#anyways we do have a semi active discord chat | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hotcoffeetransformation · 3 years

Text

Jason swore loudly and had to resist the urge to throw his controller down, pissed that he kept dying cause of the game's stupid glitches (Also known as own mistakes). Still, he regained his composure, and smiled before saying

"Alright chat, we're gonna finish up this one and then we're gonna move on to another game. There should be a poll on top for what we do next"

Jason was a moderately successfully game streamer, averaging about 200 to 300 viewers a night, entirely based on his wit and skill. He knew for sure that they weren't coming for his looks, given his weedy, thin frame, overly pimpled face and large, nerdy glasses. Still, it was enough for him, and he was happy with the progress that he'd made.

As Jason got himself set up for the next game, he heard a shocking sound from above him. The victory theme from one of his favorite JRPGs was blaring through the speakers, and he came up, staring at the screen in shock. He knew what that sound meant. That meant someone had tipped him one thousand dollars, completely out of nowhere.

He looked in shock at the notification on the stream, seeing that it was from someone named JockBro69, with the simple message "Can't wait to get to know you better, cutie~"

Jason was completely stunned. Not only had someone actually redeemed the donation goal that he set as a joke (That being that whoever was stupid enough to tip 1000 dollars got to have a 15 minute private chat with him), it was also someone that he'd never seen in his chat before.

Thoroughly weirded out, but knowing that he had to honor his commitment, he sent the guy a quick private message.

"Dude, I don't know how to thank you enough! Guess I'll see ya pretty soon!"

With that, he sent the man his private zoom link, and said goodbye to the chat, who were still going wild over this turn of events, before pausing,the stream and hopping over to discord for the call.

Not two seconds after his stream stopped, he got a requested video call on discord from the guy, and he opened it up, giving a second for the video to load, but when it did, he was completely dumbfounded again. He was expecting the mysterious donator to be some fat, sweaty silicon valley nerd with too much and money on his hands, but instead what met him was possibly the hottest man he's ever seen, standing up and looking down at his webcam with a friendly expression.

"Fuck, bro! Its so good to finally fucking meet you, I've been such a big fan for a long time, and this is a really big deal for me~

The man had a deep, rumbling, pleasant voice, that shot straight down Jacob's spine and left him feeling strangely... inadequate. Like the fact that his voice wasn't as smooth or melodic as this guy's was his fault, and he should be ashamed of that fact. Still, this guy was pretty pleasant to look at, Jason had to admit. He wasn't gay, definitely not, but he could acknowledge when another guy simply looked good.

Jason scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, not entirely sure of what he should do or say. Still, this guy spent 1000 dollars on this meeting, so he had to try anyway.

"So, umm.... I see your username is jockbro69... What's your actual name thought? I don't think I've ever seen you in chat before..."

The other man actually laughed at this, before looking confused and saying

"What are you talking about bro? Its me, Ethan! I'm in your chat all the time! Man, I guess what they say about playing games so much is true, huh?"

At this statement, Jason actually went pale with shock. THIS was Ethan? This was the guy who's username used to be runningLink? Who was an active fan of the zelda series, constantly begged Jason to play them, and bemoaned the fact that no would date him? It just didn't seem right...

Still, Jason, ever the semi professional, continued on, pretending that he wasn't shocked at the news.

"Well, thanks for supporting me so much! Seriously, this means a lot to me... Ummm... so I guess tell me some of your favorite things about the channel then!"

The man laughed again, the sound coming out in a slow, dumb chuckle, before saying

"What's my favorite thing? Do I even have to say, bro? Its the amazing piece of eye candy I'm looking at right now. You're super hot, bro~"

At this, Jason was shocked, but he chuckled awkwardly while blushing, and said

"Really? I don't think I've ever heard a single person say that before. I guess I consider myself slightly below average..."

The guy looked confused at that, before pressing on

"Really, bro? You look super hot to me, you got those bright, blinding blue eyes that you can just get lost in~"

At this point, Jason knew the man was just messing with him. His eyes have always, and will always be a dark, muddy brown, hidden behind his massive frames. Jason was about to respond, when Ethan continued

"Yeah, and you got that super stylish haircut too, really makes you look super masculine~"

Now Jason was REALLY confused. The guy was right, he did always get complements on his eyes, the bright, shocking blue visible and striking even through his huge glasses. But his hair was always a long, unkempt greasy mess.

"Ethan, are you sure you're okay, you're not just seeing things? Cause I don't know what you're talking about"

Ethan ignored the comment, just continuing to press on

"And you've got that hot, manly face, with your strong jaw and amazing profile"

Jason was confused again. Sure, his stylish haircut did help him look much better, but his face had always been pretty androgynous, with hints of baby fat still present in his cheeks. Again, before he could interrupt, Ethan continued,

"And you've got that smooth smooth skin, that hot stubble, that sexy smirk of yours. You're the full package bro~"

Jason laughed at this. Ethan was clearly being way too complementary. Sure his face had a great shape to it, with strong cheekbones and a square jaw, but his skin was still acne marked as hell, his smile was crooked and awkward, and he'd never been able to grow any facial hair, no matter how much he tried.

"I really have no idea what you're talking about Ethan. Sure I've got some good features, but the overall package isn't much to write home about~"

Ethan smirked again, his eyes lighting up with humor, as if he knew something I didn't.

"Nah, bro, you're underselling yourself. Plus, you've got that body~"

"What about my body? I think its pretty average, though I guess I'm a bit on the skinny side..."

Jason looked down at himself, trying to contemplate what Ethan meant. Sure, he'd been blessed with an attractive, manly face, but it didn't change the fact that his body was still below average at best.

"Again, bro! Putting yourself down. You really think those massive logs you have for arms are below average?"

Jason looked down at his skinny arms, and said

"More like logs than twigs man, seriously."

"And what about your legs? You've spent so long working on em, you've got thighs and glutes to kill for~"

Jason laughed again

"I dunno man! Most people say the exact opposite. They say I spend too much time on arms and not enough on my torso and legs. What can I say though? I love having big, beefy arms."

"Of course you do, bro? Who wouldn't? Especially when right in between em, you got your big, pillowy chest, your sexy abs, and your super toned back~"

Jason was seriously starting to wonder if Ethan was on something. Anyone could clearly see from first glance that Jason's body was badly proportioned, his arms and legs being massive from months to years of work, while he neglected his back, pecs and ab muscles. Still, he thought he looked pretty alright honestly.

"And I especially love how you're not only super sexy, you know it and flaunt it~ I don't think I've ever seen you once wear a shirt. The most you'll wear is a necklace, and even then, not like that covers anything, bro~ Only makes you look sexier"

Now here Jason had to disagree. He knew that he had cultivated and developed an amazing body over his years of going to the gym, but that was all for his own personal satisfaction. He never flaunted it unnecessarily, especially not during a stream.

"And I love the fact that you're such a fucking bro, bro. Every other word out of your mouth is bro and dude, you can't go even five minutes without flexing and thinking of fucking, or going to the gym, or hanging out with your other hot bros. We all know that your brain is basically only good for working out and looking hot. No smart's up there. And you've got your deep, sexy voice, too. Makes it even hotter that you're a gay bro, just like me"

Jason HAD to laugh at that. What the guy was saying was just so ridiculous.

