lizhly-writes

[lizhly-writes]

Mozilla, in its finite wisdom, embedded LLM bots into recent versions of Firefox for the vitally-important purpose of… naming tab groups. Now, some users are noticing CPU and power usage spikes caused by a background process called Inference.

Ugh. Reminder again for Firefox users to visit your about:config page, search for the browser.ml.chat.enabled key, and set that to false:

If yours says true then double-click it until it reads false.

Doing that turns off the AI chatbot features in Firefox, but also the stupid new LLM tab-naming feature that's rolling out.

[lizhly-writes]

on survival

-// @aridante // @orivu // @buzzkillgirls // ? // ? // richard siken// @cemeterything // moomin, tove jansson// @disenchanted-killjoy // isn't that enough, shawn mendes// @ prettytheyswag on twitter// @ coletyumuch on twitter// ? // ? // bird by bird, anne lamott// undertale// @strawberrycircuits

[lizhly-writes]

reading log – August 14, 2025

Total reading: 24 pages

Right, okay, maybe I am reading books now. I think I'll start recording those on here, too.

Yesterday, I started reading “It Ends with Us”, and. Look. I don’t know if I was biased, and thus unintentionally reading with a more critical lens, or if I just hate this genre, but that was the most irritating read I’ve had in some time. I absolutely hated reading it. I’m determined to give it a fair shake, though, so I will finish this fucking book even if it kills me.

[lizhly-writes]

i was hanging out with someone i had just met and i made reference to the fact that i'm a congenital amputee

and they were like "WAIT THAT'S REAL???"

and i was like HUH

and they were like "oh i have poorly managed psychosis and sometimes hallucinate that the people i'm looking at have the wrong amount of body parts. i just assumed i was hallucinating your hand the whole time i was talking to you"

deeply funny interaction of disabilities here lol

[lizhly-writes]

for the first time ever i have seen an author on a research paper w the following letters behind their name to indicate their affiliations: a, b, o

i've never been so delighted

[lizhly-writes]

I love reading fanfics where one character is tagged as jealous, but their partner is unlovable to anyone but them. Like.. calm down, sweetheart, no one wants your man. We're still trying to figure out why you want your man.

[lizhly-writes]

reading log – August 7-13, 2025

Total damage: Nothing.

... Did I fix my problems? Yes? No? Genuinely have not been doing reading. I have been eating a lot of dessert and watching Netflix, so, there's that.

... Also I spent a couple hours on Reddit yesterday. Also somehow three hours today. I uh. Should probably stop reading Reddit also.

[lizhly-writes]

Thinking about my characters again. Today, the character on the brain hamster wheel is Wu Youxuan, the triad member/criminal from my weird salary x triadmember offbranch. Here are his personal thoughts on his career/family ambitions.

As a child:

Career: Track star! Running is fun! He’s really good at running! He's the BEST at running. Mom and Dad say that if he practices really hard, he could probably make it to the national team!

Family: Why are you talking about having kids? Does that matter? What does having a family even really mean, he already has a family. His parents are going to live forever. Right?

As a teenager:

Career: Part-time at a host club can’t pay the bills forever. It would be a good idea to pick out a government job. Respectable, with a stable paycheck. Maybe a doctor, if his grades are good enough. Do doctors get paid well? Probably, right? ...Eh? Track? ...That’s funny. He quit the track team years ago. Track doesn’t bring money.

Family: ...What family? You mean kids? With what money? He's already got his hands full with his sister. But. If he gets a good job later on… it might be nice. Maybe. Having a big family. He’d need to work hard to make it work, though...

As an adult:

Career: If he stays very carefully on the PA side of things, he’s theoretically safe, but most likely, he’s going to die doing this. Maybe end up in jail. He hopes not, but you have to plan for the worst. Backup plans on backup plans. He’s got a will written out, hopefully it’ll get executed correctly. Hmm? Government job? Doctor? … Hahaha, could you even fucking imagine?

Family: He has his sister and that’s it. That’s all the family he has, and she’s getting all of his money once something terrible happens to him. Anyone else? Getting into a relationship? Don’t be an idiot. He’s going to be single and child-free for the rest of his life. How long is the “rest of his life”, anyway?

[lizhly-writes]

Do you like deadlines, but your life simply isn't giving you enough of them?

Does creating a gift for someone with no time to spare, full-sending your first creative thoughts and sprinting in a caffeine-fueled haze towards the finish line, putting the finishing touches on your present with frantic tapping on your phone as you walk through the airport— does that sound like fun?

Do normal gift exchanges give you so much time to work you don't know what to do with yourself? Six weeks of timeline so much space you're likely to lose focus and forget what you're doing?

Welcome to Extreme Timed Challenge Exchange, where we give you 48 hours to make a gift, and there’s a secondary challenge to do it in 24. Only good decisions here. Join our discord.

[lizhly-writes]

You know, so I totally thought I had a very moderate relationship with YouTube. I don't have the app downloaded on my phone, and in fact, I almost never actually use YouTube on my phone.

