The Bookish Thespian

The Bookish Thespian

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Jenna and Arthur

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Happy Birthday Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, sorry that character you hate is what you’re known for.

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(Source: bakerstreetbabes, via stitchnik)

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“If a clock could count down to the moment you meet your soul mate, would you want to know?”

     One minute, 37 seconds.     My legs are shaking. Holy cow, there is no way I can do this. None.     One minute, 29 secods.     I glance around at the faces surrounding the room. Of course my Meeting would take place in the gross, overcrowded cafeteria.     One minute, six seconds.     Somewhere within these four walls, someone has the exact same countdown on their wrist. They’re going through the exact same pressure as me.      54 seconds.     Mom said I should be excited, not nervous. Yet I still find myself wiping my sweaty palms on my dress. I can’t believe she talked me into wearing a dress. I mean, shouldn’t my Soul Mate meet me as I normally am? All plain jeans, blah shirts, and wild brown curls?     30 seconds.     Something deep within me tells me to stand up. I do, drawing the attention of my tablemates. They all know too. They smile encouragingly up at me. I chew my lip nervously.     25 seconds.     That same feeling pulls me towards the center of the room. My stomach drops away from me as I take a step in that direction.     20 seconds.     I continue in that direction. With each step the tempo of my heart picks up.     19. Faster.     18. Quicker.     17. More rapid.     16. It’s racing.     Oh my god this is it. The moment my life changes forever.     My eyes search frantically around the cafeteria, searching for someone who looks as nervous as me. For someone who’s heading towards their future with no sense of direction like me.     10 seconds.     The feeling directs me slightly to the left. I turn to accomodate.     5. My heart has given up entirely.     4. I stop walking.     3. Just waiting left.     2. Everything is about to change.     1. Deep breath.
     0000 d 00 h 00 m 00 s
     Someone bumps my shoulder. I twirl around and my gray eyes meet blue, blue ones.     “Hello there, love. It appears as though we’re Soul Mates then, eh?”     As my words fail me, the only thing I can think is “I’m so glad I shaved this morning.”

I’m sitting outside a cafe when it happens, sipping some cheap drink, pretending to enjoy the sunshine. The counter runs to zero, and there is an audible click, the tab deactivates, falls off. The clink of polyurethane to cobblestone floor is echoed a few feet ahead of me. I shake a proffed hand, look up at a disdainful face.
“This is all I get?”

It’s just a couple more weeks, now. I’ve been watching closely as the numbers tick steadily down. Just a couple more weeks, I keep telling myself. Out of my group of friends, I’m on what they like to call the “fast track,” people whose numbers start much lower than others.
Two weeks, six days, fifteen hours. The clock keeps ticking. Two weeks, one day, four hours.
The days are getting so close now I’m pretty sure my uncontrollable excitement is starting to seriously annoy everyone around me. My friends tease me incessantly about who they imagine my soul mate will be. Tall, short, fat, dimples, nail biter, foot tapper.
At one week, three days, and seven hours, the clock stops.
Instead of a soul mate I get condolences, a therapist, and a broken clock.

I hurry down the clinic hallway as I slip on my button-down shirt. They just installed it- how could it have been just two minutes?
Two minutes, thirteen seconds to be exact, and I was nowhere near ready! My hair was a mess, and I felt something in my teeth. I had to look good for my soulmate. A perfectionist through and through.
A sign hanging from the ceiling pointed to a restroom to the right. I checked the time again. A minute and thirty-three seconds? Fuck! I picked up the pace and almost slipped on the time floor.
Time was almost up and my heart was racing. Finally, I dashed into the bathroom to fix myself up. The door shut, and as I looked into the mirror, I heard a click.
I checked the time. Zero.
What? This doesn’t make any…
I looked back at the mirror. Then back at the timer. Back at the mirror. Back at the timer.
“Aw, shit.”

Can this please become the new machine of death??? I want a whole book of little stories like this!!