"What the hell are you talking about? Look, I know that I like to show off my sexy body a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm some kind of dumb jock. And I'm definitely straight, dude. Don't know why you'd think I'm gay"

Ethan pressed on, completely unabashed by Jason's last comments.

"But you know the best fucking part, bro? Its that power of yours. The fact that any weak ass nerd who looks at you and your huge fucking muscles grows into a hot, dumb bro like us within seconds~"

Jason was busy flexing, staring at his own bicep in awe, as if he was shocked by him impressive he was. He looked up at Ethan blearily, saying

"Sorry, bro, what'd you say? I guess I got a bit fucking distracted. Huhuhu. But who could blame me~"

"Nah, it was nothing bro. You don't need to worry about it. Now should head back to the stream?"

Jason gasped in excitement, having forgotten entirely about the fact that there was a whole stream audience full of lame ass nerds, just ready for him to make as sexy as he and Ethan were.

"You got it bro~ This is gonna be so fucking hot~"

Jason left the call, going back to the stream and restarting, glad to see that a full 300 people were still watching, even through the extended break. The second he turned his camera on, he could see that people were confused for some reason, saying a stranger broke into his house. How stupid could these people be? How did they not recognize him? Still, not like it would matter for long...

"Hey bros! How're we all fucking doing? Welcomes to today's stream..."

He trailed off, looking blankly at the camera, before saying

"You know what? Fuck video games! Who needs them when you can do this~"

And as his pecs bounced and bounced hypnotically, the chat slowly transitioned from messages like "What the fuck is happening?" or "Who is this dumb jock?" to "Fuck, bro! Your pecs look so fucking hot today!" and "Huhuhu, I love making my pecs bounce like Jace's~"

And so the stream continued, Jace showing everyone all the amazing things his body could do, while anyone that was watching, whether they wanted to or not, began to copy him exactly. And as the stream went on, the viewer count rose, and rose, and rose...

#musclegrowth #straight to gay #jockification #himbo tf #jock #muscle

1K notes · View notes

rogue-of-broken-time · 3 years

Note

What happened with the jdc?

Well, uh… it lowkey died a way most semi-big Discord servers eventually do, to make a long story short.

Its real heyday was in 2018– that was the year I made it, and the year we held our Halloween event. But after that, as time went by in (later) 2019, people just… gradually started becoming less and less active there. It’d only be the same few people talking in the gen chat every day, with a rare appearance from anyone else. I myself started getting too nervous to talk there. And it didn’t help that some people just didn’t have an interest in JSE stuff anymore– I don’t blame them in any way, but for a semi-big server on the smaller end, it was a bit of a blow.

By the time 2020 came around, the mods, egos and I had lowkey tried to revive it a couple times, with no real success. As the year passed, some people (including a few of the egos) simply left the server (and I don’t blame them honestly, they all had valid reasons). I myself don’t have the heart to leave it, because of all the friends and memories I made through it (and because of the fact that I’m the owner– not sure what would happen to it if I left, so I just have it muted).

I still keep in touch with some of the closer friends I made through it with the Gay Gamers server (which was a JDC-spinoff, originally), and I know a lot of people out there would never have met if I hadn’t made the original server. To this day, that fact still blows my mind– people all across the world met (some even irl) because of something small I did. If that doesn’t show you how incredible it is to be able to simply touch others’ lives in a good way, even for a brief time, I don’t know what will.

But anyway. I still use Discord daily and JDC is still at the top of my server list, just because I never had the heart to move it. I thank my lucky stars every day that I had such a good experience with it, and that I had the guts to make it in the first place. I’ll never forget the good times we all had together– of sleepovers we used to have in the gen vc, of the craziness the egos caused and the stories we told together, of all of us just… finding each other.

JDC was meant to happen the way it did, I think. I just wish it could’ve lasted a little longer, and that I could tell everyone who ever joined it a huge “thank you”. You’ve touched my life in the same way I’ve touched yours; in the best way, however brief it was. And I carry you with me every day, in my pocket and in my heart.

#answered #anon #jdc discord #… not me making myself cry at 1:30 am

28 notes · View notes

winterandwords · 3 years

Text

Staying in the room

Morning folks! I had a bit of a breakthrough last night. This update is brought to you by post-vaccine semi-delirium and some very nice people.

OK, so. I'm in a small, chilled-out Discord server for adult writers. It's an amazingly supportive little group and I feel totally at home there, which is surprising because I'm an innately anti-social asshole who doesn't like people very much and doesn't tend to feel at home anywhere apart from my actual home (which I only share with one other person and one cat).

In the server, we have our own blog channels where we can post bits of what we're working on, stuff we like, rants and rambles etc. Also, once a week we have voice chats where we talk about someone's work and then chat about a writing craft-related theme of their choosing.

Before you think the progress was that we talked about my writing, it was not. Here's the thing. I'm perfectly happy to share things I've written. Even first draft things. I share them all the time on Tumblr and I also have a website and blog filled with my writing. I don't mind if people don't enjoy what I do (unless they're preachy "stop writing about bad people doing bad things" dickheads about it because those people can fuck off). That whole deal about "some people will love it, some people will hate it and most people won't care" is 100% my vibe when it comes to any form of art and/or entertainment.

If someone doesn't enjoy what I've written, that's cool. They aren't my audience. They're someone else's audience, so they'll shuffle off in a different direction and read something they do enjoy, someone else will have a happy reader, and someone who likes what I do will find it. It's all good. I'm never going to lose sleep over not being everyone's cup of tea or shot of vodka. There is not one thing in the world that everyone likes and that's kind of beautiful when you think about it. You're never going to please everyone, but chances are you will make someone feel profoundly and surprisingly seen. That is also beautiful.

Anyway. I will happily throw my words at anyone and everyone as long as I don't have to be there when they talk about them. Even if they're saying really wonderful things. It's not the response that affects me. It's the attention. The immediate, close-up, unavoidable, all-eyes-on-me attention. Pretty much every job I've ever had has involved me doing very visible things while being personally mostly invisible and that's how I like it. Even when I've been very active online in the past, there's been a degree of separation between thing-I-do and person-I-am and it's been very intentional.

I mentioned something in last night's voice chat about one of my characters and someone who is new to the server said they'd like to read more. So I posted a few paragraphs in my blog channel (far away from the big group chat place) and explained my intense discomfort around being 'in the room' while people read my work or talk about it. And then I decided that was going to be the time I fucking dealt with it.

And I did.

I fucking dealt with it.

Yes, I imploded. Yes, I completely freaked out and had a pulsating anxiety headache. Yes, I responded with literally "thank" and a crying emoji at one point. But I stayed in the room. And people read something I wrote. And talked about it. And I survived. They said lovely things, which I realised was much harder to cope with than if they'd torn it apart, so there's a whole 'nother aspect of my personality that I'm going to ignore for a couple of decades instead of processing like a grown-up.

But still. Progress.

