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ryn-at-2am · 4 years

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*dies* 😥 Man, work has been a bitch lately. I haven't had time to do much of anything, and any time I DO have free I spend frantically trying to catch up on shit (or sleep lol), so my apologies to my friends for being so absent 😢💔 I haven't forgotten about you, I've just had to prioritize life 'n' junk first (being an adult is just the worst ugh 😑) - As for this, I've had it done for two weeks and still haven't had time to post the damn thing 😅 But because Dib now officially has his own multiverse, here's a few more bois in my at-the-moment art style 😁❤️ - First up is "Classic Dib" from the TV show in his cool boots and gray-face Tshirt 👌 - Then we have "Concept Dib" (or maybe Dexter's Lab AU Dib? lol 😅) from Jhonen's initial sketches when he was first coming up with Dib's design ❤️ - Then it's everyone's favorite meme, "Pilot Dib" (better late jumping on the bandwagon than never, amirite?), or "Scary Teeth Dib" (I wasn't scared of beans before, but now... 😨) - Next up is "Pjs Dib" and oh my God I can't even with this one ASDFGHJKJKHKH 😄😄😄💕❤️💞💖 - And lastly is "Wonderland AU Dib"! 💖 So Dib in my AU doesn't *actually* wear the iconic blue Alice dress (tho if you wanted to imagine that I certainly wouldn't stop you 😉), but I couldn't *not* draw dis boi; the cutesy art style just leant itself so well to this sort of thing 😙💕 - There's still a few more Dibbarinos I want to do in this style; I've got Mothman Dib, Irken Dib, Genderbent Dib, and Mer-May Dib on my wish list to name a few. I also want to try doing some other IZ characters in this art style, tho it could be forever before I get around to them *sigh* 😥 - #invaderzim #invaderzimDib #invaderzimdibmembrane #invaderzimentertheflorpus #dib #membrane #dibmembrane #jhonenvasquez #invaderzimpilotdib #pilotdib #conceptdib #pajamas #pjs #pjsdib ##invaderzimau #invaderzimfanart #fanart #dibinwonderland #wonderland #wonderlandau #aliceinwonderland https://www.instagram.com/p/CAWN4Z4AaAm/?igshid=1nwba8bfgoi2e

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majoringinsarcasm · 6 years

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James Griffin Headcanons

I’m a fandom hitchhiker who jumps on bandwagons so enjoy a lot of this shit for the next month folks.

Let’s talk about everybody's favorite spoiler, who might not be a spoiler anymore depending on if this is seen before or after August 10, James Griffin. These are just personal HCs of mine based on literally nothing but like what else is new in this place?

•He’s the youngest of four brothers.

•The first two are twins, who are ten years older, Jacob and Jackson.

•The middle brother, who is seven years older, is Johnathan.

•(Remember that show with 19 kids who all had J names? Yeah)

•His family can be described in two words: Rich and Weird

•His father, Jeremy, is a lawyer. He’s a Prick. The kind of rich asshole father who works late and is hardly around for family dinner, but will subtly tear you down if you’re late to the table on the days that he’s home.

•His mom, Lynn, is a Home decorator, who keeps her own home in several specific styles. They often only change during the seasons.

•Winter: White and red and black throw blankets and kitchen chair cushions, perfectly cut logs in the fireplace that they never burn, because the ashes would be a nightmare to get out of their white carpet. The boys are allow (1) one glass of wine with dinner once they turn fifteen, but only at one meal, and only if their father is home. Before that they drink cranberry juice in plastic wine glasses. It’s fun.

•Spring: two words, Garden Party. His (gated community) neighborhood hosts one every year, where they pick a different house to visit each week. The moms all have aprons with just the right amount of soil stains to pretend that they don’t all hire gardeners to make everything so lush and pretty. James wears button up shirts and slip on shoes.

