diff --git a/overlay.nix b/overlay.nix
index 8ecfa5e..dda4ddc 100644
--- a/overlay.nix
+++ b/overlay.nix
@@ -1,23 +1,24 @@
 final: prev:
 let
+  isCross = final.stdenv.buildPlatform != final.stdenv.hostPlatform;
+  crossOnly = pkg : amendFn : if isCross then (amendFn pkg) else pkg;
   extraPkgs = import ./pkgs/default.nix {
     inherit (final) lib callPackage;
   };
   inherit (final) fetchpatch;
-  lua_no_readline = prev.lua5_3;
-#   lua_no_readline = prev.lua5_3.overrideAttrs(o: {
-#     name = "lua-tty";
-#     preBuild = ''
-#       makeFlagsArray+=(PLAT="posix" SYSLIBS="-Wl,-E -ldl"  CFLAGS="-O2 -fPIC -DLUA_USE_POSIX -DLUA_USE_DLOPEN")
-#     '';
-#     # lua in nixpkgs has a postInstall stanza that assumes only
-#     # one output, we need to override that if we're going to
-#     # convert to multi-output
-#     # outputs = ["bin" "man" "out"];
-#     makeFlags =
-#       builtins.filter (x: (builtins.match "(PLAT|MYLIBS).*" x) == null)
-#         o.makeFlags;
-#   });
+  luaHost = prev.lua5_3.overrideAttrs(o: {
+     name = "lua-tty";
+     preBuild = ''
+       makeFlagsArray+=(PLAT="posix" SYSLIBS="-Wl,-E -ldl"  CFLAGS="-O2 -fPIC -DLUA_USE_POSIX -DLUA_USE_DLOPEN")
+     '';
+     # lua in nixpkgs has a postInstall stanza that assumes only
+     # one output, we need to override that if we're going to
+     # convert to multi-output
+     # outputs = ["bin" "man" "out"];
+     makeFlags =
+       builtins.filter (x: (builtins.match "(PLAT|MYLIBS).*" x) == null)
+         o.makeFlags;
+   });
 
   s6 = prev.s6.overrideAttrs(o:
     let
@@ -42,7 +43,6 @@ let
         (if o ? patches then o.patches else []) ++
         (if patch_needed then [ patch ] else []);
     });
-  lua = let s = lua_no_readline.override { self = s; }; in s;
 in
 extraPkgs // {
   # liminix library functions
@@ -214,8 +214,7 @@ extraPkgs // {
     ];
   });
 
-  luaFull = prev.lua;
-  inherit lua;
+  lua = crossOnly prev.lua5_3 (_: luaHost);
 
   mtdutils = prev.mtdutils.overrideAttrs(o: {
     patches = (if o ? patches then o.patches else []) ++ [
diff --git a/pkgs/run-liminix-vm/default.nix b/pkgs/run-liminix-vm/default.nix
index 1bf0389..f3df1e1 100644
--- a/pkgs/run-liminix-vm/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/run-liminix-vm/default.nix
@@ -2,14 +2,15 @@
   qemuLim
 , socat
 , writeShellScript
-, writeFennel
 , runCommand
+, fennel
 , lib
 , lua
 , pkgsBuildBuild
 }: let
-  run-liminix-vm = pkgsBuildBuild.writeFennel "run-liminix-vm" {
-    packages = [ qemuLim pkgsBuildBuild.lua.pkgs.luaposix pkgsBuildBuild.lua.pkgs.fennel ];
+  writeFennel = pkgsBuildBuild.writeFennel.override { inherit lua; };
+  run-liminix-vm = writeFennel "run-liminix-vm" {
+    packages = [ qemuLim lua.pkgs.luaposix fennel ];
   } ./run-liminix-vm.fnl;
   connect = writeShellScript "connect-vm" ''
     export PATH="${lib.makeBinPath [socat]}:$PATH"