Forgetfulness and loneliness could be such a deadly combination, especially in this case. Or perhaps it was just a lack of noticing how long I really had. The last time I looked down at my wrist was God knows when. Maybe yesterday, maybe last week. Possibly longer. And living in such a busy city should have really made me more aware of when I was going to meet my soulmate.
It was one morning when I was drinking my coffee when I realized already that it was already at 000 days.00 hours.00 minutes.And 00 seconds.
My heart drops. I could have passed my soulmate by in the crowd of people crossing the street. It could have been that woman who gave me directions to the bookstore or maybe the waiter who let me have a free cup of coffee. It could have even been that man who almost mugged me a few nights ago, knowing how strange fate can be.
But I never knew who that one person for me was. I’m going to have to go through my whole life without another chance to meet them again. I wonder how they feel about all this…

Not a half hour after installation, my clock went off. A doctor (very handsome, although clockless) was working on my bedside, assisting my nurse. Well then, we both must have thought, why not?
Early on, things went smoothly. But when your clock goes off, it usually does. There’s no not-knowing. You’re insured. It’s safe.
He and I were comfortable.
Very domestic.
And I was bored (to tears).
This man was not what I had envisioned. He was safe, and easy and cut and dry.
He didn’t understand, and though he was happy (content) with me, I wan’t with him. I left.
Busted clock, I thought. A scam? Maybe it’s just not for me.
But what bothers me most, is that when I think back,
my nurse was clockless too.
And I’m not sure what that means.

‘Seventeen’ my mother said, like it meant something. She squeezed my hand when the put the clock in, as if it was a guardasil shot, some sort of painful, preventative measure against something that could hurt me.
I’ve heard the way she talks to the preacher when I’m not there- in her mind, it probably is.
On the drive over to the game months later, she tries bait my enthusiasm as my clock winds down; 0d, 1h, 29m 38, 37, 36s- She says; ‘what if it’s the football captain?’
And I joke; ‘what if it’s my band teacher?’
And her face turns white and cold, mouth hard over a smile that’s clenched into a grimace.
I take my place in the stands with the rest of the marching band, fellow flutists looking at my clock with varied expressions. Envy, hope, congratulations, curiosity. A few rows behind me, the percussionists start taking bets.
I play through almost mechanically, stomach churning with nerves as the game winds on and the clock counts down. Down on the field, the home team is crushing the visitors, which is bad news, since it means that for the next few weeks things will be tense back home as the team tries to recapture their honor after having lost so badly.
The game comes to halftime eventually, and the players file off as the home cheerleaders take the field once more, center stage while the boys regroup.
One girl with hair bright enough to see from the stands is lifted into the air by her teammates until she’s level-eyed with me, and my heart stops when the clock on my wrist does.
The beeping is all the way down in my lap but I can hear inside my skull. From the look my mother sends me from a few rows over, I can tell she either heard it too, or she’s been counting along as well. She follows the tracks of my eyes, and her face goes just as white as mine does when she catches sight of the cheerleader staring almost blankly at me.
I’m frozen. My mother stands.
I bolt.
Down, down to the field, leaving the flute behind, leaping the fence. I have to see her, get to her- Or at least, the was the plan.
My mother’s hand catches me sharply on the shoulder, pointed nails digging deep into my skin through my uniform before I’m even halfway out of my seat. Down on the field, the cheerleader is crying.
‘No daughter of mine’- she hisses and the next thing I know I’m in the car, crying quiet as she drives me to the camp from the brochure the preacher gave her two months ago.
‘There are people who can help’ my mother says through a clenched jaw, the muscles in her face twitching with rage and effort as her knuckles turn white around the steering wheel. They’re specialists in this sort of repair. Your clock is just broken, that’s all. You’ll be spending some time with them so they can fix this-
‘You mean fix me’ I say, and my mother nods shortly.
‘Yes. Fix you.’