•Summer: The worst time. Pool parties his older, popular brothers go to. Barbecues he isn’t allowed to eat at. Kids run through sprinklers and get grass stains on their pants. James reads. He does summer homework. He spends hours listening to his father talk about things he’s being conditioned to give a shit about. When he’s ten, there’s a fire down at Mrs. Lancaster’s. Everyone goes to (gossip) make sure everyone is alright. James sees a boy sitting on a platform on the fire truck, wearing shorts and a Space Invaders shirt. His hair is floppy, too long for a boy his mom would say. He’s got neon pink bandages on his fingers and knees. James is only allowed to wear the bandages that blend in with his skin. He frowns and looks away.

•Autumn: So many things made out of whicker it feels like an antique shop. His mother drinks tea and makes soup despite the fact that it doesn’t get really cold until November. Brown. Brown anything. Key bowls in the shape of leaves and kitchen curtains with acorns and squirrels. James always asks to rake the leaves growing up. When they’re small his brothers take turns tossing him into big piles and collecting pine cones. At twelve he gets scolded for ‘acting like a child where the neighbors can see’.

•His favorite color is orange.

•Like the creamsicles he’s not allowed to buy and the sunsets on the beach his family never goes to. His dad thinks the color orange is for clowns. James has a bunch of little things he keeps in his room that are orange. Shoelaces he never puts on, slap bracelets, nail polish that he doesn’t wear but likes to look at, and a pair of toe socks that don’t go past his ankles. He wears them secretly to all of the business dinners his dad drags him to.

•When he finds out the uniforms at the Garrison are orange he doesn’t look at any other schools

•He starts learning about piloting afterwards.

•In the public school, he actually has the Second highest grade in physics. Keith has the first. No one seems to notice or care except for James.

•He eats burgers with a knife and fork. It started as a joke.

•He’s the living proof of the “white ppl can be lured in by cheese” meme

•”As a homosexual….. supporter”

•(despite it being accepted in the future he doesn’t tell anyone that he’s Not Straight. He doesn’t even believe it sometimes.)

•(Sometimes)

•Has a H U G E crush on Shiro and this is a Fact

•Incredibly jealous that Keith outshines him, the boy who has nothing somehow gets everything that James want: freedom and praise from the right person.

•He doesn’t know that Keith /actually/ doesn’t have parents until after the (day he gets punched in the fucking face) fight

•He doesn’t know that Keith’s dad died saving people until Shiro takes him aside and lectures him on the importance of respect and teamwork

•His dorm room is right next to Keith’s.

•His room is pristine, everything organized and in its place.

•To combat this he sleeps with his head at the foot of the bed.

•He learns through eavesdropping that Mr. Shirogane has a boyfriend. He doesn’t leave his room all weekend

•When Keith gets kicked out his room is turned into a storage closet. James breaks the zipper on Keith’s old jacket and keeps it in a drawer, tied to an orange shoelace.

•He doesn’t think that Keith could’ve been the little boy on the fire truck until he finds an obituary, showing a man holding a tiny child with floppy hair and bandages on his face

•He doesn’t find out about this until after Keith is gone

•When Lance makes fighter class James turns to the side, expecting annoyed eyes to glare back. Because their thoughts on Lance The Cargo Pilot are one of the only things they had in common

•When Lance, Hunk and Pidge go missing, he starts wearing the zipper and shoelace around his neck, hidden under his uniform

•He wonders if his parents would look for him if he disappeared

•His least favorite color is blue.

•The last color people see before they die in space

#james griffin #james voltron #jaith #jeith

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theglitchedworld · 6 years

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Glitched - Prologue

In the year 2032, the medium of virtual reality took a massive step forward with the introduction of the Spinal Link System or SLS. Though the name of the device was an initial detractor, the actual unit was not as frightening as it implied. An articulated series of plates that were worn along the user's spinal column protected the delicate sensors that used a low tack, reusable, medical adhesive to adhere to the user's skin while a clam-shell set of audio/visual devices cupped the user's head from the back and covered the eyes and ears. The device used the myriad sensors in the spinal plates to pick up the signals being sent from the brain and the series of high-grade onboard CPUs interpreted them into virtual motion.

