Work Text:
Television was a dangerous place.
Dangerous if you had a beating heart or a will to live.
There was a reason none of the contestants had a happy childhood.
They all had to have something wrong with them.
The viewers needed something to relate to.
Needed the majestic creatures they saw on their television to have some flaws.
No one could relate to perfection.
And that’s why Brooke didn’t win.
She is sure of it.
She should have shown more flaws.
She should have been more insecure.
She should have made herself more human.
She had thought
Well
She had thought she had.
She thought her failures in the acting challenges and the atrocity that was Snatch Game would be enough.
It wasn’t.
She came off as a bitch.
As a perfection obsessed bitch who could turn looks and heads but not America in her favor.
And that was fine.
She had her cats and her living room and her friends.
She didn’t need America’s approval.
Most of the time.
Most of the time she didn’t need it.
But sometimes.
Like now.
When it was four am and all the comments she could see were telling her she was ice cold and a horrible person.
She wished she had been less perfect
Wished she had been more like the fan-favorites
Alaska, Katya, Dela, Vanjie, Valentina, Alyssa, Shangela
Perfectly imperfect as they were, they won America’s hearts
Turned the ever-fickle favoritism into love and adoration
Made their perfection their weakness as well as their strength
She had made it her strength and her vice
She worried too much
Everyone had told her
She worried too much
But cared too little
Worried about the changing tide and if the sun would rise in the same way it had for eons
Worried about things she could not control
Worried about everything except the things she could
Maybe she should have worried less
Maybe she should have worried more
It wouldn’t have helped either way she tries to tell herself
Tries not to imagine all the ‘what if’ scenarios that plague her closed eyelids
She tries and fails to rebuild herself
Tries and fails to grow and change
But she can’t help it that she is always on
Can’t help that this was how she was raise
How she has always been
And why can’t they love her for it anyway?
Why can’t people see how hard she is trying?
Is it too late?
Is she forever doomed to be this person on a pedestal that can’t bear to look back on how she got so high up in the first place?
And can she live with that if she is?
She knows she can
Knows she has to
Knows there is no other way for it to be right now
The sun is rising, and the tide is changing, and Brooke is still too high to notice.