#citations included 😂

[balaclavacharles]

Sleep deprivation is a prevalent issue affecting a significant portion of the global population. In today's fast-paced society, individuals often prioritize work, social activities, and electronic devices over obtaining sufficient sleep. The detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on various aspects of human health and functioning, including cognitive abilities, emotional well-being, physical health, and occupational performance are vast and by understanding these consequences, we can emphasize the importance of prioritizing healthy sleep habits for overall well-being.

One of the primary effects of sleep deprivation is cognitive impairment. Lack of sleep negatively impacts attention, concentration, memory, and decision-making abilities. Reduced sleep duration and quality impair information processing, reaction time, and problem-solving skills (Alhola & Polo-Kantola, 2007). Prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to cognitive decline, resembling the effects of aging (Banks & Dinges, 2007).

Sleep deprivation also has a significant impact on emotional well-being. It is associated with increased irritability, mood swings, anxiety, and depression. Chronic sleep deprivation disrupts the regulation of emotions, resulting in heightened negative emotional responses and reduced emotional resilience (Banks & Dinges, 2007). Proper sleep is essential for emotional stability and mental health.

Moreover, chronic sleep deprivation increases the risk of developing various chronic diseases. It is associated with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and certain types of cancer. Disruptions in metabolic processes, hormonal imbalances, and inflammation caused by sleep deprivation contribute to the development of these conditions (Cappuccio et al., 2010). Prioritizing adequate sleep is crucial for maintaining long-term physical health.

It has a profound impact on occupational performance. Sleep-deprived individuals experience reduced productivity, increased errors, and higher accident rates. Attention lapses, reduced vigilance, and impaired decision-making are common consequences of sleep deprivation (Williamson & Feyer, 2000). In safety-sensitive professions, such as healthcare or transportation, these impairments can have severe consequences.

Going without sleep poses significant risks to various aspects of human health and functioning. It impairs cognitive abilities, disrupts emotional regulation, compromises immune function, increases the risk of chronic diseases, and undermines occupational performance. Recognizing the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation highlights the importance of prioritizing healthy sleep habits and ensuring adequate sleep for overall well-being. It is essential to create a culture that values and promotes sufficient sleep to optimize individual health and societal productivity. In conclusion :sparkles: sleep :sparkles:

Citations

Alhola, P., & Polo-Kantola, P. (2007). Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 3(5), 553-567.

Banks, S., & Dinges, D. F. (2007). Behavioral and physiological consequences of sleep restriction. Journal of clinical sleep medicine, 3(5), 519-528.

Cappuccio, F. P., D'Elia, L., Strazzullo, P., & Miller, M. A. (2010). Sleep duration and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies. Sleep, 33(5), 585-592.

Williamson, A. M., & Feyer, A. M. (2000). Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication. Occupational and environmental medicine, 57(10), 649-655.

Lmao, okay Rinno, thanks 😂😂

[bleachbleachbleach]

Hello, it's me again! I'm the one who sent you question about 'which captain are married'. Your answer was really genius, I read it thoroughly though it's just your headcanon 😂 Just adding some information, believe it or not in this damn Bleach Jet interview there's also one question frankly asking 'Do you have any details about Shinigami's income? Like their monthly salary, allowances, etc'. (Which I thought this as a very hilarious question because 'WHY SO RANDOM??' 😂). Then you know, Kubo gave a very detail information, including the nominals of the salary and how each captain had their own mansion as an allowance. Just like a normal company. I'm pretty sure they also manage anything regarding bereave or insurance lol. I'm just curious which Squad is responsible for accounting and finance. Or they probably have their own financial divisions outside of Gotei 13? Well never thought about it before 😂

THE SALARY THING IS ONE OF OUR FAVORITE PARATEXTS LOL. Who would want that information, you ask? The target audience is VERY much us. I legit think it's one of the first things I looked up when we were first returning to Bleach. Bleach fills the workplace drama space on my dance card; of course I wanna know what the payscale is!

Each division is probably responsible for tracking its own finances and submitting them to Central 46 as the Soul Society equivalent of the IRS (Internal Revenue Service, for non-USians). Yumichika, for example, definitely does the books for 11th. No one else in that division has even ever seen such a book. 