She stands nervously in the street, looking blankly at her clock. A few seconds to go. There are people all around. How is she ever supposed to find her soul mate here?
The clock counts down.
10
She starts walking to the bus stop. She doesn’t want her soul mate to be one of those people who are always downtown.
9
She gets pushed into the road by some hooligan in a rebel coat, obviously running from the police a block away.
8
She stands up, cursing her bad luck and a starts wiping down her pants, conveniently forgetting that she’s in the middle of the street.
7
She hears honking and turns to see the car rushing towards her.
6
There’s no time to get out of the road. She braces for impact.
5
She hears a yell, just as the car is about to reach her. She begins to turn.
4
There’s a flash of colour and she’s knocked to the ground. Her head hits the cement, and blood starts to pour.
3
She dazedly looks at the sky for a moment before her eyes start drifting.
2
There’s a faint voice asking if she’s alright. She tries to shake her head.
1
She sees blue eyes peering into her dark green ones, and another woman is holding her face.
0
She hears two clocks beeping at her in synchronization, and raises her hand to touch the girls face, those deep blue eyes showing concern and also possibly love? But that lasts for only a second before her vision goes dark and blood loss catches up to her.
The next time she wakes up, it’s in a white room, with beeping in her ears once again, and a tube attached to her face. She cringes and struggles to sit up, pulling the oxygen tube away. She looks at the door.
The doctor comes in and smiles at her asking her questions she easily has the answers too.
“What’s your name?”
“Hallie. It’s short for Halimeda. Last name, Katsaros.”
Then he asks her one she doesn’t.
“What’s the name of your soul mate?”
“My… Soul mate?”
The doctor nods and points to the woman asleep on the other side of the room, curled in the visitors chair with a bandage around her arm. He explains that she came in with Hallie and said that she was Hallie’s soul mate.
There’s an expression of confusion on her face and the doctor says a soft ‘oh’ and then excuses himself.
Hallie turns to the other woman, mind flickering to the moment when she saw those deep blue eyes. Her green ones immediately search out anything else she can recognize, but she realizes she didn’t see anything else. She slowly stands up, wobbling and quickly realizing she’s not wearing proper clothes.
Hallie taps the shoulder of the other girl, whose eyes open revealing deep blue eyes, which make Hallie’s own eyes water. She immediately clings to the other girl and apologizes over and over again.
It takes some time until finally the other girl pushes her slightly away, and then smiles softly.
“My name is Nicole Daniels. I’ll be your soul mate for the rest of your life.”
Hallie kisses Nicole.
Nicole isn’t just one of those people who are always downtown. She’s a rebel though.
Hallie is just what Nicole imagined too.
They go on for years, first dating, and then on the anniversary of their meeting, they get married.
And Nicole kisses Hallie.

