I couldn't fit this into my profile, so here is a post with all the other credits for the graphics I use! If I've missed anything, just write me a comment, and I'll add it posthaste. :)

LAYOUT
Original stylesheet by reversescollide with modifications by amidala_thrace and help from xkatie_kittenx, trialia and s2flexisquares.

HEADERS
Blue Obi-Wan/Padmé & Kara ----> trialia
Anakin/Obi-Wan ----> so_out_of_ideas
Kara/Lee & Kara/Sam ----> taru_croft @ creative_muse
To Ignite the Stars Obi-Wan/Padmé ----> erikssiren
Anakin/Padmé ----> mrbnatural @ iconzicons

MOOD THEMES
Anakin/Padmé ----> miss_kallahan
Kara Thrace ----> wisteria_
BSG Animated ----> schmiss
True Blood Animated ----> btiful_graphics

NOTES
- The blue Obi-Wan/Padmé header and the Kara header (by trialia) are NOT stealable, as they were made especially for me. Please do not take either of those two headers.
- Please do not take the icons marked as "not stealable" on my icons page.

Last updated: October 29, 2009

So, wondering who this yahoo is suddenly showing up on your f-list? ;) Well, that would be me, Liz, the LJ user now formerly known as senatorsfan_ink. Renaming my journal was actually something I'd been planning to do for a little while, but events of recent months have made me even more certain that this is a change I need.

Originally, this account was for my writing, and since the journal that I first joined LJ with was called senatorsfan, senatorsfan_ink seemed a natural progression of my primary account. The "ink" part played up the writing thing, and the "senatorsfan" allowed me to keep the connection to the other username.

However, as many of you will know, this past December I transitioned fully to using this journal as both a personal and a fandom journal, because I'd started to post all my writing to jedionpaper. The "ink" suddenly seemed a little strange tacked on to the end, especially as its original purpose no longer applied. So I started to think at that point about a rename, and began batting around various ideas in my head.

The other part of this story is, of course, that I need a change. For various reasons related to my personal life I've begun to jettison certain things that were unpleasant reminders of the past, such as many/most of my icons involving children and babies. The special gift icon made for me by jedisakora and featuring a pregnant, ROTS Padmé is one that I will continue to treasure and always keep, but I knew when I looked at it that the time had come for both it and my username to go.

Therefore, I am now amidala_thrace. To those of you who know me, this username will be an absolute no-brainer, hehe. ;D I played around with various names I'd been considering, such as creative_jedi, caprican_jedi, karapadme, jedi_thrace, and jedifromdelphi. At one point I even considered caprican_nubian. But in the end, I knew - in both BSG and Star Wars fandoms, it has always been first and foremost about my Girlfriends, and I needed to reflect that. karapadme is okay, but not exactly what I wanted, and I like amidala_thrace better. More melodious. And so much more representative of me, of both my fandoms, and of the women that I will always adore and admire.

Otherwise, I'm still the exact same slightly insane Liz that you have all (hopefully!) grown to know and love. ;) I'm keeping all of you on my f-list, I still mod all of my communities, and nothing has changed with regards to the fandom newsletters. My username icons, plus one of my banners, are now out-of-date, so maybe - maybe? - someone will consent to make me some new ones at some point. ;)

One thing I can say for sure is that this one's here to stay. :D

If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Seems like I've been using the word "squee" a lot in my titles lately. Maybe because there's a lot of stuff making me happy? I guess in some ways that's true - my icontests are doing well, I've got a plan in place for starting up obidalastills again, my muse is chugging along, I just put the finishing touches on another TIS chapter, I've got a ton of new friends (*waves* Hey guys!), BSG has reentered my life with the webisodes and the premiere of S4.5 on January 16th, and I'm on my way to solving my LJ problem.

Plus the fact that things are starting to wind down for the holidays - at work, the final submission deadline for our holiday issue is tomorrow, which will remove a metric shitton of my stress, and school is over for another semester so I have a lot more "me time" (which, if you hang around me for long enough, you will learn that I treasure). The last couple days I've woken up with this huge smile on my face, a la Kara in my icon. Boyfriend says it's actually kind of nauseating, but cute. Hehe. And it's the holiday season, and despite the busyness I love this time of year.

