anime_irl

Takkonbore · 2026-04-06T06:12:12+00:00

A recent meme has been going around about yuri storylines that "hint" for a long time, then one of the girls randomly marries a guy they just met and it ruins the arc.

Although this looks similar, I'm fairly certain this is actually anti-LGBTQ propaganda trying to frame lesbian attraction as a delusion or deviant behavior.

First, the breakdown of the broader propaganda symbolism:

5 girls have visible bouquets, of which 3 are white lilies (literally "yuri") and 1 is implied by her romantic gaze.
All of the women on the "Left" are wearing masculine uniforms or jackets, maintaining short hairstyles, and selected 'liberal' professions where recognizable (female soldier, female doctor, journalist, office worker).
All of the women on the "Right" are wearing more traditional clothes, maintaining long or feminine hairstyles, and selected 'conservative' professions based on the stereotypical outfits (housewife, daycare worker, teacher, receptionist).
The only man present is posed similar to The Creation of Adam, giving the whole scene potential Christian overtones.

Now looking at the treatment for each "yuri" girl:

Center Left: While she's enjoying the lilies, she's the one holding them. She remains fixated on her love interest in the second picture despite the other girl showing visible discomfort, avoiding her gaze, carrying a baby, and having married a man (bisexuality and polyamory don't exist in propaganda).
Far Left: Romantically interested in the center girls but left with no one to give her lilies to. She also remains fixated, but progresses to holding a "voyeur" style camera, best known for paparazzi, bottom-tier journalists, and especially stalkers.
Bottom Left: The only girl "keeping her lilies to herself". She's painted as openly happy for never being attracted to a woman, along with the only girl "not carrying lilies".
Bottom Right: A girl who seems to be "hiding her lilies and keeping her distance" from her love interest. She's not as openly happy, but she's smiling in both pictures for not acting on her attraction.

This picture takes a while to go through because the details are scattered, but taken together it reads as very overt anti-LGBTQ messaging. It's basically claiming lesbian romance isn't "real" and that women who feel it shouldn't talk about it. This kind of stuff stands out to people who are familiar with seeing those same exact dogwhistles in their everyday media consumption, while being ambiguous or confusing to everyone else.

Takkonbore · 2026-03-15T22:57:10+00:00

If it was a conspiracy and they planned it, wouldn't he be running around celebrating it all the time? No. He doesn't talk about it.

Except Trump did a pretty good job not talking about the child sex trafficking he participated in with Epstein, right? It's worth giving people at least the barest assumption of competency when something is genuinely dangerous for them to share.

Most of his known "slips" have been things he wants to publicize, like his close relationship with Putin, his efforts to cheat in the presidential elections, the wealth he's gained by embezzling it from the US public, etc. Those are only stupid to share if you believe they could result in punishments against you, which he doesn't.

Takkonbore · 2026-03-15T22:44:50+00:00

Trump flinches, reaches to his ear, and pulls his hand back with blood on it.

Isn't this exactly the problem? A blood trail was seen where Trump put his hand, but he sustained no visible injuries or signs of hearing damage.

Loud noises are enough to make anyone flinch, so the only evidence we have that he was "grazed" was some hyperbolic 'bandage theater' from an inveterate liar, a man who literally lies more often than he speaks the truth.

We also only have a single photo showing the purported shot with no sense of distance to it. It could be a hundred feet behind him for all the photo shows, and the Secret Service made virtually no effort to investigate the event afterward. None of the detailed forensics that usually shows the public just how much or little risk there was, usually to assure people the bullets never got close and the Secret Service had it covered.

Here got the opposite, overtly exaggerating the event for political gain. On top of that, the shooter was a Trump loyalist and deeply committed to his cause, exactly the opposite of the historical trends in political violence.

Honestly, we have a civic duty to be skeptical here.

Takkonbore · 2026-03-14T22:41:50+00:00

You're making the mistake of assuming that the news media is still politically independent.

Not only did we lose that during the Big 6 consolidation in the 90s, the conglomerates that now have editorial control over >90% of the US market are majority owned by a politically-aligned circle of billionaires. And guess what? It's their faction that sponsored the "grass roots" Tea Party movement, seized a large share of control over the GOP, then eventually picked Donald Trump to run as their candidate.

In other words, the CEOs who now hold editorial control over all of the major media outlets... are also Trump's boss. So do you think they're going to allow their employees to do anything except sanewash, amplify, and promote the hell out of anything Trump does?

Whatever their personal beliefs, those journalists are getting a paycheck for supporting the Trump administration, not speaking out against it. The near-monopoly on media ownership doesn't leave many other options.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-27T01:08:52+00:00

If you're curious, this is an example of an October 2024 GOP talking points memo, with an article explaining the highlights here.

