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Cell Site Simulators ( #CSS ), also known as #IMSI catchers,
are among law enforcement’s most closely-guarded secret surveillance tools.They act like real cell phone towers,
🔸“tricking” mobile devices into connecting to them,
🔸designed to intercept the information that phones send and receive,
🔸like the location of the user and metadata for phone calls, text messages, and other app traffic.CSS are highly invasive and are used covertly.
In the past, law enforcement used a technique called
“parallel construction”
—collecting evidence in a different way to reach an existing conclusion
💥in order to avoid disclosing how law enforcement originally collected it💥
—. 👉to circumvent public disclosure of location findings made through CSS. 👈This technology is like a dragging fishing net, rather than a focused single hook in the water.
Every phone in the vicinity connects with the device;
🔥even people completely unrelated to an investigation get wrapped up in the surveillance. 🔥CSS, like other surveillance technologies, subjects civilians to widespread data collection,
even those who have not been involved with a crime,
and has been used against protestors and other protected groups, undermining their civil liberties.⭐️Their adoption should require public disclosure,
⭐️but this rarely occurs.In Massachusetts, agencies are expected to get a #warrant before conducting any cell-based location tracking.
The City of Boston is known to own a CSS.Dozens of policing agencies are currently using cell-site simulators (CSS) by #Jacobs #Technology and its Engineering Integration Group (EIG), according to newly-available documents on how that company provides CSS capabilities to local law enforcement.
A proposal document from Jacobs Technology,
provided to the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) and first spotted by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ),
outlines elements of the company’s CSS services, which include discreet integration of the CSS system into a Chevrolet Silverado and lifetime technical support .The proposal document from Jacobs provides some of the most comprehensive information about modern CSS that the public has had access to in years.
It confirms that law enforcement has access to CSS
♦️capable of operating on 5G
♦️as well as older cellular standards.It also gives us our first look at modern CSS hardware.
The Jacobs system runs on at least nine software-defined radios that simulate cellular network protocols on multiple frequencies
and can also gather #wifi intelligence.As these documents describe, these CSS are meant to be concealed within a common vehicle.
Antennas are hidden under a false roof so nothing can be seen outside the vehicles,
which is a shift from the more visible antennas and cargo van-sized deployments we’ve seen before.The system also comes with a TRACHEA2+ and JUGULAR2+ for 🔹direction finding and 🔹mobile direction finding.
Important to the MSP contract is the modification of a Chevrolet Silverado with the CSS system.
This includes both the surreptitious installment of the CSS hardware into the truck and the integration of its software user interface into the navigational system of the vehicle.
According to Jacobs, this is the kind of installation with which they have a lot of experience.
Jacobs has built its CSS project on military and intelligence community relationships,
which are now informing development of a tool used in domestic communities,
not foreign warzones.#Harris #Corporation, later #L3Harris #Technologies, Inc.,
was the largest provider of CSS technology to domestic law enforcement
but stopped selling to non-federal agencies in 2020.Once Harris stopped selling to local law enforcement the market was open to several competitors,
one of the largest of which was #KeyW #Corporation.Following👉 Jacobs’s 2019 acquisition of The KeyW Corporation 👈and its Engineering Integration Group (EIG),
Jacobs is now a leading provider of CSS to police,
and it claims to have
🌟more than 300 current CSS deployments globally. 🌟https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/next-generation-cell-site-simulators-here-heres-what-we-know
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Send Email Anywhere: Winlink for New Amateur Radio Enthusiasts
2,097 words, 11 minutes read time.
When the internet works, we rarely think about how much we rely on it. But what happens when it doesn’t? Hurricanes knock out power grids, wildfires melt fiber lines, and remote expeditions often operate hundreds of miles from the nearest cell tower. In those moments, email isn’t just convenience—it’s a lifeline. Enter Winlink, a system that allows you to send and receive email without a single byte of traditional internet.
This guide isn’t just for licensed amateur radio operators, though you may find yourself becoming one by the end. Instead, it’s for the curious builder, the aspiring communicator, and the man who values practical capability. Mastering Winlink prepares you for emergencies, expeditions, and even the challenge of earning your ham radio license—not as a theoretical exercise but as a tool you can actually use.
What is Winlink?
At its core, Winlink is a global messaging system designed to function where the internet cannot. It uses radio frequencies to transmit email through a network of gateway stations strategically placed across the world. These stations receive your message via radio, route it through their servers, and deliver it to the wider internet—or, if the internet is down, to another radio operator entirely.
Winlink has been a cornerstone of emergency communications for decades, with its origins dating back to the late 1990s when amateur radio operators recognized the growing importance of digital messaging. Unlike traditional voice-based ham radio, Winlink provides structured, readable, and archivable messages—a major advantage in emergency operations where accuracy can mean the difference between help arriving or being lost in the static.
Today, Winlink is more than a backup plan. It’s used by sailors crossing oceans, missionaries working in remote areas, disaster response teams, and adventurers who understand that connection should never depend solely on cell towers. As the official Winlink site describes, the system is “a worldwide radio messaging system that uses radio pathways where the Internet is not present.”
What You Need to Get Started
One of the strengths of Winlink is that it scales with your level of commitment and experience. At the most basic level, you’ll need a radio capable of data transmission, a computer running Winlink Express, and a way to connect the two—usually a sound card interface or dedicated radio modem.
A common beginner setup starts with a simple VHF/UHF radio, such as a dual-band handheld transceiver, which can connect to nearby Winlink gateways operating on local frequencies. As your experience grows, high-frequency (HF) radios open the door to global coverage, allowing you to connect to distant stations when local ones aren’t available.