Anyway! Liz's Ridiculous Happy Sunshine of Optimism is so not the point of this post. Last night I had planned to talk about the webisodes but found myself too tired to do so; therefore you should consider this the Official Webisode Squee Post. Some general bullet-pointed notes are under the cut. (I love bullet points. Yes, yes I do.) SPOILERS for the aired Webisodes so far, obviously, so if you haven't seen them yet, DON'T CLICK.

( Gaeta!!!!! )

As for my LJ issue, I'm thinking what I'll probably do is begin to move some personal stuff over here, friends-locked of course, on a gradual basis until I'm using only this account. It seems like a logical thing to do given that most of the communities I moderate are linked with this journal, and it would be a pain in the neck to transfer them all. So, I hope you guys won't mind getting a little more of me than maybe you bargained for. Not like that, you pervs. XD Heh.

Last but not least, I want to thank taragel for tipping me off to the existence of caprican_dame, a recs journal for Lee/Kara fic! I highly recommend L/K fans head on over there - there's some oldies-but-goodies listed, but also some new and awesome stuff that I hadn't seen before. Each fic comes with a link and a description of why it deserves to be read, and there are tags for different kinds of L/K stories (happy, sad, angsty, kinky, etc.). I've had a lot of fun rereading my favourites, not to mention discovering new fics! (And HEE, I just checked it and two of my fics got recced today! :D But seriously, I'm NOT just recommending it because of that. I meant to put it in last night's post, but ended up forgetting. Head on over there, guys! You'll have a ball.)

*squeebounce* Look what my best friend gave me!!

Okay, it's a new header for my journal, so you'll have to go to amidala_thrace to see it. But WOW, it is made of AWESOME!!! All my OTPs, plus minor ships, plus my girlfriends, plus TIS references all in one!! Katie is the most amazing person EVER, you heard it here first. :D :D :D

And just so this isn't another pointless squee!post, here'a a fandom wishlist meme stolen from firestar28. I had been planning on doing the general wishlist one, but this one's fandom-specific, so it's better for this journal.

Fandom Christmas Wishlist
1. Make a list of ten fandom requests (fic/videos/graphics/mixes, etc.) instead of gifts.
2. Post to your journal.
3. Friends read, comment, and possibly fill.
4. Friends, repeat in your own journal. It's fun to spread around the holiday cheer and the gift of giving!

( My ten requests under here )

In other news, I'm working on a sort-of dilemma involving my personal journal and fandom journal and what to do about the fact that I don't reeeeally like having all the multiple accounts, but whatever. I haven't decided anything yet, so we'll see.

Thanks so much for the birthday wishes (and in some cases birthday gifts), f-list! They really made me smile, and contributed to this being a pretty amazing day! (Now if only my hockey team would pony up with their gift, in the form of a WIN! Hehe.) I have such awesome friends, and I love all of you to bits. *group hug*

( Some of my fandom gifts, squeed about under here )

Overall I had a great birthday, despite the fairly minor blip that the Sens are once again doing shitty. The first BSG Webisode was released too - I won't say much uncut, but I do so love Gaeta. *hugs him*

And now I'm 23 ... guess I'll have to start calling myself an adult soon, huh? ;)

Yes, I is still alive. XD Midterms and assignments have been eating me for breakfast of late, though, so that's why I haven't been posting much. I'll get back on the wagon with fandom and writing asap, I promise!

In the meantime, I decided to copypasta this from my personal journal. I wrote it yesterday about LJ's content strike, and since I've been seeing ads for the strike pop up all over my f-list here as well, I think my rebuttal deserves to be archived here. Read if you want, don't if you don't, doesn't bother me. It's a good chance to educate yourself, though.

