#ihq:pride

[catferro]

date & time: June 28, after the announcement of winners

location: IHQ Intramural Tournament

tagging:  Sophie Berg, @sophie-hq

warnings: none. 

When the winning team was announced, Ryan clapped and cheered along with everyone else. It was certainly an experience, one that he wouldn’t be able to forget any time soon. None of that mattered when Ryan spotted Sophie hanging around the bar by herself. Having been trying for weeks to get a chance to talk to his ex, Ryan was running out of ideas on how to approach her, but this provided the perfect opportunity. The last thing he wanted was to make things more awkward than they were, but it’s not uncommon for one to bestow their well wishes on another’s recent success, is it? Steeling his nerves and determined, Ryan marched over to Sophie.  “Hello, Sophie.”

[puckmanhq]

[quinnhqarchive]

headcanon 02: PRIDE - life

► word count: 239

Quinn didn’t know the baby’s full name, or where she went to school, or what her favorite color was. Those were the privileges she had given up when she was sixteen years old, lying in a hospital bed while she felt her world was ending. Quinn knew that when she was born she weighed . pounds, that the child would be turning ten this year, and that her new family would give her everything that Quinn could not.

Through the mail, Quinn still received letters and pictures and promises that she could meet the little girl if she wanted. She always graciously turned down the offer. It had taken her a decade to recover from what she could only call a loss. Quinn didn’t feel like reopening the wound would be a positive experience. Watching the child from afar seemed much safer.

Quinn never doubted that she had made the right decision. She had nothing to give to the baby except life. And while a part of Quinn wanted to keep it, the couple adopting her ached for a baby. That was a big difference. She still struggles with the aftermath of her decision. Quinn doesn’t like to talk about it very often, unless her therapist is sitting across from her. She’s at peace, but that doesn’t keep her mind from wondering, fantasizing about who she would be if she had kept the life she brought into the world.

[gail-hq-archive]

◖◖ abigail grace weston. bucket list◗◗

buy a ducati monster

actually get to sing ‘ding dong the witch is dead’ at elaine’s funeral

open my own practice

finish reading harry potter one day

make my first million dollar 

then buy the most expensive watch I can find

have a kid of my own (adopt or otherwise)

take my cousins to all the disneyland / worlds

get natalie a new guy so she can finally get over that tool

get a canadian s/o so i can finally use the line “my gf/bf is in canada” just for kicks

have someone to come home to

[denisehq]

Moodboard Monday

Pride

[connorhq]

@connorhudson uploaded a new photo | 1M LIKES 

Well, I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body. I know not everybody has got a body like you. 🎶

During the 1980′s and 1990′s and still to this day, being a gay man is often seen as lewd and abnormal, but George Michael was open about his sexuality during an extremely rough time for gay men. Men were dying of HIV/AIDS at an alarming rate during that time and yet it didn’t deter him from being who he was - and fuck anybody who had a problem with it. He was defiant, he talked about his experiences and supported charities. 

George Michael was an icon then, is still an icon now, and forever will be an icon for the LGBTQ+ community. 

[samplays]

@SAMEVANS ON INSTAGRAM.

[theclaringtonhq]

Cold eyes, blank stare

821 words (sorry he’s complicated)

Growing up Hunter always knew what was expected of him.  His father was an officer in the military, as was his grandfather and great grandfather.  He was even named after the military base he was born on.  Elementary school was whichever school was on the base they were stationed at at the time, but after elementary, Hunter began attending various military schools around the country as they moved around.  Military schools were boarding schools, sometimes close to his family, but often at least a couple of hours away.  It meant sharing a barrack room often with 9 other boys and and open, communal bathroom.  Everything personal in your possession had to fit in a locker sized wardrobe or the footlocker at the foot of your bed.  