#writing life #writer life #writers on tumblr #writers of tumblr #writing community #writers community #writeblr community #writeblr #the shit in my head

2 notes · View notes

isolctions · 3 years

Text

alright, to expand upon last night’s post now that it’s not shit-late-o’clock.

declaring both this blog, as well as lourdes’ (despite the fact it was already low activity to begin with bc i foresaw smthn like this happening lololol) as semi-active & on extremely low activity. mostly bc my undiagnosed ADHD is ADHD’ing and i still largely am consumed by my silly lil’ cartoon & reading fics all day so i highly doubt i’m gonna be a crumb as active as i was in the past, despite still having lots of free time.

along with activity being significantly lowered, i was persuaded to ease back into writing again by only allowing a small amount of muses to be ran on this page. mostly bc my problem in the past was trying to do too many things with too many muses at once and couldn’t adequately give enough attention to develop everything, so shit was just a mess. yuck. so i’ll prbly only be actively writing like, three muses on main & spend part-time with lourdes when i feel like doing so.

as for the muses i plan on using: i’ve only really still felt like developing a handful. so for right now, expect to see me trying to write with izidora banks — who has been beating people up rent free in my brain for the last six months and mostly at the forefront of my mind, rue castillo — who i always wanted more things going for her and wanted to develop / expand upon her character a bit more, plus j*rja is releasing soon so that boosted the need for a rue revival arc even more, jaira black — also another muse that i’ve always been galaxy-brained over and simply never had enough attention paid to her or had very much fleshed out for her, plus i have an arsenal of resources for her & i hate having them go to waste. (i’m also debating on whether or not i wanna also pull out kidada white or the brigham-reed twins, simply bc their backgrounds aren’t nearly as heavy as everyone else’s so it’ll be nice to have smthn light to balance all this with. we’ll see.)

for right now, it’s prbly gonna be these three i’ll be writing with majority of the time. but i also may or may not have the rest of my muses available by request, so you’ve been itching to pick things back up with me but don’t see the designated muses listed, i’ll more than likely make an exception so that we can continue writing.

anyways, that’s all. i kinda wanna be impulsive and just jump into it with whoever’s available and wanting to write, but i also kinda wanna update any icon folders and get all of the organization bullshit out of the way before i burn myself out. again, discord is available per usual for chatting or development reasons, as well as my personal, and i hope u all have been well and drinking water and receiving sunlight. super excited to (kind of) be back. <3

#ooc ━ raja shut up

0 notes

agentangeles · 4 years

Text

If you follow my twitter, you might have heard this already, but 5 Firsts is nearing 4k! This... is super exciting! It's been a little over a year since I uploaded the first chapter, and I had no idea it was going to- well, I guess blow up the way it did! It kinda shocks me when people in the community call the fic notorious- 200% of it was me just trying to get through graveyard shifts and hoping the fandom didn't run me off, and feedback was scarce at the time, so I never had too much of an understanding of how big it got... but hey! 4k is exciting!

The fic did fight with another apparently hit fic for BNHA, and I'm still surprised it beat it out in views. I don't write for the fandom anymore, but I'd have figured that a bigger fandom with a more popular ship focus would have way more clout on a semi-rarepair, but hey! (Don't worry, it claims first place in kudos, which makes sense)

TYAC, while still out of the top 5 for hits (although it's prettt close to taking over 5th place), claims first in subscriptions, which is cool! At the time of posting, I've got 35 of them! I'm looking forward to that number growing when we get out of the 7 year gap (I'm assuming it'll get big after section 3, which is a good chunk of casefic at the current moment. Section 4 is a bit more freeform within canon restraints.) and am... actually wondering if the wordcount total by later chapters might push it into triple digits.

This is 200% just a fun little post while I've got a hand in a ton of projects. I've got 2 potential oneshots in the works (dhurkedatz fic that focuses on the punk!Datz-who-does-drag discussions in Blackmadhi server, and something that has Simon and Nahyuta in it that I haven't decided where it lies just yet), a back-and-forth argument with a scene in Hallmark Cliches that's giving me grief (the fic has loose chapter outlines, I'm just trying to unstick myself from a teeny hole), and TYAC is... existing. (Burnt myself out again on section 3, need to hit up my beta and a few other folks for some serious thoughts.) Oh, and the sequel brothers fic! That's also in the works!

Slightly unrelated to my solitary WIPS but still related to writing is also that I've been cleaning up discord RP with @alithiasigma, which we've been posting sporadically (read: when I can sit myself down long enough to actually help with dialogue tags and actions)! I'm a bit biased for the AU, because it's both a Clay-Exists-Past-DD AU, and also an SOJ rewrite that overhauls a significant amount of stuff, and also was just fun to write because I like SOJ but the timeline of events makes me want to cry angry tears.

(not saying we also have plans to fix up another AU which i posted a ficified scene of, much to the confusion of everyone who had zero context, but we're doing an AU AU and I'm excited for that as well)

This has been one big fic ramble, probably rife with typos because I'm on my phone and pretending that I don't have insomnia due to meeting nerves, but hey! Just wanted to kinda generally chat about fic stuff!

As always, I can and will gladly talk sbout stuff if you have questions! My ask box should be open here!

- Angeles (they/he)

#fic stuff #writing update

1 note · View note

itchyboogers · 4 years

Text

hello comrades

my name is grace. i'm gonna be honest right now, not sure exactly what this post is. just because i can't function without order, i'm gonna make a list of reasons why i'm sharing my story:

to spread awareness

because i need an outlet

many of my friends suggested i share this

simply to entertain whoever might take a look at it

just in case, because of my paranoia, i’m saying right now i don’t want any witch hunt. i feel like saying this is really reaching in terms of how many people are gonna read this, but my concern insists. this is gonna be a long article, so i’m putting the little “read more” thingamabob right here.

trigger warning, for like, everything

about me; prologue?

as you saw above, my name is grace. i’m 19, and this is a very personal experience that i’ve gone through. first, let me introduce everything that’s wrong with me. i have high-functioning autism, and throughout my life my autism has been the root of my downfall. ever since 2nd grade i’ve gotten the short end of the stick. you always hear about prodigy kids whose grades and social lives falter as the years pass, i am 100% one of them. this story isn’t necessarily about me, but i’ve been through some shit, son.

i have a family that is more supportive than i could ever ask for, i’m not gonna lie and say that my at-home life was miserable - because home was my safe place, and public school was where i fought my battles. i was a very eccentric kid and while my autism has limited me, it has also given me the ability to think outside of the box, blah blah blah so i’m grateful for it as well.

by the time i got to 6th grade, things went way more south than i thought they could go. i was a bit of an edgelord back then so i was skipping 4th period with my friend in the locker room. we’re dicking around, looking in lockers, climbing the stalls, being stupid kids. somewhere along the line we jump into the topic of sexuality, and she tells me she thinks she might be bi. i said that wouldn’t change anything about us, and that i might not like boys at all.

she told me about her parents not agreeing with the whole gay thing and she wasn’t even close to thinking of coming out of the closet because her parents would disown her. real fucked up, but it happened back then still quite frequently. i promised her i wouldn’t tell anybody and that i wouldn’t even think about outing her to anyone, and we gave each other a cute little friend hug, it was cute.

about 3 days later on the weekend, we’re texting and a small argument boils between us and another friend in a group chat. it starts to become a bigger argument, because kids are stupid and dramatic, and i definitely was. she ended up kicking me out of the group chat and i cried myself to sleep (i know lmao). i went to school on monday and i immediately get called into the principal’s office, regarding sexual assault claims. she lied and told the school faculty that i tried to touch her inappropriately during that time we skipped class in the locker room. she also got her friends to tell everybody.