What I wanna know is how the budget proposal process works. Prior to the start of each fiscal term, does each Division submit their past and proposed budgets? Do they go straight to the 46 for closed-door deliberations/rulings, or does a version also need to be reviewed and passed at a captain's meeting before heading up to 46? I ask this because I think it would be absolutely torturous for them to sit through such a meeting, which naturally means I want them to have to.

I don't know what the citation is for this, but the Bleach Wiki mentions that captain's meeting decisions are made unanimously. I feel like that can't possibly be true, unless a unilateral "well, Yamamoto said so" counts as "unanimous" (though the AU where the Gotei is committed to an anarchist governance style is also appealing to me, LOL). But imagine a captain's meeting where they had 13 budgets to review and pass: There's a Q&A period. Each captain has a time-limited amount of time to suggest friendly or unfriendly amendments and/or to plead their case about whether the budget should pass or fail. You can yield time to other captains, or move to extend time (though this then also has to be voted on by all the captains in attendance). Speaking from personal experience, this process can take literal days. Just imagine. IT'S HORRIBLE I LOVE IT. 

Other things I wonder (under the cut):

-- What factors determine what the Gotei's overall operating budget is? Are they fully funded by the noble houses? Do they accrue wealth by any other means? How does the Soul Society macroeconomy even work. 

– What’s the deal with this mansion that each captain gets? Where are these mansions located? Is it like the White House, and there’s a bunch of historical rooms with names like The Sakura Sitting Room? Is there a hallway with portraits of all the past captains that you have to walk past every morning on your way out the door? Even better, what if they don’t each get a whole mansion, but only a wing of a mansion? Then they all have to live together, Big Brother style. Central 46 is always watching.

-- Does the Gotei have an endowment? Have they invested in the Tokyo Stock Exchange? What about the Rukongai Rice Futures Market?

-- Are there ever special funds/one-time line items that need to be voted on? Was post-TYBW reconstruction back-burnered until the next fiscal year because they Had to Do the Budget First because their extant emergency response funds got exhausted after the FIRST invasion?

-- Are the Divisions automatically funded equally, or if they write a really good budget proposal can they be awarded more money? Is the only way to get more money to officially declare and register a specialty with the Central 46 Office of Division Specialties, like the 9th and Seireitei Communications, and the 12th's lab budgets? Outside of the regular budget allocation periods, are there earmarked funds/grants to which divisions can apply separately? Are you only allowed to take state money, or can you apply for grant-type arrangements with noble houses or non-Gotei entities? What about gift funds? 

-- Why are damages from the captain's personal salary and not the division budget? Did someone just tell Komamura and Hitsugaya this, but it's not actually true and they're the only ones who think this? Or does this suggest that the budgeting within the Gotei actually has no procedure and nothing is actually funded at all, because none of the founding members considered that a military organization represents an operational scale that does not actually translate 1:1 with an individual's personal finances??

-- Regarding individual salaries: Do people get annual raises even if their position stays the same? Like, if you're an unseated shinigami for 500 years are you paid the same on Day 1 as on Day 182,625?

-- How do people pick up their salaries? Is there a physical paycheck? Cash monies? Credits? Is the currency the same in the Seireitei as in Rukongai (is it used EVERYWHERE in Rukongai, by every one)? Rukia using credits on her phone from Living World-side bounties, so some portion of their commerce is digital… but is that only in Living World lol.

[honeyysweetkisses]

I had an exam for school and there was a question about if the above statement was in the correct APA format. I said it wasn’t… because it wasn’t 😂

However I ended up getting it wrong…🤔🤔🤔

Which didn’t make sense. So I emailed my instructor and I took out evidence to support my claim that it is correct ✅ 😂💀

I was like “well the book in the 7th edition APA manual and the modules did not teach me that this is included in the citation” 💀😂 I’m such a nerd.

In the end. I wasn’t wrong and my grade was changed 😂 💀 An A+ instead of A-

I forgot how quick I was in nursing school to challenge questions…If I was wrong? You need to tell me why. 😂

[discluded]

The latest standard pop article refers to Chat and Khem's relationship as a bromance at this rate by the end of this leg of the press tour they will be referred to as brothers 😂

Hey, I'll coalesce these together then, if that's OK. For folks who want to, feel free to use this as a discussion post.