Life at military school lacked quite a few things, one of them being girls.  And yet, the irony of course was that it was assumed, expected, that all of the young men there knew another part of their military life was to find a woman capable of living the military lifestyle.  One that wound appreciate and support the sacrifice their husbands made.  Hunter's own mother was a perfect example of the kind of woman he was expected to find.   And it's not that girls didn't interest Hunter, they did.  They were beautiful, graceful, charming.  But he often found there was a boy or two he could say the same of.  His living conditions didn't make it difficult to notice other boys; their strength, determination, loyalty.  The hardness of their bodies, the ways their muscles moved in coordinated efforts.  What was difficult, was acting on it.  Hunter guarded himself.  Eyes focused ahead, often on something in the distance, lest he be accused of lingering glances and making anyone uncomfortable.  He attempted to practice modesty, both for himself and the boys around him, but it was a luxury the military academy didn't often afford them.

Later in his teen years, as his friends at the academy started to flirt with girls on their rare interactions with them, and began developing crushes, Hunter assumed his lack of crushes stemmed from perhaps being gay.  Not that he thought he had crushes on any of the boys either though.  But that could just be from the deep-seeded repression.  Gymnastics had been a way to develop his core strength, to use the muscles in his arms, and even the rest of his legs, and develop speed and agility that would benefit a solider.  Hunter never expected it would be the way to escape all of his family expectations on him.  

Making the National gymnastics team and entering the world of competitive gymnastics wasn't all that different from life at the military academy.  Except in the ways that it was.  Still surrounded by other boys, men, really, this time it wasn't assumed that Hunter was heterosexual, but rather is was assumed that he might not be.  This was a confusing, but fascinating shift for him.  And again, working and living in such close quarters with his male teammates (the women train at a different facility), Hunter had the opportunity to notice all the things about mens' bodies that he'd begun to notice before.  And he more than noticed them.  He also had the opportunity to explore that attraction a little more, waiting for the repression to finally fuck off, Hunter expected to develop feelings for one of his team mates in particular as they set out on a casual but satisfying relationship together.  Those feelings never came though.  At first he thought they just hadn't come perhaps as quickly as they had in the case of his partner, but really there was barely even an inkling of anything but raw attraction and their friendship.  And despite the assumption that he wasn’t heterosexual, and the ability to finally explore that, Hunter did and still does, find himself attracted to women as well.  

At first, Hunter thought his lack of romantic feelings came from how he was raised and the the military lifestyle, not to mention the repression of the attraction he often felt.  But some internet searching, and reading on his own brought Hunter to the discovery of the gray-spectrum.  Currently, Hunter doesn't like to label himself and if asked he is more inclined to say hetero-flexible than bisexual.  This is still some of that repression he can't shake and knowing that it would deeply disappoint his parents.  He is more open about his gray-romantic identity though, although it is not often understood and it can be frustrating.  While his hesitation to be more open about his sexuality might come across as him being closeted, it is more a calculated move on Hunter's part.  Because he thinks the more open he is, the more likely it is he might become more involved with someone, leading them down that path of unrequited feelings on his part.  Which he is eager to avoid happening again.  

[dorothyabrams-blog]

“does it matter?”

[ wc: 247 ]

The people around Dorothy were always the openly accepting types. This was especially helpful when she was a sophomore in high school. A girl she had been friends with since childhood confessed to her that she might like girls, and suddenly Dorothy thought she might have a crush on her, and from there it was a whirlwind of discovering her feelings and who she never knew she was.

She’d never really thought about it before, the fact that she might like girls. But she did, apparently, and she also still liked boys. So she realized that she is bisexual. She came out to her family and friends mostly because she had to. She now had this girlfriend she had to explain somehow. Her family might have been a little surprised, but at the end of the day, Dorothy was pleased to discover that no one actually cared who or what she was, as long as she stayed true to herself — and as long as whoever she brought home wasn’t an asshole (high school girlfriend got the seal of approval, for the record).

