Written by: Temisan Ekperigin
As a queer BIPOC, the majority of the characters I create are like me. They’re people of color, unabashedly queer, and probably neurodivergent in some way. Like most writers, I create what I can’t consume— what I never see in popular media. So, yes, I write about aromantic-asexual black women. I’ll write about a Hispanic baseball player with superpowers. Heck, half of my main characters are of Asian descent. All of this to say: I prefer to say I introduce people, not characters. (I know how corny this sounds, trust me!)
Of course, I know that I have plenty of room to improve. Sometimes, my story leads are too much like me: sarcastic, skeptical, or overly critical. Other times, when I try to introduce people who aren’t like me, they feel too curated, like I made an inspirational Pinterest board and refused to stray from it. Ultimately, though, the most difficult part is writing romance.
I come from a generation of Tumblr and Wattpad users where I was introduced to shipping culture. For those of you who don’t know, a “ship” (short for relationship) is two (or more) characters that people would like to see in a together romantically. Generally, these are characters that do not have confirmed feelings for one another. For example, Zutara (Zuko x Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender) is an “fanon” (or unconfirmed) ship, but still has a dedicated fanbase. Another example is Percabeth (Percy Jackson x Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson series), which is a “canon” (or confirmed) ship.
My understanding of romance came from both canon and fanon ships. I looked at the way the duos interacted with one another, the way other characters interpreted their relationship, and the way my fellow fans wrote about them online. More often though, I gravitated towards queer ships, many of which received homophobic backlash. Even then, I knew that I viewed romance differently. To me, what made a ship strong was if the characters could say something to one another that they wouldn’t say to anyone else. In my mind, honesty and vulnerability was all there needed to be for love to blossom.
As I grew up, I was still heavily invested in a few fanon ships. And when I started writing, my early romances were based on what I loved about those ships’ dynamics. I had relationships where one character always knew what their partner was thinking or where the couple is known as a fusion rather than individuals. Romance was words, it was staring contests, it was memorizing coffee orders and roleplaying job interviews.
Now, people don’t really understand the relationships I write because I keep straying further and further from what society believes romance is. It can’t be quantified in my stories. There are no date nights, no spontaneous gifts or flowers, no worrying about who foots the bill, no outside forces impacting their relationships, no weddings, no labels. It’s all tied to the agape, a Greek form of love which describes a love that transcends the self — the love God has for humans and the love humans have for God. That is romance. It is two people who will not exist without the other, people who retroactively add their partner to every memory so it’s like they were always there.
For my characters in long-term, committed relationships, it will always look like this. I don’t know how to make it look like anything other than eternal devotion. In a lot of stories, I imagine it will feel out of place for some readers. The relationships might come across as too mature, especially if they’re college students. In addition, the lack of physical intimacy might make the relationships feel empty or unrealistic; emotional vulnerability doesn’t always scream “chemistry.”
I imagine there’s a middle ground somewhere, a way for me to prove that love can thrive without enforcing conventional expectations. Still, it’s important to remind myself that no matter how similar we are, these people aren’t me. They don’t view love the same way I do; they don’t express love the way I best receive it.
This is where I take a step back and revert to my middle school self. Let me return to the characters who taught me what love is: two people’s journey to becoming a Venn Diagram.
Featured Image Caption: Love will always be melting into another person but remaining sturdy enough to act as a shield that can protect them.