The computer is equally essential. Winlink Express, the software that drives most amateur Winlink activity, provides a familiar email-like interface with the ability to compose, send, and receive messages—while managing the often-complex process of encoding and decoding digital signals in the background. A modest laptop or even a rugged tablet can serve the role well, especially in field conditions where weight and power efficiency matter.
Finally, there’s power. Portable battery banks, solar panels, or generator setups ensure that your station stays on when the lights go out. This is where the survivalist mindset aligns with the hobbyist’s curiosity—Winlink is only as reliable as the hardware that supports it.
How Winlink Sends Email Without the Internet
Understanding how Winlink works under the hood adds depth to its appeal. At a high level, the process involves three main elements: the client software (Winlink Express), the radio, and the gateway network. When you compose a message, Winlink Express packages your text into a digital format that can be transmitted as a series of audio tones over the airwaves. These tones are received by a Winlink gateway station, which acts as a bridge between the radio world and the traditional internet.
If the internet is operational, the gateway forwards your message to its destination email server. If not, Winlink allows for radio-only routing, where your message travels across stations until it reaches the intended recipient—no fiber optic cables required.
Two primary connection methods make this possible. The first is Radio Frequency (RF) mode, where your signal travels over amateur radio frequencies to a gateway. The second is Telnet mode, which uses the internet directly, primarily for testing and training. Beginners often start with Telnet to learn the software before moving to full radio operations, where range, atmospheric conditions, and antenna placement all play a role.
The elegance of Winlink lies in its resilience. It doesn’t care if cell towers collapse, satellites go dark, or an entire region loses power. As long as one gateway remains reachable via radio waves, email can still flow.
Setting Up Winlink Express (Beginner-Friendly Walkthrough)
Getting started with Winlink Express is easier than most people expect, though it rewards careful attention to detail. Begin by downloading Winlink Express from the official Winlink website. The software is lightweight, requiring minimal computing power, but it is rich in features, so take time to explore its menus and configuration panels. Upon first launch, you will be prompted to create a Winlink account—this simply involves selecting a callsign (if you have one) or using a temporary tactical callsign for training until you are fully licensed.
Once your account is created, the software asks for your station information. Here, accuracy matters. Enter your location, radio type, and any details about how you will connect to the network. While beginners often start with Telnet mode to get comfortable with sending and receiving messages, the real magic happens when you move to radio frequency (RF) mode. This requires configuring your sound card interface or external modem to match your radio’s data capabilities, setting the correct baud rate, and fine-tuning your audio levels so that your signals are crisp and clear.
A good practice is to test with short, simple messages at first. Compose an email to yourself or a fellow operator, attach a small text file, and send it through a nearby gateway. Once received, verify that the message’s content is intact and legible. Over time, experiment with different frequencies, power settings, and antenna orientations to learn how changing conditions affect transmission quality. Each successful test builds confidence, and confidence is the foundation of reliable field communication.
Winlink in Real-World Scenarios
Winlink is not a theoretical exercise. It has been proven repeatedly in some of the most demanding conditions imaginable. When hurricanes devastate coastal regions and cellular infrastructure collapses, emergency communication teams turn to Winlink to coordinate rescue operations and deliver critical updates to relief agencies.
Sailors and maritime operators also rely on it daily. Imagine crossing the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from the nearest internet hub, and still being able to send weather reports, position updates, and personal messages to family. Winlink bridges that gap seamlessly, often using high-frequency (HF) bands to cover immense distances where no other communication option is practical.
Outdoor adventurers—backpackers, mountaineers, hunters—value Winlink for its ability to provide a digital lifeline when venturing far beyond cellular coverage. A hiker deep in the Rockies, for instance, can check in with a support team or report an emergency location via GPS coordinates, all without relying on fragile smartphone connectivity.
But perhaps Winlink’s most valuable role is in structured emergency communications (EmComm) exercises. Across the United States, Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) groups run regular Winlink drills, sending forms such as ICS-213 general messages or weather reports to practice real-time coordination. For men who see preparedness not just as a hobby but as a responsibility, Winlink offers a tool that combines technical challenge with practical life-saving potential.
Practice Before You Need It
Owning the gear and installing the software is only half the equation. True proficiency comes from use—regular, deliberate, and preferably guided by experienced operators. Many radio clubs host Winlink training nets where members check in, send test messages, and share configuration tips. One example is the Tuesday Winlink Connect, a weekly session designed to sharpen skills and keep operators ready for real-world scenarios.
Practice also teaches the subtle art of troubleshooting. A misplaced setting, misaligned antenna, or weak signal can make the difference between a successful transmission and frustration. By testing under calm conditions, you build familiarity that pays dividends during emergencies when stress and urgency are high.
For beginners, practice should start simple. Use Telnet mode to simulate message flow and confirm that your software is configured correctly. Move to VHF or UHF packet sessions next, connecting to local gateways at modest distances. Finally, progress to HF operations, where propagation conditions introduce a fascinating layer of complexity. The more you practice, the more intuitive the system becomes—and the more confidence you carry into your first field deployment or real emergency activation.
Looking Ahead – Preparing for Your License
While this guide focuses on using Winlink, gaining a deeper understanding of amateur radio regulations and practices naturally prepares you for eventual licensing. The Technician Class license, often considered the gateway to amateur radio, provides access to VHF and UHF frequencies—sufficient for local Winlink gateway access and learning the fundamentals of on-air communication. For those seeking broader coverage through HF frequencies, the General Class license becomes the logical next step, unlocking the potential for long-distance email transmission over radio.
