annbeez

[annbeez]

not caring too much about a fandom’s favourite guy is the worst. you’ll think “oh i’ll look into the tag see if anything new and cool’s there” and it’s just that fucking guy again

[annbeez]

Some long, rambling post Cadina week thoughts.

That was a lot of fun! I'm still working my way through all the stuff I want to read. As someone who had definitely gone through most of the Cadina stuff on ao3, having a couple dozen new fics to read is awesome, and many of the ones I have read are amazing fics that I will definitely be rereading. So, so grateful for everyone who contributed.

This was my first time publishing for an event like this. Deadlines can be kind of helpful for me. I've mentioned that I've got fairly bad ADHD, so external pressures and motivations can be a great way to get me to actually do things. But it was definitely a mixed bag. None of the fics I published are to the point where I would have published them, normally. All of them have, for me, clear, actionable changes I would have liked to make. Normally, I wouldn't publish until I'd fixed those issues and gotten to the "vague sense of dissatisfaction" level of unhappiness. But deadlines is deadlines.

This was made worse by the fact that we actually moved four days before Cadina week started. If you're ever considering moving with a three month old, my advice would be: don't move with a three month old. But we did, and we survived. The last two weeks before the move had very little time to write as I focused on getting packed, and the days after had a lot of unpacking. (And I am eternally grateful to have a wife who repeatedly asserted that me having time to write was a priority while we had a house full of boxes needing unpacking. She is so amazing.)

But that said, I did make my goals. Originally I said I wanted to publish on three days, and publish on three days I did. I also joked that if I didn't end up publishing, I'd be left with 60k words in the drafts, and I ended up publishing 63k words, so, kind of spot on there. I had a day three fic that I got 3k words into and abandoned, and I didn't end up writing the day five fic I originally intended to. Maybe that will get saved for Cadina Week 2k26, if they do one.

A lot of people followed me over from Heathers, and I don't know how I managed to accumulate so many amazing commenters who are so incredibly kind, but I love all of you. Fascinatingly, many of y'all commented either that you did not like Cadina, usually, or significantly preferred Rejanis. I don't know why I'm giving off Rejanis vibes, but I'm certainly not mad about it. Definitely I owe y'all some Rejanis down the line, at some point.

Fic specific thoughts below the cut for those who don't want to be spoiled, I guess.

i'll keep you (my dirty little secret): As I've mentioned, 14k words into this one, I thought it was trash and couldn't be made good. Part of this was just that I needed to figure out what it was. At one point I turned to my wife and said, "This porn is turning out super depressing." And it's much better now that it's angst that has porn in it, instead.

I was also just really unsure how this one was going to be received. When you see people talking about things they always avoid in fics, cheating is usually number 2 on the list (behind Major Character Death), and I've definitely seen some defensive driving in the Mean Girls fandom before (i.e. people disclaiming the morality of stuff in fics like they expect people to come at them for it.)

The reception has definitely been mixed. It's been the most warmly received of my Cadina week fics, but it's also received some negative comments and I actually lost user subs for this one. Which is surprising to me, since part of my worry about it was that it was a little too annbeez. Like, "oh, really, annbeez, we're doing cheating on your boyfriend because you refuse to communicate properly with the gay queen bee, again? Groundbreaking. " Maybe just a consequence of posting outside the Heathers fandom for the first time, who can say?

My one big complaint with this one is that I wish I'd had time to add another full sex scene. As it is, we get a lot of references to the more intense stuff the girls get up to, but the only scenes we get in detail are the ones that are major emotional turning points and thus are a lot softer and more vanilla. I feel like there should be one of the more intense, out of control, kinky scenes toward the back half to really underscore the "not being careful enough, crazy about each other" stage of the relationship. Probably just before Janis walks in on them, but that's too big a change to make to a fic that's already published, so, here we are.

the same in every language (just please not javascript): I don't usually publish full AUs. I'm more of a post-canon or canon-divergence girly. I'm not sure what possessed me to commit this hard to the AU day. (Also, I really felt at 30k words that I was maybe overdoing it, and then I barely made the podium for word count published on this day. I love y'all Cadina writers.)

