David C.

You probably think anyone you see on the internet is one of your fellow dumb Americans. It doesn't work that way.

No one accused him of "rape", they accused him of "assault". And the witnesses denied it.

I've been an atheist my whole life, so good luck with bringing up the Bible.

The payment didn't go to them. You can tell from one of the accusers complaining endlessly on BlueSky that she's entirely broke.

Get a reading comprehension:

www.pcgamer.com/chris-avello...

The context doesn't make you any less ignorant.

Alternatively, the guy who imagined a "rape" accusation for someone who was never accused of that is the guy with issues.

Witness Dauna Bartley testifies that Chris Avellone did nothing inappropriate around Kelly Bristol and that Karissa Barrows was upset with him because of his break-up with her friend and his non-attendence at a panel, not for other reasons.

No one accused him of being "rapey". They accused him of assault, in public spaces, in front of direct witnesses who disagreed entirely.

Here, read a witness statement:

Not a single witness backed the accusations against Chris and they were retracted as a result. You should care more about the truth than about whether there's someone who dares to point it out.

What do you suppose it means that she said this several days after her accusations?

"I’m tired of being paralyzed by my own brain, sucked into situations that only drain me further. "

On July 3, 2020, Kelly wrote the following on Twitter: "Bought a few therapy/self-help books and workbooks today. I’m tired of being paralyzed by my own brain, sucked into situations that only drain me further. I got out of Florida, but now the real work begins to heal and move forward." She then added: "Still debating whether or not therapy is really for me. Definitely working on getting back on meds, though."

She would have justified it as trying to help other women against those they were accusing. In the case of Chris, she essentially succeeded for a while, because gamejournos did not bother to read her other tweets at the time.

She regretted her actions once the mania subsided.

Is there any lie you wouldn't believe from her?

On June 22, 2020, Kelly Bristol wrote the following on Twitter: "It’s still pretty stunning that I’ve been targeted so many times, despite being on the very outer fringes of the industry. (I’ve always been indie, and I was older than average to begin with.) That says more about the pervasiveness of this problem than anything else, I think."

On June 22, 2020, Kelly Bristol wrote the following on Twitter: "Seeing the other industry men that have approached me inappropriately finally get exposed is, uh, a thing. Wow. Victims, I believe you. 💜"

On June 22, 2020, Kelly Bristol wrote the following on Twitter: "To say nothing of having to witness account upon account of abuse and/or assault from countless other women across this industry, some harmed by the same men I was."

It's part of the same off-her-meds clout-chasing she was doing at the time that she started with Chris and continued with vague accusations against whomever others were accusing.

When you read these tweets, remember the one from a year earlier where she said she didn't have stories of misconduct.

I don't think they're my enemies at all. They retracted their accusations after all the contradictions came to light, which to me seemed like the end of it. Some people just need to catch up to that apparently.

As for Chris, I never played his games in the 90s. That was before my time.

On June 18, 2020, Kelly posted the following on Twitter: "Beyond that, I’ve been spending this time mentally preparing to spend the rest of my life single. It is what it is. I’m 41 and can’t have kids, so that’s 2 strikes. I’m also not conventionally attractive. 3 strikes. I‘m also *picky*, which doesn’t help. Fuck, that’s 4 strikes." To which Karissa replied: "Listen girlfran, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong w/ spending your life single. That’s been me for... 8? years now & I’m happier free than I *ever* was taken (& not all my relationships were shitty). Now you can do WHATEVER you want, WHENEVER you want! Live your BEST life.💜" After further elaboration from Karissa, Kelly replied the following: "Thank you so much, lovely. I needed to hear all of that. Love youuu 💜" To which Karissa replied: "Love you 💜💜💜"

On May 12, 2020, Escoblades wrote the following on Twitter: "When following online recipes, always double the amount of seasoning the recipe calls for. Every time. You're welcome." To which Rami Ismail replied: "While I agree with the sentiment, doubling the amount of seasoning a white person uses is still zero." To which Kelly replied: "Look here, you two. ...you’re spot-on. Keep up the good work. 😂😂"

This "aren't as close as you think" notion isn't going to take you far. I can post so many examples of them being close. Check the screenshot on the left for instance.

And in the screenshot on the right you can see how Kelly spoke to Escoblades a month before she claimed he had tried to groom her.

On June 22, 2020, the_mermae wrote the following on Twitter: "In 2018 I was leaving BioWare & looking for work Escoblades contacted me & pulled some sketchy shit. I recognized it as grooming and I broke contact, withdrew from panels to avoid him & when I reported his behaviour no actions were taken because "nothing happened." Believe them." To which Kelly Bristol replied: "I also experienced (attempted) grooming from him. I’m sorry, and I havw your back."

