Apologies for the slightly-late pimpage ... as usual, studying and working on various and sundry assignments rendered me largely braindead tonight. As anyone who read my comments or chatted with me can attest. XD Anyway, in case any Anakin/Padmé fans on my f-list missed it, I've got a new fic for my fanfic100 claim up over at my writing community. Details below. ^_^

Title: A Bit of a Situation
Fandom, Pairing: Star Wars, Anakin/Padmé
Written For: fanfic100
Prompt: #038 Touch
Characters: Anakin, Padmé
Word Count: 1,356
Rating: PG
Summary: However, the fact did not escape Anakin that he was doing something he had wanted to do ever since his latest mission began: hold hands with Padmé Amidala.
Author's Notes: Procrastination begets plotbunnies. I learned this very important lesson last night. I was randomly browsing around Moons of Iego (one of my favourite Anakin/Padmé sites) while waiting for a journalism assignment to magically start writing itself, when I happened upon this page of quotes from the Attack of the Clones DVD commentary. One drew my eye in particular, when Ben Burtt (the producer) talks about how there was originally supposed to be a sort of "mirror" scene on Geonosis like the one in A New Hope, where Padmé and Anakin have to swing across a chasm a la Luke and Leia. Click the link for the full quote, but let's just say the plotbunnies started breeding, and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote this little vignette. It can't technically be considered AU, since everyone from Lucas to Burtt to Lucas's dog seems to agree it was originally supposed to be in the movie, but I guess if you wanted to get nitpicky you could claim AUness. This is how I imagined the scene from Ben Burtt's quote.

Read "A Bit of a Situation" here @ jedionpaper

Also, LJ seems to have decided not to deliver comment notifications in a timely fashion, so don't be surprised if I'm a tad late responding to your comments. I'm trying to check the most popular places (jedionpaper, my LJ, my stillness communities) on a regular basis, but I apologize in advance if you don't hear back from me immediately. Let's hope LJ gets its shit together relatively soon. >.>

Title: The Surprise
Fandom/Pairing: Star Wars, Anakin/Padmé
Written For: fanfic100 and my dear friend emavalexis's birthday
Prompt: #027 Parents
Characters: Padmé, mentions of Anakin
Word Count: 581 words
Rating: PG
Summary: Padmé receives some unexpected news from her medical droid.
Author's Notes: For some reason I just love to imagine the scene in which Padmé finds out she's pregnant. Perhaps because it's portrayed as being such a shock to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, I always think of Padmé being surprised as well, and not knowing quite how she should react to the news. If canon is anything to go by, she probably wants children but would likely prefer to have them when her life is more stable - maybe when she's retired from politics and she and Anakin can just settle down somewhere and have a peaceful life. So it's unexpected, but she doesn't necessarily get upset because it's something she does want. The circumstances are just not ideal. This is just one potential interpretation of that scene.

( She sinks back onto her couch, stunned, all the breath momentarily knocked out of her )

First off, HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to one emavalexis! My apologies for not getting your present up yesterday - I had a social engagement in the evening and it wasn't until I got home around midnight and was blearily going through my f-list that I remembered. So it's entirely my fault, and I hope you will accept my gift of not one but two ficlets. The first is Padmé-centric, and is sort of along the lines of something we had discussed earlier - about how there's really a lack of information about Padmé's formative years, other than her early forays into politics. I took that concept a bit further and wrote a little speculative piece about how she might have gotten along with her peers as a child. The second is Anakin/Padmé, and will be posted momentarily. Hope you enjoy!

Title: Outsider
Fandom/Pairing: Star Wars, Padmé-centric
Written For: fanfic100, and my dear friend emavalexis's birthday
Prompt: #001 Beginnings
Characters: Padmé
Word Count: 513 words
Rating: G
Summary: Padmé was always an outsider, even from the very beginning.
Author's Notes: See my little introduction, above. XD I decided to apply this to my fanfic100 claim, as well.

( Padmé was always on the outside )

One of these days I'll actually post some writing again. Really. This journal has been pretty devoid of that lately, and unfortunately there are some very good, health-related, reasons for it. For those of you who regularly chat with me on AIM, that's also why I haven't been around much. These days, working and doing stuff for school has been pretty much all I've felt up to, and while my muse occasionally croaks out some Kara stuff or a BSG plotbunny, it hasn't seemed very turned on where Star Wars is concerned. For the SW fans on my f-list - roughly 99.999999% of you - I know it must be sort of boring reading my endless rants. Heh. But that will change soon, or at least I'm hoping it will. The muse actually woke up long enough to work on TIS tonight, and I'm well on the way to completing the next chapter. I'm hoping to have it posted by this weekend at the absolute latest. Same goes for you guys waiting on beta reads; again, I haven't felt very much like tackling that, but I should get to it tomorrow afternoon.