Familiarity with Winlink software, digital modes, and RF principles gives you an advantage when studying for these licenses. Concepts such as frequency allocation, propagation, and equipment operation are no longer abstract—they are skills you have applied firsthand. Many operators find that their first real-world experiences with Winlink inspire them to push deeper into the hobby, exploring not only licensing but also antenna theory, power management, and emergency communication protocols.
Local amateur radio clubs are excellent resources for bridging this gap. They offer study sessions, licensing exams, and, perhaps most importantly, a network of experienced mentors. These seasoned operators often share practical insights that go far beyond test preparation, helping new enthusiasts build reliable portable stations, troubleshoot equipment issues, and operate confidently under pressure. As you advance, consider sharing your own experience with Winlink to guide others—a true hallmark of the amateur radio tradition.
Conclusion
Winlink is more than a clever workaround for internet outages. It represents a mindset—a commitment to capability, resilience, and preparedness in a world that too often assumes technology will never fail. Whether you are drawn by the technical challenge, the thrill of operating independently, or the satisfaction of knowing you can send an email from the middle of nowhere, Winlink delivers. It bridges the gap between old-school radio tradition and modern digital utility, proving that innovation thrives where curiosity meets purpose.
This guide has only scratched the surface. From basic setup to advanced field deployment, Winlink offers endless opportunities for exploration. More importantly, every message sent, every drill completed, and every skill mastered moves you closer to becoming a fully licensed amateur radio operator—a step that will open new frequencies, new friendships, and new possibilities.
If you’ve read this far, you are no longer a casual observer. You are someone who sees the value in building practical skills that can make a real difference when it matters most. Don’t wait until the next power outage or storm to start learning. Install Winlink Express, send your first test email, and experience the satisfaction of digital messaging without a single byte of internet.
Better yet, join a live training session. The Tuesday Winlink Connect net is a perfect place to start. Here, you can practice in a supportive environment, learn from seasoned operators, and gain confidence with every transmission.
Finally, I invite you to share your thoughts, questions, or first-time experiences in the comments below. What challenges did you face? What worked best for you? By sharing, you help build a community of capable communicators—men who value skill, readiness, and the quiet confidence that comes from knowing they can reach out when others cannot.
D. Bryan King
Sources
- Winlink Global Messaging System
- ARRL: What is Ham Radio?
- ARRL: Getting Licensed
- ARRL: Introduction to Winlink
- RadioReference: Amateur Radio Resources
- QRZ.com: Callsign Database and Ham Community
- EmComm.org: Emergency Communications Training
- Winlink FAQ
- Winlink Express Overview
- Ham Radio Concepts (YouTube Channel)
- HamRadio.com – Equipment and Guides
- PrepperNet: Radio Communications for Preppers
- DXZone: Winlink Software and Tutorials
- eHam.net – Ham Radio Reviews and Forums
- GPS World: Winlink Overview
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.
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„Er wusste immer genau, wo ich war“
Aikos Ex-Partner verwanzt ihr Handy. Er kann sehen, was sie liest, was sie tippt, wo sie ist. Er lauert ihr immer wieder auf und verfolgt sie bis nach China. Dieser Fall zeigt, wie invasiv und bedrohlich frei verfügbare Spionage-Apps sind.
Seit ihrer Trennung ist Aiko eine vorsichtige Frau geworden. Bevor sie ihren Wohnblock verlässt, wartet sie still im Eingangsbereich. Dort gibt es mehrere Türen mit Glaseinsätzen. Sie versucht zu erkennen, ob draußen jemand ist. Es könnte ja sein, dass Tom ihr wieder auflauert. Er hat schon oft auf sie gewartet oder sie auf der Straße abgefangen. Er hat sich ihr von hinten genähert und sie festgehalten. Sie sagt, Tom wollte immer wieder reden, reden, reden, über ihre Beziehung, obwohl Aiko diese schon vor Jahren beendet hat.
Um Tom zu entkommen, hat Aiko ihn wiederholt angezeigt, ein Annäherungsverbot erwirkt, eine Auskunftssperre bei den Meldebehörden hinterlegen lassen, sie ist in eine neue Stadt gezogen. Doch Tom taucht immer wieder auf. Auch an diesem Tag im Sommer 2025 steht er vor der Tür. Aiko kann das Haus nicht verlassen, ohne sich mit ihm auseinanderzusetzen. Sie ruft die Polizei – wie schon so oft.
Diese Geschichte ist eine von Gewalt. Es geht um Macht und Kontrolle und um eine Spionage-App, die jede*r mit wenigen Klicks im Netz ordern kann und mit der Menschen illegal ihre (Ex-)Partner*innen ausspähen. Jede 100. Frau wurde in den vergangenen fünf Jahren mit digitalen Mitteln gestalkt, so das Bundeskriminalamt. Aiko ist eine der Betroffenen. Mit ihrer Geschichte wird in Deutschland erstmals ein Fall öffentlich, in dem nachgewiesenermaßen eine Spionage-App als Mittel der Partnerschaftsgewalt eingesetzt wurde. Nach der Trennung installierte Tom diese auf Aikos Telefon.
Über ein Browser-Interface konnte Tom sehen, wo Aiko gerade unterwegs war, und lesen, was sie tippte. Er konnte ihre Passwörter abgreifen, ihre Chatnachrichten und E-Mails, die Anrufliste, die Kontakte, den Kalender, die Bilder und Videos, den Browser-Verlauf. Er drang tief in ihr digitales und analoges Leben ein.
