#WritingPride 6/7 In #Blank, the Gullaldrsguðir live in something of a queer utopia where gender is a trivial non-issue and sexuality is as fluid as quicksilver.

We don't see them until much later in the series, once we start learning more about the enigmatic anti-hero Skuggabaldur—son of Baldur, Gluskabe, and Malsumis—one of the Gullaldrsguð.

Skuggabaldur's own provenance is interesting because both Baldur and Gluskabe met as male. After Ragnarok, they settled the Arctic to start a family. Gluskabe grew a great tree to serve as a womb for the child born from their love. While Gluskabe and Baldur fed the tree, Gluskabe's twin brother snuck into the garden in Gluskabe's shadow and fed the tree as well.

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#QueerFantasy #MythologyRetelling #NorseMythology #WabanakiMyth #Skuggabaldur #WorldBuilding #QueerUtopia #FluidSexuality #LGBTQAuthors #FantasyAntiHero

My mother was a monster and my father was no one at all to me.

When I was growing up, my role models had to be something other than the people around me. If I had a father at all, he was Rupert Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fictional guardian.

Obviously, Giles was never real, and his performer was never really Giles. But I remained deeply grateful to Anthony Stewart Head for playing a role that had meant so much to me at a time when abusers had effectively isolated me from any true positive influence.

Today, I learned that Anthony died two days ago on Friday, and it hits a little like it did when I lost one of my favorite uncles—a man who sometimes protected me from my mom—to a drive-by shooting while I was still in need of a father figure.

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#BuffyTheVampireSlayer #AnthonyStewartHead #RupertGiles #Grief #MentalHealth #Healing #WritingCommunity #TraumaRecovery #PersonalStory #Fandom #RestInPeace