Originally designed as an interface unit to help paralysis victims be able to walk again with the use of a cybernetic exoskeleton among other healing purposes, it wasn't long at all before non-injured users began to see the potential for other uses as well. The military, especially, pushed for the development of virtual worlds for the purpose of training their soldiers without the expense and hazard of real world live fire training. The medical world soon jumped on the same bandwagon, sending would be surgeons through hundreds of hours of virtual surgeries with all manner of outlandish complications to prepare before ever touching a laser knife to a real world patient.

But it was the gaming community that made this new interface truly blossom once it came into contact with the general public two years after initial development. The ever improving CPUs allowed for more and more detail to be layered into the virtual worlds shared by so many as MMOs. Eventually even scenes such as scent and taste joined the original trinity of sight, sound, and touch. People from around the world were brought together in an instant and able to interact with each other in landscapes that previously only existed in the fevered dreams of artists and writers of the past. Social media fell to the wayside once people realized they could connect virtually in person with people they'd only dreamed of meeting before. No one had time for typing status updates or posting selfies when whole worlds waited to be explored.

However, it took almost eight years in the public sector before the next step into what became known as True Virtual Reality or TVR managed to occur with the development of the TVR Suit. Before the Suit, the SLS could only be used in specially prepared empty rooms or with the user sedated into a dream-like state in order to avoid accidental injury. There was also an alarming number of cases of death relating to more hardcore users forgetting to tend to the needs of their real world body due to being too engrossed in their virtual activity. But the TVR Suit changed that.

The Suit was to all outward appearances a skin tight bodysuit, similar to a wetsuit in the way it hugged the body, with a interface slit for connecting to a user's SLS along the back. However on the inside, countless tiny sensors studded every inch of the material and fed real time data to the SLS the entire time it was worn. It could detect everything from an abnormal heart rhythm to a need to eat or drink or even something as relatively minor as a full bladder and send a signal to the SLS to remove the user from the virtual world. But more than that, the sensors could also detect nerve pulses to trigger a movement in the body - such as the user attempting to raise their arm - while the SLS was logged in and send a counter-acting pulse to cancel the movement before it could occur, eliminating the need for special rooms or sedation drugs to log into virtual worlds. The introduction of the Suit revolutionized the SLS and it quickly became standard to purchase a custom-fitted Suit as a package with a SLS. Logging in without one was soon considered just as dangerous as getting into a race car without a proper helmet and harness. And foregoing the evident advantages of not needing a specialized place to login or the fogginess of sedation made even the most stubbornly resistant to console accessories line up to be fitted for their own Suit. As adoption of the Suit increased, the tragedies of death relating to logging in too long decreased. And the development of Safety Protocols that would derezz a user once they hit the last 1% of their HP - or higher if the user put higher focus on safety - to prevent the rare case of mental conviction that they'd died actually killing the user in real life made even that possibility far rarer than it was at the beginning of TVR.

In 2047, one last major change was released - the introduction of the Dive Tank. Previously a medical use only device, the Dive Tank completely immersed the user in a oxygen rich nutrient solution that could remove waste and feed the user for as long as it remained powered. Suddenly, the need to log out in order to survive was effectively removed and those who wanted to truly disappear into a virtual world now had the ability to do so. Provided they had the real world funds to afford it. Dive Tanks were exorbitantly expensive when they were initially made available with only the wealthy able to afford the cost of a unit and its inevitable upkeep. The price slowly decreased as demand increased, but it still remained out of reach of many but the most determined gamers.

