A comment i posted in news and lj_biz this morning:

LiveJournal, i loved you but i hate what you have become since Six Apart took over. I have just HAD ENOUGH. You've pushed me too far this time. I'm going it alone where i am free to post what i want without fear of idiotic censorship and such cruel insensitivity.

Happily, thanks to the wonders of RSS and OpenID (which is, by the way, one of the best inventions the Internet has ever seen - thank you Brad!) i will not miss LJ. I'm better off without you.

I'd tell you to sort out your priorities, but it seems clear that you have done that, and they are unfortunately not the kind of priorities that i wish to be associated with. So this is goodbye.

It's strange that no one has time to explain what is going on, and yet burr86 has time to mock the whole situation in a different post. That makes me so angry, and not just me either. I don't know whether somebody's hacking into LiveJournal right now, or if it's just cracking under the strain of all the people shouting at Six Apart in news but we're getting database errors all over the place. Now it's not just fandom who's pissed off, but the whole world of LiveJournal!

This icon will remain my default LJ icon for evermore as a tribute to exactly the reasons that i left.

For anyone who wishes to keep in touch with me, my new journal, self-hosted and self-controlled, using WordPress, is at aimee.mychores.co.uk. It has an RSS feed, and it allows OpenID commenting. I have set up an account with Bloglines.com, where i can keep track of friends and communities on LiveJournal, GreatestJournal, InsaneJournal, or wherever you decide to move to, including independent blogs, so long as they have an RSS feed.

I may miss some friends-only posts, but i don't feel too bad about it. I feel this is a return to the origins of blogging. I'll post what i'm interested in. If you find me interesting, you can follow my RSS feed, and comment if you like. I may do the same back. All this flamboyant "Can i friend you?" and "Will you friend me back?" and filtering to groups of friends ... it was such a LiveJournal thing, and quite frankly i've had enough of it.

I was going to leave a copy of the picture that got ponderosa121 deleted, but i know there will be friends who don't want to see it, and i don't especially want to annoy my hosting company right now either! If you want it, i'll email it to you. It was a really nice picture and, for the record, Harry does not look under-age.

Before i do go, though here are some nice things to see:
Revolt of the Fandoms - a very good banner showing that this affects all of fandom, not just Harry Potter fans.
Cross-dressing, cheerleading, underage Harry - oh noes!! ;D

These are totally work-safe! :)

So once again, anyone who wants to keep up with me, i'm still to be found at aimee.mychores.co.uk, kindly syndicated by sashajwolf as aimee_mychores :)

and also and twitter.com/sermoa.


See you around.

Goodbye LiveJournal. You lose.

I wrote these on the Monday morning, just after finishing Deathly Hallows, before i had chance to speak to anyone else or read anyone else's reactions. I'm so glad i have this, because my opinions have been somewhat swayed since by other people's reviews, and it's nice to have this record of my own initial feelings.

As i have said plenty of times, i loved the book, i love the whole series, and that has not changed.

There are bound to be spoilers, not that i think there are many people left who have not read the book who want to avoid spoilers!

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Whew! So there it all is! All my thoughts as i read, and just after i finished Deathly Hallows. And with that, i leave LiveJournal. I will make one more post explaining my future plans, and how to stay in touch with me ... and then i'll be gone. Wheeee! :D

Okay, this does it. I've said it too many times before. I've just about had it with LJ. It is definitely time to leave. In the latest round of LJ drama two people were permanently deleted with no warning, just because they posted pictures of characters from Harry Potter in sexual situations. LJ said the characters looked underage. They did not. Believe me, there's plenty of pictures out there far more dubious than the two that were deleted.

I love LiveJournal, but i have absolutely no love for Six Apart. They are arbitrarily targetting Harry Potter fandom, they are singling out individuals for no good reason and with no sensible explanation, and they are making up the rules as they go along. Worst of all, they have overcome the strikethrough fiasco by changing the LJ code so that deleted users no longer appear with a strikethrough! They don't even get a link anymore! The username just appears in bold. Do Six Apart honestly think that removing the strikethrough makes it all okay? It's dishonest, disrespectful and devious.