Ein paar Minuten allein mit Aikos Handy
Um sie zu schützen, haben sie und Tom hier andere Namen. netzpolitik.org hat mit Aiko gesprochen und Menschen aus ihrem Umfeld befragt. Zahlreiche Dokumente und geleakte Daten aus dem Kundendienst der Spionage-App mSpy bestätigen ihre Schilderungen. Eine forensische Analyse von Aikos Telefon, die ein IT-Sicherheitsexperte für netzpolitik.org durchgeführt hat, belegt zudem, dass das Gerät mit mSpy infiziert ist.
Um mSpy zu installieren, muss man das Zieltelefon für ein paar Minuten in der Hand halten. Tom hatte, so Aiko, viele Gelegenheiten, bei denen er allein mit ihrem Telefon war.
netzpolitik.org hat Tom mit den in diesem Text geschilderten Geschehnissen und Aikos Vorwürfen konfrontiert. Einen großen Teil davon hat er bereits in Gerichtsverfahren eingeräumt. Gegenüber netzpolitik.org erklärt er nur, dass ihm zu vielen der geschilderten Punkte Belege vorlägen, die eine „deutlich andere Sicht auf die Geschehnisse zulassen“. Im Einzelnen will er sich nicht äußern und verweist auf zwei noch laufende Berufungsverfahren.
„Ich dachte, er ist ein aufrichtig guter Mensch“
Die Geschichte von Tom und Aiko beginnt Anfang 2021. Sie treffen sich auf der Dating-Plattform Bumble. Tom ist Nachwuchsregisseur, in Interviews wirkt er eloquent, zu öffentlichen Anlässen trägt er einen schmal geschnittenen Anzug. Seine Agentur schreibt über ihn, dass er mit seiner Arbeit Menschen sichtbar machen wolle, die sonst nicht gesehen würden. Auch Aiko arbeitet in einem kreativen Beruf. In ihrer Freizeit geht sie gerne ins Kino oder reist mit Freundinnen zu Kunstausstellungen.
Laut Aiko verband sie und Tom das Interesse für Kunst, Filme und Design. „Ich dachte, dass er die gleichen humanistischen Werte hat wie ich, dass er ein Idealist ist, ein aufrichtig guter Mensch“, sagt Aiko heute. Sie spricht leise, sucht nach den richtigen Worten. Immer wieder hebt sie fragend den Blick, als müsse sie die Erlaubnis zum Sprechen erst einholen.
Von August 2021 bis Mai 2022 sind Tom und Aiko ein Paar. Dann habe sie entdeckt, dass Tom mit vielen anderen Frauen Kontakt hat, sagt Aiko. Sie habe Sexvideos auf einem Datenträger gefunden. Eines, das sie mit ihm gemacht habe, sieben weitere von ihm und anderen Frauen. Sie sagt, sie habe Schluss gemacht, Tom auf mehreren Messengern blockiert. Doch er habe immer wieder im Treppenhaus gestanden. Mehrere Male habe sie zugelassen, dass er in ihre Wohnung kommt. „Ich wollte extrem von ihm weg. Aber ich bin nicht weggekommen“, sagt Aiko.
Wegen dem, was dann folgt, zeigt Aiko Tom an. Die Staatsanwaltschaft fasst Aikos Schilderungen so zusammen: „Der Beschuldigte soll seine Lebensgefährtin mehrfach auf ein Bett gedrückt, ihr mit der erhobenen Faust gedroht und mit der Faust ein Loch in eine Tür geschlagen haben.“ Zu einer anderen Gelegenheit habe er Aiko, „die zwischenzeitlich ins Badezimmer gegangen war, um von dort die Polizei zu verständigen, ihr Mobiltelefon abgenommen. Als sie in der Folge anfing zu schreien und aus dem Fenster um Hilfe zu rufen, soll der Beschuldigte ihr die Hand auf den Mund gedrückt und sie vom Fenster weggezogen haben.“
Die Staatsanwaltschaft hat keine Anklage erhoben. Sie sah kein öffentliches Interesse an der Strafverfolgung.
Nachrichten an den mSpy-Kundendienst
Am 10. Januar 2023 schickt jemand von dem E-Mail-Account, den Toms Filmhochschule für ihn damals bereitstellt, eine Nachricht an den Kundendienst der Spionage-App mSpy. Dieser Mensch schreibt, er habe ein Problem: Er sehe zwar wie gewünscht den Standort des Zieltelefons, aber es übermittele nicht mehr, was darauf getippt wird.
Auf der Suche nach einer Lösung bombardiert er den Kundendienst mit dutzenden Nachrichten. Dieser rät dazu, eine Nachricht mit dem Inhalt „1000000“ an das Zieltelefon zu senden, um die App neu zu starten. Der Kunde präsentiert einen Entwurf.
aiko rede bitte mit mir anstatt mich zu blocken zum 1000000 mal. bitte aiko. das zerstört mich so sehr.
Später nennt er das Modell des Telefons, das er überwachen will. Es ist das Modell, das Aiko nutzt. MSpy hat auf Nachfragen zum Fall nicht reagiert.
Die Nachrichten sind öffentlich, nachzulesen in einem Datensatz, mit dem Millionen von Chats im Netz landeten, die Nutzer*innen mit dem Kundendienst der Spionage-App geführt haben. Die Plattform Distributed Denial of Secrets hat den Datensatz im Juni 2024 veröffentlicht. Die Hackerin maia arson crimew gibt an, dass ihr das Paket von einer anonymen Quelle zugespielt wurde.
Von Anfang 2023 bis zum Juni 2024 kontaktiert demnach jemand von Toms E-Mail-Account aus den Support mit einer gut dreistelligen Zahl von Nachrichten. Dieser Mensch hat anscheinend mehrfach physischen Zugriff auf das Zieltelefon und installiert mSpy nach Ausfällen wiederholt neu. Er will mSpy mehrere Male kündigen, weil Funktionen ausfallen, und bucht den Service dann doch wieder.
