#(spoiler alert everyone was homosexuals. happy pride month)

[nightmareonpeachstreet]

Three Hopes Demo Spoilers:

I’m finally playing the Three Hopes demo and I’m having a great time

ngl Arval is growing on me fast. I think he’s funny. his whole vibe so far is just “haha you’re such a dumb little idiot Shez. ilu tho. serious tho you’re the dumbest person I’ve ever met. but like in an endearing way.”

also love that Alois was straight up just “come back to the monastery :)”

and Shez was like “no thanks”

and Alois was like *cocks gun* “it wasn’t a question :)”

[statusquoergo]

so i work for a Big Corporate Corporation™ and the other day, logging onto my computer, i was met on the homepage with (surprise surprise) a bunch of pride-themed posts and notifications. the usual ‘our national headquarters will be displaying a rainbow flag over the main entrance all month!’ ‘put a rainbow ribbon on your purse!’ etc. etc. etc. bullshit, you know how it is. (how much trouble do you think i would get in for posting ‘donate $500k to the ali forney center’ on the ‘what can our company do to make a difference’ forum? somehow i think they’re aiming for things more along the lines of ‘have a civil conversation with a relative who doesn’t share your views on homosexuality,’ because of course that famously always goes well.)

anyway there were also a couple of employee blog posts spotlighted, and one of them was some woman’s story of her teenage son’s coming out to her. having some time to kill and a skeptical sort of curiosity, i clicked on the link, and it was a sweet touching heartwarming utterly unsurprising little narrative about her son taking a deep breath and telling her he’s gay, her being proud of him for telling her, and her urging him to tell his father (even though he doesn’t want to; his immediate response is actually ‘no way’). spoiler alert, they tell the father together and it’s a total non-issue, he’s fine with it and also very supportive.

now, please don’t get me wrong, this is a sweet touching heartwarming story and i’m definitely glad this woman was so receptive to her poor kid’s struggles. (apparently he knew for a few years before he told her, thought the story doesn’t get into why he waited.) but the part that really makes this diary stick in my head is that after she gives that background information, she goes on for a couple more paragraphs about how she and her husband are suddenly much more accepting of the lgbt community, their son is letting them know when they’re being offensive and they’re trying to be more sensitive, she’s such a proud ally, she’s so glad her son is living his truth, all that good stuff. and again, you know, good for her, i’m glad she’s not being an asshole about all this.

but like...what was stopping her from being accepting of lgbt people before she knew her kid was one? what was stopping her from being an ally to the lgbt community? did she not know any lgbtqia+ people before this? statistically, i bet she did, so what was stopping them from coming out to her? (aside from it being their own decision, of course; this is assuming they were out to other people in their lives.) or if she did know, why didn’t she change her behavior then? is she only making an effort now because the person she knows is her own child and she feels like she has an obligation? did she seriously not know she was being insensitive? or was it okay before and now suddenly it’s not because it hits too close to home?

i mean, i get not dedicating your life to fighting als until you lose someone to the disease, but not being a casual homophobe seems a little... i don’t know, easier? more required of fundamental human decency? it’s not like resources are hard to find; read david carter’s stonewall or lillian faderman’s the gay revolution, watch love, simon or will & grace, lurk on an lgbtqia+ informational message board, go to an actual lgbt center.

and i know plenty of people live in areas where this kind of stuff can get you beaten up, or disowned, or killed. i know not everyone lives in a town or a city or a country where this behavior, doing this kind of research, is acceptable. (i also know this is a very america-centric post.) but the fact that this woman and her husband were so totally cool with their kid being gay, that she is so proud to tell this story (on the internet, using her real name), and they’re only now figuring out that they were being habitually insensitive to this massive population that exists all over the world, and they only realize it because their son came out to them...

i dunno. i guess i just wanted to get this off my chest. um... happy pride!