Romance between characters is usually a close relationship of the kind that involves flowers and jewelery and lovely sunny days/sunrises/sunsets, etc., etc. And snogging. And wedding proposals. And other things. And so on and so forth. Often, in fic, involves True Love or, in extreme cases of badfic, Twu Wuv. The act of romantically pairing canon characters is called shipping.
As a genre, romance usually involves very formulaic plots that involve one member of the intended romantic pairing, usually the woman, being in some kind of distress. Her true love then has to save her, upon which they ride off into the sunset and make sweet sweet love live happily ever after. Occasionally the plot is complicated by the character in distress not wanting to be saved, at least not by HIM, but then eventually falling for him anyway. Less often, the man is in distress and has to be saved by the woman. Or both lovers-to-be are the same gender. Anyhow, like anything else, romance stories can be done well, but sadly in this genre especially, far more often they fall victim to cliche, improbability, and horrible writing.
Romance in the PPC[]
Romances can and do happen in the PPC, though they seem to be few and far between (and a little odd) due to the nature of the job. The most notable example is that of Dafydd Illian and Constance Sims, who fell in love in HQ, got married, retired, and have a large family. This is doubly significant since their writers, Huinesoron and Kaitlyn, actually met through the PPC and got married in Real Life, making them the Official PPC Couple in the eyes of the Board. However, they have competition from Neshomeh and Phobos, who, though they met in Real Life first, are now both currently active on the Board and married. Their avatars will probably hook up, too, if they ever get around to writing about it.
Other established agent couples include:
- Alec Troven and Verra Rose, who were actually married and had at least one kid
- Luxury and Sean (until he went missing)
- Mara and Len (until he went Flamethrower-crazy)
- Tawaki Penguin and Tadkeeta (retired)
- Isaiah and Quen
- Elanor Laison and Mortic Wentway
- Trojie and Pads (sort of)
- Jennifer Robinson and Suicide
- Christianne Shieh and Eledhwen Elerossiel (married)
- Cassie Young and Kelvin Talathion (married)
- Zach Homewood and Nat Freidar (have twins)
- Dúros Black and Talia Nightsong (married)
- Halley and Eohric (possibly)
- Florestan and Maria Nightingale
- Valon Vance and Kala Jeng (married)
- Lana and Riaa'lzhor
- Ix and Charlotte Webb (married)
- Backslash and Whitney (engaged)
- Blank and Autumn (married)
- Kaguya Hazama and Momoka Shigisawa