I think it's kind of obvious from the specificity of some of the stuff in this fic that this is pulling on a lot of personal experiences. Anyone who has worked as a software engineer for, uhhh, Nile or Alpha, is gonna recognize some things. In that sense, this was quite cathartic to write. A love letter to people and places I miss, and jobs I do not miss even a little bit.

This one suffered the most from not enough time. I could put another 10-15k words into this no problem. As it was, there were a number of scenes cut from the outline that I would have liked to have, and I don't feel the ending gets enough time to earn it's resolution. Honestly, depending on your read, you could say it falls into this territory and I wouldn't really disagree.

That said, overall, I still think I'm pretty happy with this one. Probably part of that is that it is just so me. If, when I die, they put on my tombstone, "Wrote a Mean Girls fanfic where open source software licensing is used to get a misogynist, transphobic tech bro fired in the name of sapphic love," I think my friends and family would say, "Yeah, that tracks. That checks out, for her."

congrats. happy for you.: This was not my original day five fic, as I mentioned, but it was an idea I've had in my head for ages. I had even considered writing it for the hurt/comfort day, but felt it was not in the spirit of the prompt to do a hurt/comfort fic for Cadina week where the person hurt and comforted was neither Cady nor Regina.

As it stands, this fic answers a question I've had for myself: what would it take for me to write a happy, fluffy romance where there's not a snarl of terrible feelings or drama. The answer is that I can do that very easily as long as the POV character is not one of the people in said romance, and is made very unhappy by it. The scene where Cady is describing kissing Regina at the dance is so uncharacteristically soft and fluffy for me, and is made possible only because it is making Janis absolutely seethe. I will not be examining this fact in any further detail, thank you.

I liked doing this one for Cadina week because I felt like it would really be different from the rest of what people were doing. It also meant that I ended up with one Regina POV, one Cady POV, and one other, so all my fics felt quite distinct from one another, which I'm pleased with.

There are some small structural changes I'd have liked to make to this one, and I'd like another scene between the first kiss and Janis's blow-up, but overall I think this is the cleanest of the three fics. It's the one that most knows what it's doing. It has, accordingly, received the coolest reception, because I do not know what the people like, haha.

Overall I had a really good time and like what I published and now I can go at least nine months before the urge to write Cadina hits me again. Thanks to everyone who read and participated, it was a great event.

[annbeez]

hi hi hi hi hiii

I'm not entirely sure if you do requests, but if you do, I was wondering if you could possibly draw me a pfp with chainsaw in it

Anyways I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVEEEEE your art

Your style is *mwahh* chefs kiss

THANKS

i do take art requests but more for ideas, you know? Hopefully, this little drawing works for you.

Just a little sketch but I hope the chansaws take my offering

[annbeez]

sorry, i thought we all liked that fictional woman because she sucks

[annbeez]

In spite of herself, Janis had always harbored some lingering fantasy that one day Regina would confess her undying love and come out for her. It had started with a hopeful wish in sixth grade that Regina would make everything right. Then her hopes for Regina fell, and fell, and fell, so that by junior year it was really just kind of a fucked up erotic revenge fantasy. But on some level, that fantasy was always there.

Then, in senior year, her fantasy came true, and it kind of ruined her life. Because when it came true, it came true for Cady Heron.

For Cadina Week 2025: Free Day

[annbeez]

Regina nodded. "You're here for your one plus one."

"Huh?"

She leaned forward a little. "Plenty of people hate it at these big tech companies and only come here because it looks so good on a resume. And, like, plenty more get here and find out they hate it and can't wait to leave. But if you don't stay at least a year, you have to pay back your signing bonus, which obviously blows. So you stay for one year and one day and then you bail. It happens all the time, we call it working your one plus one."

Cady blinked. "That's a thing?"