Basically, for those of you who haven't been keeping up with LJ's latest asshattery, earlier this week the LiveJournal brass decided to block certain interests from turning up in interest searches. The blocked interests included "fanfiction," "fanfic," "slash," "bisexuality," "depression," and others. Note that this blocking didn't mean you couldn't list those interests on your profile page. It just meant that if you searched for them in the "Find" box, they wouldn't turn up. Additionally, LJ decided to do away with Basic accounts. Those who already have Basic accounts can keep them, and those with Plus and Paid can downgrade any time, but if you're, say, creating a sockpuppet, your choices are Plus or Paid. Period. (For the record, LJ did decide to change its mind on the interests thing, but the "no new Basic accounts" policy remains as of this writing.)

Now, I was as displeased as some others with these changes. The prohibition on creating new Basic accounts caused a friend and I to move our new roleplay to InsaneJournal, because I can't stand the ads on Plus accounts and I'm not willing to pay for a pure roleplaying account (as opposed to, say, a muse journal where I'll be doing things other than roleplaying). I also won't be joining any new LJ-based RPs because of this, unless it's a one-on-one and the other RPer is willing to move. And, naturally, I was pissed about not being able to search the interests using the above terms. Smacks of censorship, but hey, LJ = private company, and private companies can do whatever the hell they want. Only the government can censor.

But despite this displeasure, I am here to tell you that I will NOT be participating in the LJ content strike of March 21. I'm not going to spam, but I also will not restrict myself from posting and commenting as I usually do.

Why am I not participating? Because, put quite simply, it is not going to work. There is already a metric fuckton of wank being generated by people who could not care less and who are essentially pointing and laughing at this initiative. And no matter how many places you post the ad, no matter how many people you coerce into doing it, you are not going to get the whole LJ userbase doing it. You're not even going to get half. Hell, you're probably not even going to get five percent.

And this is why it won't work. The only way LJ is going to sit up and take notice of anything is if a) its advertisers start complaining or b) every single user on its servers stops posting. LJ doesn't care if a hundred people don't post. It probably doesn't even care if a thousand people don't post. It is counting on the majority of the LJ userbase continuing on as normal because it knows that boycotts don't work:

"[W]hen a multinational corporation with sales in the billions of dollars is involved, only the sustained, concerted actions of millions of consumers can make the needle so much as twitch. For the fiscal year ended 30 June 2001, Estee Lauder had net sales of $4.62 billion, which was an 8% increase on the preceding year's $4.37 billion. For the first three quarters of the fiscal year that will end on 30 June 2002, net sales are $3.57 billion, which is nearly the same sales figure as the equivalent period last year. More simply, if there's a boycott or counter-boycott going on, the income statement isn't demonstrating any impact from it."

Now, clearly there are some differences here - LJ isn't a multinational cosmetics company, and its revenues aren't in the billions of dollars. But the principle is the same. It will take only a concerted, long-term effort for ANY difference to be felt by the top dogs at SUP. A one-day boycott will accomplish fuck-all.

So, participate in this intiative if you wish. I'm not going to stop you. I am simply trying to make sure you are informed of all the facts. And if I'm wrong, hey, feel free to print out this post and make me eat it. I'll be as happy as anyone to learn that LJ has bucked the trend and come to its senses. But it's like that line in Wicked: "I hope you prove me wrong. I doubt you will."

On another note, I am enjoying Season 3 of BSG tremendously. Hello 90-minute extended edition of "Unfinished Business"? Yep, this makes for a VERY happy Liz. XD

So, I could be finishing up my journalism assignment right now. Yes. Sounds like a plan, does it not? The fandom-y side of me didn't agree, however, and convinced me that instead I should make my new Padmé icon stillness community.

I am of course powerless against the whims of my subconscious, and so into being comes padmestillness. I'm still dealing with setup and so forth at the moment, but for all intents the comm is up and running and ready for anyone who's interested to join. Only if you want, obviously. XD When the first challenge is held depends on how many members we get and the general level of interest. So, tell all the Padmé fans on your f-list! It should be a lot of fun.

And yeah ... I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit guilty about creating another Padmé icon community when one already exists, but the existing one hasn't been updated since January 9. Heh. I'm hoping that people won't mind, and that if the older community does become active again, the two can coexist fairly peacefully.