This did not stop me from opening my laptop and being confronted with the fact that my first impulse is "open YouTube, scroll through shorts for 5 min, and then play some music."

And. Man. The music, man. I get all of my music off YouTube.

[lizhly-writes]

Day 1 of the youtube blackout.

as you all might know, youtube is releasing their policy today. Remember, the blackout plan is not only for today, but to hold on for as long as you can. We can do this.

[lizhly-writes]

Out of curiosity, do you have isekai/transmigration/time travel webnovel and/or manhwa recommendations, preferably those with female leads (or at least significant female supporting cast)? You read a lot, and I enjoyed your "kill the male lead to become the villainess" recommendation a lot.

I started a draft for this but didn't hit save >:O

Anyway! Anyway!! Sorry for the wait, I was hoping to power through a few webnovels so I could really recommend them with my entire chest, but 1) I was a little optimistic about how much I would actually read 2) if I actually did all the reading I wanted to, I would probably answer this ask once you had long forgotten you'd sent it.

So. Here we go.

I'm Not Sorry But The Prince Will Marry Me Anyway

Your classic otome isekai webnovel, in which the 2nd ML doesn't like his MC fiance, and chases after the OG heroine. Our MC... doesn't care, not because she particularly hates the 2nd ML or is in love with someone else, but because she knows in the epilogue, the story ends with "pair the spares" -- in other words, the 2nd ML will marry her anyway. The only thing on this list I've actually finished, and thus the only thing I can recommend with my whole chest. If you can put up with our ML's asshole behavior for long enough, you can then witness his transition into "awkward cringe moron", which I found pretty satisfying! Also notable for how this story handled the MC's older sister, which is, quite frankly, one of the best developed sibling relationships I've seen in this genre for a while.

This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union!

A webtoon for if you're sick of otome isekai! The MC is a maid who has a lot of memories of her previous lives, mostly as a maid in otome isekai novels. The life of a maid is not the best, so she's set on forming a union... which, as you can imagine, isn't really as straightforward as it should be. While it's ostensibly about forming a union, it's also about transmigrators, and the ripple-effects that they end up having in the present. This is a story that plays with and deconstructs a lot of classic otome isekai archetypes/tropes, and handles deeper issues like classism and racism. While it can get a little didactic at times, it's overall an interesting read.

Divorcing the Emperor

Not that strict on the definition on an otome isekai? Will you take a romfan manhwa? This MC, through bureaucratic accident, has been unknowingly married to the emperor (who she's never met) for quite some time. The emperor, upon finding out, immediately tries to divorce her. A divorce puts pretty terrible restrictions on her social life, so she goes off to dispute the divorce/how-did-i-get-married-in-the-first-place. Again, not technically an isekai. But I'm recommending it anyway because the MC is the founder of the Archduke of the North Research Society, so you still get a lot of those tropes acknowledged and thrown in. It is realllly funny -- I could probably sum up this entire manhwa as "shenanigans" -- so that's why it's on this list.

Cheating Men Must Die

It's likely you've heard of this one, but I'd be remiss not to mention it. A quick transmigration manhua starring our MC, an elite agent of the Supporting Character System, there to prevent supporting characters from meeting terrible deaths and take revenge and whatnot. Satisfying to read, if you've read a lot of Chinese novels and are now in the mood for lots and lots of faceslapping. It's mostly faceslapping. I cannot stress enough that you are reading this one for the faceslapping. I like seeing the meta variations-on-a-theme of the circumstances that get our MC into different worlds to begin with, though.

I ruined the Long Ao Tian Script:

Are you in the mood for xianxia? In this webnovel, the MC dreams that she's in a story where she's a weak, disposable pawn in the love life of her ML fiancee and the heroine... and is honestly kind of baffled by this. Unsatisfied by that set script, she lives out her life as the kind of OP character you'd expect the main lead to be. I'm actually interested in the original female lead, who is initially the kind of green tea bitch you'd expect in this sort of novel entirely out of self-defense; once our main character gives her some kind of security, her personality takes what I consider a pretty hilarious turn.

Being a Villain is Addictive!

In the mood for infinite flow? This is a webnovel where the MC pisses off her system and ends up in an infinite flow novel as a character getting in the way between the ML and FL. She now has to navigate it without system input. There is only one 'game' that has been translated. I'm recommending this to you anyway because I really like the MC. She's amazingly quick-witted, and manages to turn what is initially a really horrible situation for her into 1) something advantageous 2) a deeper exploration into what 'really' happened. Honestly need more chapters of this. I would really love more chapters of this.

[lizhly-writes]

For those who don't know, YouTube will be adding AI age verification for US-based users starting August 13th. This will attempt to use "the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account," to determine their age, regardless of what birthdate they have entered. If an adult is incorrectly determined to be a child, they will need to give YouTube a government-issued ID or a credit card to verify their age. As with many such things, YouTube claims it is for the children's safety. Obviously, I am all for protecting children, and I don't want them to be exposed to things they shouldn't see, but this is most likely more about data collection. Even if it was about children's safety, this was the logic used for creating YouTube Kids, and we can all see how "safe" that is.

