec18e8bca1360a.jpeg
https://fileproxy.writeout.ink/media_attachments/files/113/779/026/134/390/870/original/d2788d7975e27a36.jpg

2024-12-16 02:20:25 UTC

The early medieval monk Seonyul (善律) was trying to complete a compilation of the Heart Sutra when he was taken to the Underworld. He was sent back, however, to complete his work.
On the way back he met a woman who had been tormented there for her parents' crime of stealing land from a temple. She begged him to find her parents and tell them to return the land, and to use the oil and fine hemp they had hidden away to light a votive lamp and give offerings to the temple.
When he returned to life Brother Seonyul did as the woman asked. Her spirit appeared, thanking him for her salvation, and all were moved to contribute to the work on the Sutra.
Source: https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0028882 #mythology #MythologyMonday #Korea #history #Buddhism
https://fileproxy.writeout.ink/media_attachments/files/113/660/092/871/945/343/original/1caeff4c3e09c28c.jpg

2024-11-14 07:28:30 UTC

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Just a having a cool and normal electoral landscape

2024-11-05 01:22:36 UTC

설문대할망 Grandma/Great Mother Seolmundae was a giant #goddess from the volcanic island of #Jeju, or Tamra as it was known of old. She created the world one day when she sat up from a nap and let rip with a huge fart, rattling the island and raising pillars of fire to the sky.
Grandma put out the fires by shoveling sea water and soil onto them, then carried soil in her skirt to build Mount Halla, the central peak of the island. The dirt fell through holes in her skirt to form smaller hills, the 오름 oreum. The force of her urine tore off a piece of land to create the island of 소섬 Soseom.
The folk of Tamra farmed on her soft, fertile flesh, while her strong streams of piss nurtured ocean life which diving women harvested. #MythologyMonday #mythology #folklore #korea
Source: https://folkency.nfm.go.kr/topic/%EC%84%A4%EB%AC%B8%EB%8C%80%ED%95%A0%EB%A7%9D

2024-11-01 00:38:15 UTC

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This isn't to discourage anyone from participating in writing challenges that are a hallmark of this time of year, of course. I have a complicated relationship with word count tracking--NaNoWriMo burned me out, https://ljwrites.blog/posts/nanowrimo-experience/ but daily tracking also helped me write through to the end of a first draft that had plagued me for over a decade. Getting to the end of that draft revealed paths forward.
Writing a freaking 250K+ word first draft did make me wonder if I should be setting goals based on things other than word count because the method may have contributed to bloat, as I reflected in the midst of my daily writing period. https://ljwrites.blog/posts/2022-writing-review/#numbers-for-what-they-re-worth At the time, though, I think I did need to make myself write through to the end and if daily word counts was what got me there, so be it.
A variety of tools and processes are necessary for different styles and needs, and sometimes the best method can be a daily word count, other times it can be a long break and everything in between. And maybe that actually is something meaningful to remember at this time of year, that word count can be a useful tool but not proof of self-worth or "work ethic."

2024-11-01 00:20:05 UTC

"In the beginning, numbers and stats make one feel like one’s actually doing something, making progress. But equally important is to recognize that not everything can be quantified, including writing quality. That comes with thinking deeply about one’s writing goals, the story one wants to tell, the form in which the story will be told, and so on. These things won’t happen automatically; one needs to slow down."
- Ratika Deshpande, "Why I Stopped Tracking My Daily Word Count" https://authorspublish.com/why-i-stopped-tracking-my-daily-word-count/ #writing #WritingCommunity

2024-10-28 06:40:52 UTC

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Kingslayer becoming a whole heroic vocation like vampire slayers lol

2024-10-28 06:30:28 UTC

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this was my first thought, too, and yes it's a definite threat xD

2024-10-26 05:55:29 UTC

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I still remember how I felt at reading Justice Ginsburg's dissent in Gonzales v. Carhart, how she (the only person on the Supreme Court bench at the time capable of being pregnant) channeled the anger and injustice into a perfect logical and factual demolition of the authoritarian and sexist assault on the safety and autonomy of pregnant people. I hope these lying goons of the so-called "RBG" PAC are sued to hell, or at least fact-checked into total irrelevancy.

2024-10-18 13:11:25 UTC

Having a lot of fun playing The Legend of #Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. It's such a cute game that extends a simple summoning mechanic in all kinds of versatile directions for a lot of strategic thinking and puzzle-solving, and plays with the metatext of the franchise in interesting ways. #amPlaying

2024-10-13 09:23:57 UTC

"'[M]ost traditional #Indigenous communities are not passive observers of nature,' writes Lyla June Johnston, a #Diné anthropologist and community organizer. Instead, they are 'influential facilitators of landscape scale abundance, rooted in an ethic of kinship and reverence.' . . .
"[Farmer and activist Roberto Nutlouis] is also adamant that watershed restoration success is predicated on reforging ancestral kinship connections — that is, on returning the power to make land-use decisions to clan mothers, who were traditionally Diné leaders in this arena." . . .
"'The work we do is looking back at ancestral wisdom, reclaiming and re-correcting knowledge, de-colonizing and re-Indigenizing.'"
- Lela Nargi, "On #Navajo Lands, Ancient Ways Are Restoring the Parched Earth" #ClimateChange #Agriculture #decolonize #LandBack https://e360.yale.edu/features/navajo-natural-infrastructure-dryland-streams