long story short i became severely depressed, gained weight, got my head shoved in a toilet filled with piss by some 8th graders friends with that girl’s older sister, and started self-harming to suppress my urge to hurt other people. my meds got switched around (it’s why i gained weight) and i ended up switching schools because a public school had an IEP i think it was called? anyway

blah blah blah countless school stories and misfortunes blah blah blah crohn’s disease blah blah blah ambulance sent to the school all that jazz. it’s gonna hurt too much if i talk about PRLC, but basically there was a low-funded school for kids who wanted a second chance due to disability, drugs, ect. it was out at a wildlife preservation park with all sorts of animals, i met my best friends there, became the person i am today, ect. but staff changes ended up changing the school for the worse and eventually i got dismissed.

very long depression period, i got kicked out from the school i used to call a second home back in 2018 and this cycle hasn’t ended yet, to this day. i’m hoping writing this will give me some closure or something, because writing about my misfortunes online has sent me opportunities in the past. i am not a perfect person, i never have been, and i can still name many things about my psyche and outlook on life that i’d like to someday change.

the main course

this is where i start talking about somebody that i won’t mention by name, but i’ll call him music boy for convenience. in december of last year i got to see my favorite band live for the second time, the first being april of 2018. i love this band with all my heart, and i’m not going to mention them by name. but after the concert i was going through some heavy post-concert sadness, and i wanted to share my love and appreciation so i find a semi-active discord server dedicated to said band, and i join. i make some friends and acquaintances over a span of 2-3 months.

marijuana got legalized in my state this year, something i had been anticipating for a long time, ergo from january 2020 to the beginning of april 2020, i was in a constant state of stoned off my ass. nobody saw sober grace until the late days of april. i was not in any way able to make proper decisions regarding, say, a relationship. and it was really obvious that i was high, nobody would have thought otherwise.

after i get home from a birthday vacation to arizona on february 2nd, i start going in the voice chats for the server. i would say in the general chat something along the lines of “sick, i’m super baked i’m gonna go bother the voice chat” and i end up in a group chat consisting of most of the server members that are “of age” (so not too many). at this point i’m barely aware i’m making friends, but one person in the group i really happened to resonate with. her name is Christina, and she’s to this day my number 1 mom friend and goblin sibling. <3

i meet a handful of more people in the group chat (we called it the “after hours”) and we have a lot of fun doing different activities over discord. for example we all decided to sign up for club penguin online (which is now proven to be run by a predator, i believe) and we all battled each other in card-jitsu. or i would share my screen as i went on Omegle and did goofy high shit on there and met people under the “memes” or “weed” tags.

in this after hours group chat, one of the active members was music boy. he was the owner of the server dedicated to the band i love. why music boy? because he wants desperately to become a famous musician. there’s something about music boy that’s... ‘different’. i don’t know if anyone knows what i mean when i say, his energy was awry. the best way to describe music boy is kind of mean, but it’s the only way i’m able to express how this guy is as a person. i can best describe him by saying he expects his life to play out as a WattPad fanfiction, him being the main character.

just so you get the main point, this one time i was on Omegle dicking around ha ha funny random people, but music boy was silent. he then typed in the chat that he was gonna go on Omegle himself and do something painfully unfunny, he said he was gonna get his guitar and use that as a prop to “vibe check” people on the website. it wasn’t funny but everybody (me included) was sort of brainwashed into thinking he could do no wrong. don’t know how he got me to laugh at that, especially with his delivery of the joke.

yet, he didn’t want to “vibe check” people, i know that now - he just couldn’t stand when he wasn’t the center of attention. so he left and told a mod, who was also in the group chat, to join the server voice chat with him. and he announced that he was streaming himself vibe checking people on Omegle. the iffy part about that is that the entire reason he made the after hours chat was to keep NSFW stuff off the server, and it was basically prompted by me streaming myself messing around on Omegle and seeing a lot of (pretty expected) male genitalia. i’m not gonna explain that any further because anybody with a brain can understand why that was a confusing move on his part.

eventually february 14th came by, and i, being as high as i was, decided to send music boy a bunch of goofy valentine’s day cards, like the ones that were popular in 2013. i kept sending them because at the time i thought it was so funny, and i’m a natural flirt when i’m stoned. keep in mind everybody knew they hadn’t seen me sober yet, the joke in the server was basically 'when is grace not high?’ so it was evident that my decision-making process was impaired.

for some reason music boy wanted us to all play DnD, even though half of us didn’t know or give a rat’s ass how to play. i would make stupid jokes, and everybody would laugh, but music boy would exaggerate, he would go ‘oh thats how it is? is that how this is going to be’ or some unfunny shit like that because he thought every single joke or reference that anyone made had something to do with him, because, you know, he is the main character, after all. he eventually made a really embarrassing big deal about him ‘accepting my valentine proposal’ and then he went to bed i guess.

the next day or two is a blur to me, all i remember and know is that Christina knew that he was taking advantage of me always being super high, but she didn’t want to assume anything. like she had always seen me make a joke and then would see music boy turn that joke sexual, even when it was nearly impossible to make a suggestive joke out of what i originally joked about, which to be honest was probably my flawless Sméagol impression. but he would repeat the Gollum voice and say something unfunny that we all laughed at.

basically, if you haven’t caught on, music boy is a major egotistical narcissist that cannot stand having somebody that isn’t him being paid attention to. he told me his “dream” (that's TOTALLY gonna come true, by the way) was to go to a concert of the band the server was dedicated to, but he would show up in a custom made shirt that said “[lead singer of band] IS A THOT” and then the band’s guitarist would point it out and laugh because it’s SO funny and then get the lead singer’s attention, who would pull music boy on stage and challenge him to pehen he would start serenading the crowd and all the girls’ panties would instantly get soaked, all the tabloids would hear about it, and the band would jizz their pants, and he would become an overnight sensation.

here’s where stuff gets dodgy. i’m not claiming this is abuse, because i don’t have experience with abusive relationships, and i’m not in any place to assume that i understand what it’s like to be in one, but my friends have told me that he mentally abused me and took advantage of the state i was in. somewhere along the line he would, in the group call, tell his sob story about how all his friends ghosted him and tried to cancel him because of some sort of misconduct accusation in a previous server, and how i was his savior for putting my trust in him and believing his side of the story and he said some things about becoming a happier person because he met me, and it was all very unnecessarily dramatic and extremely manipulative disregarding if he noticed he was doing it or not.

I.E.