By now you've probably read about LiveJournal's new content flagging options, announced yesterday in a news post and elaborated upon in lj_biz. I'm not going to regurgitate the contents of those posts - if you'd like more information, feel free to check out this post in lj_biz. I just wanted to draw your attention to two pertinent definitions, and to explain how the new flagging system will be applied on my journal, since I do indeed write explicit content on occasion.

There are two main definitions LJ is working with for this new policy. They are as follows:

Adult Concepts: Content that is not explicitly graphic, but may contain mature themes that could be inappropriate for anyone under the age of 14.

Explicit Adult Content: Content that is graphic and explicit (depicting nudity, sexuality, or violence) that is appropriate only for adults and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18. This label does not imply that the content is considered obscene, just that it is not appropriate for minors.

I haven't had this independently confirmed by a member of the LJ staff, but it would seem to me that Adult Concepts would refer to materials rated PG-13, while Explicit Adult Content is for fics, icons or other graphics rated R or NC-17. Content that is flagged as being Explicit will be inaccessible to those 18 years of age and under. Content that is flagged as being Adult Concepts will be inaccessible to those 13 years of age and under. All Explicit content will also be placed behind an LJ cut if it is flagged as being Explicit.

What that means for this journal is that from now on, ALL content rated R or NC-17 will be marked Explicit. This will include some - but NOT all - chapters of To Ignite the Stars and eventually, Desert Rose. It will also include one-shot fics that fall into those rating categories. Content rated PG-13 will be marked as having Adult Concepts, but if you are 14 and over you will still be able to view it.

If you read my fics on a regular basis but do not have a LiveJournal account, don't worry. They will still be accessible to you. Here's the procedure:

1) Click on the link to the fic.

2) A page will come up stating that the content of the post has been flagged as being Explicit. You will be asked to verify that you are 18 or over and click the OK button.

3) The fic will come up.

( Here are some screenshots to further illustrate the process )

If you would prefer not to go through this process, my fics are also accessible through the Creative Jedi Forum, which is an offsite board I created to archive my writing. You don't even need to sign up for an account (although I'd obviously love it if you did XD).

Remember, the above procedure I outlined is ONLY for those of you who DO NOT have an LJ account.

I'm going to see how this works for a few weeks, anyway, and make an evaluation after that point. The actual labeling of the content as Explicit is voluntary unless LJ Abuse flags it as such. So we'll start this off as a trial procedure and go from there.

Most of you reading this will probably have heard about the Great LJ Strikethrough of 2007 by now, but since I was at work this morning and (mostly) unable to check LJ, permit me to rant about it for a few moments now. Those of you who don't know (are there any of you? *peers around her f-list*), permit me to educate and infuriate you.

Late last night, a group calling themselves Warriors For Innocence began targeting LiveJournal. What they do is they Google terms such as "rape," "incest," "pedophilia," and "LiveJournal" and report any LJ journals and communities with those terms listed in their interests to LJ Abuse. LJ Abuse then went ahead and suspended those journals, in some cases permanently. Keep in mind that they did this WITHOUT LOOKING IN ANY OF THOSE JOURNALS TO SEE PRECISELY WHAT THEY CONTAINED. So let's say you were running a community to support victims of rape or incest. Boom, you're shut down because oh noes!!!!! we CANNOT have a community containing the word "rape" or "incest" in its interests REGARDLESS of the context!! Same thing goes for writing journals where same sex or incestuous pairings were listed and written about. Abracadabra! you're deleted. Many RPing journals have also been shut down because of this; my friend and I were nervously looking over our shoulders this morning for fear that our dear omg_lightsaber may be targeted. This post gives you a good idea of which journals have been shut down so far. I've had it on reload all day.

My friends, we CANNOT just sit back and tolerate this blatant attack on our freedom of speech. LJ Abuse is themselves ABUSING their power by allowing this vigilante group to control them and dictate whose voice is heard on LiveJournal and whose is not. LJ Abuse is deleting/suspending accounts INDISCRIMINATELY. It does not matter what your journal or community covers, even if it DOES NOT PROMOTE RAPE, INCEST OR PEDOPHILIA, IF IT HAS THOSE TERMS LISTED IN THE INTERESTS, IT IS LIABLE TO BE SHUT DOWN.