If you don't want to directly send your driver's license to Google, you'll need to deal with "age appropriate product experiences and protections," such as "digital wellbeing tools" and disabling personalized ads. The second part is because in the US, it is illegal to collect certain information about people under the age of 13. Now, the people at Google (which owns YouTube) love collecting information about their users, but they don't want to get in trouble, and they believe AI moderation is the answer. Not only can the AI work around the clock, but if anything goes wrong, they can say it was the machine that made the mistake, not them. And, as with any moderation, there will be mistakes (again, look at YouTube Kids).

Because of this, creators and viewers alike are planning to stop using the site starting on August 13th. I personally doubt YouTube will care much, at least at first, but if they lose enough ad revenue, they might reconsider their decision. YouTube says they'll be rolling this out to a small test group first, so it might not affect you right away, but if nothing is done, it will soon. If you're an American who uses YouTube regularly, I encourage you to join, whether just for a day, or as long as it takes. And if you have kids, please teach them internet safety and monitor their internet access so that companies can't make this garbage excuse anymore.

[lizhly-writes]

@twyrewolf for wip wednesday, july 30. i was feeling inspired, so you get to have a long one!

There was a man in a deer mask in front of me, a small pink bunny peeking out of his pocket. He was neatly dressed, his suit and tie impeccable, despite the desert heat and wind. His mouth was pressed into a tight, firm line. What was he feeling? Confusion? Exhaustion? Suspicion?

He should, if he was me.

For a split second, I thought about killing him.

The compulsion that every single person had on entering this darkness, to find their double and end them, so there was only one them left in the world --

That compulsion wasn’t there. After all, there was a silver ring glinting on my finger, perfectly effective in keeping the mind perfectly clear. The man across from me – identical from the shine of his shoes to the Daydream collector attached to his back – was wearing the same ring.

We spoke at the exact same time.

“Braun.”

I had a question I needed answered. The bunny in my own pocket started speaking before I could ask it.

[How interesting!]

The other bunny opened its mouth.

[How fascinating!]

[I thought I was seeing things! But --]

[-- could it be that I have --]

[-- two very Good Friends?]

...Ah.

“I had wondered,” my double said. “If this Darkness forms a perfectly identical doppelganger…”

Perfectly identical, down to patterns of thought, down to items of clothing, down to pieces of equipment…

“Braun,” I said. “Who are you contracted to?”

The bunnies spoke in unison.

[ My Good Friend, of course! ]

“Which one?” my double said.

The bunnies laughed.

[ Is there a difference? ]

[lizhly-writes]

new fun idea what if i throw kim soleum into desert bluffs

[lizhly-writes]

... you know what. i could also just proceed by asking myself "what is the funniest thing that could possibly happen at this current moment" and just doing that. if i write a buddy comedy surely there will be chemistry at some point.

contemplating my "i will simply finish this without worrying about whether it's good" work (i.e. the bakery employee story). it's supposed to be a romance but uh. uh you see. the problem is.

i don't think i ship the main leads?

the mc is a friendly and pleasant young man with almost zero sense of self and is attempt #4 at trying to fulfill a hero's prophecy (you know, with a demon lord and saintess and everything). his love interest is a runaway noblewoman who decided to throw away all pretensions of dignity, politeness, and duty to become an extremely rude baker. our mc is supposed to learn how to be a real person, his love interest is supposed to learn to acknowledge positive relationships, blah blah blah whatever i don't ship them.

i need to ship them. yes okay sure it's not impossible to write this as a friendship story instead but that goes against my original writer's intention, you know?

i think i simply do not have enough story to form a coherent romance dynamic but then you run into this terrible loop of. you can't write the romance until you have story but you're not motivated to write the story with romance so you can't write the story so you can't write the romance so then you just fucking die.

maybe i just don't have a good enough grasp on their characters...???

[lizhly-writes]

contemplating my "i will simply finish this without worrying about whether it's good" work (i.e. the bakery employee story). it's supposed to be a romance but uh. uh you see. the problem is.

i don't think i ship the main leads?

the mc is a friendly and pleasant young man with almost zero sense of self and is attempt #4 at trying to fulfill a hero's prophecy (you know, with a demon lord and saintess and everything). his love interest is a runaway noblewoman who decided to throw away all pretensions of dignity, politeness, and duty to become an extremely rude baker. our mc is supposed to learn how to be a real person, his love interest is supposed to learn to acknowledge positive relationships, blah blah blah whatever i don't ship them.

i need to ship them. yes okay sure it's not impossible to write this as a friendship story instead but that goes against my original writer's intention, you know?

i think i simply do not have enough story to form a coherent romance dynamic but then you run into this terrible loop of. you can't write the romance until you have story but you're not motivated to write the story with romance so you can't write the story so you can't write the romance so then you just fucking die.

maybe i just don't have a good enough grasp on their characters...???