Liz complaining about how behind on her to-do list she is isn't the main point of this post, however. The main point of this post is me tossing up my prompt table for Padmé Amidala at fanfic100. I must admit, this is something I never thought I'd be doing officially. Previously I was too shy to go after any of the taken claims at fanfic100, even those that hadn't been updated in a dog's age. But one evening I got bold, and a week later was rewarded with Padmé. My favourite character in all of fandom, claimed at the most popular fanfiction community on LJ. Surely I could not ask for anything better. It's practically a treatise against keeping your mouth shut - the squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all!

I've already written several fics for this claim, and will post them over the next several days. But, as with any claim, the Big Damn Table comes first.

( And here it is )

You guys know the drill by now, I'm sure - all fics will be linked from the table, you click on the prompt and it'll take you to the fic I've posted for said prompt, etc. etc. I'm hoping to alternate weeks with this and my Anakin/Padmé prompt, writing one fic for this one, one fic for A/P and so on and so forth. At least when I'm feeling better, anyway. I'm really excited to have both those claims, Padmé in particular, and I don't want to seem as though I'm slacking off on them.

Padmé at FF100, Anakin/Padmé at FF100, Padmé at TM. Now Liz can die in peace. XD Except not, because then she couldn't finish her claims! (And she'd never get Kara at fanfic50.)

Title: The Promise
Fandom/Pairing: Star Wars, Anakin/Padmé
Written For: fanfic100
Prompt: #003 Ends
Characters: Anakin, Padmé, C3PO
Word Count: 668
Rating: PG
Summary: Padmé's thoughts after Obi-Wan's departure from her apartment in Revenge of the Sith.
Author's Notes: Um, yay for productivity? XD I'm certainly more than keeping to my pledge to post one shortfic every two weeks. Maybe all these new claims are really motivating. I can't promise that will continue, but while it's ongoing, I'm going to take advantage of it. This is the second of two Anakin/Padmé fics I wrote immediately after receiving word that my A/P claim had been accepted. I've always wondered what went through Padmé's mind after Obi-Wan told her Anakin had turned to the dark side. This is one interpretation. Will be crossposted to padmeanakin, so I apologize if you're seeing double.

( The japor snippet )

Title: The Beginning of Friends
Fandom/Pairing: Star Wars, Anakin/Padmé
Written For: fanfic100
Characters: Anakin, Padmé
Prompt: #021 Friends
Word Count: 670
Rating: G
Summary: While awake one night on the Naboo cruiser, Padmé makes a new friend.
Author's Notes: A re-imagining of a canon scene, which is one of my favourite things about writing fanfiction. This is my take on the scene between Anakin and Padmé in Episode I where he gives her the japor snippet. It's a little shorter than I expected, but I think that's okay. I was in a very weird headspace when I wrote this, so the style probably reflects that. But I'm pleased with it nonetheless.

( I don't know why I approached him )

Okay. Trying again, since LJ decided to eat the post I had so carefully typed up to introduce this claim. I know whatever I'm able to reconstruct won't be nearly as good as what I just lost, though. GRAWR.

I imagine some of you may be looking at the subject line of this post with disbelief, especially those of you who ship Obidala. "Not LIZ!" you're saying. "Liz, the avowed Obidala shipper, has claimed Anakin/Padmé at fanfic100? How is that possible?" Particularly if you're an Obidala shipper, it must be something like discovering your grandmother is actually a spy for the other side. But let me explain. There is a logical reason, I promise you, and this does not mean I've sworn off writing Obidala forever. Really, it doesn't.

Put simply, I want to see Anakin/Padmé done right. That is why I claimed it.

What exactly do I mean by "right"? Well, when I first got into the fandom, I shipped Anakin/Padmé, and I read a lot of fanfiction. I came to realize that Anakin/Padmé fanfiction falls into two primary categories. The first category is fluffy, trite, sugary, happily ever after stuff. The dialogue tends to be just a notch below Lucas's - which requires talent - and typically consists of phrases such as, "Oh, Anakin, how I love you!" "No, Padmé, I love you more!" "No, Ani, I love you more!" Etc. This kind of fic also focuses heavily on the looks of the couple in question and has them going like bunnies.

