| ROUGH DATE | ZOE'S CLAIMS | POST MILLENNIAL FINDINGS (ZOE'S PAST TWEETS) | CONCLUSION |
|---|
| PRE-MARCH 2012 (Zoe goes on to say this she meets Alec "one month after the assault", so we can place this around about February-ish) | Abuse from an Unnamed Assailant [zoe notes: paragraph 2 & 3] | No comment in the PM article on this | No conclusion - zoe doesn't name this abuser, and quickly mentions that "this isn't about him. I've forgiven him." We can ignore this claim, for now for the purpose of this Alec case. PM doesn't mention it. |
| START OF MARCH 2012 | Give that Zoe's notes gives us a rough date of the previous abuse at Feburary, she meets Alec "one month later", placing that around march. We can conclude that they start chatting around here. | PM found multiple snippets from a podcast in which Zoe goes on to explain how she met alec, via DMs on twatter. | |
| MARCH 2012 | Zoe doesn't specify when she gears up to go to Winnpeg to live with Alec in the zoe notes source. | PM found, from archived tweets, that Zoe was preparing to go to Winnipeg around March | We can conclude that Zoe prepared to leave Toronto for Winnipeg in March |
| MARCH END / APRIL START 2012 | As above, zoe doesn't specify when she moves to Winnipeg | Using dozens of archived tweets from Zoe's twitter, PM very reliably places the move date around this time | We can conclude that Zoe moves from Toronto to Winnipeg around the start of April (if not the end of March) |
| APRIL START TO MID APRIL 2012 | During this period, zoe claims a bulk of things done by Alec in the zoe notes [paragraph 7] Part of Zoe's claims during this period is that Alec isolated her and locked her away from the 3 unnamed friends during this period. | Around this time, Zoe and Alec appear together on a Podcast, explaining how they met on twitter, their relationship, and their project Not Ok Cupid (never released). Obviously, no mention of abuse happens on the podcast. Alec mentions that he spent some time on OK Cupid before meeting zoe. Hence the project. There are dozens and dozens of tweets detailing their time through-out april in Winnipeg. Including arranging a meet-up, shopping, and so on. | We can conclude that Alec probably did not shut Zoe away and isolate her, at least for the most part, because they often tweeted about their movements. Assuming the tweets are true, for now.
NOTE: There's alot of say-so about Alec's mental instability (including gossip of his own posted in 2016). We can assume that he wasn't very stable. We can probably assume that the relationship wasn't all that easy, either. |
| MID APRIL 2012 | This is around the time (2 weeks later) that zoe would of moved back to Winnipeg after staying with Alec, as they supposedly agreed, according to the zoe notes source [zoe notes: paragraph 3] Zoe would by the ticket there, Alec would by her the ticket back. They were supposed to live in an "indie house" with 3 others (unnamed) this was what they agreed pre-zoe's-departure. She would claim to stay for a full month | There's no real mention of the 2 week plan in the PM article. | We can conclude that she definitely stayed longer than two weeks. What's debatable here is: was that the original plan? Was the "two week" plan a lie? |
| END OF APRIL/ MAY START 2012 | This is probably around where Zoe claims to have come back (one month later) using air miles provided to her by a friend, since Alec refused to buy her a flight back as they previously agreed. She claims to have flown back with no mention of other travels. As if escaping. | The PM article has screencaps of a tweet dated May 2nd, that details a going to a Winnipeg meet up, then going to Montreal and Toronto (she heads to Toronto on the 4th) | By Zoe's tweet, we can conclude that she did travel back to Toronto around a month later. She PROBABLY didn't use a friend's air miles to escape Winnipeg, as she obviously travelled to Montreal as well. |
| MAY 10th 2012 | - | Is the last known tweet between Alec and Zoe, as detailed in the PM article | I can't conclude much here, apart from they stopped communicating. Could be because of the "amiable break up email" Zoe claimed to have sent after arriving back in Toronto |
| POST MAY 10th 2012 | In the zoe notes, she claims that here Alec "banned her from an indie gaming community he ran, banned himself, asked other industry leaders to help him commit suicide" | None of this is detailed in the PM Article. But it does mention Alec's mental instability, and other people agreeing that he was suicidal. | We can conclude that Alec is capable of lashing out like this given a history of instability.
We can perhaps conclude that the "community" in question is the indie meetup they arranged together called Windiepeg. |
| GAMERGATE START (earliest account, August 2014 ish, but we don't know what Zoe regards as the start of GG) | Zoe claims that multiple people came forward with claims of Alec's abusive behavior. | No mention of this in PM.
| We can conclude here that, using evidence of Alec's instability, that perhaps some people did contact Zoe about his behaviour. The 3 unnamed friends or one of the ~38 devs attending Windiepeg would be viable candidates |
| AUGUST 14th 2014 | Same claim as above, as this is around the same time. | In a new article by PM (see third source above), DMs between Alec and an unknown colleague has surfaced, dated August 14th 2014. They go into detail about:
- Alec was scared to come forward about instances of Zoe's behaviour due to career backlash.
- During a party, Zoe got quickly drunk and flirted with multiple people. Later, she would complain to Alec about a woman flirting with her. Alec, in some attempt to dodge a fight with Zoe, suggested a solution. They fought any way, no surprise there.
- On the date that Zoe moves to Winnipeg (See row labelled MARCH END / APRIL START 2012). In the DMs Alex claims that he was in love with her around this time, and when the move was done they might go to couple counselling, in some attempt to keep the relationship together. Zoe was up for the idea at first. When Alec offers to pay for the counselling, Zoe is some what offended, but is more than likely just dodging the responsibility of paying for sessions and being defensive.
- In another DM, Alec expresses the opinion that those who view gamergate as a simple issue of sexism simply "arn't looking in detail." Probably drawing on his own experience of Zoe first hand. Later, he goes on to sum up the ordeal very succinctly with the phrase "It's not because she is a woman, it's because she is a shitty person." Aptly put, mate.
| We can conclude that Alex regarded himself and Zoe as IN A RELATIONSHIP before Zoe moved to him. There is also NO mention of the "indie house" plan.
It's very obvious that Zoe was also a terrible partner in the relationship. That has always been obvious, but I didn't think it was to this extent. This is well within Zoe's character. It's easy to see just how difficult it was a relationship between the two of them, but it's a bit more skewed in Zoe's direction than before. We have yet to see solid evidence of the abuse from Alec's side. We've seen evidence of his instability, however, so it's doubtful he was squeaky clean as well. Saying that, we also know that Zoe has claimed abuse from assailants in just about every combination and flavour. Lastly, we see that Alec puts some effort into making it a healthier relationship via counselling and great cost to himself. |
| - | 5 YEARS LATER | - | - |
| August 28th 2019 (now) | Zoe's statement about Alec's alleged abuse. Multiple people back her up in variable degrees, such as Laurie Pennie, and the other devs of Night in the Woods, to a very small degree Alec's sister also | During this phase, Zoe deletes her twitter account only to reactivate it days later as "protected", someone archives lots of tweets and feeds them to PM, as part of the article. The article mentions that many tweets around the period specified in this timeline was DELETED, but managed to get screencapped in a video, sent to PM as part of the article. | Alec commits suicide some time after. The vast majority of games news outlets just mention "died"; being unusually respectful. Zoe goes into twitter damage control, deleting tweets from the period with Alec, but she's too slow. The two other devs also delete their accounts, perhaps for the same reason. Though now their accounts are back online [1] [2] |
