tenlittlebullets | Insecurity yay

So I had a whole post about how I turned in my article of doom on the avant-garde play, despite the horrible temptation to just write about A Streetcar Named Desire instead, because we watched the movie in class. And a long-ass analysis of my five-year-old self's favorite movie, because sometimes the cluelessness of posters and commenters on Feministing makes me want to throw sharp objects at the screen. (Yes, the post on Little Mermaid made me prickly, because it's not a feminist nightmare for Christ's sake.)

But I'll post that later.

This afternoon I decided to just say "fuck it" and post chapter 2 of the trans!Enjolras fic tonight. The chapter isn't finished, but the first half is (save minor editing), and there's enough there for me to post it as-is while I kick the second half into shape.

And then I got home and read

coloneldespard's latest fic and immediately changed my mind. I was already in a morose self-hatey frame of mind, so perhaps my initial urge to curl up in the corner and rip everything I've written to shreds was unwarranted, but I was already unsatisfied with how bland my characterizations seemed. Despard's fic just drove home to what extent I am writing about characters whose names are Enjolras and Combeferre who are saying things that might not be utterly OOC for their canon selves, but who have no goddamn personality.

Argh, I promise I'm trying not to be self-hatey. But this fic needs beta work. Not because it outright sucks, but because it's the first multi-chapter fic I've attempted since I was a fourteen-year-old Harry Potter fanbrat, and I'm having trouble reining in my authorial faults: bland characterization, aimless dialogue, tone/mood/pacing fail.

On the other hand, I am sinfully proud of the backstory I wrote for Enjolras. Trying to get the next few chapters done mostly so I have an excuse to post it. (And so I have an excuse to write gay Combeferre and FTM Enjolras having hot sex.)