HEYYYYYYYYYYY, FRIEND
I AM HERE FOR GWYNETH LORE. I HAVE TWO QUESTIONS FOR YOU. (One of these are your questions but I'm super curious.)
1: What is your favorite piece of lore? Pre-canon, mid-story, or post what you intend on writing, I'm not too picky. Something that you love dearly about Gwyn, whether that be because it's sweet or because you put lots of time into it and therefore it's important.
2: Does your OC's name have significance or reason it was chosen? Both from a meta/narrative perspective (why you, the creator, named them) or possibly from an in-world perspective (why their parents named them)? And what's their relationship with their name like? Do they like their name? Do they not think much of it? Would they rather be named or called something else?
aaAAAA FINALLY HERE D:< thank you so so much, crimson!!
1: what is your favorite piece of lore? pre-canon, mid-story, or post what you intend on writing. something that you love dearly about gwyn, whether that be because it's sweet or because you put lots of time into it and therefore it's important.
i have a hard time picking a 'favorite', and i think that's in line with my usual… "'favorite' is whatever has my curiosity and attention at the time" state (much like 'which turtle is your favorite', etc etc). soooo the bit of lore i'll share here, i'll share because it probably won't make it into the fic itself! i'll try keeping the context as tldr as possible:
there are liáfsian creatures i've been calling sithóran (placeholder name), which are wolf-like. when gwyn's young, she comes across several trapped pups, manages to communicate to the mother she's trying to help (at the cost of some warning bites), and gets the pups safely returned. over time, the pack welcomed her presence and would follow her around while she explored the forest.
fast-forward to the lore i wanted to share.
the morning gwyn and ash made their escape from the realm, darach had spotted them and sent a flock of beings to catch and kill gwyn. these (unnamed) things have hands that burn and mold flesh like clay, and they easily caught up to her as she fled through the woods. she could have died as they swarmed her had it not been for the sithóran, who ran to her aid and began tearing the creatures away from her. one of them guided her from the scuffle to the ruins, where she'd make a threshold portal and leave the realm behind.
the twins and the pack WILL be re-united at some point in the fic, though, and several of them will have burns from fighting off the creatures. the sithóran are extremely important to both gwyn and ash; not only were they one of gwyn's primary connections when she was young, but she wouldn't have escaped the realm alive without them.
since this would be a flashback sort of thing, i don't think there's a way to justify writing it into the actual fic as a scene—it'd throw off pacing.
gwyn's long had a large burn scar across her chest that's deformed her right breast (it's usually hidden by her shirt, but you might spot it in a few of my art pieces), and i need to account for this experience, too, when i get around to finalizing her design. she'd hide the scars with glamor, though; they'd make her stand out in a crowd, people would remember seeing her, ask questions, etc etc. the only reason she'd hide them would to better merge into a crowd; she's not ashamed, embarrassed, insecure about them from an appearance standpoint.
...HOPEFULLY that all made sense. i was trying to keep it as condensed and low-prose/detailed as possible.
2: does your OC's name have significance or reason it was chosen? both from a meta/narrative perspective (why you, the creator, named them) or possibly from an in-world perspective (why their parents named them)? and what's their relationship with their name like? do they like their name? do they not think much of it? would they rather be named or called something else?
from a meta standpoint, i went back and forth between 'gwyneth' and 'maeve' for a while and wound up choosing 'gwyneth', because 'maeve' could come with a nickname that sounds like 'may'.
the o'neil family already has a name-of-the-month theme going: april, uncle augustus, and june (this was going to be april's sister's name originally; jenn and i kept that instead of 'robyn'). i didn't want any kind of narrative implication that gwyn had a connection to the o'neil family, because… she doesn't.
as for 'aislinn', i chose her name almost immediately; it translates to "dream" or "vision"—both fitting words for ash's more ethereal presence. her nickname, 'ash', had narrative potential, too, from the perspective that her physical body's died and she needs to 'rise from the ashes'.
while both are celtic names, aislinn is irish and gwyneth is welsh; liáfsini pulls from celtic influence, with irish mythology/culture/history/language as the primary well. gwyn's name being welsh is another way to "other" her (intentionally on my part, unintentionally in-world).
in-world, aislinn was named by their parents. gwyn wasn't. it wouldn't be until they were old enough to… understand the hurt of not having a name that ash would give gwyn her name, and gwyn accepted it.
'gwyneth' means "happiness; white, fair". i might alter the spelling of her name, so it better matches liáfsian grammar, and i doubt that in-world their names have one-to-one meanings with their earth counterparts. but! from a meta standpoint: ash would have given gwyn a name with positive meaning. to their community, gwyn is seen as an ill-omen and a curse but, to ash, she's happiness. and the color white has strong association to the divine, deep and long-lasting emotion (i.e. hope or grief), and the most important member of the gentry would ride the white horse.
i've also read from a source or two that 'gwyn' is the masculine spelling and 'gwen' is the feminine spelling? unsure how legit that is, but--if true--i like it as a detail that compliments her genderqueerness.
'maeve', on the other hand, translates to "strong, intoxicating" or "she who intoxicates". fitting enough alias for gwyn during her travels, considering how she often uses flattery and charisma to work her company and get what she wants or needs, as well as the trail of harm she's left in her wake, intentionally or not.
ash is neutral about her name, i guess? she doesn't hold any strong feelings, positive or negative, about it. gwyn loves her name, because it was a gift from the one person who's always been by her side, who's always had her back and has always loved her. it is so, so special. which makes it all the more irritating that she often has to use aliases to better cover her tracks.
... hnnn thank you so much for asking about my dumb idiot loser twins (´; u ;`) /💜✨