Look, I enjoy my smut and fluff as much as the next girl. I seek it out often, and there's some fluff and smut fics I consider to be unmissable. The problem I see is that there is just so much of this in the Anakin/Padmé ship. There is not nearly enough of the second kind of fic, which is the sort that focuses on Anakin and Padmé as people. Two people who are in love, and are married, and who find the separations enforced by the Clone War nearly unendurable. The kind that deals with Anakin's emotions after Padmé's death. The kind that explores Anakin's motivations for falling in love with Padmé, and Padmé's motivations for returning his affections. Do these goals sound too weighty for fanfiction? Well, obviously they're not, because I've read fics that do this very thing, and do it admirably. There is just not enough of them.

I can still "do" Anakin/Padmé, and by most accounts I can do it quite well. (Just ask Wendy and her Anakin!pup at TM. XD) I just don't often choose to. But this is one instance where yes, I will be choosing to, and doing so from a somewhat unique perspective. I love Obi-Wan/Padmé, and I always will. It's the very definition of One True Pairing, for me. But Anakin/Padmé was my first ship, and I still feel a certain amount of attraction to it. There is also a certain challenge for me in writing a pairing that is not the one I like best. I like it, I just don't like it best.

This, therefore, is a writing challenge for me. I want to see if I can write the sort of Anakin/Padmé fics that I as a reader find enjoyable. I want to see what I can do with Anakin, as a character, because he has always been somewhat of an enigma to me. I want to stretch myself as a writer. That's what this is about.

( Prompt table under here )

As with all my claims, this one will be linked in my sidebar, and the fics can be accessed by clicking on the appropriate prompt. Wish me luck! This'll be interesting, if nothing else. XD

As the title of this post says, several things of note happened today. Sadly, none of them were TIS-related. I'm still struggling with that stupid fic, and the icon I'm using should be taken as a good indicator of my mood at the moment. XD Probably there won't be any additional time to wrestle with it tonight, since I need to finish up the December Retrospective for jedi_news, brainstorm a list of challenges for swicontest and respond to some TM tags. And there's BSG at ten, which will take up a full undivided hour of my time. *is a dork*

But anyway. Things of note.

First of all, Photoshop seems to be randomly working again. It was being really stupid about a month ago when I tried to make banners for obidalastills - when I tried to add text to the banners the words would come out so small that all you could see was a white or black line where they were supposed to be. I tried absolutely everything: increasing and decreasing the font size, closing and opening the program, rebooting my computer, going to the Adobe website, etc. All of that had absolutely no effect. So I got tired of tearing my hair out and used IrfanView (a vastly inferior image editing program) to add text when I needed it.

Tonight I needed to do up some banners for swicontest, and I'm not sure what exactly made me try the text feature again, but I did. Lo and behold it worked perfectly. So colour me pleased but flummoxed. I have no idea why it's suddenly started working, but damn am I glad. No more IrfanView, at least for the interim, and I might actually be able to get back into making graphics again!

Secondly, and probably more important, fanfic100. I've been feeling quite frustrated with it over the past few days, I won't deny that. Mostly because I keep going over there and looking up random people or pairings, for SW or BSG, and finding them taken. Literally every single pairing or person I would want to write about has already been claimed, and in the vast majority of cases, the claimer has only written one or two fics. Sometimes, nothing has been written at all! Most people, it would seem, haven't written since 2005. Yet they continue to hold onto those claims, shortchanging others just because they happened to get there first. The whole situation just makes my blood boil.

But today, I had an epiphany of sorts.

Says who that I need to officially claim the things I want to write about?

Where is it written that I can't just swipe the fanfic100 claim table (they say you can do that so long as you give them credit for creating it) and use it for three or four of my own claims?

Nowhere that I can see!

Oh sure, it would be nice to be official and all, but let's face it: at this point, it's probably impossible. I've just come to the party too late, through no fault of my own. I could comment to the journals of the people who hold those claims, but there's every chance they'll say no. Besides, I haven't ever been that keen on approaching random strangers and asking if they're done with their claims. Maybe at some point I will. Not at the moment, though. And quite frankly, I would prefer to just write the pairings and characters I currently can't than get a big shiny banner if I complete all one hundred fics officially. Hell, if I want a banner I can just ask Katie to whip one up for me. XD

So, over the course of the next few days, I'll be posting several incarnations of the fanfic100 prompt table, one for each pairing or character I'd like to write. This is just a preliminary list, but so far the unofficial claims I'm thinking of taking up are as follows:

- Padmé Amidala
- Obi-Wan Kenobi/Padmé Amidala
- Kara Thrace
- Kara Thrace and Lee Adama
- William Adama and Laura Roslin
- Laura Roslin

More to be added if/when I think of them.

