I don't actually do that, because I'm not sure how, honestly, and am also not sure even whether there's a way to let the user specify that &ver=1 shouldn't (or should, I suppose?) be sent besides altering the options available in .livejournal.rc.
I suppose I should either learn how or at least verify that sending that option and also sending non-UTF-8 characters won't break things unfixably!
no apologies needed, thank you for pointing that out
I suppose I should either learn how or at least verify that sending that option and also sending non-UTF-8 characters won't break things unfixably!