I've had a really long week, I've taken two different cats to the vet since Sunday so I'm not really in the mood to stir up more drama-- but... *makes grand gestures*

1.

I think the initial reaction to Pond's comment might have been overblown in the sense that it should have been something, given Pond's history of saying shit, that could be ignored. I'm perplexed by Man Suang comms account's decision to double down on this by posting the image with "Man Suang is not a bad movie; Man Suang is not a BL". Since most of the account's followers are already MileApo/Man Suang fans, I'm not sure what they were hoping to accomplish with that statement that could easily be taken the wrong way. Pond needs to say less. But I've also given up on analyzing the state of their PR/comms.

2.

It is somewhat telling to me that many people who are upset about Pond's comment and the account's statement and general straight washing of the movie are queer, though specific reactions range from actively angry on social media, quietly angry in closed fannish settings (chat, circle, servers, etc), attempt to placate other fans with empathy, or just apathetic towards the point of disengaging [read: me, due to other stress in my life]

Meanwhile, I haven't seen a single queer person go THEY NEVER PROMISED YOU A BL NEVER SAID THEY'D BE A COUPLE OR QUEER YOU'RE THE ONES WHO MADE THAT ASSUMPTION 🤪 So.

First to that--

Strawberry had shared this translation.

I realized, watching it back, this is what the autocaptioning(?)/Mint translator subbed it with:

I'm not sure if it's the lack of clarity in Thai that can be translated either way or the Mint team's translation is less specific while , but Apo also explicitly discussed that he played Khem as closeted, and it does a disservice to Apo's intentionality for the character to straight-wash the movie.

I think ultimately it depends on how one defines BL. From the classicist (ha!) perspective of the origination, BL has specific target demographic audience and definition.

Let's take these specific notes, with citations in the wikipedia entry itself:

Yaoi also known as boys' love and its abbreviation BL, is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typically created by women for women and is thus distinct from bara (gay manga), a genre of homoerotic media marketed to gay men. "BL" is the common term used to describe male-male romance media marketed to women in Japan and much of Asia, though its usage in the West is inconsistent.

Given these specific definitions, I would actually agree without criticism that Pond is correct that Man Suang is not a BL in the same way it takes me out when people call CMBYN a BL because that is not its genre/target demographic. I would agree Man Suang is more arthouse film like CMBYN or Carol or Moonlight, or if we're going back farther, more popluarist like LOTR or Memoirs of a Geisha or Crouching Tiger. Of course these might be different genres, but idea of a popularist film is mean to be watched by everyone, not pushed to a specific demographic (vs. for example, Marvel which is marketed towards boys and young men, but is watched by the general public.)

Similarly, back to the origins of the BL genre, queer romances and queer main characters are not solely limited by the genre of BL. Even aside from Bara, there is Josei as a genre where notable works include Sakura Gari by Yu Watase (author of Fushigi Yugi and Ceres Celestial Legend) and The Carp on the Chopping Block Jumps Twice / The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese. In Seinen, there is My Brother's Husband (the mangaka is a very famous Bara author). If you haven't heard of these, that's fine, but I'm serious about how much extensive understanding I have about the delineation about the nuances of what is "technically" BL and what isn't.

There is a disconnect in the audience's definition and what BOC is trying to communicate, and that's why friction is occurring.

That being SAID, AND VERY IMPORTANTLY, let's again recognize that the definition is about the target audience being young women, and the insistence and tone of which the marketing is pushing how it's NOT for the BL audience (young women) but to everyone is quite boldly misogynist for a company that built its foundation on female consumers. Its tone is overtly that something which is made for young women is somehow inherently "not good", the same way that romcoms are somehow less valuable as art, or boy bands or handsome young singers like Justin Bieber are less talented musicians because of its target audience.

So yes, I do have a problem with the tone they're taking and I think the biting the hand that feeds it comment is spot on.

3.

Finally, about Apo tweeting and deleting. I think he held and articulated himself well in interviews, and he's been insanely patient and tolerant these past few weeks (see: laris). I actually really relate to him in that sense because I can be calm and rational but sometimes I can't help but run my mouth. I held off on answering these because I've been so stressed and just couldn't handle whatever anger it might rile up.