“and... then I met this girl... this really weird girl! then i saw her face, and i thought i loved her, but i found out she only liked girls and i lost all hope but then out of nowhere she sends me valentines cards! and now shes my valentine”

or some really really stupid gay shit like that, it’s the best i can imitate him without gagging or getting sick. then eventually (eventually being equal to ‘within the first week of meeting me’) he hEsiTaNtLy asks me to, like, idk be his e-girlfriend. he knew i was baked to oblivion and wasn’t in a proper state to make up my mind on anything serious but then again am i the main character?

no.

music boy is the main character.

if i’m being gut-wrenchingly honest here, i only genuinely liked the idea of being in an e-relationship with music boy for a day or a day and a half. the entire time i was just stoned out of my mind and not thinking as i normally do, i was nonchalant until april fools day when all hell broke loose in the server. on a live stream, the lead singer of the band made a suggestion that he was in the server that music boy made. and dear God, you would have thought it was the second coming of Christ by the way music boy reacted to it.

he was being unbelievably hyper, even for someone with ADHD. he was hauling his uncanny-valley looking forcibly ripped body around his room like a genetically mutated spider monkey, banging his head against his bed, stopping mid-sentence to play a quirky chord on his handy dandy acoustic guitar while he looked in the webcam and made a quirky blank face. it was like watching a six y/o meet Iron Man, even though there was nothing really to be too elated about.

he made an emoji for it and everything, he even posted on the “Official [band name] Discord Server”’s instagram account, but it was just a video of him, and the thumbnail was his goofy ass face, the whole video was just music boy saying unfunny shit trying to lowkey promote the server while flexing at the same time, something like [lead singer] we know you’re here!! you are welcome here my lord idk lmfaooo

but at this point i was becoming too sober to stand by silently and watch this moron suck his own toes, i wasn’t gonna act like his music was good and i wasn’t gonna act like he was gonna become a superstar without question. the breaking point was mostly when he almost came his pants and cried when the lead singer allegedly joined his server, but i came close to breaking when i started casually humming in the group call and hes like

Hold Up 👁️👄👁️ wait you’re so good... why are you so good? you’re like really good and i mean it!! you’re like, almost as good as me! but you know i have YEARS of practice you know haha but you’re like super good!

and then I decided to humor myself by showing him a cover i recorded and the first thing he said after listening to it halfway was “this scares me”, so that was a pretty big warning sign.

blah blah blah i cried for an hour after that then called him again just to break up with him because of my own mental health and he did handle this very well, not bashing him for that. i basically told him no we aren’t taking a break this shindig will no longer continue, like at all, ever and hes like okay cool yknow it hurts but ill get over it, and i really didnt expect that. because, he basically implied that if i left him he would k*ll himself.

i tried to keep the friendship going because i dont like abandoning people, but he slowly started getting distant from me, and the entire server kind of distanced themselves from me too, but at the time i only noticed music boy getting apprehensive with me. keep in mind (i keep saying that, don’t i?) i thought everybody in the server was cool with me making offensive-ish jokes because they had no problem with it during the time i was “with” music boy. then one day i get called out for talking about - i’m not joking - weed. i started ranting about how weed is my medicine and it was kinda silly to get so pissy over the devil’s lettuce but i dont think i made too big of a deal out of what i could have made.

couple days later im talking in the server again. i’m a very blunt person, my humor is very dry and it can tend to go over some people’s heads if they don’t have enough brain cells. i made a joke that i’d already made in the server before about me being r-word because autism and haha funny joke.

i get kicked out of the server.

at the time i was confused because i had no idea that i even said anything wrong. i messaged music boy a bit passive-aggressively because despite my confusion i still had a vague idea of what was happening. i said something like "was i too edgy" and like 3 minutes later he responds "you were making a lot of dudes uncomfortable”

mcscuse me bietch?

NOBODYYYYY in the general chat had told me that i was making them feel uncomfy whatsoever, and i dont think anything could have implied that anyone was in any way uncomfortable, and with these social situations i’ve explained to everyone in the after hours chat that sometimes i don’t get social cues. i’m autistic!!! it’s a very rare occurrence when i’m able to ‘read the room’. i thought they knew that but they decided to have a private staff meeting and they all agreed it was best to BAN ME from the server.

the thing is if i had been messaged, if i was let known that people were bitching about me calling myself r******d then i would have definitely complied. i can understand people feeling a bit weird when i make fun of myself using no-no words, and i’m definitely willing to stop saying a certain thing if it genuinely makes somebody feel uneasy. but nobody said anything about it to me. not a single word.

considering the server has gone to a snowflake kingdom since my exit, i’m not too upset about being kicked out. what i am upset about regards him knowing i wasn’t in a proper state to make any decisions. decisions including NSFW decisions that he hinted at for about 5 minutes before i stopped saying ‘ehhh i don’t know if i’m comfortable with this’ and he didn’t have to beg for coochie anymore. i’m honestly lucky because i can’t remember most of what he coaxed me to do, because if i think about it too much it gets traumatic and i start feeling nauseous.

Christina has been in the server just to tell me what new bullshit has been going on in the rules, and the ever-expanding list of things that you aren’t allowed to talk about in the server, we have a good chuckle at it. i got high again about a week ago, and told my friends the audacity of what music boy actually had done to me and we all agreed to go under a vpn and raid the server, because why not, its funny haha goofy joke. we were having the best time and i was about to piss myself laughing when one of my friends name-drops me and the whoooole gig is over. we get kicked out and Christina pretends to act like she had no clue what was going on, so she could stay in and screenshot this:

she didn’t know how badly that term in itself would send me down a long overdue psychotic episode because about a year or two ago, i was getting concerned that i might have anti-social personality disorder, the ‘proper’ term for a diagnosed psychopath. it ended up nonconclusive, so i don’t necessarily believe i have it, but for some reason him calling me that word really fucked me up. but here’s a pretty funny and cringy sequence of things he typed in to get his cult of teenagers to feel bad for him.

don’t go looking for this person, don’t go looking for the band, i’m just sharing my story because maybe somebody could benefit from my experience being told. i’m trying to jump over this long ass hurdle that’s kept me in one place for wayyy too long, i’m hoping that sharing this endeavor could help my psyche, and perhaps push me forward and lead me towards gathering up the courage i’m missing to finally study for and take the GED test, graduate, and put public school and it’s challenges behind me.

if you read this long and want to talk to me about it, by all means, ask questions, make jokes, ask for more goofy ass screenshots of how i’ve made fun of him, more drama queen music boy tales, because we have a handful, trust me.

i don’t expect anyone to read this or necessarily care about this, but if you’ve come this far, from the bottom of my heart, do not date a musician. and, of course, thank you for reading. but still, don’t date a musician. especially if it’s a man. mega especially x2 if you’ve only known them for less than a week.

add me on roblox i’m user xulue i’m a funny gal and im a pro gamer

stay safe out there, be kind, and for the love of God don’t bring your guitar to the voice channel <3

#xulue #tw: manipulation #tw: self harm #tw: drugs #tw: slurs #narcissist #npd #mental manipulation #mine #taken advantage of #autism #impaired judgement #my ex #discord #discord server #personal

3 notes · View notes

fair-fae · 5 years

Note

How did it feel to go looking for trouble today and then get banned from a discord server after having never been active in there before? Feeling validated yet? How about now?