On June 23, 2019, Andrien Gbinigie AKA Escoblades tweeted about how he was slowly overcoming gloomy thoughts, to which Karissa replied: "LOVE THIS!!! And also you!!! 💜💜💜" To which Escoblades replied: "Right back at you ❤️"

Do you think Kelly was also telling the truth when, seeking more attention, she also claimed that Ubisoft's community manager Andrien Gbinigie AKA Escoblades, a man 6 years younger than her, had attempted to groom her?

She'd never said anything about him even though he was Karissa's friend.

No such posts existed. Had they existed, the defendants' lawyer would have gleefully pointed them out as witness tampering, which is a big no-no.

You spend too much time inside your imagination and no time at all backing anything up with citations.

In California, you can add Doe defendants to your tort lawsuit in case it ever comes in handy to have them. They don't have to exist, they're just there because you're allowed to have them, and your lawyer would tell you're a sucker not to include them.

In the end, there were no extra defendants.

On August 27, 2019, Kelly posted the following on Twitter: "I’d be real wary of the accusations we are seeing from @/abuseindustry. It’s a brand new account, and there are *multiple* folks claiming it’s actually a 4/8chan op to take down progressive game devs. Use caution with accounts like this. Listen to the actual victims." Then she added: "Okay, apparently I need to clarify this, despite urging y’all to believe victims. I don’t believe ANYONE is beyond reproach. While I may not have stories for someone, I believe those who do." Then she added: "And just because I mention a name in other replies, it doesn’t mean that I think he can’t possibly be one of THOSE GUYS. It just means I’ve noticed a pattern, and when combined with external factors, indicates the account I’m urging y’all to be wary of may not have pure motives."

Chris never even remembered meeting Kelly. Ironically, to prove that he *had* met her, Kelly included a photo of the 2 of them when she made the declaration I showed you... but it was from a few days after the alleged assault!

As for the intervening years, Kelly denied in 2019 that she had stories:

Are you saying he could have threatened Dauna, who is a lawyer herself?

Are you saying he could have threatened Scott, even though we have the exact email exchanges he had with him?

At this point you're just throwing every kind of nonsense you can at the wall hoping it will stick, but it won't.

If it's more than adequate for that, maybe you should stop drifting into cognitive dissonance so hard and insulting me.

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of the people who have looked at the evidence believe Chris is innocent. This is also why he's working on notable video games again.

How many times do I have to say I don't believe in a conspiracy before you will stop pretending I do?

But yes, it's not plausible in the slightest that he "threatened witnesses into silence". Karissa's own description of the witnesses was that they realized nothing! And she saw nothing with Kelly.

I don't believe it's misogynist. Certainly people who played it at the time thought the opposite about it. I was pointing out Kimimi's complete lack of context.

You can paint 99.99% of all media as misogynistic if that's your goal.

For a long time after Torment came out, it was praised as having deep female characters with far more agency than they had in other games.

Kimimi's article is a series of nitpicks better-suited against those other games.

He wasn't using a lawsuit to "ruin people's lives", he was using a lawsuit to try to fix the situation after a couple of people with demonstrably unstable personalities tried to ruin his life with claims that not a single one of the witnesses agreed with.

It was the right choice given the outcome.

If you believe people are generally trustworthy, it's contradictory that you'd withhold that belief about all the witnesses, especially when none of them had the kind of unstable personalities that Karissa and Kelly did.

And I already told you I didn't posit a conspiracy:

bsky.app/profile/davi...

There would have been no consequences for them.

We already established that the "SLAPP suit against goddamned near everyone" was actually just following a boilerplate format for California.

Since you keep forgetting stuff that we've already established, here you go again:

bsky.app/profile/davi...

If anything, given who they were, they would have been biased in favor of the women, not in favor of Chris.

You're the one making all the nonsensical assumptions.

I care about evidence, testimony and basic plausibility, none of which are "biased in favor of abusers".

They were arguably much closer to Karissa, Kelly and Chris' girlfriend than they were to Chris.

Scott was Karissa's boyfriend at DragonCon 2014.

Dauna went to the birthday party of Chris' girlfriend later that year.

They were not biased in favor of Chris.

Chris' game also wasn't misogynist.

Whatever someone's gender, it's irrational to conflate their personal experiences with unrelated experiences of unrelated people.

It's like deciding, after someone has stolen from you, that you're going to believe all accusations of theft ever against people you've never met, denying jurisprudence.