a confident wreck

—— cal. they & them. adult. a mess. good stuff at careful-fear. this is my nonense blog.

[careful-fear]

hi i am cal, they & them, and this is my second attempt at an introduction because my first one was not doing it for me. i'm currently attempting to get back into writing, and maybe make some friends along the way. please send me wips, asks, tag games, messages, prompts, anything. interaction is difficult so some direction would be helpful.

my aim is to finish a few short stories before i move onto anything bigger, which is what i will mostly be talking about on here for now. there is the possibility of the occasional unrelated drabble and fanfiction. books rants will also be here, as they are tangentially related, and i'm open to discussing books and giving or receiving recs.

my tastes are quite flexible so i am almost guaranteed to enjoy any wip sent, although i adore horror, fantasy, found family and stories surrounding moral ambiguity. anything along those lines is enough to get me invested, and i typically write about them often. queer characters are also a large focus in my works, especially those who are on the aro/ace spectrums and use neutral pronouns, which is really just me crying for representation and diversity in that rep. supernatural and inhuman characters are often my protagonists, mostly because i think they look cool and create a lot of interesting dynamics.

oh and i have a website. most writing will be posted there, including completed wips.

( A SHRIKE TO A SHARP AND GLORIOUS THORN ) — the story of a hunted witch and a forgotten god, and the death that binds them. to separate would be their end, but they may find it in each other regardless. an unhealthy and obsessive romance, horror themes, fantasy setting.

( IN THE ABSENCE OF MYTH ) — a soul finding its place, a world healing after a war. cosy fantasy, found family.

( CAL WRITES SOMETHING ) — any form of writing.

( WIP ) — a master page for a wip. they will also have their own specific tags for connected posts.

( OC ) — a character profile. they may also have their own tag if i post about them often.

( FANFICTION ) — fanfiction, what it says on the tin.

( OTHER WRITERS ) — reblogged introductions and wips.

[shivered-bones]

the re engine giveth and the re engine taketh away

[itsjustthechems]

i bought the $70 book about guillermo del toro's frankenstein film because i'm nuts, and here are some of my favorite highlights thus far:

• the fact that all jacob elordi really had to say for guillermo to cast him was "my father is spanish. also i went to catholic school and felt scared and deeply uncomfortable there" like...GDT's requirements are: you gotta be hispanic/latine, be filled with catholic guilt, or BOTH

• [regarding the nine hour prosthetic application process] "elordi recalls, 'the first thing guillermo said to me was that it would be my skin, and i would have to take the sacrament. like every morning, getting the prosthetics put on would be like the eucharist. that's how he spoke about it from the moment i came to the project.'" THAT'S INSANE LMAO

• this quote from jacob - "i love that the film doesn't have a fatalistic ending. what recourse does the creature have but to live? in all the drudgery and sadness and rejection, what else will you do but keep walking toward the sun?"

• the character of william frankenstein was based on guillermo as a child. guillermo gave the actor, felix kammerer, a photo of himself where he looked very little and sad and lonely, and felix carried that photo with him for the entirety of the film.

• the makeup artist applied subtle prosthetics to mia goth's face when she played victor's mother in order to make her look slightly more similar to oscar isaac

• jacob had to wear oversized fake teeth because of the way the prosthetics altered the proportions of his face. they also gave him large dark contact lenses to make him even more doe-eyed/baby-ish.

[libraloves-writing]

I love this movie

[phantom-threaded]

Frankenstein 2025, dir. Guillermo del Toro

[phantom-threaded]

Guillermo del Toro on the Creature

[petrolipelo]

"Our identity is formed by misinformation."

[plant-based-person]

had a fascinating english class that resulted in the notes header “the forcefeminization of victor frankenstein”

[oracod-deactivated20251127]

Jacob Elordi with his dog on the set of Guillermo del Toro’s FRANKENSTEIN

[polysucks]

my favorite part about a new gdt movie is all the strange bts pics we get of people in elaborate monster costumes

[mcpayne]

"Isaac laughs remembering "One time we were looking at the monitor and Guillermo said to me, 'A European would never make this movie that we're making. This is a Latino-telenovela version of the story. It is not a coincidence that my Victor Frankenstein isn't being played by an English person, it's being played by Oscar Isaac Hernández from Guatemala." Speaking in Spanish with his director was comforting to Isaac. "It was truly the first time I felt like I was making something with a family member. Even though its Mary Shelley, and the story takes place in Geneva and Scotland, I felt so connected to my heritage. It bubbled up from the earth. It felt like an ancestral journey for me." [Frankenstein: Written and Directed by Guillermo del Toro]

[miseria-fortes-viros]

ultimately the truth about frankenstein is that we are all grotesque amalgamations of the best and worst parts of everyone who came before us. and sometimes the people who are supposed to love us because of and in spite of this will not. and we can kill them with hammers for that. and i think that’s beautiful

[mcpayne]

Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein is about forgiving the person who brought you into this world without your permission when you do not want to be alive, and about forgiving yourself for being alive and accepting your life free of guilt and that is genuinely the most beautiful, validating thing I have ever seen in a film.

[feminineduck-deactivated2022051]

[tjlime]

[everest-81]

OKAY

I SEE YU

[thatlowvice]

Dude if my legs looked like that i would want to show them off too.