Hello, anon! After deciding I should try to actually get caught up and participate in some of the many Discord servers I am in during a particularly slow lunch shift (something I get the whim to do occasionally but can never seem to keep up with, oops), well, let’s just say it did not go quite as expected when I watched the general chat of one particular Discord spend hours ragging on a myriad of things including furries, the RP communities of other games (including WoW, BnS, GW2, and BDO), ERPers, the Quicksand, people who go to the Quicksand for RP, (eastern) European RPers, Frenchmen, Brazilians, people who don’t speak English on NA servers, teahouse events, fighting tournaments (going so far as to namedrop one in particular multiple times), RP venues and those who run them, /random roll combat and those who partake in it, date auctions, the drama of RPers and their lack of a sense humor, the usual complaints about cliques and circlejerks and the circle argument of how people who think RP is easy to find “only think that because they already have RP,” and, well, you get the gist. Actually, you probably don’t, or you wouldn’t be here leaving anon hate in my box, but hey.And it would be one thing, maybe, if this was a private Discord of a small group of friends where people could understandably complain and vent and gossip without fear of hurting or alienating anyone, or even a semi-private Discord server like an FC Discord or something. But this was in a community RP hub that is open for all to join. A community RP hub that is supposed to make people feel welcome, foster connections, and serve as a place to boost events of all kinds and support their creators. And I understand these sort of servers can get out of hand easily; they’re meant for everyone. No one is vetted, and there’s a large amount of people in them with a wide variety of views, personalities, interests, and experiences. That’s why it’s important for the mods to stay on top of things. However... in this Discord, it was a mod who made the initial comment implying the redundancy of certain RP events. Multiple chat mods sat idly by during this conversation. One stepped in only when I spoke, not during all the negativity and hate flung toward various types of RPers and events before that, to ask the conversation stop. The conversation continued anyway with multiple other mods chiming in and keeping it going and even making jabs. Moderation where???If I am banned, it’s news to me. I left the Discord server quietly of my own volition over an hour later. I’d received no official warning or indication I was banned. My last post was the last post that can be seen from me in the logs I provided. When I was home from work about an hour later, I dropped the Discord, deciding it was not an environment I wanted to be a part of or would have any desire to participate in again. So, the alleged ban is meaningless to me lol. I don’t feel any more or less validated than usual, but I hope that event runners and anyone else who got dunked on in that Discord server knows that they are valid and their contributions to the RP community are wonderful and important.Way to represent WV, though! I thought West by god Virginia raised us better than that. Glad I got out of that hellhole, but I’ll be back for the holidays, maybe I’ll stop in for a visit to Charleston if we visit the fiance’s family! Cheers!

#ooc #discourse #Charleston West Virginia United States Suddenlink Communications #75.108.155.172 #in10 Chrome 76.0 1920x1080 #there's your answer boo you don't have to keep lurking my blog :)

31 notes · View notes

jcinknetwork · 5 years

Note

Do you have any tips on how to keep a site afloat? We’ve just opened and it’s been dead from a week after we opened.

Hello Anon!

Before I jump into this topic, I would like to add that this is purely from my experience on sites I’ve been a member of as well as sites that I have created. If anyone else would like to chime in, please reply to this ask OR send an ask and I can publish that as well.

Some of my tips may be things that you already know, but I’m going to post it anyway since I’ve honestly seen a lot of people missing some of the basics and I just want to share because I know how much effort goes into making a site and I don’t want to see those efforts wasted!

Here are some of my tips organized by category:

Site Buzz

Time - Please, please, please do not underestimate the power of site buzz!!! Let people know about your site! Keep your site buzz up long enough to let people find out about your site, but not too long that people will lose interest. Personally, I try to get all of my coding and content done prior to posting my site buzz. That way, I can just work on my characters and work on posting some site buzz for 2-3 weeks and share sneak peeks of codes, content, and so on.

#brand - Utilize your tag! You can help use this to gauge the interest in your site. Tell people to post some aesthetics for what they’re looking for or who they’re making. I usually couple this with a contest for like an early reserve so I can see more people getting excited about the site. This will help to show other people that a lot of other people are interested and that because of that, they should also invest time in your site. If you’re not the contest-going route, try doing a trade-off: one post in your tag for a reserve.

Discord & Reserves - I usually keep my site buzz up for 2-3 weeks. Now, this may depend on your crowd. I have found that it’s usually nice to open the discord to the public about a week or less before your site actually opens. This way, it’s not open for too long that people may lose interest but it’s open long enough that people can get to know each other. I couple this time with reserves.

Before Opening:

Events - Establish an event with your team. This gives the characters on the site something to jump into! Most of the time, I put up information on the event on the day I open, then move into the event a week after we open so that we give people time to establish relationships or plot ideas.

Subplots - Having subplots is honestly a super great tool to get people invested because there’s already a semi pre-established storyline that ties someone’s potential character to others. Be open to accepting new subplots as well!

Staff Characters - Don’t hog all the cool characters or faces. Don’t make these characters untouchable! Make them fun and easy to interact with so that people can actually plot with them and have their characters relate to them.

Site Basics:

Awards & Features - It’s always nice to be recognized as a member for my character! Maybe include a member of the week/month or feature threads or pairs to show off to your members and potential members the activity that’s going on in your site.

Points - Fake internet points are something that everyone loves, okay? We just...can’t resist. But give actual cool rewards for the points that I earn! Like a site event centered around my character, having my character or request featured where everyone can see it, or even just a cool discord role, and so on.

Staff Activity - Follow your own rules on activity (for the most part). I only say “for the most part” because (for example) if you’ve got like, a coder who spends the last week of a month making your next skin and doesn’t have time to get their posts in for that week, that’s for your site and that’s understandable. But if you’re just hogging a face or character because it’s someone you adore but you don’t use them, it kind of just shows members and potential members that you might not be super invested in the site.

Plotting - Make sure that you’re doing your best to welcome new members. Talk to them, plot with them, try to thread with them! Make members feel like this is somewhere that they can make a second home.

Out of Character - Make sure that your discord is active! A lot of the rp community has moved to discord. Chat with your members, discuss ideas for what people would like to see on the site - whether it’s a feature or an event - and try to implement any cool ideas that might come your way!

I probably missed a couple of things, but I think I hit most of the basics! Even if you do all of these things, sometimes sites just die. Some genres/fandoms die out or people in those genres/fandoms are looking for something different. Sometimes you can’t help it, and that’s okay. You can always pick up and try again if it doesn’t work out the first time.

If anyone has any other tips, please don’t hesitate to share them!

I hope this helped!!

#jcink #jcink rp #jcink site #rp questions #rp advice #anon #anonymous #faq #ask

6 notes · View notes

findroleplay · 1 year

Note

Searching For ROTTMNT Partner

Heya! Anyone wanna roleplay? Then maybe we might be able to work out!

As I mentioned in the title, I'm super interested in TMNT roleplays, specifically Rise, but I am also I to 2012, so I would be happy to do either one with you

I’m 18+ and all participants must be 18+

Info About Myself And How I Roleplay:

Heya I’m Kim! I’m 21+ and I rp in third person and I am semi literate. I enjoy ooc and getting to know my partners. I’m so excited for this rp. I do ask you rp in third person and are semi literate and active quite frequently. I understand life gets in the way so just mention it I will gladly do the same

* I only roleplay in Discord

* I’m over 18, and would prefer if you were as well

* I roleplay in description, and would like for my partners to be able to write at least well enough to where it’s not just one of us carrying the story. So no one liners

* I am very patient and am willing to wait for a day or so for a reply before I send you a quick little message to check on you (and hopefully you will do the same for me)

* If you have an oc, I will lean towards a doubling roleplay (Note: You DO NOT have to have an oc if you do not have one)

* I’m open to if you ever wanna chat outside our roleplay. I love being able to talk about our roleplay and even some info on our characters

Some Things To Note:

* Please put some effort in your roleplays. As in give me something to work with so it doesn’t feel like only one of us is carrying the story

* Please have a good idea of what the canon characters are like, as well as a good idea on the whole storyline in general

* NO GHOSTING!! I cannot stand it! If you don’t like how I rp just say so.

