#i'm not a professional but it felt safer to just quote him verbatim

[salamoonder]

I had a lot of interesting experiences as a kid. Actually I want to bring this up real fast, because I feel like it's important. I want to...uh, I just want to apologize legitimately to anybody who felt uncomfortable in the-the story of the last Taryon episode and the reveal there. And I apologize if, you know, if that hit too close to home, if that was not the representation of your story that you wanted to see, and, uhm...I understand that it made a lot of people feel uncomfortable and I'm--I'm sorry, I'm legitimately sorry. Um, I put a post about it on Twitter, but, you know, text is easy to be misconstrued and you only have so much brainspace to put out there. Um, and I'm sure I've been torn apart on the internet, and that's fine. I-I-I--admit that. However, I do wanna say that I-I think that it's an important story to tell from what we understand of it. And when I say "what we understand of it", y'know, we all come from different backgrounds, and--this is gonna be a little real here for a second. Um. Y'know...we have our experiences to come from when it comes to story. Um, we as actors, we--we write and we only create from experience. And, um, Exandria is very much an open, uhhh, environment, for the most part. People are...you know, sexuality is--is just an open thing in society. There are couples of all different walks of life: asexual, uh, yknow, trans, nonbinary, gay, bi, everything, and it's all just kind of open in the world. Is the world free of ignorance? No. That--that's part of...life, and that's part of the story, because...you know. People are flawed, people are stupid. It's minimized in my world because I like to imagine a world where it is largely minimized, but that doesn't mean it's not gonna exist. Um...and what little bit of story, of Tary's story we've touched on, a lot of it improvised by Sam on the spot, and a lot we've talked about it since then and we developed a little beforehand to an extent, I think is an important story to tell. Um, and parts of it resonate. Uh, I've had people concerned that we were making fun of his kind of awakening, or, or, his coming to terms with his venture in the last episode, and I--I can honestly say if that--if it came across that way I'm sorry. That is not the case. We are--we're very very sensitive to these things and many of us have lived very close to or dealt with homophobia on our end as well. You know, I grew up a very androgynous, long haired, y'know, pretty boy who was quiet. Um. And God knows I spent a number of years of my youth being called f*ggot and being pushed around and you know I--you know I have a lot of very, very important people in my life, uh...who have dealt with far worse and have, you know, undergone a lot of terrible circumstances. And I--I. I feel for that a lot. And....you know like, my uncle Ted, for instance. Um, one of the most impactful people in my life, probably, at a young age. He was my--my dad's brother. He introduced me to musical theater, he introduced me to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. He--we used to play piano and sing songs on the piano and stuff, and he's--he's such a wonderful person. And as a kid I--I loved him, he was my favorite, uh. You know, relative on that side of the family. He also dealt with the difficulty of being married and having a child with his wife and then one day coming to terms with the fact that he was gay. And it--it. You know, it sundered a lot of--of that part of the family at the time, and, yknow, it was very hard to--to be in parts of the family that didn't understand that. And even as a kid I knew what was wrong, and what felt wrong, and what was being said. And. You know. And then get--and. I. Hm. I then had to watch him...you know, waste away over the years because...he caught HIV and then AIDS, and...at a time when it was very prominent, in the late 80s and early 90s. And then...you know, through the 90s, in-in a lot of ways was very hard for people of alternative sexualities because we didn't have communities. Uh, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have tumblr, we didn't have facebook. There weren't places you could go to feel safe, um, if your lifestyle was expected to be, uh, not the norm, or not accepted. And so I had a lot of friends and a lot of people that had to just suffer inside and had nowhere to talk, and occasionally meet somebody, uh, or find somebody who was comfortable enough to be out and proud. And then it was--permission was given, but even that was...met with a lot of difficulty. And so, like...it's...I'm glad we live in a world now, by comparison, where things are much more, uh...respected. And it's still a fight. God, it's still a fight. There's still so much to be done and it's still so much bullshit and so much disrespect and lack of empathy for people who just wanna be happy. And that bothers me on a deep level and I feel really hard. Um...but...I know that part of Tary's tale may not be the representation that some people hoped for in media. Um, but I've tried my best to represent other, happier lives and things where that was an open and a viable circumstance. Um. Tary's is important for people that grew up like maybe a lot of my friends did and didn't have that open, welcoming scenario. And, uh...I can't believe I'm doing this on the internet. Um. Um. Anyway. Uhh. I'm sorry. I'm doing the best I can. And, uh...not all stories are going to be for everybody, we can't please everybody with all the choices we make and I mess up and I fail and I stumble. And even if a few people get offended, I can't help but feel bad because I hate hurting people and I promise I'm doing my best. That's all. Uh. You know. Uh. When I said Tary's experience, uh...his scenario at the end of the last episode with, uh. With Trish, reminded me of a lot of friends growing up, you know. You know, every--every person has a point in life where they struggle with their own identity, and I had that too. I identify as heterosexual but I've had my years of curiosity, I've had my years of trying to figure out what it was, who I was. And uh, you know. Yeah, I myself am primarily attracted to women, but, you know, I--there are men that I've also found attractive in life, mostly about the person, the individual. And, uh. You know. Sometimes it--it takes an experience like what Tary had to finally feel confident in that. And not in a judgmental way. His was a little more comical because it's Sam and we wanna up the uncomf--the discomfort of a sequence sometimes with humor to offset to offset it, but. We try and treat it with respect because a lot of it plays to elements of our own lives or people that are close to us. Um, and so Tary's journey is--is in some ways still a personal one. For myself and other people in some ways. So just--you know. We're trying.

Matthew Mercer, Fireside Q & A with Matt Mercer on Talks Machina