I would advise each and every one of you to take the following steps, RIGHT NOW:

1) GO TO YOUR PROFILE. CHECK TO SEE IF YOU HAVE "INCEST," "RAPE," "PEDOPHILIA," OR EVEN "SLASH" LISTED IN YOUR INTERESTS. IF SO, DELETE THEM IN ORDER TO SAVE YOUR JOURNAL. Even if you have these interests listed innocently, even if they are listed as part of something like "rape survivors" or "incest victim" or something similar. IT DOES NOT MATTER. LJ Abuse is being indiscriminate in the journals they delete/suspend. They WILL NOT check to make sure you are listing these interests innocently. THEY WILL SIMPLY DELETE OR SUSPEND YOUR JOURNAL, PERHAPS PERMANENTLY.

2) STAND UP FOR THE RIGHTS OF LJERS TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH. A petition is circulating right now. Click here to add your name to the list. If you would prefer not to leave a comment, you can send an email to the address listed. Comments are currently being screened, but the original poster is working steadily through the replies to unscreen them. Here is what I wrote:

"I am absolutely appalled that LJ Abuse would employ such a kneejerk reaction to deal with what is obviously a vigilante group. Does it not say in the LJ Terms of Service that LiveJournal is NOT responsible for the content posted on its site? If so, then why is LiveJournal contravening ITS OWN terms of service? If any one of us LiveJournal users contravened the Terms of Service, we would be punished and understandably so. But apparently, no such punishment exists for those who run LiveJournal itself.

"Please do not take this to mean that I condone rape and incest. I CERTAINLY do not. But neither do I condone the blatant restrictions upon our freedom of speech that these suspensions represent. Some of the communities suspended are those meant to HELP survivors of rape and incest. How is it, then, that they too are being slapped with suspensions after having been reported to LJ Abuse? How are they even abusing LJ? LJ Abuse exists to prevent users from feeling legitimately threatened on LiveJournal. It does not exist to feed the agenda of vigilantes who are simply Googling the terms "rape" "incest" "pedophilia" and "LiveJournal" and then reporting to LJ Abuse whatever they find. Why are those at LJ Abuse not recognizing that these communities are legitimate and need to exist? Why does LJ Abuse not understand that these supposed "complaints" are not even coming from LiveJournal users themselves? Why are they hiding their heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge the concerns of LJ users? Why are they partaking in such censorship?

"I await eagerly the answers to these questions. In the meantime, I will not be paying $150 to LiveJournal for a Permanent Account. A site that treats its users with such callous disrespect does not deserve my hard-earned money."

3) GO TO THIS POST AND UPLOAD ONE OF THESE ICONS TO YOUR JOURNAL. Show in the comments that you make today throughout LJ that you will not tolerate censorship.

NOTE: Further information (listed below) appears to indicate that LJ Abuse does not bear responsibility for these acts. However, we must still ask ourselves why they are condoning this behaviour instead of standing up and declaring that it is wrong. "I was just following orders" is NOT a legitimate excuse to accept!!

MORE INFORMATION AND DAMAGE CONTROL (added for the link-phobic)
by catrinella

- LJ is sending form letters to community and account owners explaining the reason for permanent suspension (related to user interests). PLEASE NOTE that they are being helpful and giving community owners a tool to download all posts to the community, which helps a great deal in restoring lost material. Please do not blame the LJ Abuse team, who are mostly volunteers and who are charged with managing cleanup after what appears to have been a decision at higher levels. (Please see my little disclaimer above; I dispute the idea that LJ Abuse should be absolved of blame. ~ Liz)

- Deleted vs. Suspended: To determine whether an account has been permanently suspended by SA/LJ or has been deleted by the comm/LJ owner, go to the account's userinfo page. If the account has been self-deleted, you will see the message "This journal has been deleted." If the account has been suspended by LJ, you will see the message "This account has been either temporarily or permanently suspended.". Some community/account owners are voluntarily deleting until more information is available and this situation eases toward resolution. You may also be able to hover your mouse over the icon in a deleted username to see a pop-up with the LJ's current status.