But around the time of the Dive Tank's introduction, a rumor began circulating through the virtual worlds. It spoke of people disappearing while logging in of being routed to some other place where no one could find them. No one sharing the story ever knew the people who were said to disappear. They were always a loner, someone who spent more time taking risks like soloing party dungeons or trying to raid above their level, and most of the time the story was from a different world altogether. And all that seemed to happen was they stopped logging into that world. No one ever really knew them in the game and it was hardly the first time that someone lost interest in a game and moved on without telling anyone.

But the rumors persisted despite the lack of evidence that anything truly nefarious was happening. Eventually whenever someone wasn't logged in, the first thing anyone looking for them would hear was "maybe they glitched" followed by a laugh. No one took it seriously, just a meme carried on for fun and games.

In 2055, that all changed.

"Glitches" began to happen to more well known players and more frequently. It became harder and harder to laugh off the old throw away comment about them glitching as the number of possible glitched players steadily grew higher. The media didn't get involved until someone went looking for a possibly glitched player they knew in the real world and found them in the unresponsive state of a logged in user. Nothing would log the user out and trying to trace the signal of their log to the world it connected to inevitably became lost in a bewildering series of jumps between virtual worlds. It was like something had grabbed their signal and dribbled it throughout the whole of the virtual multiverse like some sort of digital basketball before throwing it at some unknown basket without ever disconnecting their consciousness from it.

The discovery of one glitched player quickly snowballed as more people investigating possible glitches and more and more glitched players began to be found around the world. For some, discovery came far too late even with the use of a Suit - death by malnutrition and lack of care once the Suit and the user's SLS couldn't pull them from the login. Some could only have been the sources of the first rumors, they had been gone so long once they were found. Others were taken into the care of their local government, long term facilities set up with Dive Tanks to hold the players in each country while their mental disappearance was investigated. The numbers steadily grew until they seemed to level off somewhere in the thousands of victims.

Fear began to take hold in the virtual multiverse as players started wondering what made a person glitch. Some stopped logging in altogether, giving up the pleasures of the virtual world in favor of the real world's placid sameness. Others developed a sort of paranoia, constantly scanning and updating their SLS's software for viruses and flaws or only connecting through a wired connection to a personal terminal instead of the SLS's wireless point. But for the majority of users, the fear wasn't enough to keep them from their daily login to their favorite worlds. After all, barely even 5% of users could be called glitched victims. The chances that it would happen to any particular person was vanishingly small and the world's governments were quick to reassure people that all efforts were being made to find out why it was happening and stop it.

Personally, I thought the whole thing was silly. It'd been almost two years since the media reported any major glitch incidents after all. Glitching was nothing more than a freak accident. There was no real dangers to logging in and I'd put so many hours into my character, throwing it all away by not logging in seemed like the bigger loss. There hadn't even been one glitched player from my server, so the possibility of glitching seemed about as remote as getting into a plane crash without ever boarding. And besides, I'd finally managed to afford a real Dive Tank. There was no way I was letting it go to waste.

I stretched in the glass enclosure of my tank, warming up for my first deep login. I know it's silly since my avatar and my physical body don't really connect like that, but I can't help it and besides, it makes me feel more relaxed before I login. Just like how the orange-ish nutrient solution feels warm as it washes into the enclosure, even though I know it's only room temperature. Some things are just the way they seem no matter what reality might say.

I settled my oxygen mask over my mouth and nose and took a deep breath of the filtered air as the solution washed over my face. Taking one last glance around my bare room - selling off the last few bits of furniture I had to bankroll this Tank was a big decision - through the orange-ish soup of the solution, I let my eyes close and reached for the familiar command menu of the SLS nestled against my bare back. The Bested World's logo hovered tantalizing close before my face as I opened my eyes again, the SLS overriding the signals my real eyes were sending my brain with its command menu. I'd been playing in The Bested World for the last five years with my old Suit. Now I was finally going to have an advantage only the top players could meet with my Tank.

Grinning, I reached up with a virtual hand and tapped the logo to login, waiting for the familiar rainbow swirl of connection.

Only for everything to go completely white.