Characters I Roleplay:

* I roleplay as both canon characters and oc’s

* I don’t play as another person’s oc (not confident enough that I’d really be able to capture their personality and nature)

* I do not play with just our oc’s must have canon character with oc

* For storylines, I prefer to follow along with the original storyline (Note: It won’t follow EXACTLY the original storyline, we will add in our own ideas for our characters, as well as anything we may want to change in the story)

So I will be starting My job as a substitute next week so starting next week I won’t be on till the afternoon and I won’t be on Mondays or Saturday morning. Anyways I’m so excited for the rp. So be sure to tell me who’s your favorite character and any ideas you have?

#rp #roleplay #ROTTMNT rp #TTMT rp #oc rp

5 notes · View notes

theliberaltony · 5 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Last Monday, Federal Election Commission Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen announced his resignation, leaving the FEC effectively shut down, as only three positions on the six-seat committee are currently filled and the agency is legally required to have four commissioners to be fully operational.

What this means is that the agency responsible for both enforcing and advising on the nation’s campaign-finance laws is out of commission for the foreseeable future. And because we’re in the middle of a presidential election … things could get hairy fast.

The FEC has said that it will soldier on, continuing to process filings and other reports, and has called on President Trump to nominate new commissioners and for the Senate to confirm them quickly. But Congress is still in recess and Trump has yet to move forward with appointing new commissioners (remember, there are now three vacancies).

So here with us today to unpack what this could mean for the 2020 election (and campaign finance in general) is Dave Levinthal, editor and senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity.

Welcome!

dave.levinthal: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

sarahf: So, first of all, how did we get to the point that the FEC is basically not operational? And just how big of a deal is this for the FEC?

dave.levinthal: You can trace the situation back to 2008, the last time the FEC found itself in semi-shutdown mode because it lacked enough commissioners to legally conduct high-level business.

That year, the FEC went about six months without a quorum of commissioners, until the Senate and President Bush finally struck a deal to appoint new commissioners and get the agency back on track.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): And by “high-level business,” we mean things like opening investigations into possible campaign-finance violations?

dave.levinthal: High-level business would absolutely include investigating allegations of campaign-finance violations. As I wrote last week:

For now, the FEC can’t conduct meetings. It can’t slap political scofflaws with fines. It can’t make rules. It can’t conduct audits and approve them.

sarahf: So … what can the FEC do in its current situation?

dave.levinthal: The most notable thing the FEC will continue to do is carry out its transparency function. That means that political committees, political candidates and so on must still file their periodic campaign-finance disclosures with the FEC — documents that tell the public how much money they’ve raised, spent, etc. — and the FEC staff will still review and post that material.

But if some political committee screws this up, or for that matter acts in a manner that’s potentially in violation of federal campaign-finance laws, they more or less get a temporary pass because the FEC commissioners don’t have the power for now to do anything about it.

clare.malone: Cool. I was interested to learn that there’s been a lot of discord on the commission for a while. A Democrat and an independent on the committee were apparently irritated that certain investigations they deemed worthy weren’t being looked into because the Republican members kept things from moving forward. So in some ways, it sounds like this is the continuation of an already contentious situation at the FEC.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): And Dave, without enforcement mechanisms, there would be no punishment if a campaign does violate campaign-finance laws, right?

dave.levinthal: Generally speaking, the FEC’s law enforcement capabilities are on ice until the Senate approves at least one more nominee to serve on the FEC.

Right now, Trump has nominated one commissioner — a Texas attorney named Trey Trainor who helped stop an anti-Trump movement at the 2016 GOP convention — who he first nominated in September 2017. But the Senate has yet to give Trainor a confirmation hearing, much less going forth and confirming him.

clare.malone: So … why no hearing? I haven’t really seen an explanation for that in everything I’ve been reading.

dave.levinthal: A complex question! My best crack at it: There’s been a tradition — often adhered to, but not always — that the president would nominate FEC commissioners in pairs: one Republican, one Democrat.

But since President Trump has only offered one nominee, the Senate has chosen not to give that lone nominee a hearing. Could it? Sure. Did it need to? Not really — until now — because the FEC has had enough commissioners to at least conduct its high-level business.

nrakich: I find it interesting that, in an age where the Senate has gotten more comfortable with consolidating power within one party (eliminating filibusters for presidents’ nominees, blocking Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, etc.), that this norm of nominating one Democrat and one Republican simultaneously to the FEC has persisted.

dave.levinthal: Numbers at the FEC commission level have been going the wrong way since the beginning of the Trump presidency. In March 2017, Democratic Commissioner Ann Ravel resigned. And in February 2018, Republican Commissioner Lee Goodman also resigned. That means the FEC has been operating with a bare minimum four commissioners for 1.5 years.

President Trump could have nominated people filled those vacancies at any time, but he didn’t.

clare.malone: Whew.

Dave, champion explanation.

nrakich: Not to be too cynical, but in practical terms, how much of an effect does this shutdown really have? The FEC’s enforcement mechanisms are already pretty toothless and can take years to be resolved anyway.

For example, earlier this summer, now-Sen. Martha McSally was fined for campaign-finance violations she made in … 2014.

She has served two full terms in the House since then.

And despite breaking the rules by taking $319,000 in excess contributions, she was fined only $23,000. So there was no financial disincentive.

clare.malone: Right, and we didn’t learn about Trump’s campaign-finance violations until well after 2016, so there does seem to be a long lag time on this stuff!

dave.levinthal: I’ve heard from more than a few folks who’ve made that very point — that the FEC is already so dysfunctional that there won’t be much difference.

But even if the FEC deadlocks on investigations, even if it’s unable to make affirmative rulings on whether someone broke the law — and this is often the case — at minimum these situations receive a full public airing. For instance, if special interest groups or others vehemently disagree with an FEC ruling, they’ll sue the organization.

Think of all the big court cases that have “FEC” in their names, with Citizens United v. FEC the biggest among them. Without a functioning FEC, this process grinds to a halt, for all intents and purposes.

clare.malone: Got it. So the shutdown is really affecting the transparency of the FEC.

nrakich: I find it interesting, though, that voters don’t seem to care too much about campaign-finance violations. There’s some research suggesting that they don’t do as much as, say, sex scandals (probably for obvious reasons — they’re much drier!) to hurt candidates at the ballot box.

And I assume that most candidates will continue filing disclosure reports even if the FEC is shut down at the filing deadline. But what if they don’t? Would they really suffer any consequences with voters? I’m not sure they would, and that’s scary to me.

clare.malone: I think that’s in part because it’s so much a part of American political culture — and the culture at large — to see big money and politics as linked. There’s a perception that there’s a degree of unfettered spending going on.

dave.levinthal: While the FEC doesn’t have a quorum, if a political committee wanted to stop filing campaign-finance reports or otherwise violate campaign-finance rules, the FEC would not be in any position to do something about it.

Now, the FEC may very well pick up the matter once it’s in business again. But for now, political committees don’t really have anyone policing their activity in a way that would lead to some immediately penalty.