Jahre später wird Tom wegen Nachstellung mit Hilfe einer Software vor Gericht stehen. Dabei gibt er zu, dass er die App am 28. April 2024 installiert hat und damit bis zum 24. November Zugriff auf Aikos Handydaten hatte. Laut den Nachrichten könnte er Aiko aber wesentlich länger mit der App überwacht haben, bereits ab Anfang 2023.
Für Stalking mit Spionage-Apps gibt es bis zu fünf Jahre Haft
Als mSpy vor mehr als 15 Jahren auf den Markt kam, wurde die App noch offen als Instrument für Partnerschaftsgewalt vermarktet. Später stellte das Unternehmen seine Marketing-Botschaften um.
mSpy ist laut eigenen Angaben inzwischen eine App für Eltern, die damit die Geräte ihrer Kinder überwachen – das kann in Deutschland unter Umständen legal sein, auch ohne Zustimmung. Wer hingegen andere Erwachsene heimlich überwacht, handelt eindeutig strafbar: Ausspähen von Daten, womöglich Nachstellung, Verletzung der Vertraulichkeit des Wortes oder des höchstpersönlichen Lebensbereichs durch Bildaufnahmen. Dafür können mehrere Jahre Haft drohen.
Wer ein Spionage-Tool einsetzt, begeht zudem einen besonders schweren Fall von Nachstellung, strafbewehrt mit mindestens drei Monaten und bis zu fünf Jahre Haft. Verschärfend wirkt ebenfalls, wenn die Nachstellung über einen Zeitraum von mehr als sechs Monaten abläuft oder das Opfer gesundheitlich beeinträchtigt wird. Beides trifft im Fall von Aiko zu.
Der Mensch, der von Toms Account dem mSpy-Kundendienst schreibt, gibt an, mit der App seinen Sohn überwachen zu wollen. Tom hat keine Kinder. Frühere Recherchen zeigten: Andere Anwender*innen von mSpy gaben offen zu, dass sie Partner- oder Ex-Partner*innen ausspionieren wollten. Der Kundendienst half ihnen trotzdem weiter.
Keine Kraft mehr, sich zu wehren
Auch 2023, da sind Aiko und Tom bald ein Jahr getrennt, taucht Tom laut Aiko immer wieder vor ihrer Wohnung auf und begegnet ihr auch anderswo. „Wenn ich raus bin, hat er mich abgefangen“, sagt Aiko. Sie fährt zu einer Hochzeit, er sitzt im gleichen Zug. Sie will ins Kino, er steht davor. Das geht aus einer eidesstattlichen Versicherung von Aiko hervor, auf deren Basis ein Gericht später ein Kontaktverbot für Tom verhängt.
Aiko zieht sich in dieser Zeit von Familie und Freund*innen zurück. Sie reagiert monatelang nicht auf Nachrichten und Anrufe, berichten ihre Freund*innen. „Ich hatte Angst vor dem Handy“, sagt Aiko. Eine enge Freundin fährt aus Sorge zu Aikos Wohnung.
Die Freundin ist Ärztin in einer psychiatrischen Fachklinik. In einer Stellungnahme schreibt sie, Aiko habe ihr geöffnet und gesagt, Tom sei da und würde gegen ihren Willen bei ihr wohnen, sie habe keine Kraft mehr, sich zu wehren. Aiko bestätigt die Darstellung gegenüber netzpolitik.org.
Aiko und die Freundin sollen Tom gebeten haben, zu gehen. Dieser soll erwidert haben, Aiko wolle doch gar nicht, dass er gehe, er liebe sie, außerdem müsse er noch Wäsche waschen. Die Freundin soll ihn schließlich dazu gebracht haben, die Waschmaschine auszuräumen und die Wohnung zu verlassen.
Insgesamt elf Mal sucht Aiko eine eine Opfer- und Traumaambulanz auf, während Tom sie stalkt. Diagnose: posttraumatische Belastungsstörung, depressive Episode, panikartige Angstzustände, emotionale Labilität, Einschlafstörungen und wiederkehrende Albträume, Schamgefühle, reduziertes Selbstwertgefühl, sozialer Rückzug, Auflösungswünsche.
„Ein spontaner Rückgang ihrer hohen Symptombelastung ist unter der gegenwärtigen Hochstresssituation nicht zu erwarten“, so die Hilfseinrichtung. Aiko meldet sich immer wieder auf der Arbeit krank.
Er verfolgt sie bis nach China
Ende 2023: Aiko bucht einen Flug nach Shanghai, in die größte Stadt Chinas. Sie sagt, sie habe möglichst weit weg gewollt. Als sie ins Flugzeug steigen will, steht Tom mit ihr in der Boarding-Schlange.
„Ich dachte, das kann doch nicht sein“, sagt Aiko. Sie zweifelt an ihrer Wahrnehmung, kann sich nicht erklären, wie Tom sie gefunden hat. „Dass es so etwas wie mSpy gibt, wusste ich nicht“, sagt Aiko. Sie fügt sich. „Ich dachte, am besten lasse ich es über mich ergehen. Alles ist besser als wieder Polizei und eskalieren und ich verpasse meinen Flug.“
Aiko fasst die Reise so zusammen: Nach der Landung soll Tom mit ihr ins Hotel-Shuttle gestiegen sein, sich ein Zimmer in ihrer Unterkunft genommen haben. Um ihm zu entkommen, sei sie mit dem Taxi zurück zum Flughafen gefahren. Auch dort sei er aufgetaucht. Sie sei noch zwei Mal in neue Hotels geflüchtet, er habe sie jedes Mal gefunden. Er soll geweint haben und gesagt, er habe alle Hotels nach ihr abgesucht.
