Feature: Qourters twins double-team campus life
If you have ever noticed a set of doppelgangers on-campus and thought you were going crazy, you can rest assured that your eyes are not deceiving you.
Q’Ladrin and Q’May Qourters are used to being mistaken for one another on campus. While those who know them well can easily tell them apart by their startlingly different personalities and styles, many people on campus have encountered one twin and then the other without even realizing they were different people.
“She’s the more outgoing one,” said Q’May, “so they’ll usually get more engaged and more friendly with her. Then when they see me, I’m just like ‘oh, they must think I’m my sister.’”
She said that these instances often happen in passing, which does not often leave her with time to explain that she’s not her sister.
“Sometimes it will be a while before they realize,” said Q’Ladrin. “Come to find out, they had a conversation with my sister, not realizing I wasn’t her.”
“Or they’ll see us at the same time,” added Q’May, laughing at the memory of one student doing a double-take as she entered a room where her sister already was.
Q’May’s soft, delicate voice is a marker of her calm, pleasant attitude, while Q’Ladrin’s rich alto symbolizes her strong, tenacious personality. You can even get a sense of their personalities by how they walk and sit. Their outfits too were so similar, yet so starkly different.
“We try to [change] features of ourselves to differentiate,” said Q’Ladrin. “I’ll do different hairstyles. I even got [nonprescription] glasses to wear.”
Both wore long-sleeved shirts and jeans, with long boots and octagonal hoop earrings- though they insist that the outfits were not coordinated knowingly. However, the colors and patterns in their outfits matched the personalities that show in their voices.
Comparing their relationship to the concept of yin and yang, Q’Ladrin said, “it’s like we’re two polar opposites but together we make a whole.”
“I say I’m the moon and she’s the sun,” said Q’Ladrin, smiling fondly at her sister.
“You’re the moon because you really shine in the darkness,” said Q’May. “I guess I’m more like a little ray of sunshine.”
About her sister, Q’May said she loves “her passion and confidence” and her ability to “step out, not worrying what anyone thinks of her.”
“I feel like Q’May is more genuine,” countered Q’Ladrin. “She’s more genuine and organic than I am.”
The two readily compared themselves to Tia and Tamara Mowry, the famous twins from “Sister, Sister” and “Twitches.”
“Really it’s kind of like two people in one,” said Q’Ladrin. “We kind of work together to accomplish things on campus.”
According to senior Ciaira Freeman, Q’Ladrin and Q’May are a staple of the USC Aiken campus and they “are involved in almost everything.”
“Where one goes, the other is not far behind,” she laughed. “They both have a lot of school spirit, a lot of hope for the school.”
Q’May was cautious about choosing extracurricular activities, allowing herself time to grow accustomed to college life before eventually joining RSA and becoming their vice president. Always her foil, Q’Ladrin jumped into a handful activities within her second semester, including Pacesetters, SGA and the Chancellor’s Ambassadors.
“Once I knew I was able to maintain my position in SGA and have a good standing within my grades, I was like ‘You know what? I’m going full-fledged,’” explained Q’Ladrin, ever-confident in every decision she makes.
While the twins decided to attend the same college and even study biology together, Q’Ladrin said that she and her sister realize a day may come when an opportunity separates them. Q’Ladrin is studying pathology, while Q’May dreams of being an OBGYN one day. They hope to attend the same medical school and perhaps have careers in the same hospital or at least the same city.
“We’re more ourselves when we’re together,” said Q’May. “We find our individualism within [each other].”
“I need her to be there in order for me to be myself,” admitted Q’Ladrin.
Q’May said that she likes to think of them as different temperatures of the same coffee. She is iced coffee and Q’Ladrin is hot coffee, but they’re both white mochas.
While their parents never got confirmation on their status as either identical or fraternal twins, Q’Ladrin and Q’May often tell people that they are fraternal. However, it is doubtful that anyone would be surprised if they turned out to be identical. They look quite alike, especially when they are not standing side-by-side. Seeing them together allows their stark personalities and subtle physical differences to work together.
Q’Ladrin said that their mother even kept their hospital bracelets on for the first several months of their lives, so that they could not be mixed up. Q’May joked that she has always wondered if they could have been switched.
“We’re like the same person on paper,” said Q’Ladrin, “but once you meet us, we’re totally different.”