#theglitchedworld #book1:glitched #prologue #litrpg #original fiction

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viatorcor · 7 years

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( 2, 10! )

munday meme | accepting | @viisaus

Tosses this under a read more because I might have a problem with writing to much.

What drew you to rping this character?

I’m just a sucker for badass women who can slay me. I think a huge part of what drew me to Tetra was that, at the time, there was a King Daphnes in the community. Plus there was a friend of mine who had just taken up Link from Wind Waker. I… I kind of just jumped on the bandwagon, to be honest.

However, that was just what pushed me into committing to what I’d already been considering. Around that time, I’d just beaten Wind Waker for the first time since I was a kid and had fallen for Tetra all over again. That time, I’d learned to appreciate her more than I once had. Rather than solely seeing the obvious aspects of her character and loving those; her fire, her drive. Her sass. I’d also started to see that there was much more to her than met the eye. That she was just a kid, who’d been forced to grow up far, far to fast. Whose mother had died when she was just a child, as if she wasn’t just a young girl already. A mother who potentially knew of her daughter’s possible destiny, considering all of the hints towards it, alas had her life cut short before she could pass such information on. Whose father wasn’t even in the picture; possibly dead, or if not dead then gone, having abandoned them for another life. All in all, leaving Tetra, this kid who could have been leading this carefree, blissful life at sea before, incharge of a band of pirates. This grieving child, who always knew she’d be captain of the ship, always dreamed of it, but never wanted it quite like this. Who suddenly had big shoes to fill, bigger than even she should be allowed to fill, but would never have let anyone stop her.

And? And just when she’s found her bearings, just when life’s turned smooth and the ships developed a name for itself upon the Great Sea, out of the blue she’s whisked off by a giant bird and she meets a boy. A boy, who sets her on a path to finding out that she has bigger shoes to fill than even she realized. That, her entire life has been a lie. A cover established long before she was born, for something greater than she. Something she never asked to be apart of, but ah, what choice is there? To take this burden, and become queen. To establish an empire, and forsake the ocean she loves so.

As Ganondorf said, she dreams of the sea. The sea, as far as the eye can see. It’s little things such as that, and how at the beginning of Phantom Hourglass she yells at Niko for calling her Princess Zelda, that I don’t think she truly wants any part of her destiny. Why be a Queen, when you can live the carefree life of a pirate? Why rule grassy fields far and wide, when your heart belongs to the sea?

As if she’d ever forgive herself for turning her back on it though.

… I rambled, oh geez. What I meant to say was that I… I admire her, for all she’s been through, at such a young age too. While that fire of hers would have been more than enough to interest me into picking her up as a muse, it’s the depth that sold me. The challenges she’s faced, and the challenges still ahead.

What’s the hardest thing for you to write?

Villains, hands down. Just, them in general. I love them, oh man do I love them, but never do I feel as if I’m accurately portraying them when it comes time to do something considered heinous or cruel. Those other times, when they’re these deep characters with deep stories who aren’t, at that moment, doing bad? I don’t think I’m to awful then, no worse than how I usually view my characterization of any other muse. It’s… just those other times xD

Nine-ish years of roleplay and I still haven’t gotten the hang of these types.

#◤ ◞ ◜ ⊰ ᵒᵒᶜ ⊱ ◢#◤ ◞ ◜ ⊰ ᵃⁿˢʷᵉʳᵉᵈ ᵃˢᵏˢ ⊱ ◢#viisaus #( this was not suppose to be as long as it is oh geez #someone needs to stop me before i ramble )

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thedeadshotnetwork · 6 years