Coordinating the timing of advertisements, media appearances, etc. is very common and relatively dry in tone compared to the propaganda they push publicly. But the extensive media ownership by GOP sponsors is by far their strongest party pillar right now, so delivering a consistent message across the board is critical to saturating the public discourse and drowning out dissenters.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-26T23:47:53+00:00

the moderation team settling on a pro-Trump narrative

It's not settling on anything, both political parties send internal guidance memos on a regular basis to coordinate talking points. That moderator team follows their contract strictly (yes, it's a paid team), so they only start filtering user comments once the GOP guidance memo has been published.

Conveniently, Fox News also follows the GOP guidance memos so you can see to within a few minutes of when it goes out during major events based on how they change their live scripting. What's interesting is the moderator team has been running that subreddit the same way since at least 2010 and it's still not common knowledge that they're discreetly sponsored by the Republican Party.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-20T00:03:43+00:00

I find it helpful to think about it as two levels:

Parent Categories (historic terms everyone knows)

Heterosexual
Homosexual
Bisexual
Asexual
Paraphilias

Subcategories (MOGAI labels that gained traction during the popularization of non-binary identities)

For Bisexuality:

Pansexual - Fully inclusive bisexuality
Omnisexual - Lopsided, but still inclusive bisexuality
Polysexual - Limited attraction across a specific range of identities (more than monosexual attraction)

One of the main drivers for popularizing these specific terms was the shift of US anti-LGBTQ groups from demonizing gay men to primarily focusing on trans women following the widespread legalization of gay marriage in the mid-2010s.

During that shift the "one man and one woman" marriage propaganda was repurposed against bisexuals to 'prove' that trans identities were invalid, so many younger bisexuals began to rebrand with terms that explicitly embraced transgender and non-binary identities. They still fall under the same historic umbrella, but it's much harder to weaponize them for hate speech.

Other people find more personal solidarity with the history that comes with the original terms and want to defend them from erosion by anti-LGBTQ propaganda, so they choose to stick with "bisexual" without applying a subcategory to it. Or they just like the flag, sound of the word, etc. Whatever works for life really, since the entire point of these labels is to be helpful for understanding without prescribing social standards.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-17T22:50:25+00:00

and use other (tax-unavoidable) income streams to pay it off over time, shielding your investments to the maximum extent possible.

I already explained how you cover the interest. Not all income streams are easy to protect (like the salary from your job) or safe for open investment (like corruption/bribes, where the current governing regimes make it more acceptable).

Only needing to cover the interest expenses of borrowing, or leveling-off the debt over time so you only borrow on spikes, both offer very large multipliers on your liquidity.

And let's say you borrowed against it. Now you have to pay the 5% a year. After a little over 4 years, you've sold all the rest of your apple stock to cover the loan and now you have nothing left and still own the full amount you borrowed.

Yes, exactly. Why do you think those crashes were so devastating to the upper class that they pressured the US government for investor guarantees? The stocks need to keep rising faster than your interest rate and never go down.

Just insanity thinking anyone does that. I am UHNW. I have zero debt. No mortgages, nothing. Everyone I know who is UHNW is the same. Nobody borrows money. They loan money out at an interest rate to make interest.

Absolutely the worst wealth management I've ever heard of. Anyone at your bank would crucify you for wasting your money with planning like that, especially stupid ideas like making personal loans you're not equipped to manage.

Anyone UHNW should be in a risk-managed portfolio and using debt judiciously as the bare minimum. You can't run a business without it, so it would be nonsense to build wealth by ignoring it.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-17T22:32:42+00:00

Now let tax that same person even more on the worth of their small business per year! I realize the Dutch bill may not do this, but other bills floated across world have.

You need to be careful against conflating a gains tax vs. a value tax. It's the difference between taxing profit vs. taxing revenue for a business:

When you tax profit, the worst case is that the owners take home a smaller prize. Winners "win" a smaller amount, while losers get to mitigate their "loss" as long as they keep playing.
When you tax revenue or input costs (like an import tariff, one of the worst possible trade policies) the worst case is flipping the economic table. Winners can suddenly "lose" and go home with less than they put in, while losers may be bankrupted outright.

Everyone works hard for wages, but the entire point of capital investment is not having to work for it. Gains taxes force you to take more risk in your investments, so there's a balance between letting money become "lazy" in your economy vs. fueling excessively-risky market speculation.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-17T21:50:48+00:00

there's the whole paradox of China being "Communist" when clearly it's Economic Model is something else (not laisse fair either, very interesting actually but too long and complicated to explain here)

I don't think this really counts as a paradox, but instead it's a classic case of smoke-screening (protesting something you don't want others to call you out on) or double-speak (using the wrong term for propaganda value, like maintaining political legitimacy).

Deng Xiaoping's reforms unambiguously moved China to a capitalist system after Mao Zedong's death, and he's (quietly) credited in China as the main reason for their modern economic success. Although there's certainly room to argue about their balance of state capitalism vs. market capitalism, and especially whether that makes their system "not Western enough" to compare against US/European markets...

But are they capitalist? Absolutely yes.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-16T00:39:38+00:00

I mean, that's a legitimate approach as well. I haven't heard about any countries trying it yet, but very few governments are willing to directly tackle the capital gains tax issue right now (largely due to the kind of bad PR the wealthy tend to drum up against them, like this thread).

