When I saw the pictures of Dianna Agron on set with epic pink hair, fanfiction just had to be written.
So here we are.
Chuck some reviews in my direction if you feel like it.
And obviously I don't own Glee. I don't know why. That's just the way it is.
The New Quinn Frabray
It started when Santana and Brittany took me to get my haircut in New York. I know it only seems like a little thing, but it was strangely liberating. I've never looked so... edgy. It was like looking at a completely different person in the mirror. I wasn't that lonely failed popular girl. I wasn't the disgraced ex-cheerleader. I wasn't the president of the Celibacy Club that got ironically knocked up. I was a whole new person. This was a new me.
When summer began, I called Tina. I wasn't surprised that she was kind of confused. Usually we only spoke to each other when we were with the rest of the group, and we'd certainly never hung out just the two of us. But she agreed to go to the mall with me.
"So you want me to help you pick out clothes?" Tina asked, frowning.
"Exactly," I said. "I'm revamping my wardrobe and I need your help."
Tina still didn't seem convinced. "If you need to revamp your wardrobe, why didn't you ask Kurt for help? He's way better at this stuff than me."
"Oh no," I said. "I need you for this. I think you'll be able to help me with the exact look that I want."
"I didn't think my kind of style was really your thing," she said quietly. "You're more sort of... preppy, and... elegant, and..."
"Boring?" I added.
Tina raised her eyebrows. She was looking at me like I'd suddenly gone insane.
"What's gotten into you, Quinn?" she said, laughing.
I found myself laughing back, which I think may have unnerved her more.
"I don't know," I said. "Lately I've just been feeling so... I don't know... rebellious."
So Tina helped me pick out some new clothes. They were the sort of thing that I would never wear. Wait, what am I saying? They were the sort of this that the old me would never wear. They were certainly something that my mother would never approve of, but somehow that just made me want to buy the all the more. When I got home, I tried on one of my new outfits and looked at myself in my full length mirror. I was wearing a lacy black skirt, and black and red striped vest top, red tights with lots of holes in them and black ballet pumps with skulls on them. I also had a silver cross around my neck and I'd experimented with some black eyeliner.
The girl looking back at me in the mirror didn't even look like Quinn Frabray. She looked more like the kind of girl the head Cheerio Quinn Frabray would sneer at and call a devil-worshipping Goth freak. This girl staring awkwardly back at me looked like the sort of girl that would smoke in the school bathroom and talk back to the teachers. She looked like she rocked out on the bass guitar in a punk band and rode a Harley and didn't need anyone but herself to be happy. She looked like a rebel. I looked like a rebel!
But it just wasn't enough yet, so the next day I went out to the drug store and bought some hair dye. 'Electric Flamingo' said the name on the box. Now when I looked at myself in the mirror I definitely didn't look like the old Quinn Frabray. This Quinn looked like, for lack of a better word, a badass. I'd never looked so cool before. If getting my hair cut felt liberating, than this felt like... I don't know, like flying! This was indescribable. I thought my mother was going to burst into tears when she saw me.
"Oh my goodness, darling, what have you done?" she said, sitting on the couch and clutching her chest.
"Do you like it?" I said with a smirk, flipping my hair back.
"Quinnie, I didn't mind when you came back from New York with all your hair cut off," she said seriously. "I mean, obviously I would have preferred it if you hadn't sheared off all your lovely hair, but I let it go. But this... this..."
"And what's wrong with it?" I asked.
"It's pink!" she cried. "You've completely ruined your hair, Quinn! You used to be so beautiful..."
"What do you mean 'used to be'?" I said indignantly. "And what does that even mean, Mom? I've been 'beautiful' for years now, and it's done nothing but make me miserable. Being the pretty, perfect, blonde popular girl made me nothing but a total bitch."
"Language, Quinnie," Mom said sternly. "And there is nothing wrong with being pretty and blonde. What you're doing now... oh, it's just silly, darling. You look ridiculous, Quinn, and you're changing that hair back to a natural colour immediately."
"No, I'm not!" I said defiantly. "My nose isn't natural, so why can't my hair be unnatural too?"
Mom just shook her head and took a sip of her evening's glass of red wine.
"I don't know where this has come from," she grumbled. "But you are certainly not keeping that hideous hair. I'm taking you to my hairdressers first thing tomorrow to get that fixed."
I rolled my eyes at her. "I'm keeping my hair the way it is, Mother. I like it. Ugh, my whole life all you've ever done is made me think that appearance and popularity is equal to happiness! But it's really not. When I was head Cheerio and president of the Celibacy Club I was horrible to everyone and, even though I was technically popular, most people hated me. And when I got pregnant and you and Daddy kicked me out and the only people that would talk to me were the Glee Club, it was closest I'd ever come to feeling really happy and liked. I thought I could get everything back in junior year. I could be head Cheerio again and have the perfect boyfriend and be Prom Queen. And then maybe you'd forget about the pregnancy and actually be proud of me again. But I ended this year feeling even worse than last year, and now I'm done. I'm done with trying to get your approval, or anyone else's for that matter. I'm trying to do something to please myself for a change, because the more I try to be this perfect girl, the unhappier I am... and the more I wish that I'd never stopped being Lucy."
"Oh, Quinnie..." Mom whispered, looking up at me in surprise.
But I turned on my heel and ran back up to my bedroom. I knew mentioning Lucy would get to her. I knew it wasn't guilt that she felt when she thought of that part of my life, but was disappointment. My big sister was naturally pretty and slim, always had been. But then there was Lucy – chubby, big-nosed, mousey-haired, four-eyed, disappointing Lucy Caboosey. Mom and Daddy didn't even try and tell me that I was perfect the way I was. They encouraged me to change. They said they just wanted me to be a better person. That was what the diet was for, and the nose job, and the new name. I was becoming a better person. Sometimes I wonder what Lucy would have been like if she was allowed to grow up. Probably a little happier.
This was a different kind of change. Not like when I went from Lucy to Quinn. I'm still Quinn, just... better. And just because I had pink hair and new clothes didn't mean I was going to start smoking and listening to punk rock and being bad. I wasn't going to be a stereotype. I was just trying to find myself, because the real me was lost years ago and it was time to get her back.
Hope you enjoyed, Humble Readers :)
xxx