Lexa's legacy

Not "just a fictional character"

People tend to say "she's just a fictional character" when the fans talk about Lexa.
But the point is, to us, she isn't.
She represents a lot more and she means so much more to us.
And maybe it's because she's fictional that we love her so much.

How that's possible?
Many people in the fandom have gone through a lot of hard times. 
The real world was being harsh and rough and took away their power and strength.
But Lexa gave them a way to escape reality.
They could sit down on another hard day and just watch the show and forget everything that was happening around them for just a little while.
In a time life was messed up, they had something to look forward to and to actually make them happy.

Some of them have problems with people in their lives so when there was nothing they could love in reality, they had this one fictional character that couldn't hurt them and would always be there when they needed her. For some fans, Lexa was the only person they had that wouldn't leave them.

Some of us don't feel like they belong to the normal world because they're just not like others and can't really identify with anyone or would rather live in another place and start all over. Those people prefer fictional worlds over the real world.
So we go to this fictional world once in a while and just forget everything around us and this show becomes an escape, a place to hide, something to bring us joy, our own little world where no one can hurt us.

And then we got to see this beautiful, unique character and fell in love with her.
We love her because she's not like the other characters. She became a part of us, of our stories.

She taught us many things and changed us.
She became a light in the darkness for many of us. A symbol of hope and happiness.
The one person that would always be there, no matter what because she's on TV so we could just watch Lexa scenes whenever we wouldn't feel well.
And it worked.
She pulled us out of the darkness everytime we saw her.
She saved us.
From anger, from sadness, from losing hope and helped us regain our strength.

We kept fighting in real life because we had found new courage and power because of her.
She changed everything for so many people and that's just a fact.
You could ask any Lexa fan why they love her and almost all of them would answer that she changed something for them.

And not just anything, she changed important things that won't just change back which is why she will always be the person who made us who we are. We will always love her because we won't ever be able to forget how she has impacted us because it's just so important.

So yes, she's a part of us.
And yes, she's fictional.
But in such a situation you don't distinguish between real people and fictional characters. You just know that this person means the world to you and you fall in love. And love doesn't care if they're real or not. Love just happens and there's nothing you can do about it.
It might seem hard to understand for someone who doesn't really want to understand it.
But if you're in that position and your life is treating you terribly, you seem to lose everything that's important to you and you start losing hope- and then you see someone, no matter if they're real or fictional, who makes you feel so much better for the first time, wouldn't that person mean a lot to you too?
Wouldn't you love the person that changed you and your entire life as well?