((Oops I fic’d. Here have four.))
Soul Mates Drabbles
One
I’m six years old when Carlos moves in across the street. He has a dog named Muffin that falls in love with my dog, Spinner, and we spend every waking minute together for the next six years. As we grow older, we hear our Moms talking about the timers they used to wear, and the two men who became their soul mates. Carlos and I joke about being soul mates, saying we don’t need girls or timers to have happy lives.
Our mothers disagree. When we are twelve years old Carlos and I are taken to get our timers. We’re young, but older than when they wanted to get them, and my Mom is much more excited than I am. My timer is installed without a hitch, but as the numbers appear on the watch, they stay at zero. Mom panics and yells at the doctor. He explains that if I’ve already met my soul mate the timer won’t turn on. Mom goes very quiet. In the waiting room, Carlos is sitting in a chair, his own timer attached to his wrist. His mother looks upset and they whisper together. I show my timer to Carlos, and his eyes get very wide.
“James,” he says, holding out his own timer. The numbers on our timers match. All zeroes. The two of us grin at each other. We were right all along. We didn’t need the timers to find our soul mates, because, at six years old, we’d found each other all by ourselves.
Two
I look out to the street, away from my class as they set up for filming. On my wrist, the timer counts down. One minute, fifteen seconds to go. My eyes go back to the class and I bite my lip. We’d compared timers before, none of them matched. Close my eyes and take a deep breath. Whoever my soul mate is, I’m going to be ready for them.
“Alana!” calls a friend, but another shushes him. They know that I’m preparing. That I need to prepare. I look out to the street again, squinting. The timer reads thirty seconds. I step toward the street, drawn, and search the busy sidewalks for a pair of eyes willing to meet mine. None do. The timer reads ten seconds. I turn back toward the class, ready to leave, and a limo window rolls down. A man with hair grey at the roots stares at me, sunglasses around his neck. My timer goes off. So does his. He smiles and I run.
“No,” I say, running away from the limo. He is old, far older than me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. My soul mate was supposed to be young, gorgeous, and have a nice smile. Not a man old enough to be my father. I rip off the timer and run home, tears streaming down my face. There goes my only chance at a fairy tale.
Three
I scurry through the library, book open in front of me. I’m late, but I cannot stop reading. I round one stack of books, then another. Then I strike something hard. In an instant I’m on the ground, books scattered around me. There’s a man standing over me, chest as hard as a brick wall. I look up and meet his curious grey eyes. Our timers go off. He looks to his, then to me, and then offers his hand to pull me up. I take it.
“Moose?” I say, biting my lip. “I haven’t seen you since high school.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Good to see you, Roy.” We grin at each other, each a little sheepish. I wonder why my timer never went off around him before, and it occurs to me we’ve never spoken.
“You’re in Literature, right?” asks Moose. I nod. He holds up his books. “Can you, uh, tutor me?” I smile pushing up my glasses.
“Of course.” He places a hand on the small of my back and guides me to a table. I’m going to miss tutoring my roommate, but somehow, I think, watching Moose frown over Shakespeare, I think he’ll understand.
Four
I laugh to myself as I walk down the field, preparing for the latest in my mini-attacks. They are harmless, and have only ever given me a bloody nose from banging my head off a truck, but I still enjoy them. My sister says I’m still a little boy on the inside. I don’t disagree. I take a break and prepare, rubbing at the area under my timer. Then, stopping abruptly, I go ramrod straight and fall backwards.
“Trust fall!” I call as I fall. Warm, rough hands wrap around my biceps and I’m stopped. A man slightly larger than myself grins down at me.
“I got you,” he says. Our timers go off as he speaks. His eyes widen, his expression going from playful to soft. “I got you,” he repeats, voice soft.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “You do.”
((For those of you who know of the Trust Fall Prank you’ll know who the last two are. Because Tumblr creates OTPs.))