Dorothy is open about her sexuality and speaks on it freely when the topic comes up. She definitely isn’t the type to feel she owes anyone an explanation, but the conversations about sexual and romantic orientations are important ones to have. She also realizes that labels matter to some people, and thus, seeing others who label themselves the same way is helpful and validating.

[catferro]

[puckmanhq]

WORD COUNT. 544

PUCK AND HIS SEXUALITY

Alright, so it’s not exactly a secret that Puck is a lady killer and that shit has obviously been true since day one. Rumor has it he winked at the nurse as he was making his way into the world. So clearly, being into women was never a question and he has always been hella flirtatious and highkey obnoxious about his interest in the opposite gender. However, when he was twelve he was watching a re-run of Boy Meets World and felt some kind of way about Eric.

Right then he knew, it wasn’t really the first time he’d felt that somersault in his stomach. It was the same sensation he got when he looked at a pretty girl and if he were being honest he’d felt it when he hung out with his friend Mason. Thanks to the ever oppressive messages in media and even from folks in his town, he just waved it off as admiration or some shit, but he was going through puberty and yeah alright generally he would agree to being an idiot but even he knew what it was. There was just a barrier that prevented him from accepting that aspect of himself and more than that Puck had never been one for self reflection.

Now, as he entered middle school he was already a big man on campus, total jock, cute af and making out with a new chick every lunch period. Unfortunately, he also fell into the bullying cliche. At first no one was safe from his intimidation tactics and verbal shots, but once he got to high school there was one dude he targeted and he was the only out gay kid in town. Puck had made his life a living hell because he was jealous and truthfully kind of into him. It was a fucking mess and Puck was a jackass, it was good that Puck dropped out after landing himself in juvie because that kid deserved better and Puck deserved to get his ass kicked.

Once he got to LA, he wasn’t attending any pride parades and then he got a chick pregnant and he was eighteen and his career was taking off but he was also getting to spend more time around all kinds of people. Soon he was making himself an ally and adding LGBTQIA+ people to his squad so it wasn’t weird if he was out at a gay bar or something. It became a thing until he actually hooked up with a dude and then another and then his management was telling him to knock it off because he was going to get himself outted and he was going to lose his followers and he as a ally. That was his brand, there was no room for him to be himself.

It went on like that for a while, until late May of 2019 where he was fucking over it. IHQ was dope and they wouldn’t make him hide that shit so at that point if he wasn’t being honest that was a cowardly fucking choice he was making and Puckerman’s were a lot of shit but they weren’t god damn cowards. So, on the first of June he posted his coming out video and it felt fucking good.

[quinnhqarchive]

headcanon 02: PRIDE - spirit

► word count: 153

No matter how broken her spirit was, nothing that Quinn had ever been through had managed to keep her away from church. When she was pregnant, she went to a church service far enough away for no one to recognize her. When she as rebellious and cover in pink Manic Panic, she found a more progressive church that met in an old movie theater. Church was the one thing in Quinn's life that was constant. It was the one thing she always had. It never let her down. No matter how screwed up her life felt or who she was pretending to be that day, she could sit on the wooden pew and feel like she was home. Her spirit was lighter there. She knew that God was always with her, but there she could feel him comforting her. She always walked out of the Sunday service refreshed with her spirit painted gold.

[gail-hq-archive]

◖◖ abigail grace weston. who am i? pt. 1/??◗◗

[connorhq]

HEADCANON 01 ➵ SEXUAL IDENTITY. 

bisexual /ˌbīˈsekSH(o͞o)əl/ ( adj. ) sexually attracted not exclusively to people of one particular gender; attracted to both men and women.

Connor Hudson always thought he was straight. 

All throughout high school, there wasn’t a moment where he was curious. Even in the locker rooms after a baseball game, his eyes never wandered. He had a girlfriend who he was really into, who he’d lost his virginity to, who he saw a future with. That was what he knew until he moved to LA as a young adult who had a pipe dream of being an actor. 