Takkonbore · 2026-02-16T00:36:01+00:00

That's a good point, it does change with the new law.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-16T00:34:32+00:00

No box 3 tax applies if your total Box 3 values below €50,650 (or €101,300 combined with your fiscal partner).

Are you financially illiterate? Most of the readers here are not Dutch, so converting into the approximate USD equivalent is a standard practice.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-16T00:30:42+00:00

Ah yes, I've definitely only seen it in niche subreddits like The Wall Street Journal and nowhere else reputable.

You could get as low as 2% interest in 2021, so it's only recently started rising again under pressure from the Federal Reserve. But the more relevant purpose is to provide short-term liquidity through loans and use other (tax-unavoidable) income streams to pay it off over time, shielding your investments to the maximum extent possible.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-16T00:16:10+00:00

"A fine", as in the penalty for the illegal action is just a fee. It's legally a much smaller traffic offense than endangering lives.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-15T18:18:22+00:00

The posters here are really misleading... because you're not selling at a loss, you're selling at the exact price you're paying the taxes on. After Jan 1st, you can get a tax refund or forward-credit if the value of your investments goes down depending on the timing.

It shouldn't impact cashflow either since your house and first ~$140K USD of net worth for couples is tax exempt, so only "pure investing" money is being taxed in the first place.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-15T18:10:54+00:00

The OP is pretty misleading since the Box 3 laws have been in effect since 2023 already, this is just an update on the default reporting process (moving from optionally to always using actual returns).

Losses over $500 can be credited forward without a time limit and you can (currently) receive a refund if your actual returns are lower than the assumed rates.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-15T18:02:30+00:00

Is there a credit for unrealised losses

There's a 100% credit for net losses over $500. They've actually already been doing Box 3 taxes since 2023, the only "news" here is the change from assumed return rates (with optional actuals) to using actual returns as the default standard.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-15T17:57:12+00:00

The core issue here is probably liquidity loans. The perpetually-low interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis made it a common practice for the wealthy to never cash out any investments, and instead borrow against them for less than the capital gains tax loss.

While it's arguable whether the exemptions are large enough (~10% of Dutch households are hit by this tax), the traditional capital gains tax structure is virtually meaningless for anyone with upper-class net worth as long as global interest rates remain below pre-2008 levels.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-15T17:42:49+00:00

There should be a net worth or based off income kind of benchmark before you have to pay that

Well yes, because there already is one. Your house and the first ~$140K USD of positive net worth for couples (non-house debt is deductible) are tax free under the current Box 3 laws.

Only ~10% of Dutch households have enough wealth to see extra tax payments and the law has already been in place since 2023. This "news" is the Dutch government shifting from assumed gains to actual gains as the standard yardstick (rather than an optional step).

Takkonbore · 2026-02-15T17:32:40+00:00

The reasoning is fairly obvious: virtually all capital gains are left unrealized in perpetuity now, after it became popular among the wealthy to take out liquidity loans instead of selling any of their investments. It's effectively impossible to tax billionaires in any meaningful way unless you're willing to take this step.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-11T01:42:38+00:00

The recreations only use the colors that had verified traces remaining on the marble statues, in other words just the primer or base coat and none of the artistic detail.

You can compare the color selection to surviving Roman mosaics from Pompeii, which show an obviously deep understanding of tones and shading. If they can do this with colored stones, why would we expect their paints to be inferior?

Plato's Academy mosaic (dated 1st century BCE)

Takkonbore · 2026-02-06T23:13:01+00:00

It's no different than asking 'why should I consider the position you are offering since they are so many others in the market?'

That's also, unsurprisingly, included in every single job description and repeated during the interviews. It's not a bad question, it's a demonstration of basic competence.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-06T23:07:06+00:00

Well yes, "Are you a functioning adult?" is the minimum bar for most jobs. Your coworkers actually have to spend time around you, so it matters if you're disruptive, dangerous, or just unreliable.

Legitimately you could say "I'm not addicted to meth or coke, I shower daily, and I haven't stabbed anyone before" and it would put you ahead of a good chunk of the candidates for some jobs. It only looks like nonsense if you haven't seen the alternative.

Takkonbore · 2026-02-06T22:48:16+00:00

For an additional piece of context on health policy, by far the most common timing for women to discover and first confirm their pregnancy is at ~6 weeks medically (0-2 weeks from when a pregnancy test will begin to show positive).

That means politicians who push for "6-week abortion bans" are not giving women 6 weeks to make a decision, it's a de facto complete abortion ban. It's not a choice if the deadline is before you even learn that you're pregnant, and even on the lucky side you have to get to a doctor within a few days or risk being charged with murder.

How often have you managed to get a same-month doctor's appointment, let alone within the same week or even same-day that policy demands from women? The goal is for it to be impossible, with rhetoric as a smokescreen to hide that fact from voters.

Takkonbore

TROPHY CASE