Preference is a word that always comes up when talking about race, dating, and love, and understandably so. Most people have lists of what they want and don't want in a potential partner, so it's easy to point to the personal when it comes to whom we find desirable. Yet the gap for black women and Asian men is so HUGE and so pervasive that it's hard to believe this preference or attraction isn't rooted in racial bias. And biases, like preferences, aren't simply born out of thin air or conceived in utero. They're written, portrayed, sung, filmed, photographed, mass marketed, digested, and learned by billions worldwide. And so it's these same biases that Tian Jun and I find ourselves challenging two years later. The same passion for TV and movies that we discovered while sipping on boozy milkshakes has blossomed into a shared commitment to creating multifaceted representations of Asian and black people on our respective platforms. For Tian Jun, that involves writing television pilot scripts that showcase nuanced, fully-fleshed out Chinese characters who aren’t stereotypical. For me, that involves covering people and stories that often go underreported or unrecognized. Together, we text new trailers and casting announcements back and forth to each other daily and we coordinate large group trips and date-nights to support films like Get Out, Bao, Black Panther, Crazy, Rich, Asians, and Searching on opening night. We’re partners in love and in representation.

But what I love most about our relationship are those in-between moments, when instead of writing about the lives of others, we're simply living our own. Creating our own nonsensical language consisting mostly of the sound "mehhhhh," "MEH," and other equally distinct variations. Facetiming each other while binging The Haunting Of Hill House because we started it together and must absolutely finish it together, temporary long-distance be damned. Defusing one another's perfectionism by proof-reading any and everything one last time and insisting that it isn't, in fact, trash. Introducing one another to dishes we can't imagine having lived without, like Sichuan boiled fish and Escovitch fish and festival. And how he lets me slide my perpetually frozen feet underneath his t-shirt onto his warm belly and I let him turn on the AC when it's really not even that hot to be quite honest.

These moments of loving mush and quirks are just as revolutionary as any TV show or news article. I know this because I've witnessed that shifting of assumptions first-hand, the look of confusion, then surprise, then wonder, and (sometimes) acceptance that washes over most people's faces when they realize the Asian man standing beside me isn't only with me, but with me. So whether it's a first kiss outside the subway or an awkward date scene starring HBO Insecure's Yvonne Orji and Alexander Hodge, diverse images of desirability do, in fact, have the power to provoke a fundamental change in the way others think; and not just about desiring and dating Asian men and black women, but also casting a certain type of person, promoting a certain type of person, renting an apartment to a certain type of person, or even calling the cops on a certain type of person. So here's to hoping for—and writing—more multidimensional, diverse movies and TV shows that actually mirror the rest of the world in 2019 and beyond.