Irgendwann platzt Aiko der Kragen. „Ich habe gesagt, dass er sich verpissen soll. Ihn gefragt, ob er nicht checkt, dass ich hier bin, weil ich vor ihm fliehen will.“ Tom habe China nach rund 14 Tagen verlassen, Aiko bleibt eine weitere Woche.
Aiko sagt, dass Tom kurz nach Weihnachten bei ihren Eltern vor der Tür stand. „Ich habe hier auf dich gewartet“, soll er gesagt haben. Als sie zurück zu ihrem Wohnort fährt, soll er wieder im gleichen Zug mit ihr gesessen haben.
Die Überwachungs-Industrie
Fachleute aus Beratungsstellen, Forschung und Politik bezeichnen die Überwachung mit Spionage-Apps als digitale Gewalt, weil sie mit elektronischen Mitteln tief in die Selbstbestimmung eingreift. Programme wie mSpy nennen sie Stalkerware: Software für Stalking.
mSpy ist dabei nur eines der Produkte auf diesem Markt. IT-Sicherheitsforscher*innen sprechen von einer ganzen Industrie. Neben Spionage-Apps zählen auch GPS-Tracker oder Ortungs-Tags zu den Werkzeugen, auf die Täter*innen zugreifen.
Besonders häufig kommen Spionage-Apps in Partnerschaften und Familien zum Einsatz. Denn um sie zu installieren, brauchen die Täter*innen in der Regel einige Minuten ungestörten physischen Zugang zum Zieltelefon und den Entsperrcode des Geräts. Je näher sie einer Person stehen, desto eher haben sie beides.
Hinter mSpy steckt ein schwer zugängliches Firmengeflecht, beworben wird die Spionage-App über ein Netz von Unternehmen, die daran mitverdienen. Der Abo-Preis hängt von Buchungsdauer, Rabatten und gewünschtem Funktionsumfang ab und kann schnell 100 Euro pro Jahr übersteigen.
„Ich dachte, ich komme da nie wieder raus“
Immer wieder ruft Aiko in den Jahren, in denen Tom sie verfolgt, die Polizei zu Hilfe, zeigt Tom an. Anfang 2024 wird ein Verfahren wegen Nachstellung eingestellt. Es sei nicht „mit hinreichender Wahrscheinlichkeit nachzuweisen“, dass Aiko den Kontakt nicht gewollt habe, schreibt die Staatsanwaltschaft. Tom soll der Polizei gesagt haben, sie seien noch zusammen und Bilder gezeigt haben, auf denen er mit Aiko zu sehen war. Aiko sagt: „Ich dachte, ich komme da nie wieder raus.“
Im März 2024 schreibt jemand von Toms E-Mail-Adresse aus mehrfach an den mSpy-Kundendienst, weil bestimmte Funktionen der App ausfallen. Als der Kontakt zu Aikos Telefon für eine Weile scheinbar ganz verloren geht, fragt die Person: „can someone please help“, zig Nachrichten später: „I have to know what’s going on“.
Am 28. April um 11:08 Uhr wird die Spionage-App auf Aikos Telefon neu installiert. Wenige Minuten zuvor fragt jemand von Toms E-Mail-Adresse aus den Kundendienst, wie man mSpy installiert und bekommt eine Anleitung zugesendet. Die Nachrichten an den Kundendienst werden laut Chatprotokoll aus der Stadt verschickt, in der Aiko wohnt.
Am Tag davor klingelt Tom bei Aiko. Sie sagt, er habe geweint und gesagt, er habe keinen Schlafplatz und kein Geld und wolle nur eine Nacht bleiben. Aiko lässt ihn entgegen ihrer Vorsätze wieder in die Wohnung. Heute vermutet sie, dass er ihr Entsperrmuster kannte und mSpy installierte, während sie gerade nicht im Raum war.
Was an diesem Tag mit Aikos Telefon geschah, hinterließ Spuren auf dem Gerät. Aus einer forensischen Analyse, die netzpolitik.org bei einem unabhängigen IT-Sicherheits-Experten in Auftrag gab, geht hervor, wie sich das Geschehen vermutlich zugetragen hat: Tom installiert die App und deaktiviert dafür Sicherheitsfunktionen auf dem Handy, tippt einen Registrierungscode ein und schickt dann mit Aikos Handy eine WhatsApp-Nachricht an seine eigene Nummer:
Test Oh Keykoffer funktioniert bitte funktionieren.
K und L, sowie F und G liegen auf der Tastatur nebeneinander, vermutlich wollte Tom in Eile „Keylogger“ tippen. Ein Keylogger erfasst alle Anschläge auf der Tastatur und damit auch Passwörter, Nachrichten und Suchbegriffe, mSpy bietet diese Funktion.
Ein deutlicher Anstieg der Fälle
Wie viele Menschen andere mit Spionage-Apps ausspionieren, weiß niemand. Das Bundeskriminalamt erfasst entsprechende Anzeigen nicht gesondert. Sie fallen in die Rubrik digitale Gewalt, zusammen mit Videoaufnahmen in Umkleiden und sexualisierten Deepfakes beispielsweise. 2023 wurden laut Bundeskriminalamt 17.193 Fälle von digitaler Gewalt gegen Mädchen und Frauen von der Polizei bearbeitet.