Anybody with me on this unofficial claims business? XD

ETA: Forgot to mention - I finally decided to sign up for InsaneJournal, just as another way of spreading more eggs into more baskets in light of the whole LJ-going-batshit thing. Not sure how much stuff I'll be putting in it right away, but we'll see. Add me at padmekenobi if you've got an IJ, I'll gladly add you back.

Son of ETA: Okay, I lied. In two instances (Obidala and Padmé) I went to the journal of the person currently holding the claim and commented asking if they plan to finish it. In both instances the journal hasn't been updated since 2006, sooo ... *crosses fingers* We'll see, anyway. I'm a bit more shy about the BSG claims, but who knows. I may eventually pluck up the courage.

The ETA That Ate Manhattan: Last one, I think!!! But I was just going through the claims table one last time when I noticed something rather pertinent, as evidenced by my frantic IMs to Katie below:

sensfangirl6 (11:59:33 PM): HOLY CRAP.
stresskitten01 (11:59:37 PM): Whassup?
sensfangirl6 (11:59:38 PM): LAURA ROSLIN.
stresskitten01 (11:59:56 PM): Yeeeees?
sensfangirl6 (12:00:25 PM): LAURA MOTHERFUCKING ROSLIN.
sensfangirl6 (11:59:28 PM): IS NOT CLAIMED AT FANFIC100!!!!!!!
stresskitten01 (12:00:01 AM): Ohh, is that so?
sensfangirl6 (12:00:17 AM): YES!!!! IT'S SO!!!!! OMG!!!!! KATIE THIS IS SERIOUSLY EPIC!!!! A CHARACTER THAT I WANT IS NOT ACTUALLY CLAIMED!!!!!!
stresskitten01 (12:00:29 AM): YAYNESS!!!!!!! Pardon my copious capslocking, but this is AWESOME.
sensfangirl6 (12:01:29 AM): Here, come check the claims table, I want to be absolutely positively 100% undeniably SURE that I'm not seeing things. Like, that my synapses aren't misfiring from chronic exposure to disappointment and showing me what I want to see instead of what actually is. http://megalion.com/ff100/index.php
stresskitten01 (12:01:30 AM): Hehe okay. One sec.
stresskitten01 (12:01:38 AM): Nope, she looks clear!
sensfangirl6 (12:01:49 AM): *changes her waitlist comment to a claim comment!!!!!*
stresskitten01 (12:01:52 AM): Good for you! Lemme know if you get her!
sensfangirl6 (12:03:03 AM): WILL DO!!!!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. There is the possibility that I might actually get Laura Roslin at fanfic100!!!! It pays to have a fine-toothed comb, seriously. XD

Title: Forgiveness
Fandom: Six Feet Under
Written For: fanfic100
Prompt: He
Characters: David, Keith
Word Count: 522
Rating: PG-13 for mature subject matter.
Summary: David reunites with Keith after coming out to Ruth.
Author’s Notes: I haven’t watched all of first season yet, so I’m not exactly sure how the real reunion between Keith and David went. But this is how (and when) I imagine it in my mind.

( Forgiveness )

The theme table for fanfic100, at which I have claimed Six Feet Under - General Series. It helps me to keep track of which fics I've completed and which I still need to do. Mainly for my reference, although of course everyone reading this is free to take a peek at it too. This is also the place to go if you want to read all my Six Feet Under fics, organized by theme. They're linked right from the table, so just click on the theme you want to read about, and there you are.

( Fanfic 100 Table )

In my opinion there really isn't enough SFU fanfic around. I've done some searches on the fanfiction sites I frequent with very few results. Therefore, I'll just have to create my own!

As I mentioned yesterday, though, I'll also be doing Star Wars (a LOT of Star Wars) and likely some Harry Potter. So if you don't like or don't know one of these fandoms, odds are you'll find another you can be happy with.

And even if you don't, too bad. This journal is mainly for me -- you guys are just along for the ride.