you know me and that mule scrambled right through the hole

Comparison: this to this. Anyone else see it?

To me, this is a disturbing dress. (But at least if you see it from the back, that terrifying broken-ribs moment makes visual sense. Ish.) But--at least, if what I understand about mesh is accurate--as a mesh dress, it will move with the body, integrate with it, so to speak, and in essence be much closer to actual knitwear than we can get now.

That's if I got it right.

But it's still a scary dress.

Okay, continuing from part II earlier, on the Escapist/Extra Credits flameout.

You've read this far (maybe); so what's the point of all this? Well, things are still unclear. Apparently, Macris agreed to release the emails between himself and the guys from EC; the problem is, I don't have a Facebook account, so I'm still trying to track down a transcript.

In the meantime, the list of who's been done wrong by the Escapist is growing:

• Elisa Scaldaferri of Name Game hasn't been paid, see her Twitter status here.
• Jimtopia of Creature Caster Masters was paid by the Escapist...but only six months after doing the work.
• Allistair Pinsof was owed nearly a thousand, but after the news broke, the Escapist contacted him and said they'd pay up:

I received confirmation I'll receive pay for my work, this morning. I trust Themis Media will follow through with the payment, but when is anyone's guess atm.

Whether this delayed transaction is due to miscommunication or knowing neglect, I don't know. One thing I do know is that they were quick to deal with the situation after yesterday, and I'm grateful for that.

• MovieBob also apparently is owed some back due, but no idea how much.
• JP Sherman has indicated he's also owed funds from Escapist.

(Mentioned on the main site: that both these tweets indicate support, not claims against Escapist, and they could be seen either way.)

• Robert Moran, who made Unforgotten Realms for Escapist, fought for nearly a year and a half to get paid:

Hey Robert Moran here, I use to do Unforgotten Realms on the Escapist. They didn't pay me for over 6 months to the point I couldn't make rent, so when I called them up telling them this was the final straw after a string of slow payments or "Checks lost in the mail" Alex himself told me that times were so rough at the Escapist he had to sell his second car! Anyway, I gave them my ultimatum saying to pay me SOMETHING and they didn't. I quit and then spent 14 months keeping silent while I fought to get the money they did owe me. I got about 80% of it, but the assholes still sold Unforgotten Realms T-Shirts through there [sic] supplier until I contacted the supplier.

• Kyle Martinak, half of the team behind Drinking Games and No Right Answer, says they're also looking at a fight to get paid.
• There's implication that Lisa Foiles is in the same boat.
• Nick Branch wrote an article; five months later the Escapist paid him.
• Jon Etheridge, animator behind Apocalypse Lane and Doraleous & Associates details why his show went on hiatus from the Escapist:

Yes, we did go on a break because of the payment issue. Our payments we're not coming in on time and we were getting pretty low on funds. We had an offer from some investors to finance our animated feature film and we came to a mutual agreement with Alex and The Escapist that we would leave for a bit, do the movie, give them time to catch up on their debt and then return to the show after the movie was finished. We hated to do it because we're in love with those characters and it sucked having to abandon the show halfway through the season.

Does this mean Doraleous will return to the Escapist? I can't say at this point because I honestly don't know. As you can see thing are pretty hectic over there. The movie is taking longer than expected too as we still have about 2 or 3 months of work left before we finish. (it's turning out to be hilarious btw)

I can say that I did receive full payment for Apocalypse Lane. Like other creators have said, it took a while and was never on time, but the show was eventually paid in full. Alex stayed in touch with me throughout the process and was always quick to respond to my e-mails and death threats.

Nick Berry on the entire mess:

There is no excuse for such blatant corporatism. Not even one. Poaching donation money? IP rights and that aside, insisting that the corporate fiction deserves a cut of medical donations is morally poor and in bad taste.

James, the other half of Extra Credits, chimed in:

When Allison hurt her arm, The Escapist had only paid us for four episodes over the course of a year. That meant I was down $20,000. That was the $20,000 I could have put in to help Allison. That was the $20,000 I would have used to get her surgery while figuring out how I could earn more money. It hurt that I couldn't tell you that then but I was asked not to.

I felt so bad asking without being able to do more than sell a computer and call in old debts...but you taught me a lesson in humanity and the goodness of people. I had never lost my faith in mankind, but that first Rockethub week you redoubled it.

And that was truly one of the greatest weeks of my life. Better than releasing games, better than lecturing in the halls of GDC. I really can never say thank you enough.

But since then things have not gone so well. We joined The Escapist because we believed in what was going on there. We believed in the idea of examining games more thoroughly, whether it was Yahtzee's blunt honesty or ENN delivering game news, we liked the idea that it was a place where consumers and developers could have a real conversation about games. We believed we were all in this together, fighting for the same ideals and goals.

We asked the guys at The Escapist if we could trade some of the debt they owed us for the rights to our intellectual property back if they weren't going to be able to pay us so we could do things like sell t-shirts or write a book. We thought this was going to be an easy discussion. Instead they responded by telling us that they felt that they were entitled to 75% of the Rockethub money, thus their debt was covered and, despite not paying us for nearly a year, we owed them $9500 dollars.

Which...is just insane; there is zero way anyone's contract terms would specify you owe your employer, when they haven't paid you for over twelve months. That's the kind of clause that would stand out after even a cursory read-through.

And that's all for this one, as this one was getting long. On to part IV!