Vor wenigen Tagen veröffentlichte das BKA eine Dunkelfeldstudie, für die Menschen zu ihren Gewalterfahrungen befragt wurden. Etwa jede 45. der befragten Frauen gab an, innerhalb der vergangenen fünf Jahre von einem Partner oder Ex-Partner gestalkt worden zu sein. Eine von hundert sagte, dass dies auch mit digitalen Mitteln geschah. Weniger als jede zehnte Frau zeigte die Taten an.
Von einem deutlichen Anstieg der Fälle von digitalem Stalking berichten Fachberatungsstellen für digitale Gewalt und der Bundesverband Frauenberatungsstellen und Frauennotrufe. Cordelia Moore, die lange in einer Frauenberatungsstelle zu digitaler Gewalt gearbeitet hat und heute Organisationen zum Thema berät, sagt: „In Stalkingfällen ist Cyberstalking inzwischen keine Ausnahme, sondern der Standard.“
Die Bundesregierung will den Anbietern von Spionage-Apps vorschreiben, regelmäßig das Einverständnis der Geräte-Besitzer*innen einzuholen, so steht es im Koalitionsvertrag. Eine heimliche Überwachung wie im Fall von Aikos Telefon wäre damit nicht mehr möglich – zumindest wenn sich die App-Anbieter daran halten.
Das Justizministerium des Bundes schreibt auf Anfrage, die Umsetzung werde gerade geprüft, man stehe dazu mit dem Innen- und dem Digitalministerium in Kontakt. Allerdings sitzen die Anbieter der App nicht in Deutschland, womöglich nicht einmal in der EU. Es ist unklar, welche Auswirkungen ein deutscher Alleingang hätte.
„Von Panikattacken gequält“
33 Fälle von verbotener Nachstellung gibt Aiko von Mai bis Dezember 2024 bei der Polizei zu Protokoll. Tom steht immer wieder vor ihrem Haus, fängt sie vor dem Kino und am Bahnhof ab, sitzt im gleichen Zug mit ihr, hält sie fest und will mit ihr sprechen. Er ruft mit unterdrückter Nummer immer wieder an, schickt ihr WhatsApp-Nachrichten.
Wieder bricht Aiko den Kontakt zu Freund*innen ab. Die Freundin, die im vergangenen Jahr Tom aus Aikos Wohnung verjagte, gibt sie nicht auf und fährt wieder zu ihr. In ihrer Stellungnahme heißt es:
Ich fand sie in ihrer Wohnung auf dem Sofa liegend vor, die Wohnung war vollständig abgedunkelt, (Aiko) war in einem verwahrlosten Zustand, von Panikattacken gequält und konnte zunächst kaum berichten, was sich in der letzten Zeit zugetragen hatte. Sie hatte mehrere Tage nichts gegessen, aus Angst, die Wohnung zu verlassen.
Mehr als ein Jahr später wird Tom für diese Taten von der Staatsanwaltschaft wegen Nachstellung angeklagt. Er wird ein umfassendes Geständnis ablegen, eine Richterin wird ihn zu mehr als einem Jahr Gefängnis ohne Bewährung verurteilen. Dieses Urteil ist noch nicht rechtskräftig.
„Stalking ist eine Machtdemonstration“
Michaela Burkard vom Bundesverband Frauenberatungsstellen und Frauennotrufe sagt: „Stalking ist eine Machtdemonstration, die der betroffenen Person signalisiert, dass sie sich nicht entziehen kann.“ Mit Hilfe von digitalen Werkzeugen, die den Standort übermitteln, sei eine derartige Machtdemonstration noch einfacher geworden.
„Kontrolle und Stalking treten vor allem dann auf, wenn der gewaltausübende, meist männliche Part einen Machtverlust verhindern will“, sagt Burkard. Eingebettet sei das Stalking in eine patriarchale Gesellschaft, in der Macht in heterosexuellen Beziehungen oft ungleich verteilt ist.
Typisch an dem Fall von Aiko, sagt Burkard, sei das Ineinandergreifen von analogem und digitalem Stalking. „Digitale geschlechtsspezifische Gewalt ist eine Fortsetzung bereits bestehender Gewaltverhältnisse, sie taucht selten isoliert auf“, sagt sie.
Am 10. Juni 2024 erlässt das Amtsgericht ihres Wohnortes auf Aikos Betreiben eine einstweilige Anordnung gegen Tom. Sechs Monate lang muss er mindestens 50 Meter Abstand von ihrer Wohnung halten, darf auch ihren Arbeitsplatz und die Wohnung der Eltern nicht aufsuchen oder anderweitig, beispielsweise per Anruf, Sprach- oder Textnachricht, Kontakt mit ihr aufnehmen. Bei Zufallstreffen hat er sich sofort zu entfernen. Die Anordnung wird später immer weiter verlängert werden. Die Dokumente dazu liegen netzpolitik.org vor.
Obwohl es Tom nun verboten ist, sich Aiko zu nähern, fängt er sie über den darauf folgenden Sommer vier Mal in Seitenstraßen ihrer Wohnung ab. Er rennt auf sie zu und hält sie fest. Er schreibt unzählige Nachrichten und versucht dutzende Male, sie anzurufen.
Das Amtsgericht ihres Wohnortes verurteilt Tom Ende September zu 800 Euro Ordnungsgeld. Er hört dennoch nicht auf. Im Oktober fordert das Gericht weitere 400 Euro. Wieder lässt er sich nicht davon beeindrucken. Tom wird vorläufig festgenommen. Als er wieder frei ist, schreibt er Aiko: „gib mir nur ein Zeichen, sonst muss ich wiederkommen“.