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The dictator Trump is most similar to is one you've probably never heard of REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Out of international dictators, Trump is most similar to Serbia's authoritarian former president Slobodan Milošević. Both had meteoric and unexpected rises, and marshalled nationalism to retain popularity. However, Milošević left his country and region in ruins — it remains to be seen whether Trump follows in his footsteps. It’s a popular parlor and social media game these days to compare Donald Trump to various dictators. This is tempting, given our 45 th president’s indulging in authoritarian habits like rage-tweeting at Federal agencies he dislikes, or showing disregard for the rule of law when it gets in his way. Americans are unaccustomed to casual flirtations with dictatorial-sounding memes like crushing CNN bloodily with Trump’s shoe, and many of them never want to normalize such conduct. More hysterical anti-Trumpers jump immediately to Adolf Hitler, a ridiculous comparison as well as a violation of Godwin’s Law that says more about them than President Trump. Some prefer Benito Mussolini, who like Trump had a pronounced absurdist side as a dictator manqué who never accomplished much of substance. A more recent Italian leader, Silvio Berlusconi, seems a better comparison, since like Trump he boasted luridly of his sexual conquests and acted like the louche, ineffectual billionaire he was. However, Berlusconi never really set out to do much of anything except gain power, whereas Trump preaches nonstop about his alleged desire to Make America Great Again. Looking to Eastern Europe The best comparison is one that won’t be too familiar to many Americans and is frankly disturbing. The dictator whom Donald Trump most closely resembles is Slobodan Milošević, the Serbian strongman who pushed Yugoslavia off the cliff over a quarter-century ago, unleashing wars and genocide, then died in The Hague in 2006 while on trial for war crimes. Although Milošević was front-page news throughout the 1990s, since his death he has faded from Western consciousness. Therefore, it’s worthwhile briefly revisiting Milošević, since his similarities to Trump are startling. Tatiana Popova/Shutterstock First, let’s get out of the way how Milošević and Trump were dissimilar. While the latter is a much-married reality TV showman who lives for the camera and can’t shut up or stay off social media, the former was a colorless Communist functionary, a private man devoted to his wife and possessing a somewhat dour demeanor. As social personalities they could not be more different. Yet a cursory look at their political personalities reveals troubling likenesses. Like Trump, Milošević made his name in finance, playing shady games with other people’s money, and got ahead in the Yugoslav system due to personal connections more than professional acumen. Milošević, like Trump, casually used people, even his closest friends, and discarded them when they were no longer needed (at the end of his regime, Milošević had his former best friend and mentor assassinated); loyalty with both is a one-way street. Serbia in the late 1980s was a lot like the US is today Milošević’s sudden, unexpected rise in the mid-1980s would be eerily replicated by Trump three decades later. After the death of the longtime Yugoslav party boss Marshal Tito in 1980, the country entered terminal decline. Yugoslavia was deeply in hock to foreign banks, its ailing economy having grown dependent on infusions of Western cash to keep running, and by the mid-1980s Tito’s Ponzi scheme was collapsing. As a result, unemployment spiked and average Yugoslavs, who had grown accustomed to near-Western levels of consumer comfort, saw it all evaporate before their eyes. Fury followed. Given such economic turmoil, political ferment burst forth, and in multiethnic Yugoslavia, that inevitably took on nationalist coloration. Serbian nationalism, taboo for decades under Communism, emerged from under the ice in the mid-1980s with dangerous passion. It’s difficult to rationally see why Serbs felt aggrieved. They were by far Yugoslavia’s biggest ethnic group and by any accounting they dominated the country. Despite far-reaching Communist efforts at what we would term Affirmative Action (they called it the “ethnic key”), ensuring that minorities got proportional representation in jobs and sinecures, Serbs still held most of the big jobs in the Communist hierarchy and its institutions, and they dominated Yugoslavia’s military and security structures. Nevertheless, many average Serbs were angry by the mid-1980s, watching their economic security disappear as they faced demographic decline. This came to a head over Kosovo, an autonomous province of Serbia that between the 1950s and the 1980s went from being two-thirds Albanian and a quarter Serbian to 80 percent Albanian and barely 10 percent Serbian. Since