Elizabeth Ballou

A doctor who witnessed the shooting submits a sworn declaration in federal litigation to halt ICE surge in MN:

"I did not see him attack the agents or brandish a weapon of any kind."

and

"The victim had at least three bullet wounds in his back."

Read storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

At the end of the day, the Black Lives Matter era was about whether people should be killed in the street, and lots of people decided yeah and put those little blue flags on their cars. It spread to everyone because it stopped for no one.

it's been re-indexed! but keep up the calls to Stripe/Paypal/Visa/Mastercard, y'all! stop-paypros.neocities.org

that is WONDERFUL news!

thank you! it is bad!!!

if this makes you mad, keep calling!!!!!! bsky.app/profile/acva...

tfw your campaign ostensibly advocating against the objectification of women results in the de-indexing of a game about the psychological aftermath of women being objectified 🫠🫠🫠

Oh, and in case it isn’t clear, I don’t think my game deserves special treatment just because it’s educational. This is just a particularly egregious example of what happens when you try to target adult creators who are living their lives trying to make horny art in peace

also...it's free? This is not a game you pay money for??

But if you DID want to pay money, you could donate to Jennifer Ann's Group, which funds and promotes games about intimate partner violence, consent, and healthy relationships 💙

jenniferann.org/donate.htm

ATC is marked as sensitive content because we didn’t want to re-traumatize survivors. The entire game is about the *fallout* of assault on individuals. I don’t think I have to explain why it’s disastrous that a game like this would be caught in the dragnet of adult game removal.

ATC is educational, yes – it teaches about consent/gender violence on college campuses – but it’s also the most personal game I have ever made. I know SO many people who were assaulted by a classmate, tried to do something about it, and fought brutal battles with both their assaulter + school admin.

Today I learned that a game I made in partnership with Jennifer Ann's Group has been de-indexed on Itch. A Thousand Cuts is a texting game - no other graphics, no depictions of human forms literally at all - about how hard it is to report sexual assault to Title IX adjudicators at universities.

I am so happy for you 😭😭😭 this is the culmination of years of hard work, but at the same time it is JUST THE BEGINNING (I know in my heart this is true)

here she is: my narrative portfolio!! 🥹 i’ve worked hard on her hehe. i’m so happy to have finally assembled her and to now be showing her off!!

nataliecheco.carrd.co

if I weren't laughing (very darkly) I'd be crying my dudes

At least 6 people who worked on Double Exposure were present at GDC, but none of the ones who were laid off were contacted. I can't speculate on why D9 didn't send any representatives to accept the award at all, but it sure would've been nice if they'd had the opportunity to say something like this🤷

I wish so much that this acceptance speech could have been heard at the GDCAs last week. I support it 100%.

"I did not prepare a speech because I did not even know we were nominated. But I am truly honored to accept this award on behalf of my amazing team. When I was first getting into this industry, I was a college student, unsure of whether or not to change my major. The original Life Is Strange was one of the games that made that decision for me, so it was a full circle moment and an honor for me to get to work on this game: bruises, bumps, and all. I would like to thank my wonderful narrative team. Felice Kuan: our phenomenal narrative director, and an even better woman. Our calm in the storm. Deandra Warrick: our lead writer, our rock, who deserves way more recognition and credit than she gets. Mallory Littleton: one of the most talented technical narrative..."

"...designers I know. Aysha Farah: lead writer, and one of the most beautiful, fearless, funniest people I know. Andy Auseon: senior writer and our support, constantly juggling way too many things. Elizabeth Ballou: my right-hand woman on all things narrative design. And Zipporah Smith and James Wright: my homies, my loves, my brainstorming partners and the ones who kept me sane throughout this whole process. I can't thank you all enough. And to all of you out there with narrative jobs: all of these amazing people were let go, including myself. Personally, I've been out of a job for an entire year. We are all talented, award-winning writers and you won't regret having us on your team. So please, hire us. Thank you and goodnight!"

In this case, I would like to break the cycle and the silence on my own erasure. Since the night of the GDC Awards, I often think about what I would have said if I had been given the opportunity to speak. I think it would have been something like this:

I deleted my posts about The Award because several outlets have run stories that make it sound as if nobody who worked on the game was at gdc *at all* and have not quoted other devs who also talked about this, and one has unfounded rumors about whose fault this was or wasn't

a screenshot of a reddit post that includes a picture of a donut store in Richmond, Virginia. some of the lights on the store sign are out, so that instead of saying "country style donuts," it says "cunty style donuts."

richmond may have one of the worst postal systems in the country and a spotty record w/r/t running water, but at least we also have

just covered God of War + Senua's Sacrifice in class. meaning that if I had a nickel for every time in the last month that I taught a game about a traumatized person going to Hellheim while carrying a talking severed head, I'd have 2 nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

The Walking Dead Game OST-19 take us back YouTube video by HBM

it's been over 10 years since I was introduced to this song by the first Walking Dead game and I still cry every time it comes on. it feels particularly poignant right now tho youtu.be/fdq2Hy3WH6k?...

one of the delightful things about teaching again is that I can have serious conversations with students about games called stuff like "Dream Daddy," "Boyfriend Dungeon," "Don't Shit Your Pants," or "Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion"

is this funny? yes. do I deeply despair that far too much water was wasted just to spew forth this garbage I didn't ask for? mhmm

no better example of the idiocy of search engine AI snippets than searching for a Shrek meme and being told that Shrek supported freedom of association in Belarus

Hey folks! My severance ends tomorrow and I’m still looking for contact work to tide me over until I can find a more permanent position! Hit me up!

If you slip Elisabeth Kübler-Ross a little cash she'll show you how to unlock the secret bonus stage of grief where you have to use your street fighting skills to demolish a car.