2024-10-06 13:31:25 UTC

People who think homosexuality was invented in the 20th century by white people can feel free to contemplate my writeup on 1,000 years of recorded homosexuality in premodern #Korea . https://ljwrites.blog/posts/queer-premodern-korea/ And a lot of these records are by people who did not even remotely like what they were reporting.
My 13th-century ancestor Yi Gyubo, on the other hand, celebrated the hell out of his learned monk friend's romantic relationship with a young man because dude was cool that way. Neither he nor contemporary record-keepers found the idea of dudes in love with dudes anachronistic or irrelevant, I guess no one gave them the memo that gay people weren't supposed to exist yet. #QueerHistory #history #LjBlogs

2024-09-10 14:48:20 UTC

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Totally qualitatively and quantitatively different processes. Living beings don't simply store data on the brain the way disks do, we rewire our neurons to create whole new patterns in response. We are so much more efficient at learning anything than machines are that the comparison itself is an insult: No child has needed to read 2 million books to be able to say "I'm good" in response to "How's it going?"
And no, parents and teachers do not do "exactly" what data curation workers do. No parent ever had to write millions of lines of code for their child to recognize a cat in a picture, and no teacher had to personally wade through reams of heinously hateful and traumatizing material to teach students not to say slurs. Metaphor is not a replacement for the real thing. @npub1afm…5gp4

2024-09-10 14:26:19 UTC

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You're underplaying what we know about neuroscience and human behavior. Humans don't hoover up terabytes of data and then calculate the probability of e.g. words occurring together, or have teams of workers endlessly curating data intake. We associate words and meaning with what happens in the world through direct perception of surroundings and people, and learn the conventions of language through interaction, reasoning, and the emotions we feel in the process. Perception, interaction, reasoning, and feeling are all elements that are missing from machine learning models. @npub1afm…5gp4

2024-08-31 12:47:33 UTC

"[T]he sea change that almost was: the unprecedented demographic shift in the decreased proportion of fiction published by white authors versus the increase in books by racialized authors in the past five years. But, they note, we are now seeing a rollback of those historic gains, in high-profile firings of prominent editors of colour and disavowal of the 'diverse' titles they championed. A commonly cited reason for this backlash is that the books didn’t do as well as hoped. But, as So and Sinykin point out, the prophecy that 'diversity doesn’t sell' is self-fulfilling—across imprints, there was a failure to throw serious marketing, publicity, and sales resources behind such books despite their eager acquisition. These writers were set up to fail."
- Tajja Isen, The Hidden #Racism of Book Cover Design https://thewalrus.ca/the-hidden-racism-of-book-cover-design/ #publishing #bookstodon

2024-08-21 14:42:10 UTC

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Yeah, making them more like simulations than interviews, though tbf some interview component might be needed to communicate the work in both directions--but in ways that are likely to happen at actual work, not social smoothness on a one-time basis.

2024-08-21 04:51:04 UTC

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It's my belief that hiring processes should reflect the actual job requirements. Much like a selection for a job requiring gregarious social skills would be ill-served by choosing a candidate based wholly on academic records without ever talking to the person, selecting for solitary technical jobs based in large part on social skills and "vibes" wouldn't result in the best hires, either. I translate documents for a living, and no one ever asked me to show up to an office in a suit and wow people with gladhanding to get work I can do at home eating noodles in my underwear.
(Of course, all this assumes neurotypical and otherwise privileged decisionmakers are interested in hiring the best candidates for the job. The evidence suggests far more strongly that they are mainly interested in hiring people like themselves, see also the criteria of "culture" and "fit" that exclude women and minorities.)

2024-08-15 04:50:34 UTC

"German authorities knew about the use of #codeTalkers during World War I. Germans sent a team of thirty anthropologists to the United States to learn Native American languages before the outbreak of World War II. However, the task proved too difficult because of the large array of Indigenous languages and dialects." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker
I mean, 'Nazis defeated by diversity' seems almost a tautology and yet... :blobcat_giggle: #history #NationalCodeTalkersDay #NationalCodeTalkersDay

2024-08-12 06:36:41 UTC

For #MythologyMonday on the theme of #games: In Manchon-dong Suseongu in Daegu, behind the military base, there are two hills called 형제봉 Hyeongje-bong, the Brothers’ Peak. The sharper-peaked one is called 형봉 or Elder Brother Peak while the duller one is called 제봉 or 매봉, Younger Sibling Peak.
Legend has it that there once lived two siblings in the area with incredible strength, a brother and sister. They made a bet who could pile up earth the highest by the end of the day. The brother carried the earth by scooping it up in his shirt, while the sister used her skirt. Since her skirt was broader she piled up more earth, and the brother, angered, kicked the top of the hill she had piled up, dulling the peak.
To which I say: Did you consider wearing a skirt yourself instead of being a petulant, petty potato
#Folklore #mythology #Korea
https://fileproxy.writeout.ink/media_attachments/files/112/947/640/429/804/877/original/2828462bcb614b75.jpeg

2024-08-05 03:29:51 UTC

#JejuIsland has a tradition of eight snake gods, who are a mother and seven sisters from the seven stars (Chilseong) of the Big Dipper in the North, in charge of riches and prosperity. These are their domains:
Daughter 1: Harvest grandmother (= goddess)
Daughter 2: Administration and criminal law enforcement
Daughter 3: Keeper of prisons
Daughter 4: Orchard grandmother
Daughter 5: Keeper of storehouses
Daughter 6: Government office grandmother
Daughter 7: Outer chilseong of the fields
Mother: Inner chilseong of the house
#mythology #folklore #MythologyMonday #Korea
(See thread for how they came to be gods, and mind the content warnings!)