I never cared much for the watches, even though I’d gotten one like everyone else. It just seemed like a bad idea Jumping into a relationship with someone they knew nothing about simply because a piece of plastic and circuits told them to? Yeah, not really my thing. So when I met Joseph in an online chatroom, I didn’t even think about the watch.
We became fast friends, and found it easy to be open with each other. Soon enough there was this dumb joke among the group that the two of us were totally gay for each other, and even though we were both completely straight, we embraced it.
After about three months of calling each other names like ‘sweetie’ and ‘honey’ and signing off with <3s, even when it was just the two of us, I asked him if we were actually serious about it all. He said he didn’t know, but he supposed he didn’t mind it. That night was the first time in weeks that I even looked at my watch for more than a passing glance in weeks.
It wasn’t that I actually believed in it. I guess maybe a part of me did, locked away in the back of my mind? Or, at least I was curious.
Just over a year.
I shrugged it off and went to bed. About a week later, Joseph and I decided that we wanted to meet in person before we really came to any decisions. Since he had money and I didn’t, it was decided that he would drive up from Indiana to Ontario that summer - it was March when we made the decision, but I was still in school that year - to stay at my house for a week. I cleared it with my parents and everything.
And then his grandparents got very sick. His parents went on a trip to visit them, and of course he had to go with them. It took all summer, taking care of them and apparently repairing his house from some kind of drainage damage that happened while they were gone. So we missed that chance.
We rescheduled. My birthday was in November, so we waited and planned for him to come up then instead. It was all going smoothly.
Two days before he was set to arrive, he realized he needed to renew his passport. He didn’t have time to do it and still come up to Ontario, so we lost that chance too.
He finally got his passport, but in the intervening time my grandfather died and mom had to leave town to take care of grandma Dad said he couldn’t manage a houseguest on his own, even though I swore again and again that I would take care of everything! So Joseph and I waited. And waited.
A little part of me was growing anxious. I checked my watch more and more frequently. It was getting pretty close, only a couple of weeks. What if it was real, and I met whoever it was that was actually my soul mate, and had to break the news to Joseph? I did my best not to show how nervous I was, and told myself it was just an idiot fad.
Finally, all the strings were cleared up and Joseph was able to drive up to Ontario. He started at 6:00 AM and said it would take him twelve hours. My watch read 42.
I could barely think, barely function at all that day. I told myself I shouldn’t believe it, but I couldn’t escape the enormous dread that Joseph and I would be out, showing him my hometown, and I would bump into someone and they would be my soulmate. There are no words to describe the terror I felt as I sat on the stairs behind my front door and waited.
And there are even fewer words for the terror I felt when hour 24 hit and I had heard no word from him.
I didn’t get any sleep that night, I just lay in bed asking myself what had happened? Horror grasped my heart and made the whole world turn even darker when a terrible thought occurred to me. I’d never even mentioned the watches to him. What if, on the drive up, he stopped at a restaurant, or a gas station or something, and ran into his soul mate? And left me without even a one-sentence explanation? No, he couldn’t possibly have.
I didn’t get out of bed that morning. My parents came and tried to talk to me, but I didn’t hear them. A few minutes before noon, I finally got up and sulked over to the kitchen, to get some lunch. If I was going to meet my soul mate, they were going to have to literally march into my house and present themself to my pyjamas, bed-hair, B.O. and filthy dental hygiene.
And then the doorbell rang.
I looked at my watch. Ten seconds.
I dropped my bowl, spilling milk all over the floor. I didn’t care, I would pick it up later.
I opened the door, and…there he was. Joseph, just as he looked in the picture’s he’d send me. But there, in the flesh. Both our watches started beeping.
“Hey,” he said, looking sheepish. ”I uh…I got caught in a snowstorm on my way here. Sorry about that.”