much of Serbia’s history was tied up with Kosovo, this demographic decline was met with horror in Belgrade, where many Serbs portrayed it as an Albanian conspiracy to drive them out. Milosevic's rising star By 1987, the Kosovo issue dominated Serbian politics, and out of nowhere Slobodan Milošević, a rising party boss, jumped on the nationalist bandwagon. He had never shown the slightest interest in nationalism, personally or politically, and seemed devoid of ethnic ressentiment himself, yet he realized that the issue was his ticket to power. Suddenly Milošević made himself the public champion of the beleaguered Serbs of Kosovo, promising them he would defend their rights. Overnight, Milošević became a sensation—the first politician to break official party taboos about embracing nationalism—and a hero to angry Serbs everywhere. He cleverly employed nationalism to take power over Serbia and eventually even Yugoslavia. By late 1989, Milošević was the master of the country, the powerbroker of a state in terminal decline. Institutions that stood in his way—Yugoslavia’s Federal political system, the military and the security services—were attacked, then purged of opponents, then re-staffed with Milošević pawns and cronies. Wikimedia Commons/Paalso What the novice strongman didn’t plan on, however, was the rise of competing nationalisms against Serbia. The threat of Serbian chauvinism terrified Albanians, and soon Croats and Slovenians too. Old enmities returned. In the summer of 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Milošević-dominated Yugoslavia, dooming the federation and birthing a series of ugly ethnic wars that plagued the region until the end of the decade. Today, most of the former Yugoslavia remains poorer, more corrupt, more ethnically divided, and more crime-ridden than it was then Milošević grabbed the axe of Serbian nationalism and used it to chop down the country. Milošević ruined Serbia just like he ruined most of Yugoslavia, inflicting political, social, and economic wounds that show few signs of healing even now. In truth, he never cared about Serbs, he merely wanted power. Cynically donning the cloak of nationalism, he fooled Serbs by telling them what they wanted to hear: I will protect you. I will defend Serbdom. I will restore prosperity. Serbia's rude awakening and parallels to Trump Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters None of it was true. His plan to Make Serbia Great Again was nothing but a charade. Once he achieved power, Milošević really didn’t know what to do; he was better at fiery rhetoric than reality. As a result, Milošević improvised crisis after crisis and left behind a broken and impoverished Serbia, smaller and weaker than it was before the First World War. By the time Serbs figured out they had been conned, it was too late; the country was already wrecked, and Milošević managed to hold on until the fall of 2000, thanks to his control of the media and the police, enriching his family and his hangers-on every step of the way. That he was eventually extradited to The Hague to face justice seems inadequate compared to the devastation which Slobodan Milošević left in his wake. You can understand the remarkable rise of Donald Trump in 2015-16 by simply exchanging “Serbian nationalism” for “white nationalism”: the parallels are eerie and disturbing. Trump, who never had shown the slightest interest in the plight of the white working class while he built his flimflam empire of gauche condos and casinos, suddenly reinvented himself as their champion. By telling angry and alienated people just what they wanted to hear, Trump created a political movement overnight and mysteriously rode it right to the White House. Now that’s he’s there, President Trump has failed to deliver on his grandiose promises to his base. Chants of “Build the Wall” to preserve America’s current demographics have gone silent, while Trumpian populism turns out in practice to mean a cabinet packed with Goldman Sachs alumni and tax cuts for the rich. At this point, Trump’s manipulation of white nationalism seems every bit as cynically dishonest as Milošević’s Serbian patriot act. So far, of course, America has avoided the fate of Yugoslavia. We’re a much bigger and richer country, and our economy, for all its structural problems, is a lot less troubled than Yugoslavia’s was in the 1980s. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Donald Trump has opened the same can of ethno-nationalist worms that Slobodan Milošević did, and if he keeps stoking those fires while doing nothing for his angry and alienated base, America could yet wind up resembling Yugoslavia a lot more than anybody sane should want. John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee. NOW WATCH: 1,500 happily married people say the key to lasting relationships isn’t communication — it’s respect December 30, 2017 at 02:54PM

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