Expecting someone to hold their temper 100% of the time is impossible even if they manage it 99% of the time. I've also tweeted angry things I've deleted in minutes later too. And I understand his perspective in not wanting to be limited to the genre or audience of the art he creates. So Apo's (valid and expected) reaction is understandable.

--

If it's okay, I'll probably not answer any more asks about this topic for probably a while. I have some other family stuff going on (not-cat family) and I just can't deal with people who don't have to be in my life causing this nonsense while I also have to deal with people (and cats) I can't get rid of attachments to also having stuff going on.

[gandalfsalt]

Solavellan Angst and Dido & Aeneas

Here's an "essay" (more like notes) I wrote about a year ago after finishing Trespasser, and surprisingly it holds up ok! You can watch a video essay version on my TikTok @gandalfs_alt. I think the video version is a bit more polished because I wrote it yesterday, this old one is pretty rough.

Unfortunately no citations... feels weird to post w/o citations. Future posts I think I will start citing my sources.

A great love story that I see relating to Solavellan is the story of Dido and Aeneas. This story is even older than Tristan and Isolde, dating back to ancient Rome (specifically Virgil’s The Aeneid, completed in 19 BCE, about 2000 years ago). It is widely considered the archetypal love story that symbolizes the tension between love and duty in Western literature. 

Dido was the Queen of Carthage, a city located in North Africa. In some versions she is a sorceress, and she is beloved by her people. Aeneas was a Trojan hero who escaped the fall of Troy. Aeneas and his fellow Trojans fled across the Mediterranean Sea after the fall of Troy. They landed in Carthage, and were welcomed by Dido, who offered them hospitality.

Dido and Aeneas spend a significant amount of time together, and fall deeply in love. Over time their love became increasingly intense. In some versions they marry. However, Jupiter (Zeus), the king of the gods, sends the messenger god Mercury (Hermes) to remind Aeneas of his duty to establish a new homeland in Italy (what becomes modern day Rome). After contemplating staying by Dido’s side, Aeneas feels that he must fulfill his divine mission to re-establish his homeland and he abandons Dido, departing for Italy.

Dido is devastated by Aeneas’ departure. In her anguish, Dido constructs a funeral pyre, on which she places Aeneas's belongings, including a sword he had left behind. She then took her own life by falling on the sword. Aeneas, unaware of Dido's fate, continues his journey to Italy, where he eventually fulfills his destiny and founds the city that would become Rome.

I think some of the parallels are pretty clear. A mysterious wandering hero fleeing the aftermath of a fallen civilization joins up with a group of people and falls in love with their leader. He then abandons said leader to fulfill what he believes is his divine mission, which is to re-establish what has fallen in a new place.   

There’s two ways I think this story is helpful for understanding Solas, Lavellan, or Solavellan:

It has inspired so much art, we can look at how other artists have handled this theme to get insights into the characters, learn more about them, and learn about different ways this conflict (love vs duty) can be interpreted or represented.

If this story did in fact inspire the DA:I writers, learning more about it can possibly help uncover where they may take Solavellan in DA:D (dear god, I hope they don’t go the Dido route with Lavellan, pls no 😭)

Even though Solas is a pretty clear Aeneas type, I actually see him share a lot of attributes with Dido as well. One of the most famous versions of Dido and Aeneas is an opera (yes, opera again, lol) composed by Henry Purcell in 1689. It is one of the first operas composed in English, and is pretty much considered the premiere retelling of the Dido/Aeneas story in the English language. One of the most famous pieces from the opera is Dido’s Lament, and it’s the song Dido sings after she decides she can’t live without Aeneas, and is about to, literally, fall on a sword. 

This song is somewhat popular and has recently been used in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, of all places. When I heard it in the movie, I was transfixed immediately and then googled it after. I’m super pumped baroque opera it made it into a Marvel movie! So many of my favorite things coming together 😂. Thanks James Gunn!! Keeping it classy as always. I don’t want to spoil GotG 3, but I think it worked soooooo well in the scenes where it was used. Just brilliant. Anyway! The lyrics of Dido’s lament are:

More I would, but Death invades me:

Death is now a welcome guest.

When I am laid, am laid in earth,

May my wrongs create no trouble, no

trouble in thy breast;

Remember me! Remember me! But ah!

forget my fate. 