this is the single most amazing post on tumblr at the moment

I looked down at the small white band on my wrist. 00d 00h 00m 00s. Once again I lent my head back against the rough bark of the tree as I tried to stifle another sob.
People had always said how wonderful that moment was. When you would look and see the person you knew you would love forever. And you would know, just looking at them… They all said how it was one of the best moments of their life… Alright, they all probably over dramatized it… I hadn’t really missed out. I’d just already met him… or her… I didn’t mind.
I was seventeen, and as the new law stated, I received my Soul Counter on my birthday. I had watched as the eight zeros flashed bright blue. I had felt so anxious waiting to see how long I had… but when the flash faded, there was nothing. No time, just the same eight zeros, never moving.
I had been okay with it. It meant that I already knew them. I’d already had that brilliant first meeting without all the awkward ‘so this is the person I have to love’ stuff. And, actually, I liked it better not knowing. But it was different at school. I was in my last year. A few people already had theirs, but most were just dating till they found their Match. The bad thing about school is, news of a Zero spreads quickly.
“You okay?” The voice makes me cringe. I know that voice so well, and it is always accompanied by a feeling of wariness and displeasure and a curling in my stomach. I couldn’t handle this right now.
“Go away, Matt,” I grumble, scrunching the dry auburn leaves on the ground anxiously.
“I was just seeing if you were okay, jeez, what’s your problem!” he snapped. He looked away towards the Yr13 Common Room where everyone else was seated this lunchtime, then back. “Just, I’ve never seen you cry before.”
“Liar.” I knew for a fact that he had. “I’m fine. Just go away.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” he asked curiously, a touch of anger in his voice.
“I don’t hate you,” I reply. “I dislike you because you’re a total assbutt!”
“Assbutt?! Really, Cas?” A small smile tugs at my lips when he gets the reference. “Why am I an assbutt? What have I ever done to you?”
My head snaps up to him so fast that he is stunned, especially by the fury in my gaze. “Well, let’s see. In kindy, you smashed my fingers with a hammer and pushed me off the tree house. There are just too many things to count in primary. And that’s only what I can remember. Also, I’m pretty sure you’re the one who started the nicknames ‘Krazy Kyla’, ‘Crazy Blue Thing’, and ‘Psycho’.”
Matt ran a hand through his dark brown, floofy hair. “Yeah…” he said guiltily. “but hey, you never denied it. Embraced it even.” He sat down beside me.
“Yeah, well, I accepted you all thought I was a hyper nutcase back when we were eleven.”
Matt smiled. Looking back towards the Yr13 Common Room, the smile dropped. “They were teasing you for being a Zero, weren’t they?” I said nothing. “I heard Kaylee talking about your reaction when she told you it’s because you’re so insane, there’s no one that could Match you. I had a go at her.”
I found myself smiling again. “Thanks,” I said. “To be honest, that was the worst, and it wasn’t that bad. But her and that entire group just keep making up more. I didn’t give a damn until they kept harassing me.”
“Well, from what I hear, you handled it pretty well. Something about a creepy smile, a: ‘yay, I win the insanity award and’- ”
“-I was probably a Zero because my Match was one of my other personalities,” I finished. Matt chuckled. “Then, to top it off, I looked her right in the eye and said: ‘At lest you won’t have to put a plus one on my invitation to your wedding. Do tell me which client it stops on, won’t you.”
At that, Matt cracked up laughing. “Oh, that’s brilliant!”
“I know! And I’m terrible at comebacks!”
“You idjit.” I smiled again. Then I seemed to realize, this guy who never particularly seemed to like me was suddenly being really nice to me. I mean, there had been moments in our fifteen years of knowing each other (I may have even had a crush on him a few years back, but that was just an actors crush. Never trust an actors crush), but it had never been like this.
“Why do you care about this? They go on at me about everything and anything.”
He held up his wrist to display his Soul Counter at eight zeros. “Because I’ve been there.” I could have slapped myself for not remembering the gossip about him being a Zero last year. “And contrary to what you seem to think, I don’t hate you. Hey, you like Supernatural, right?”
I raised one eyebrow at him in an ‘are you kidding me’ look. “I’m fandom girl. I like almost everything!”
“Well, how about you come over to mine for a marathon sometime. We haven’t actually hung out since we were put together for that drama skit a few years back.”
“Well…”
“Aw, come on. I’m your night in a shiny, black Impala. I deep fried that Kaylee bitch extra crispy for you.”
I cracked up laughing. “Okay, now you’re pushing it. What are you? A closet geek?”
“Not so closet. You should see my room. I have thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and DVDs of almost everything. Hey! There’s a teachers only day next Tuesday. How about we do it then. You can draw, cosplay, anything you want. Dork marathon.”
I looked at him completely unamused. “Fine. Tuesday,” I said grudgingly, but I couldn’t hide the smile in my voice.
“Good.” Then, grinning, he jumped off and walked back to the Common Room.

I very quickly found myself wishing that every day was Tuesday.

Reblogging with the hope that Elizabeth Fama will add her writing genius to this post.Pretty please?

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Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

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michaelshiatusbeard:

scarfshipping:

yours-truly-calliope:

This is a useful resource…

i’ll be the most creative murderer the world has ever seen

two types of people

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Krazy-er than the Hatter!: Just out of curiosity

alicelostinneverland:

I know a lot of DW fans who don’t like Martha Jones. I’m not looking for a debate on why you do/don’t, but please just reblog this if you like Martha and think she was a good companion. I’m just curious to see how many fans really liked her.

She was a brilliant…

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