[innerchildabortionclinic]

i'm sorry I just burst out laughing because WHAT????????

[awihog]

^^^^^^^^^^^^ (via @nebula---dreams)

[dear-child-of-skylights]

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A post shared by Liza Ginette (@dragonflilee)

"Are you respecting boundaries out of love or punishment?" This is a video about respecting boundaries of estranged children without framing it as the pain of your abscence being the punishment for walking away from you and towards somewhere that feels safe.

[andielion]

People on tumblr loooove to talk about restorative justice and abolition when it’s a nebulous concept. It’s lovely to think about someone growing and changing and trying to reckon with the harm they caused but when some people actually see that person, they can’t handle it. God forbid someone says “I did something awful and I don’t want people to hurt others the way I did.” Do you just expect every shitty person to magically disappear from the earth? Do you want them to pretend it never happened?

[secretyurigarden]

you have to be around asexual perverts it’s good for your health

[queeraang]

fascinating thing about sinners is how absolutely doomed the narrative is.

like okay if sammie hadn't gone to the juke joint, remmick probably wouldn't have shown up. but then the klan would have. okay smoke took those assholes out solo, if it was him and stack maybe they could have handled it. well the juke joint would have shut down in a month because no one had any real fucking money because of the sharecropping scrip. not to mention two seperate mobs are on their way to fuck the twins up (what do you MEAN you robbed al capone??). okay maybe they covered their tracks, well they're still in the fucking jim crow south and stack and mary have a cool 35 years until loving v virginia so best case scenario is he's broke and watching the love of his life from afar until he's 70. plus annie implied the twins were on borrowed time anyway since she'd been quietly protecting them the whole time they were gone.

idk it both adds to the horror that there was no way out and just solidifies sammie saying it was the best day of his life, like that one little perfect moment was all they were going to get anyway

[willgrahamscock]

[theebbestboy]

[a-sentient-cup]

[virtualgirladvance]

[sausaged-rat]

[meanbossart]

Gale.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I am nursing a hangover because my neighbors invited me over for a dinner last night that was actually a high school graduation party for their eldest daughter but what it actually actually was was 16 Hindu families getting drunk and having a dance party in the basement teaching me, the Lone Jew, how to do Indian dances and getting me Quite Drunk while the kids watched YouTube upstairs

[konzaprairieunofficial]

Favorite highlights of the evening:

- my neighbors telling all their friends and family about my landscaping and woodland restoration. I have never discussed this with my neighbors! But hearing last night that it’s been positively noticed and they are so appreciative really did make me feel Quite Good. They also wanted to use my yard for photos because of all my native plant blooms lol and they can’t wait for winter for me to clear out more vines and bramble. The part that really made my heart sing was that everyone said they noticed a distinct increase in fireflies this year compared to last.

- a mom and her smol daughter are introducing themselves to me. Daughter gives me a very English sounding name, mom says something under her breath like “that’s not your name!” And I say to the smol girl “My Anglicized name is ____, but my real name, my Hebrew name, is ____. Do you want me to call you by your real name? Because I’d like to call you by your real name. I can pronounce it, I promise.” And both mom and smol daughter LIGHT UP and immediately ditch their English names.

- all 16 families give speeches about the high school grad and then suddenly I am also asked to give a speech about this girl I know only in passing. Made a joke, crushed it. I am the Cool Neighbor now.

- having Very Bad Scotch with all the men outside discussing Immigration, the Economy, and Agriculture. They were fascinated that I am the one who does all things outdoorsy, that I am the landscaper and gardener and farmer, not my cishet spouse. I give many facts about bats, I have convinced many to invest in saving bats by citing how much money they save Society in crop pest control annually. I give many impassioned talks about the prairies and learn a tremendous amount about rubber trees and rubber tree plantations in India.

- I have been over to their house a few times before this and there’s never ever been any alcohol so I assumed none of them drank but then this One Guy shows up and I am informed that he is The Guy. Next thing I know I have three drinks in my hand of three different liquors and I am thinking to myself “oh OKAY you guys party hard actually”

- when I am inside dancing with all the 50+ year old women, they are Impressed that I am picking up the moves so quickly and I say something off hand jokingly like “my people love to dance too” and then they stop the music and ask me to put on MY people’s music. Imagine it if you will, this Lone Jew, teaching 20 Indian women how to do the hora.

- love is real we have so much more in common than we don’t. People wanted my number to share with me Bollywood movie recommendations. I was sent home with so many leftovers. I love my little immigrant neighborhood. I love the instant Hindu-Jewish solidarity between our communities. It is so very, very real.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I think the conversation that stuck me with the most hope was this elderly Indian man and I were in deep discussion about how native plants that produce harvestables should be cultivated and commercialized. And how much of these unique fruits, vegetables, legumes, etc. get lost and when you go to the store, whether in NJ or in India, it’s the same kind of produce everywhere. And talking about how native plants wouldn’t cost as much because they’re already adapted to the ecosystems they’re in. I was telling him about my sandhill plum saplings my mom just mailed me and he was ENTHRALLED. Maybe my real life’s mission is to marry my farming upbringing with my love of native plants and… idk, start a farm/orchard specifically for native cultivars of harvestables foods. I certainly don’t have money for that lol but. Hearing someone from another part of the world also wish the same thing that I do and rail against Big Ag like I was really just. Made me so hopeful.