I also really need to polish up this layout

[cleolinda]

I'll crosspost from this Tumblr entry:

Okay, so finally I’m topping off my Dreamwidth backup (also the Movies in Fifteen Minutes journal/comm, and can I say I really wish I hadn’t thought I needed to separate that), so most of my #content is safe, probably. If I were to delete the LJ, the big problem is that all my images were also hosted there, so those would be broken, as well as any links within entries. (For, say, recaps, I had built in a sort of previous/next/main mini-infrastructure.) Fortunately, people ought to be able to maneuver the DW using entry tags; I’ll fix what I can as time goes on, but getting off LJ is more pressing than DW housekeeping. 

I’m also nattering on about this on Twitter, but: I’m so mad I didn’t leave the moment LJ sold to a Russian company. At the time, it felt reactionary? “Oh, come on, it’s not the Cold War anymore.” I was afraid it was an unreasonable anti-Russia prejudice. I should have left when we heard years ago how they were oppressing speech, how they were oppressing LGBT people. I REALLY should have left when they moved the servers to Russia. But I had--I think many of us had--an extremely complacent (selfish?) sense that there was a different standard for the U.S. side of things. “It’s fine. We have years of content here, we have communities, is Dreamwidth even going to still be around years from now? Can you really trust ANY service to still be around? If nothing else, LJ has solid longevity and really good blogging/commenting functionality. It’s fine here. It’s fine.” 

I finally grasped that it was not fine when the election and interference therein happened. I knew as of November 9 that I was going to have to leave. I hadn’t posted in months. I hadn’t been posting regularly at all for years. I kept meaning to back everything up and leave. Life happened; depression happened; I didn’t get around to it. 

This is why I’m getting off my ass and leaving. 

I don’t know if I need to straight-up delete everything. I feel a lot of trepidation about even logging in. But there’s pictures I need to save; I  need to post a final entry pointing to where I’m going.

Whenever I’m on a podcast and they say “where can people find you,” I like to say, “I’m Cleolinda everywhere.” You can google “cleolinda” and you will basically get me. (The picture of the blonde girl that comes up for some reason isn’t me.) The last several years, I have been on Twitter regularly, sometimes livetweeting on a secondary account. Obviously I’m here. Ko-fi seems like a good tip jar site. I’m setting up a Patreon, once I can think what to put on it. I have created a Tiny Letter account, if you’d like to keep track of me via email. Here are those links, with the latter two not set up yet:

http://cleolinda.tumblr.com 

https://twitter.com/cleolinda

https://twitter.com/cleolindajones

https://ko-fi.com/cleolinda

https://www.patreon.com/cleolinda/creators

http://tinyletter.com/cleolinda 

In conclusion: Looks like I’m going to be busy rebuilding for a while.

Comments

[phosfate]

*wave* Dude.

[cleolinda]

ayyyyyy

[unsatisfactory_person]

So, um, I'm the person formerly known as vivian_lake and I'm also here now (my lj content failed to import, unfortunately, I wish I knew how to prove that I really am me), and I need to know if you're okay with me still being around (seeing as I'm still Russian and still living in Russia, and for all I know you don't trust me).

[cleolinda]

Aw, absolutely! I think that's why I was reluctant to leave in the first place, I know some really nice people from Russia and I thought I was just being paranoid. That said, I differentiate between "people in/from Russia" and "the Russian state and/or Putin." I mean, I would hope people differentiate "a lot, if not all, Americans (many of whom are now extremely angry, depressed, and upset)" from the current administration.

[unsatisfactory_person]

Thank you.

[onyxlynx]

*squeals of joy*

*ahem* You've been missed. Welcome back.

(Procrastination happens.)

[shinga]

<3

[sabrina]

I just want to say thanks for posting stuff about LJ to Twitter, cause I haven't logged in for so long, that I don't always keep up. I think it's time to wave goodbye.

[litlover12]

Glad you're here! FYI, in case you didn't know this already (maybe you do): You can log back into LJ long enough to move things over and delete your account WITHOUT having to accept the user agreement, if you first disable Javascript in your browser.

[greyduck]

You were bored and needed a ridiculously complex challenge on a tight time frame, right...?

[tephra]

Yeah, I'm re-importing my LJ and just living with the fact that my decision to use Semagic to crosspost to three sites means I will have duplicate posts from the date I made my DW forward. I'll be cleaning up for a while removing duplicates with no comments and living with the rest of them.

[cupcake_goth]

1. It's nice to see you here. Yeah, I see you on Twitter, but it's not the same, y'know?

2. I spent an evening this week grabbing all of my public pictures from my LJ scrapbook, because I haven't accepted that horrible TOS yet. I know I'll have to, so I can grab the rest of the things I want, put a post up pointing people to DW (and Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, blah blah), and eventually delete the whole thing. But UGH, that TOS.

3. Life happened; depression happened; I didn’t get around to it. My sympathies. I know how that goes, and how heavy that inertia feels.

4. Again, hiiiiiiiii. I hope you're doing better.

[dantesspirit]

It's understandable why you didn't leave. It's understandable why a lot of people still haven't left.

But I think, at this point, we have no choice if we want to continue to blog about things *we* want to blog about and not what the Russian government approves of. Because, honestly, that's what it's going to come down to, whether we like it or not- locking almost our entire audiences out behind warning pages just to comply, or stifling ourselves and not blogging at all.

I personally quite using LJ in 2008 and came here, as well as IJ, when SUP bought it. But I still was reading my friends posts who hadn't left, right up until a year ago, when Dish seems to make it impossible to stay logged in for more than 5 minutes and LJ was a pain to even get logged into for me.

When the servers actually moved a few months back, quietly they thought, I considered just deleting my LJ. I mean, I wasn't using it after all. But I didn't.

Then I found out about the new ToS and how you absolutely *have* to agree to it, just to even get in the front door and well, that was the final push for me. I think it'll be the final push for a great many of people still on the fence.

Starting over, more or less, sucks. It's exhausting, but at the same time it can be rewarding to have a relatively clean slate.

I'm glad you made that leap to here.}:)