To me, this is 100% Solas’s psychological state when he leaves Lavellan. The lament is obviously very tragic and sad, but there’s something extremely stubborn and self-centered about it. It feels like a lot of self-imposed misery. In Dido’s case, she was certainly wronged by Aeneas, she was treated very unfairly and it’s not her fault at all, but her reaction to it is very self-pitying and self-sabotaging, literally and figuratively. I got the same feelings from Solas during his final confrontation with Lavellan. 

“Death invades me, Death is now a welcome guest,” - Wait a minute, who says anyone has to die? Why is dying the only option here, Dido and Solas?

“May my wrongs create no trouble in thy breast,” - It seems like Dido and Aeneas have the option not to commit these wrongs or additional wrongs, so why act all stubborn and resigned about it? 

The “wrong” I think Dido is referencing is her impending suicide. Solas may be referencing the same thing if he knows he is going to die, but in his case destroying the world and loving then leaving Lavellan are some other wrongs. But again, based on what we know, it seems like he has the option to stay and not destroy the world a second time. So why so stubborn?

“Remember me! But forget my fate.” My dudes. It seems to us like you’re choosing this fate. And you think we can remember you and not remember how you left us? You want Aeneas/Lavellan to hold the torch, but just forget a very monumental decision you made? That’s a little delusional. This line is so simple, but it does an excellent job of underscoring the conflict between love and sense of duty. In both cases, the heroine/hero want to be remembered by the ones they love, but at the same time they don’t want their choices to impact their lovers, or their lover’s recollection of them. Which really is impossible.  

[theashemarie]

Can't wait to receive a writing credit during the potential writing collab stream for adding a singular comma. Maybe even a "The"

I'm about to make that

Lucrative

ao3 fanfic money.

OMG. 🤣 I imagine that citation is gonna be far too lengthy to include everyone’s names so it’ll probably be “Twitch chat et al.” but feel free to use it on your resume or CV, explaining that you’re part of the et al. 😂

On a more serious note, that stream isn’t going to be for a while. The next month of weekends is completely booked for me between my first wedding anniversary, Big Run, Grand Fest, and a trip to visit family. Fic updates will also probably slow down 😔 Coupled with the fact that the back half of this week has been brutal and I’ve been sleeping a lot and need to work on zine stuff, you’re gonna be seeing a lot less of me.

But!! It will happen! Study up on comma placement, anon. I miss them a lot and could really use your expert assistance.

[x-authorship-x]

"Yah, Tor, sorry for the actual Columbo, but one more thing. (Also sorry this is so long, ohhh my gawd.) CW mental health and canon-typical family issues. In the iconic spiked-to-the-ground scene, Tobirama admits he agrees with Madara's philosophy. Again, debatable due to translation, more or less: these idiots can't be trusted to maintain a peace. 'It just shouldn't be YOU in charge!' Which. They were in an apocalypse so point to Tobirama. I mean there's plenty of textual evidence that Tobirama from a young age found his father unfit to be head of his clan, and of his family, for all that he obeyed orders instantly. (Although I hold in that river scene, he was more excited to be facing a boy his own age with a sword that big. Which is so cute, I headcanon teeny sword nerd.) So on top of the disturbing biological data he's getting from the sharingan research (...Tobirama, where did you get the sharingan), Tobirama has reason to distrust Madara's abilities in politics, at the very least. To look on his derangement and find Madara unfit to lead. He probably lumps him and Hashirama together, and we all see how he treats Hashirama's lack of competence. And isn't it weird that a Clan Head would be sent on a solo tour of the elemental nations in the first place? Kind of a 'give the unhinged guy something to do'. Sweep him out of the way. The whole Uchiha Clan police trainwreck on a smaller scale.

The thing is, one way he did mash Madara and Hashirama together was to attempt to integrate both their philosophies during his rule as Nidaime. He said as much before the other Kage and the Sasuke brigade! Which, okay debatable, he didn't live long enough to actually follow through with. (I am faithful to Tobirama's consistencies that I strongly headcanon that he had plans beyond the police assignment. He's probably bearing the brunt of it because he's dead, too, because in a military dictatorship you can't blame the sitting Hokage for going 'well Sensei must've wanted it this way la la la'. Also, there are translation messes with the whole Curse of Hatred thing, in that this might not occur in Japanese, and that blasted wikia does not have a citation for any of the Curse of Hatred talk.)

