(Elizabeth Bennet courtesy of @DanaDraws)
This is to you.
This is for you.
In my twenty-three years of living and loving art, of procuring, consuming, advocating, and creating story, I’ve only met six of you (seven, perhaps, but to be frank, you two exist as a duo, my loves). Your words reverberate across my thoughts; your gestures stay within my soul; your faces flash within my mind’s eye; your stories inspire my art. The six of you provide strength and impulse, inspiration and drive, heartbreak and healing. You found me at the times I needed you most, and within my heart you will stay. As muses. As mentors. As friends.
In a way, you are me. I still hold that I’m essentially the lovechild of two of you. I see myself in the six of you, have found self-reflection and self-discovery within your legends. You remind me that it is more than okay to be who I am; you make me feel more human with every remembrance, every meeting. You are a driving force behind my creativity, and you inspire my push onward to learn more, grow more, create more, to live a life both big and intentional, both grounded and whimsical. To never take a moment for granted. To stand strong in my own power.
I love the six of you with a protective intensity. You flash to mind with immediacy when people ask what inspires me.
Your complexity, your imperfections, the sheer groundedness of your beings even as you exist on a fictional plane, all make you inspirations.
I wanted to thank you.
To Watson and Sherlock, my detecting duet. I was introduced to you during elementary age, presented with a book entitled The Baker Street Irregular. This was not your initial chronicle, nor were the two of you center stage. You were the paternal figures of this telling, and I found myself drawn to your carriage, to Watson’s steadfast humanity and Sherlock’s mischievous intellect. It wasn’t long after that I read The Hound of the Baskervilles and A Study in Scarlet. My mind fell further into fascination. The tangled sentences became a comprehensive web, plot and discovery continually crafting implosions in my young mind. I wondered how one could tell a story so compelling, so confusing, so masterful, in only twenty pages or so. I marveled at Sherlock’s intelligence and disguised humility; I loved Watson’s decisive action and historian agenda. More than that, though, I was drawn to your friendship, your love for each other, your admiration of the other’s qualities. It would have been so easy to loathe each other: Watson, you may have envied Sherlock’s unapologetic deductions; Sherlock, you may have wished Watson’s caring disposition for your own. Instead, you extolled what you did not have. You protected each other with ferocity and meaning. Your power and command was found within your existence as the other half of each other. To this day, that is what sticks with me, even when reading your chronicles, Watson, for the umpteenth time.
When I was in middle school, I discovered my favorite of your legend’s adaptations: BBC’s Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as your wondrous selves. It brought me deeper into my admiration and love for the two of you. The cleverness of the script, the innovative cinematography, the humanity Cumberbatch and Freeman brought to you, the exploration of grief and loss and friendship and family and, above all, love and kindness, made the two of you further into an icon for me. As an actor, the small shifts, internalized communication, and total commitment inspired me. As a writer, Watson, your tales drive me to create my own. As a person, you comfort and confound me. Thank you. I love you.
To Castiel, the Angel on Dean’s shoulder. You have had quite the ride, my dear friend, and I’ve still yet to finish watching it. Don’t let that dismay you, though. I still know how your story ends (and I’m sorry: I agree you deserved much more). I first found you in middle school, resting on an air mattress in the penthouse apartment of a wealthy friend. She began telling me of the tale you were involved in, of this Supernatural documented on Netflix’s page. Though I am a wimp when it comes to anything horror-related, I agreed to watch the first few episodes. I was hooked with immediacy. Only a month or two later, I met you. I’m sure you remember your first explosive entrance: sparks flying from the roof, shattering bulbs and ruining metal; your deep, gravelly voice telling the man you would grow to love, “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.” You were an immediately compelling, compulsively watchable character, Castiel. Your power, loyalty, and defiance in the face of ignorance were immediately visible, palpable.
But you would grow to be more than that. I do not love you for your angelic powers, your magical strength, or the commandment of your voice (no biblical pun intended). I love you for your self-reflection, your altruism, your ambition, and your discovery of family. Your intense love for the men you were first brought down to force into preconceived notions was something that yanked at my heartstrings time and again. Your balance of childlike wonder and ageless wisdom, joyful discovery and commanding gravitas, craft a being so full, so lovable, so flawed, so very, very human. And I love you for that. Thank you for gifting us with a presence of light even in the darkest of moments. For gifting us badassery within innocence. As an artist, as a watcher, as a person, thank you. I love you.
To Alec Lightwood, Izzy’s unsure older brother. You entered my world sophomore year of high school, at the behest of a dear friend. “You need to read these books,” they told me. “Holy shit, you’d love them so much.” With only the slightest eyeroll (I trusted this friend’s taste, you see), I picked up City of Bones. Within a week, I had flown through the first three books, each veritable tomes at some 400 pages or so. This was before the final two of your initial saga were released, and I agonized over the fact that I would have to wait.
From your first protective, defensive entrance, Alec, you were my favorite. Immediately, I felt drawn to you. In that stage of life, I was as unsure as you were, though perhaps less prickly. I was attempting to figure out who I was, what I wanted, how to decipher my own desires from those of others’. You, too, were figuring it out. Fiercely intelligent, a warrior constantly compared to his golden child best friend, an eldest child with so many pressures and too often ignored, it was the biggest reward to watch you come into your own. To see you stand up against generational trauma, to realize the value of yourself and your talents, to love unapologetically and laugh with abandon and fight with ferocity, was one of the greatest experiences of my reading life. You deserve the title of Inquisitor some day. From a structural standpoint, your arc is perfect. From a personal standpoint, you are an inspiration, you are a love, you are a friend. Thank you. I love you. (Also, Matthew Daddario killed it as you in Shadowhunters. I thought you’d like to know.)
To Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Darcy’s only love and one of my earliest. I first read your story—that of Pride and Prejudice—when I was eight or nine years old. I was in a classics phase at that point (one which I’ve never truly grown out of), and my mother had gifted me a series of Austen and Brontë novels. Yours was among them, and the second I read. From your first defiant, intelligent words, Lizzy, I knew I loved you. You chose to be smart without apology, to love your people without shame, to speak up with the most elegant, eloquent of retorts. Your sharp-tongued defense of your sister to Darcy, and of yourself to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, were inspirations of the finest. Your sparkling wit, bookish intellect, and mischievous smirk made me long to be more like you, to be bold and headstrong and sure.
While I believe myself to still be closer to your sister Jane, you push me, Elizabeth. You push me to give in to my deepest passions, whether that be in career, creativity, or love. You push me to look both further into myself, as you did with your love for Darcy, and to examine the world around me, as your story does with your time. The observance and self-knowledge that requires inspire me to no end, as does your chronicler’s artistic genius and societal bravery. In short, Lizzy, thank you for your strength, your romanticism, your intelligence, your friendship, your defiance, your stubbornness, and your love. I love you. (And while Keira Knightley certainly makes an excellent you, I much prefer the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version.)
Now to the final two. The ones whom I love so very much, whose stories, words, gestures, loves, losses, strengths, and utter kind badassery will remain engrained within my soul for all-time. The two whom I relate to with almost no difference. The two who are absolute dream roles if they ever receive adaptation. I could pen paragraphs upon paragraphs, both analytical and personal, as to why I love the two of you.
Tessa, let’s start with you.
To Tessa Gray, the most unstoppable of Victorian warlocks. Your legend began in The Mortal Instruments, but it came center stage in The Infernal Devices. From your less-than-auspicious beginnings, I adored you. Your power was apparent from the start, of course, shapeshifting and teleportation and telekinesis. As you learned from the two horrific women who had kidnapped and shackled you, you never once lost your spark. You held tight to both defiance and hope, the wink in your gray-blue eyes dashing from steel to sparkle within moments. You would have been frightening, if not for your gentle nature.
You never once apologized for who you were. Your bookish ways and love of story. Your maternal instinct and healer’s hands. Your explosive magic, coming from the darkest of histories. The intensity with which you loved and protected. The introversion turning to well-intentioned insolence turning to self-assured control. You grew into your power—magic and otherwise—with the same beauty as a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. You are dangerous not just in your otherworldly capabilities, but in your talent at diplomacy and knowledge of history, literature, art, and politics. Your taking over of the Institute was the only choice, the best choice; even those who despised your background acknowledged that. With two biological children, tens of honorary children, and over a century of life, you are the one people turn to with their problems. You take on their burdens without complaint, and you help them grow in the same way you once did. I cannot imagine the pain of losing your husband, your children, your friends, as you continue to never age, but you handle it with such grace. That does not mean you never show it, of course: Jem and Magnus see your pain, hear your hurt. Your vulnerability and everlasting love only make you better, more beautiful. Tessa, I see so much of myself in you, and, with you, I have grown. You push me to be a better person; your story inspires me to be a better artist, to be a better human being, to fight and protect and love. It would be the greatest honor to play you and, perhaps, write for you one day. Thank you, Tessa. I love you.
Now to you, dearest Liara.
To Dr. Liara T’soni, the most brilliant sorceress in space. I only just met you, just finished your legend (to be continued, of course) this weekend. I was introduced to you by my partner, telling me he’d like to show his favorite trilogy. Little did I know, perched behind him as he pulled up the first Mass Effect, that it would quickly become my favorite, as well, and that you would leap into my heart and soul with almost shocking immediacy. I had a bit of an inkling: my partner told me that I’m essentially you in real life, so I assumed (hoped) that I would love you. Still, I was blown away.
From our first meeting on Therum to our last excursion on the Citadel (for now), your being emanated light, love, intelligence, protection, power, and utter badassery. Though you were a potential love interest, you were anything but expendable. Without your knowledge, your wisdom, and your research, this story would not have happened, and the world would not have been saved to the extent it was. The translations would never have happened, the artifacts never uncovered, the meaning never extrapolated and applied. Without your altruism and courage, your Shepard never would have know, what to make of their situation, would never have survived, and your—and our—beloved crew never would have made it in and out alive. Without your bravery and cunning, so much information and history would have been lost. Without your command of the sorcery you’ve owned since birth, missions would have failed, and people would have been lost. You, Liara, grew to own yourself and your strength in unbelievable ways. From your shame at being the “damsel in distress” to saving your loved ones time and again, you became the hero you were destined to be, all while retaining humanity and grounding (I’m unsure what term to use for the asari, so I’ll have to stick with “humanity”). I see myself in you: your knowledge, your glee at discovering history, your maternal instinct, your love for your people, your cutting urge to defend them at all costs. You encourage me in my own learning and discovery, in my own creation and advocacy. Your story pushes me to be a better writer, a better actor, a better creative, a better scholar, a better activist. It would be the greatest honor to play you, too, and perhaps write for you, one day. Thank you, Liara. I love you.
Each of the six (seven, sorry) of you have taken your rightful place in my soul, as both person and artist, and I thank you. Reminders of you are peppered about my life: a sticker on my laptop; a postcard on my wall; a shelf full of your legends committed to paper. You remind me every day why I do what I do, why my work is important; you encourage me to simply be myself. I’ll love you forever for that.
And, of course, you were not created in a vacuum, so I must give thanks, as well, to: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Mark Gatiss; Stephen Moffat; Benedict Cumberbatch; Martin Freeman; Misha Collins; Jane Austen; Cassandra Clare; OG BioWare; and Ali Hillis.
You’re the best. I love you.
Rhiannon