While his dream didn’t work out for him, he met people that taught him there was a lot more to life than what he’d learned in New Orleans. They took him to clubs he would’ve never gone to back home and the attention he received from other males was thrilling. All of a sudden, he found himself experimenting and realizing he really enjoyed exploring this new side of him. 

Although it was fun, it took him until he was around twenty-two years old to label himself as bisexual. Even then it was something he didn’t said out loud until he was twenty-four due to how he’d been brought up. Now, it’s something he embraces. He’s open about it and doesn’t care what people say about his sexuality. He’s twenty-nine now, almost thirty - other people’s opinions don’t matter to him. 

216 words.

[samplays]

“i just like people.”

[ wc: 298 ]

Sam isn’t sure if he ever thought he was totally straight. Well, okay. He definitely did, but it was when he was younger, mostly because he didn’t really know any better. Boys liked girls and girls liked boys ― that was how it worked.

And Sam... he certainly liked girls. People called him ‘girl crazy’ in high school, and he didn’t like that. It got to a point where he wondered what the hell he was doing and why things weren’t ever quite working out. Every relationship he got into seemed to lack substance, like he was chasing after whatever was on the surface, all while not being completely honest with himself. He struggled with it throughout most of high school, trying to figure out who exactly he was and how to define himself.

He doesn’t think there was ever a defining moment where he could pinpoint exactly when he figured out his sexuality. Sometime after he graduated high school, he met a few guys, and he felt things he’d only ever felt toward girls before. Or, more realistically, he finally came to terms with feelings for men, something he’d never been able to do before, even if it might have occurred to him in years past.

In his continued effort to label himself (even though he knows he doesn’t have to), Sam has come to understand that he doesn’t just like girls or boys or even just girls and boys; that doesn’t matter. He likes a person for who they are, despite whatever is on the surface. He knows now that the term is pansexual, and though he never had a big whole coming out moment, he has openly identified that way for years.

He’s happy with who he is, and honestly, that’s all that really matters.

[fashionmiahq]

“I like boys and girls.  And girls and boys.”

430 words

Mia grew up in San Antonio, Texas and it was perhaps not the most accepting place in the world.  Her family, however, were very accepting.  Perhaps it was their attitude that made it easier for Mia to follow her passions and chase her bliss in many different ways.  For her it wasn't a one moment that suddenly made everything make sense when it came to her sexuality, and it has evolved over time and the years.  She adored her brother Matt, who was a football player and often she could be found in the stands during his games or even his practices.  She definitely didn't mind the tight football pants Matt's friends wore, or the large shoulder pads that made the boys seem even wider than they were.  After all, wasn't that what she was supposed to like?

But Mia was also always drawn to fashion at an early age, and she'd spend much of her free time at the corner newspaper stand, bookstore, or drug store, flipping through the glossy pages of magazines like Vogue, Elle, GQ,  and Glamour.  Studying the fashions also meant studying the model's, the ways the fashions clung to their bodies.  And it wasn't just the models.  Mia found herself watching girls, women, around her; at first for the clothes they were wearing, and then just for themselves.  The softness of their bodies, the curves, the colors.  Fashion wasn't about covering up, it was about exposing.  Not in a vulgar way, but a real way.  

Even though it wasn't the easiest thing to be honest about who she was, her family definitely helped make it better.  And as she looked around, Mia realized that sometimes it was easier for girls who liked girls than boys who liked boys, at least at the high school level, because a closeness between girlfriends, an emotional bond, and connection, was more common with girls that age then boys, and it didn't have to mean that both or either girl was gay.   While she didn’t openly embrace the bisexual lifestyle in high school, Mia was as honest as she dared to be about who she was.  She shared that part of herself with trusted friends over the years, sometimes with good results and sometimes without.

Over the years, Mia has discovered she is strongly attracted romantically to women over men but she often more physically attracted to men over women.  The men catch her eye but then maybe that's all it is.  Meanwhile, she builds friendships with these women, and builds a deeper connection and relationship with them; in general.