But that means Tobirama learned what Madara was aiming for, as an intellectual concept. And your boy agreed with it.

Except, like any functioning cult recruitment, which does not exclude 'smart' people... nobody expects the alien plant guy saboteur. It's not like Warring States had any mental health services. Or did they? Hmmm where were the Yamanaka in all this? Tor, omg, they were relying on Hashirama to maintain his mental balance.

Tobirama certainly can't bring it up (except in fanfic!!!!) because he's the one who fatally wounded his brother in the first place. Awk-ward." - Informant Anon

Whoops, posted without editing avhsjajskwk

Okay so I have very little to add to this other than *stands with hands on hips looking out over the view* Yep, OP is a fucking trooper for doing this legwork 😂 I'm just kind of basking in all the information I didn't have to go looking for myself, this is very novel~

I love to see Tobirama being nuanced, in this universe where people are so fucking stubborn even with the facts presented to them, it's nice to see a character willfully integrate and question what's going on around him. Also, speaking of legacies, I think it's very interesting when you compare how the two Senju brothers were immortalised in Konohan cultural memory, as well as the blanket permission that people (including characters) seem to have towards what Tobirama would have wanted for the village as well as of his students etc etc, like... Hashirama is just Shinobi Jesus 😅 Similar with Minato, in that he's too brief and bright to have been anything but a tragic lost hero, a blip in the Sandaime's reign, but his legacy is also massively assumed (like... Even if Naruto wasn't his son, in what world would Minato want a random kid to be tormented? Or, if the Kyuubi was transformed into a kid, you'd bet your ass he'd have raised it to love Konoha and protect it 👀 Minato was kind but he was also a planner...) But anyway I'm getting off tangent!!

Thanks for the insight, Informant Anon!

[snickerdoodlles]

One of your posts got cited in a published online article? 👀

lol yeah 😂 this is what happens when you do vanity searches on your various usernames rip. that said, it wasn’t anything like…big? the paper’s disappeared in the last year as far as I can tell (🤞), but I had posted some ramble or another about fanzines like 5 years ago and the author of the paper had scooped it up and quoted part of it in their discussion about fanzine community. which was. a little mortifying tbh. I don’t even know how they found that post, much less why they included it (scrambling for citations ig??). idk

but lemme tell you, it’s a special type of psychic damage to google your username expecting stolen screenshots and furry art and instead see some dumbass post you made and forgotten about listed as a citation @.@

[pianostarinwonderland]

Further Thoughts Regarding TWST Otome

There's been quite a discussion about the thought of TWST as an otome recently. 😂 Ever since I received asks about it and talked about them with my friend Raven, I had been thinking about TWST as an otome more often.

I'm on the side that TWST is better the way it is now because it leaves more room for writers to create a story that fully makes use of the charms of Disney villains. Of course, it's fine for people to want an otome version or think about it, and they shouldn't be discouraged for them. These thoughts and desires do potentially motivate people to make their own fan games, stories, and art, after all.

This discussion can get pretty touchy for a lot of folks. I've seen people getting angry at the suggestion of TWST being an otome and others being so insistent that it shouldn't be an otome and that they're so glad that TWST is the way it is. One of the main reasons that would be commonly cited is "the characters are not meant to be in an otome". This would include frequent citations of Ghost Marriage, where the boys are depicted to "suck" at proposals (and I put suck in quotations because Eliza did have impossible standards to ward them away) and where some of them even express that they are high school boys who should either focus on school and/or just don't have that much experience in the dating realm in general. Beyond Ghost Marriage, people also chalk it up to the given personalities of the characters, suggesting that because character A acts like this, he can't be in an otome.

I want to talk about that argument in this post. As I thought about the TWST otome discussion, I've come to realize that saying that a TWST otome can't happen because of the characters' behaviors is actually a weak argument. It is not to say that it's wrong, but as an argument for why TWST can't be an otome, it is deeply flawed for two reasons.

First, it promotes the idea that the boys are incapable of love.