I've been thinking for a long time that i need to let go of dependence. Any time you let other sites host stuff for you, you're at the mercy of any censoring they may decide to enforce. I boycotted all things Microsoft a few years ago, but moved to Yahoo for email. That's no longer good enough. I'm going to set up my own email address at my own domain, and i'm going to create my own journal that i will host myself. I believe we have the technology these days, with RSS and OpenID, to be dispersed and yet still connected. It just takes a bit of organisation, but i think Six Apart have just kick-started fandom into doing it.

I will finish up posting my comments of Deathly Hallows, i will finish the day-by-day review at deathly_cntdwn and then i will leave for good. As a parting farewell, i may even post the picture that got ponderosa121 banned.

I deleted my Vox account today. When it asked me why, i put something like, "Because Six Apart have ruined LiveJournal and i want nothing more to do with it".

Okay, now to finish up what i started ... with the final most exciting chapters! Unfortunately i was in rather a hurry to finish and get to bed, so i didn't write as much as i wish i had, but at least these thoughts will jog my memory for the future.

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I will post some final thoughts later ... :)

Now we come to the REALLY EXCITING part of the book! I agree with blahflowers that Chapter 28 was the turning point and it's all super-super-amazing from here to the end! :)

There are spoilers, even if i just stumbled upon them by accident!

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Okay, i'm going to save my very favourite chapters for another day ... :)

I've done all my chores, all ready for bed and prepared for the morning ... just time to write up a couple more chapters before Heroes at 9pm! :)

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I was hoping to get this all written up before we start the chapter-a-day re-read of Deathly Hallows on 1st August in deathly_cntdwn. Not sure if that's going to happen, but here goes with a few more chapters ...

Yes, there are spoilers.

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I should really get to bed. I'm glad i got that far; Chapter 24 was a very sad one for me; incredibly moving. I think i cried more in that chapter than i've ever cried in any other chapter of Harry Potter.

Haven't had time to write for the last two days (been busy with MyChores, unleashing a brand new design and new themes!)

Anyway, i'll carry on where i left off. There will be spoilers, obviously.

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Ohhh, chapters 16 and 19 were two of my very favourites of the whole book. Such lovely tender stories contained within those two chapters. Beautiful! :)

Today i heard some wonderful news: JK Rowling is writing again! Something for children and something else for adults. Jo expects one to surpass the other after a while. I don't mind. I'll read anything JK Rowling writes! I also saw a video today where Jo was asked about doing an encylopaedia-type book of the Harry Potter universe. Jo said, "I probably will" - YAY!!!! :D

On with my read-along notes. Beware of spoilers!

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Continuing my enormous write-up of what i was thinking as i read at the weekend.

As before, spoilers will be up to and including the chapter indicated, plus my own speculation on what may happen consequently.

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I spent the whole entire weekend reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and making copious notes as i went. I didn't want to rush myself; i savoured every moment of reading, and loved the thrill of having a new Harry Potter book where i didn't know what was coming. I wanted to make a record of what i was thinking as i went along, because i knew when i got to the end i would quite likely forget all the theories that popped into my mind as i was reading.

I'm very glad that i did this, and i am pleased that i wrote a little summary of my thoughts on the book before reading anyone else's. This is the honest account of how i felt during and just after reading the book without being influenced by any other opinions. To summarise very broadly: i loved the book! It is without a doubt my favourite of the whole series!

Spoiler warning: obviously i wrote this as i went along so revelations will only be up to the chapter indicated. However, there is plenty of speculation, some of which proved to be correct. I promise this is exactly what i wrote it; no afterthoughts will be added or alterations made. If you haven't read the whole book you might not want to read any of this. Chapters will be clearly marked as i type it up.

( My PreambleCollapse )

( Dedications and IntroductionsCollapse )

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Alright, that'll do for tonight. I have plenty of chores to catch up on, not having done any all weekend!