- Remove or edit your user interests, or at least the ones that are obvious triggers (incest, pedophilia, child molestation, rape, etc.). This includes other languages; "shota" was reputedly a trigger interest for at least one suspended account. [NOTE: Please don't ask if a particular interest should be removed. We don't know the list of trigger interests, and it's highly unlikely that SA/LJ would release that information.]

- Remove userpics that advocate or illustrate potentially troublesome practices. While userpics are not part of the current situation, last year's breastfeeding-icon debate is a reminder that visual images resonate very strongly for a large number of LJ users.

- For those who posted to deleted communities and did not save a copy of their posts: the text of the post should have been included in emailed comments made to the post. If you received, but did not delete, emailed comments, you should still have a copy. Check your email - AOL and Gmail, in particular, do not delete old messages unless you explicitly delete them or turn off mail archiving (AOL only). If you have lost fic, ask your beta if s/he has a copy in inbox or sent-mail.

- Alternate LJ-style sites: GreatestJournal and JournalFen. NOTE: JournalFen is currently closed to new free accounts. The only way to get an account right now appears to be getting a friend with a paid JournalFen account to set up a new free account for you. JournalFen is only for those 18 and up.

OTHER STEPS TO TAKE (for activists and others who wish to make their voices further heard)
by roaring

* Write LJ. There are forms and templates going around for letters, one is listed below in my links, or write your own. THIS is the biggest one I know of right now, support!
- Make it clear you don't support illegal activities. Clarify that most of those affected lost works of FICTION, and that many of these places that were banned had clear disclaimers they did not welcome pedophiles or any other offenders into their communities and that they do NOT believe in that sort of thing.
- If you're a victim of rape, molestation, or any kind of abuse? Talk about it. Let them know they fucked up. There were people who lost things while they were victims of the REAL ACTS themselves.
- Money talks. Stop using paid accounts and subscriptions to their services to further hit your point home.
- Talk about the possibility of moving to another site. All of us could just as easily do what we do on a place like GreatestJournal or somewhere else--a site that offers a lot of the same thing LJ does, but for FREE--what keeps us here? We like LJ. We like our community. We like our features, and the company's ONCE ASSUMED professionalism... right? And if that all goes away, we have NO REASON to be here any more!!
* Delete your journal to make a statement. If a mass deletion occurs, LJ will notice that they screwed up really bad.
* Cancel any and all automatic payments. Plan to never pay for LJ again, and let them know about it! LJ obviously doesn't care about protecting intellectual property, I think the only way to get to them is by talking money, for real.
* Spread banners around, to get the word out! Make your own, use mine. Just tell everyone!
* Back up your LJ (this is a good program for Windows, and here is for Mac), then delete your interests, profile, icons (mostly questionable ones), and lock ALL of your entries. If you have a paid account, you can do that by going here. Do NOT get a paid account to do this, do not show them any support!

LINKS

For more information about the LJ Strikethrough of 2007, click here. Very comprehensive post.

To see which journals and communities have been suspended or deleted so far, click here. Continuously updated throughout the day.

To sign the petition against deletion of innocent journals and communities, or to email your opinions to LJ, click here. The largest petition I've seen so far, please repost in your own journal.

To save an icon or three related to the Great LJ Strikethrough of 2007, click here. The icon I'm using on this post came from there.

To join an LJ community dedicated specifically to the LiveJournal Strikethrough of 2007, click here. This community has over 471 members at last count, and LJ users are posting with their stories and attempts to get through to LJ/Six Apart in San Francisco.

Please repost information relating to this in your journal. I don't care if you copy & paste my entire post and hit the Post button. Just get it out there. We need to show LJ that this kind of bullshit WILL NOT be tolerated. This has gone far enough.

Crossposted to senatorsfan