Said another way: The cops are at the station, they’re doing paperwork, but they’re not answering emergency calls.

sarahf: So given how critical the situation is, won’t one of Congress’s first orders of business be appointing the one commissioner Trump has already nominated to get the FEC back up and running?

dave.levinthal: Actually, Sarah, I don’t think there is a reason to think that Congress will make the FEC its first order of business. That’s not to say that the Senate won’t act quickly. But this is largely in the hands of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and, to a lesser extent, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Also, President Trump plays a major role here. He could theoretically nominate a full slate of new commissioners. He could clean house — float six new nominees. But presidents have largely missed opportunities to proactively replace FEC commissioners. The result: The remaining commissioners continued to serve in “holdover status” — serving even though their term has expired.

sarahf:

dave.levinthal: Bottom line? If Trump wanted to defy political convention — something he’s not exactly shy about doing — he could nominate six new commissioners of his choosing.

Legally, he can’t pack the committee with Republicans — no more than three commissioners can be of the same party — but he doesn’t have to nominate Democrats. He could theoretically nominate three Republicans and three … Libertarians. Or independents.

nrakich: Right. I feel like that would be well within character — but also, I feel like Trump doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the FEC.

sarahf: Or any president, it sounds like.

So if you’re Petersen, why resign now, knowing it would throw the FEC into chaos? Was his resignation a surprise?

dave.levinthal: No, Petersen almost left in late 2017, when Trump nominated him for a federal district judgeship. But Petersen flamed out of the judicial job when he was unable to answer a string of basic questions at his nomination hearing, and he withdrew himself from consideration shortly thereafter. His consolation prize? He continued to serve on the FEC.

At the time — December 2017 — CPI wrote that even then it seemed like the FEC had a strong possibility of losing its quorum of commissioners.

So it’s not as if this problem somehow snuck up on people.

nrakich: Yeah, I keep coming back to the fact that the public doesn’t seem to care about campaign finance.

It’s a big problem, IMO, since this is one of the main mechanisms by which we keep candidates accountable.

clare.malone: Well, very few people ever end up serving jail time for these violations, for instance. And unlike a sex scandal, a lot of people will be bored reading about campaign-finance violations.

dave.levinthal: But there are some money-in-politics sex scandals! (cough Stormy Daniels cough) And the FEC plays a role in those … or could.

nrakich: Right, and there are some types of campaign-finance scandals, like when politicians (for example, California Rep. Duncan Hunter) use campaign money for their personal benefit, that I think appeal to voters’ instinct against politicians abusing their office. But I think that’s different from, say, McSally’s case, where her only crime was accepting more than the legal limit in donations.

I fear Americans see the latter as just violations of arbitrary bureaucratic rules, rather than as an immoral act.

clare.malone: Well, not everyone sees breaking the law on certain things as a moral violation. The law doesn’t necessarily equate with morality! Lots of people might think the ends (big money) justify the means. They might not think that the moral universe extends to bureaucratic violations.

dave.levinthal: Great point, Clare, and yes — there are wide swings in opinion on whether the Stormy Daniels matter is a campaign law violation in the first place. (Michael Cohen certainly has some thoughts on this.)

clare.malone: What about for media watchdog organizations like CPI, and Open Secrets, though, Dave?

How will your work potentially change because of this?

dave.levinthal: Our job is to report about the role money plays in American politics. And while most people often don’t care about the legal or technical particulars of campaign-finance law, I’ve never gotten the sense that they don’t care about campaign money, especially in the context of their favorite candidates raising cash.

There are tens of thousands of people every day who make campaign contributions, millions every year. The sophistication of political fundraising has made it as easy as ever to support a candidate or cause. That’s why, for example, you see presidential candidates — President Trump and the gaggle of Democrats — raising huge amounts of money from small-dollar donors.

nrakich: Right — and voters do seem to care about the source of the money candidates raise.

For example, every Democratic presidential candidate has pledged not to accept money from corporate PACs, and most have pledged not to accept money from the fossil-fuel industry or federal lobbyists. They wouldn’t be doing that if they didn’t think voters cared about those issues.

clare.malone: Have we seen any irregularities from any of these Democratic candidates? Or from the Trump campaign (this time around)?

dave.levinthal: No, but the FEC also won’t be in a position to address some novel questions about how political candidates should act. For example, lots of cities have sent the Trump campaign bills for police and public safety costs — related to Trump campaign rallies — that they believe the campaign should pay. The Trump campaign doesn’t acknowledge these bills and doesn’t list them as debt, or even “disputed debt,” on campaign-finance reports. It’d be the FEC’s job, ostensibly, to figure this situation out. It can’t now.

clare.malone: Oh that’s really fascinating. NYC certainly saw a lot of controversy over the cost of Trump Tower security right after his election in 2016.

sarahf: So to wrap, it sounds like as long as the FEC can still perform some of its basic functions (like getting candidates to file their reports), we might not see Petersen’s replacement for a while, right? Where does this political fight head next?

clare.malone: I guess … nowhere? Dave is certainly the expert on this, but I don’t think there’s much political will to replace the FEC positions. And I say that mostly from the point of view of public pressure — there’s no incentive to change the course of behavior toward the FEC.

nrakich: As Dave said earlier, President Bush and Congress did finally reach a deal in 2008 the last time the FEC went into limbo because it didn’t have enough members. But I agree with Clare — I think this is so far down on the to-do list for both Trump and McConnell.

Maybe the FEC becomes a poor man’s Merrick Garland — no action until one party regains full control of government.

dave.levinthal: I talked last week with Rep. Derek Kilmer, a Democrat from Washington, about the broader issue of the FEC’s role in government and politics. And he made the case that the FEC needs to be fundamentally reformed and given greater independence and strength.

He even has a bill that would make the FEC a five-commissioner body, which would address the issue of deadlocked votes. The bill isn’t going anywhere, but his hope is that Democrats will win everything in November 2020, and come 2021, the FEC will be reformed.

So I’d say keep a close watch on Schumer in the Senate. If he wants to make a big stink about this, he could. But he, too, has been pretty quiet about the FEC lately. I will also be curious to see if this comes up during the presidential debate next week, since several candidates have been very anti-“Citizens United” and anti-BIG MONEY in their campaign rhetoric.

nrakich: Yeah, Steve Bullock presented campaign finance as his big issue when he launched his campaign. But in general, I’ve felt that the candidates have not done a good job sticking to what was supposed to be their signature issue (Eric Swalwell and guns, Jay Inslee and climate change, etc.).

dave.levinthal: Even though Bullock has made it his signature issue, he’s had his own little bumps in the road.

clare.malone: Gillibrand also made public funding a thing, if I recall. That did not catch on.

nrakich: That said, if the FEC is shut down for a full year or more — say, through the 2020 election — I bet there will be more of an appetite to reform it come 2021 if Democrats are in charge.

Just speculating, but I think an FEC shutdown might be the kind of thing that gets more noticeable with time.

dave.levinthal: An FEC that effectively sat out the 2020 election would be monumental. It’d take us back to a pre-Watergate era of campaign-finance regulation in certain ways. (The FEC was created after Watergate to help defend against campaign money problems, irregularities and potential lawlessness.)

In fact, I’d say it’d be the most incentive Congress has probably had since Watergate to fundamentally change the nation’s campaign-finance regulation regime.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

2 notes · View notes