"Totally." Regina slid closer on the couch until her knee was touching Cady's, and looked intensely into her eyes. "I'm gonna make sure you have, like, the best one plus one. And then you can go back to your boyfriend in Chicago or whatever."

For Cadina Week 2025: AU

[annbeez]

The oneshot I just posted is the one I was talking about not liking here. I will avoid sharing my thoughts on it, but let this stand as proof that I did, indeed, convince myself to post it. Whether that was the right choice or not, you be the judge.

The best part about writing stuff for an event that's a month away is having a month to get into your own head about whether what you've written is any good or not.

14k words into a oneshot and increasingly of the opinion that it is not good and cannot be made good, lmao. Will I talk myself out of posting anything at all? Stay tuned and find out!

[annbeez]

The air had always been so thick between Cady and Regina, the magnetism so obvious. They both knew all it would take was one move for something to happen, for them to fall into something passionate and uncontrollable. And eventually, they did.

If it had happened back in junior year at North Shore, it would have been sweet, and warm, and unashamed.

Instead, it happens in sophomore year at Northwestern. And it's like this.

For Cadina Week 2025 Day One: Secret Relationship

[annbeez]

Oh to stare into the mirror with symbolic headwear

Time flies and guilt stays

[annbeez]

kith

[annbeez]

They met at Kress street hideout after the banquet of Black Sapphire

[annbeez]

When Faith and Buffy are together then Faith is Buffy’s boyfriend. But when they’re not together then Faith is Buffy’s ex-wife

Likewise

When Spike and Buffy are together then Spike is Buffy’s wife. But when they’re not together then Spike is Buffy’s ex-boyfriend

[annbeez]

fandom is really cool actually sometimes you meet people that just fuckin rule and it's because you both want the same two fictional women to kiss on the mouth

[annbeez]

Hello! Firstly, I just gotta say your fics are 🤌🤌🤌 (I can't find the chefs kiss emoji, so you get happy Italian American gesturing). But I was curious if you have plans for more or if you're working on something, not Fandom related.

Thank you so much. I'm never quite sure what that Italian American gesture means, but I am a big fan of people making fairly similar gestures with their hand in a different context, so I will take that very positively.

There's plenty more fandom stuff coming. Right now I'm working on getting my Cadina week stuff ready (only five days away!) and hope to publish on 2-3 days of that. I also have a couple thousand words of the next Further Complications oneshot done, and hope to have that out before too too long. Beyond that, I have several fic outlines that are starting to get to that point where they're big enough that they start to feel inevitable, so we'll see where inspiration takes me post-Cadina week.

For non-fandom stuff, that's very sweet of you to ask. I think it's not super likely to happen. Certainly it was the dream once upon a time to publish original fiction, but I feel like nobody reads self-published original fiction, and conventional publishing these days seems to expect authors to have a pretty active social media presence. I'm not really cut out for social media, tumblr is the only social media I have. Fanfiction feels like a much better niche for me, personally. It lets me indulge in the performance and the storytelling I love in a way that is more communal and divorced from the demands of what is marketable or popular. If you do ever see original fiction from me, it'll be exclusively because my sister managed to twist my arm into finishing a book, after years of trying.

But do expect more fic. I have been down in the yuri mines, this I promise.

[annbeez]

shocking how much of writing is putting down a sentence and then thinking, "okay, but now a less shitty version of that"

[annbeez]

One of the smallest things that will take me completely out of a romance story is when there is some kind of transgression between the main couple and the author and I clearly disagree on how severe it was. So now either the story revolves around a conflict about something that, actually, was not that big a deal, or the relationship suddenly feels unearned because there should be a gaping wound in it that was papered over with a casual apology.

This has noped me out of multiple fics that I was, like, 100k+ words into, which I assume is very normal of me.

[annbeez]

Y'all keep putting posts on my dash where that superhero lesbian is in love with Morgana, and yes, obviously they are down extremely bad for each other and yes, I'm sure they have scenes that would permanently alter my brain chemistry.

But I will not be tricked into watching a CW show again. I'm wise to your games.