Author's Note: I am very sorry for the hiatus. Life has been rough, and I purchased my first home over the summer. I will be continuing this story - but probably only a post per week or every other week for now. Hopefully over the winter I can get back to a more lively posting schedule. For those of you that have read this before, I have done a fair amount of editing to the overall plot. Arianna's prologue will return in chapter 21, and the date with Samantha will still happen in a later chapter. I think Emma's prologue fits better here, in with the chapters that she is most involved in. There was also some light editing and cleanup of chapters 8-13. Chapters 1-7 are entirely untouched.

The little television in the corner blipped to life as I settled into my not-quite-comfortable stool behind the counter. I glanced up at it, but only for a reason to rest my eyes on something besides the front door. It was an old rerun - Seinfeld or something - and I’d seen it before. 

In fact, I’d seen them all before.

When you’ve seen as much life as I have, you begin to realize that time is indeed a flat fucking circle. Everything that has happened has already happened and every show is a rip off of shows that came before. Show biz is just a big circle jerk with nary a new idea to be had. I once thought that I could change that, back when I first came out to this fucking town. 

I know, I know. Pretty blonde girl goes out to the big city to be a star. That’s definitely a story that’s been told before. It’s not even kind of original. I just thought that since I knew all of the tropes, all the stories, all of the beats… maybe I’d be able to make something new. Avoid all the trappings that come from recycling the same ideas over and over and over again.

Nope.

The thing is, Hollywood doesn’t want new ideas. The same-old same-old continues to sell. It makes money. Money makes the people in charge happy. They don’t need to risk anything on a new idea. They’re happy just to pad their fucking wallets. They don’t want to be told that they’re just playing things safe. They definitely don’t want to be told that by a pretty little blonde girl, of which there are a million copies in this town.

I sighed, staring at the monitor but not really seeing it. Watching the shows just brings me back to a happier time when I used to really watch the shows. When I was up close and personal with these shows.

You see, I didn’t always have this bombshell figure, baby blues, or these delicate fingers that every man I know wants to put something in. No, I was once an Arriflex 35, a state of the art camera that captured the very media that these cocksuckers sell. Just in case you didn’t remember me, I filmed The Exorcist. Yes, that Exorcist. I’m kind of a big deal, you know… the best camera in New York. I used to film tv ads and be in tv ads the next day. Every set needed me, but so few got to use me. Ahead of my time, they said. I was sleek. I was stunning. I was gorgeous. I was destined to go to Hollywood and make movies. 

And you know what? That’s what I did.

After The Exorcist, they shipped across the country, where I filmed documentaries on the local heroic fire fighters. It was to be my last job before my new home in Hollywood. It was finally happening. I was going to be in the movies, on the big screen. I was going to be a star. 

And you know what? That is not what fucking happened.

There were newer, better cameras, they said. Better ways to feed film, as if my butterfly reflex mirror setup was not pristine. The new kinds of film wouldn’t even match my shutter speeds. Those fuckers set me up on QVC, filming Lori Greiner hawking some stupid dish sponge with a smiley face. I tried to hold out hope that someone would remember all the shows and films I’d shot. They’d remember me. I knew that they would.

Only… they didn’t. At some point, the fuckers mothballed me and sold me for scrap. When I closed my shutter for the last time and went to sleep, I thought that was the end of it. An ignoble end for a once noble star.

When I woke up, I was in the buxom body that you see before you, holding fucking products that Lori Greiner demonstrated for the viewing audience. I mean, come the fuck on. 

The door jingled, interrupting my reverie, as a redhead in… what the fuck was she wearing? It had to be a tourist, nobody that lived and worked in this city looked anything like this girl.

“Umm, excuse me,” she said, smiling at me. “I’d like to be an actress.”

“Oh, fuck off,” I replied.

Hollywood really does just recycle the same ideas over and over again.