Carys
In Secrets I named a character Carys. Nobody commented on it or asked me about it, but I want to talk about it anyway.
Carys is a Welsh girls' name that means love, which is absolutely perfect. It can be spelled in a variety of ways, I've heard, but 'Carys' is the word that means something to me.
Carys and Eluned (or Cal and Lyn as they went by) were my first fandom friends. They were related, Lyn being the older one. She was old enough to be my mother, I discovered, and she was nearly blind as well as wheelchair bound. These last two things I didn't learn until I was standing in her living room in Chirk, since it had never occurred to me to ask or to her to tell, haha. Or rather, she thought she must have mentioned it at some point, but she really hadn't. :) She wasn't one to let silly little things like that get in the way of her anything anyway. It just meant adapting a bit, that was all.
I knew Lyn first of the two through some very sweet mails she sent me about a couple of short gen pieces I'd written in the BtVS fandom. She then introduced Cal to my fic and then we all had lots of fun chatting. I know I've always said that my first writing is Silencio and I really feel it is, as those 2-3 very short stories I did back then before I lost my interest in writing hardly have any merit as fic. It did however lead me to these online friendships that lasted years, which counts for something entirely different.
Alas, we've lost touch since then. Lyn married an American and moved overseas. I did talk to her once or twice after that, mostly about how strange the US was compared to Wales, haha. Cal... I don't know, really. Real life took over. She was the youngest of us and had a lot to figure out so she kind of slipped off my radar. A third family member of theirs, a lovely woman whose name I won't disclose as she has no online presence and may prefer it that way, actually knitted and sent a beautiful white cardigan for Kupo when she heard I was pregnant. I can't even begin to describe how it felt to have this virtual stranger that I only knew for two weeks do something so sweet for me. Especially since I knew that she was struggling to make ends meet and yarn and international shipping can be expensive.
I posted pics of Kupo wearing it when he was such a tiny little thing. Snuffles wore it too. I tweeted a pic of him in it taken with my phone when he was 2 days old.
Perhaps it's not that visible on that pic. But it's precious. :)
So Carys is love. She really is. I don't care if you hate the character. The character has very little to do with it. The name is love. A tribute, if you will, to a family of women that gave me the very best fandom experience. I miss them very much and hope they continue to have good lives as they certainly made mine better when they were in it.
Carys is a Welsh girls' name that means love, which is absolutely perfect. It can be spelled in a variety of ways, I've heard, but 'Carys' is the word that means something to me.
Carys and Eluned (or Cal and Lyn as they went by) were my first fandom friends. They were related, Lyn being the older one. She was old enough to be my mother, I discovered, and she was nearly blind as well as wheelchair bound. These last two things I didn't learn until I was standing in her living room in Chirk, since it had never occurred to me to ask or to her to tell, haha. Or rather, she thought she must have mentioned it at some point, but she really hadn't. :) She wasn't one to let silly little things like that get in the way of her anything anyway. It just meant adapting a bit, that was all.
I knew Lyn first of the two through some very sweet mails she sent me about a couple of short gen pieces I'd written in the BtVS fandom. She then introduced Cal to my fic and then we all had lots of fun chatting. I know I've always said that my first writing is Silencio and I really feel it is, as those 2-3 very short stories I did back then before I lost my interest in writing hardly have any merit as fic. It did however lead me to these online friendships that lasted years, which counts for something entirely different.
Alas, we've lost touch since then. Lyn married an American and moved overseas. I did talk to her once or twice after that, mostly about how strange the US was compared to Wales, haha. Cal... I don't know, really. Real life took over. She was the youngest of us and had a lot to figure out so she kind of slipped off my radar. A third family member of theirs, a lovely woman whose name I won't disclose as she has no online presence and may prefer it that way, actually knitted and sent a beautiful white cardigan for Kupo when she heard I was pregnant. I can't even begin to describe how it felt to have this virtual stranger that I only knew for two weeks do something so sweet for me. Especially since I knew that she was struggling to make ends meet and yarn and international shipping can be expensive.
I posted pics of Kupo wearing it when he was such a tiny little thing. Snuffles wore it too. I tweeted a pic of him in it taken with my phone when he was 2 days old.
Perhaps it's not that visible on that pic. But it's precious. :)
So Carys is love. She really is. I don't care if you hate the character. The character has very little to do with it. The name is love. A tribute, if you will, to a family of women that gave me the very best fandom experience. I miss them very much and hope they continue to have good lives as they certainly made mine better when they were in it.