"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"
("Anyone but you, dearest.")
Wrong Answer. N E X T !
She flashes a (forced and) tight smile to the adoring audience as she exits the stage for what she hopes will be the final time in her life because she reallyreallyreally hates this stage that she's acted on for so long and the people who acted alongside her on it with the different sets of scenery and the different jokes and the different things. (She's perfect and perfect people never change, never branch out, never become different. Perfect people are born perfect and can't do anything different because if they do they're no longer constant and they're boring and regular and not perfect like all of those other not perfects out there in the world.) The smiling and applauding fans are waving their goodbyes to her because they like her and they enjoyed her acting skills while she used them, but they're still sad to see her leave, they just love Sonny a little bit more and they love her a little bit less. It's fine; it's all just fine if she dreams hard enough.
("Of course I'm not lying! Why do you ask?")
Why don't you?
Those serious expressions that the top of the line executives wear permanently pressed onto their faces aren't for the faint of heart so she leaves that stage for what she hopes is the final time going out to show everyone who doubted her (the whole world — including those who haven't even met her yet) that she's one of those people who can handle the Hell on Earth that is Hollywood at it's finest without her perfectly innocent friends (because she's absolutely perfect on her own and she doesn't need anyone else around her to help her be perfect), despite what they all whisper behind her back when they think she isn't turned around and watching their every move. She's going out to start an empire made of everything she can think of and absolutely nothing in the entire freaking world is going to stop her now that she's at the top of her game.
Newsflash, People: She's got this world scripted out in the palm of her hand.
She writes out her lines for the next day (she's got interviews to go to, malls to shop at, and many items to purchase) but when she tries to read them out loud to herself her mouth runs dry despite the countless coats of moisturizing lip balm she puts on it before daring to apply the lipstick and lip gloss overtop of it. Touching her lips carefully, she looks back at the sheet of paper with her role printed out oh-so-carefully on it and realizes that she can't read what she's written. (It's only because of the tears that are welling up in her painted-on-smiling eyes, don't worry about it.)
"You're crying over something, dearest."
{"Is that what these things are called?"}
Maybe she'll fix this with another layer of lipstick. No. More eyeliner. No. A different shade of eye shadow. No. Another coat of mascara. No. Why can't it be fixed? Why don't those stupid salty droplets of water flowing from her eyes go away when she tells them to? They don't wash off without smearing her makeup and she's perfect so she can'tcan'tcan't smear her makeup. She can't take it off either because that's showing the world the face behind the mask (she's sure that no one wants to even come close to that) or because she actually isn't perfect (and she is perfect, she really is, just listen to her tell you so). She simply removes the smudges and redoes the parts that need redoing. A little more here, a little more there. It's not like anyone notices anymore.
(Painted porcelain face with the sad tear-stained eyes.)
She's built her empire now. She built it on the weakness of others and it sure as hell paid off for her because there's plenty of that to go around. It's made up of fairytale dreams that never come true and the endings of people living in a Happily Never After that always seem to want justice. There's lots of malice and spite in the world and now that she's tamed it, she has a control over something (rage, hatred, loathing, abhorrence, spite, anger, malice) that others can only dream about. She reigns and rules over the kingdom that is Hollywood (first America, then the world) with the castle of her company's twenty eight floor building in the throne room that she's made for herself (twenty eighth floor, third right when you take the center hallway from the middle elevator).
Hollywood, bow down to meet your reigning queen.
She flips through magazine pages with the skill of someone who has been doing it for many well-practiced years when she notices that something is off. There are no insults, no bashing, no complaints, and no obnoxious claims like there usually are. There is happiness and gladness and warmth and security and perfect-ness and she hateshateshates it because if she hasn't found a way to be perfect, then no one should be able to find it either. A flip to the main story and she knows what people are so thrilled about now. Sonny Munroe and Chad Dylan Cooper have found perfect-ness in each other and she hateshateshates it because in this story, she was told to play the perfect person and they're taking her spot and she doesn't have a clue what role to play now.
["Can I get a new script, please?"]
["Sorry, we're fresh out. Maybe if you wanted a different role we could fit you in."]