Often, when people argue that TWST can't be an otome because of the way the characters are written, there tends to be that phrasing that they're not meant to be in a romantic relationship or they can't function in one. And unintentionally or otherwise, this shuts down the idea that TWST boys can experience romantic love.

As mentioned earlier, Ghost Marriage is often cited as a supporting detail for this. Aside from saying that the event depicts the boys "sucking" at doing proposals, two famous lines from Trey and Idia are commonly brought up. Trey said, "I'm just a normal high schooler? Only normal people stuff came to mind!" (TL from shel_bb on Youtube), and Idia said, "The guy who’s infatuated and falls head over heels in love is useless. If you’re a student, keep quiet and focus on your studies!" (TL from @mysteryshoptls)

Here's the issue when people bring up Ghost Marriage as the reason why TWST can't be an otome: when people say that, they would put the characters in some sort of box, that because they said this or did that, they can't be in a romantic relationship or what. But we have to remember that these characters are not flat. They're very rounded, they have a lot of depth to them. Some are dynamic—they're changing as the story progresses. Others are static—maybe they've undergone small changes, but they relatively remain the same. But they have been written to be very human, and because of that, they do have the potential to partake in romance. You can take their traits and lines they say and make your interpretations about how they could potentially be like in a relationship. It's how your favorite romantic headcanon or fanfic and character study came to be—people interpreted the characters' words and actions, and they made their conclusions. Some may want to be in a relationship, others don't, and whatever the boys choose to do with their lives, that's something we can't really stop nor can we dictate.

Now, you might say, "What if that's not my point? What if I'm pointing out that because this character has this trauma or acts this way, they can't be in a romantic relationship?" I do agree with the sentiment that you should fix your own deep-seated problems before you even date someone, or at the very least, not rely on them so much to be your solution to your problems, because if you don't solve such issues yourself, this can harm both parties and affect the relationship. But it's important to realize that the writers chose to write these characters this way for a reason. This brings me to my next point.

Second, it only looks at what the characters are like now and not why they were intended to be written that way.

We have to remember that the characters are the way they are now because they were written to be that way by the TWST team.

In the Magical Archives, Yana said that Riddle was the complete opposite in the drafts. He was a spoiled brat, he didn't follow any rules, and the only reason why nobody could go against him was because of his power. However, she found that she was unsatisfied with this, then eventually wrote Riddle to be his current self. The reason why we have Riddle now is because Yana decided to make him strict. Otherwise, we'd have gotten a spoiled brat for a Heartslabyul dorm leader. 😂

With this in mind, it's no surprise if the other TWST characters were originally different from their current versions. The writers made decisions on how their personalities were going to be and how they would be written. Until now, they have to keep deciding on how the characters would react to a certain situation in upcoming and future stories.

The main point is, if TWST writers can and have made the decisions to write the boys the way they are written now, then they could have made the decision long ago to write them as suitors instead, characters suited for an otome game.

Rather than looking at the personalities of the characters as a reason why they can't fit into the otome genre, it's best to look at their current personalities as the result of a decision that had to be made by the writing team.

At some point in the development of TWST, the team had to decide what the genre of the game was going to be. All they knew is that this was going to be a game about Disney villains. They could have chosen the dating sim/otome genre to market their charm, but they went with the joseimuke format instead. What influenced that decision? That's now up for speculation, but if I were to make a guess, if the game was going to have basis on the Disney villains, then they would have wanted to present them as how they really are: villains. They had to think long and hard on what makes a villain, and they had to decide on how they wanted to present these villains. Would they glorify or romanticize their actions? Would they condemn them? Or would they present them as people who struggle in society? And once they answered those questions, what format would they choose to present the story? And once they choose the format, how would the characters be like, and how would they drive the story? Since they chose TWST to be a joseimuke, TWST's characters are then written to fit a joseimuke game, which the team decided was going to be the best way to fully show the charms and flaws of villains.

To conclude, I don't intend to say that TWST is better as it is now than as an otome. In fact, I do think that the characters' attitudes and behaviors being used to support the idea of why TWST can't be an otome is weak and flawed for a few reasons. Rather, I think a better argument as to why TWST can't be an otome is because simply put, it was the writers' decision to make TWST a joseimuke and thus make the characters fit into that format better.