She tries to find another role, she really does try. She's just been made perfect through and through and she can't change what's already been dictated by whoever cast her in the role. So she tries again to get those people who just went in and stole her only role without even asking her to give it up because she's perfect and this is the only role she fits into where people don't mark her as a complete laughingstock, damn it! They don't give up her perfect role (why would they?) so she tries to make them share. That doesn't work either because they're more perfect then she could ever dream of being even on her most perfect days (and she's really kind of perfect whenever she has one of those days). They're a new kind of perfect for the public (the imperfect perfect is in this season) with their cute little fights and adorable make up kisses. She's the old news with her reigning empire and painted face and old, worn out acting career.
{"I heard there was a recall on perfect for this month. Would you like mine?}
"Sorry, darling, but you aren't perfect so your 'perfection' isn't recalled."
She just wants to be perfect. What's so bad about that? What's so awful and hateful that she can't re-achieve her only goal of being the eternal perfection that people look up to in awe? The director obviously handed out to her the wrong role when he wrote the casting list for her life. She can't just go from being perfect to not being perfect; it really isn't possible for that to happen to her! He promised that she'd get a good role — the perfect role in all seriousness. So why doesn't she have that perfect role of being the perfect person like she was promised that she would be?
["Promises are made to be broken, my angel."]
Is this what it's like to be normal? Is this what everyone else suffers from? She doesn't like these crushed dreams and smashed hopes and the brokenness that her heart suffers from. If this is what being normal is like, she doesn't like it. She's perfect, not normal. Why can't they see that? Why can't they tell her perfection from the normality, huh? Don't they have eyes? (Yes, they have eyes and they only see the perfect people — Chad Dylan Cooper and Sonny Munroe.) Don't they have ears? (Yes, they have ears and they only hear the perfect things — not her commands.)
"People of the court! Do we ordain Ms. Tawni Hart to be perfect or imperfect?"
She's broken. She's shattered. She's finally realized that being perfection means not being perfect, but she isn't ready to accept that just yet. She's happy trying to be perfect, she really is. She doesn't like the feeling of failure, but she knows that someone out there is perfect, and maybe they could teach her how to be perfect too? (They can't, and the feeling of failure is the only one that she's going to be getting for quite some time now.) She can't find the perfect person because so far only the perfect people have been discovered in this world, and she doesn't want to ask them for help (she doesn't need help being perfect because she's already there; she really is perfect, you know) because (let's face it) they're one of the only reasons why she wants to be perfect anyway because they make it look so damn easy to be perfect. For perfect people, being perfect is easy. (If that's so, why isn't it easy for her?) They're incredibly stupid, the innocent, naïve, little, new-in-town Wisconsinite and the Hollywood bad boy with the "changed heart" (they think that they aren't perfect when they oh so obviously are).
"The people of the court find Ms. Tawni Hart to be without perfection, therefore granting her the sentence of imperfection for life, Your Honor."
Her mother was perfect. Her mother ruled Hollywood with an iron fist until she didn't want to rule anymore. Her mother didn't have to give up her rule to some newcomer(s). Her mother was perfect. It's in her genes to be perfect. Why isn't she perfect then? There's obviously nothing wrong with her, merely the people who are trying to take her part. Those undeserving bastards really are perfect, no matter how hard she tries to deny it. Sonny Munroe and Chad Dylan Cooper are perfect through and through and don't need perfect parents or perfect scripts or perfect anything because they have each other and as far as they are concerned that's all they'll ever need. They are perfection without being perfect and it kills her to know that she'll never be like them. She'll never be able to shoe her emotions as freely as they do with one another and the rest of the world. Some days it doesn't bother her as much as other things do. Mostly, though, she hates them for being perfect almost as much as she hates herself for not being it.
{"Anything but that. Please, Your Honor, anything but that punishment would be fine. Your Honor, I beg of you to take pity on me! Please, Your Honor! Please!"}
"Sorry, Ms. Hart. I can't do that. The court has come to a ruling."
["They have?"]
"Ms. Tawni Hart is sentenced to imperfection for life, starting tomorrow morning at eight and ending the day that she dies."