Die Spionage-App wird enttarnt
Dass die Spionage-App auf Aikos Smartphone entdeckt wird, ist nicht den Ermittlungen der Polizei zu verdanken. Von den Beamt*innen, mit denen Aiko sprach, sei keine*r auf die Idee gekommen, dass Tom Aikos Smartphone verwanzt haben könnte, dass Toms ständige Präsenz dort ihren Ursprung hat, sagt Aiko.
Am Ende ist es nicht die Polizei, sondern ein Freund, der ihr Klarheit bringt. „Als Aiko mir von dem Stalking erzählte, hatte ich schon eine Ahnung, wie das kommen könnte, dass Tom immer weiß, wo sie ist“, sagt Benjamin. Er ist Dozent für Informatik und weiß, dass es frei erhältliche Spionage-Software gibt.
Im November 2024 besucht er Aiko und untersucht ihr Telefon. Da ist mSpy noch aktiv. Nach wenigen Minuten findet er in der App-Übersicht ein Programm mit weitreichenden Berechtigungen. Es taucht auf dem Home-Bildschirm nicht auf und verbirgt sich hinter dem unscheinbaren Namen „Update service“. Aiko sagt, ihr sei diese App nicht bekannt gewesen. Die forensische Analyse, die der unabhängige IT-Sicherheitsexperte für netzpolitik.org durchführte, bestätigt, dass es sich dabei um mSpy handelt.
So hat die App sie ausspioniert
Im Download-Ordner von Aikos Handy liegt eine Installationsdatei für die Spionage-App. Sie wurde eine Minute vor der Installation der App „Update service“ heruntergeladen. Außerdem findet sich auf dem Telefon eine Datenbank, in die mSpy Informationen kopierte: Standortdaten, Browserverlauf, Kalender, Anruflisten, Fotos und Videos, SMS und E-Mails, Chats auf verschiedenen Plattformen sowie Mitschnitte der Tastatureingaben. Auch die Testnachricht, die während der Installation an Toms Nummer verschickt wurde, findet sich in den Daten. mSpy sendet derartige Informationen in eine Cloud, wo Kund*innen sie einsehen können – übersichtlich aufbereitet über ein Browser-Tool.
Die App habe fast alle Berechtigungen gehabt, sagt Benjamin, also nicht nur auf alle Telefoninhalte zugreifen können, sondern auch Dateien und Apps aus der Ferne löschen und installieren dürfen. Er kann dies mit Screenshots belegen. Sie zeigen auch, dass die App in den 24 Stunden vor dem Novemberabend, an dem Benjamin die App entdeckt, auf verschiedene Daten zugegriffen hatte, etwa auf den Standort, Anrufliste, Fotos und Videos, Kalender, Kontakte oder SMS.
Um den Datenabfluss zu unterbrechen, habe er die Berechtigungen noch in derselben Nacht aufgehoben, sagt Benjamin. Über viele Monate hatte Tom Zugang zu den Informationen, die mSpy über dieses Gerät erfasste, konnte sehen, wo Aiko sich befand. Jetzt ist es vorbei. Einen Monat später kauft Aiko sich ein neues Telefon.
Der Moment der Erkenntnis
Zu erfahren, dass Tom sie ausgespäht hatte, war „super erschütternd“, sagt Aiko. „Er wusste meine intimsten Gedanken, er wusste immer genau, wo ich war. Und er hat die ganze Zeit meine Realität manipuliert. Ich habe ja geglaubt, dass er überall auf mich wartet.“
Noch aus einem anderen Grund war die Erkenntnis für sie ein Schock. Kurz zuvor hatte Aiko beschlossen, die Stadt zu verlassen und nach Berlin zu ziehen, um Tom zu entkommen. Sie sagt, sie wollte ohne Angst auf die Straße gehen, normal leben. „Als ich verstanden habe, dass er all meine Kommunikation abgegriffen hat, ist mir auch klar geworden, dass er vermutlich weiß, wo ich hinziehe“, sagt sie.
In den Daten, die mSpy mitschnitt, findet sich eine E-Mail mit der Einladung zur Wohnungsbesichtigung. Dort liegen auch die Koordinaten ihrer neuen Wohnung, abgegriffen, als Aiko die Wohnung besichtigte.
Nachdem Benjamin die App gefunden hat, gehen er und Aiko noch in der gleichen Nacht zur Polizei. Die beiden sagen, auf der Wache habe Benjamin versucht, den Beamten die Spionage-App zu erklären, zunächst ohne Erfolg. Erst als Aiko ein Foto herumgezeigt habe, das ihr Vermieter von Tom gemacht hatte, habe ein Polizist gesagt: „Das sieht nach nem Hacker aus.“ Auf dem Foto steht Tom mit aufgeklapptem Laptop unter Aikos Fenster.
Michaela Burkard vom Bundesverband Frauenberatungsstellen und Frauennotrufe sagt: „Wichtig ist, dass alle Instanzen, die mit einer gewaltbetroffenen Person zu tun haben, Fachwissen und die nötige Sensibilität für digitale Gewalt haben.“ So sollte etwa die Polizei im Rahmen einer Risikoeinschätzung bei Partnerschaftsgewalt immer auch digitale Gewalt abfragen.
Die Polizei findet ihn in einem Gebüsch
Februar 2025. Vier Jahre ist es her, dass sich Aiko und Tom auf Bumble getroffen haben. Das Amtsgericht verhängt weitere 3.000 Euro Ordnungsgeld gegen Tom. Die vorhergehenden 1.200 Euro hat er noch nicht gezahlt. Vor Gericht gibt er später an, weitgehend mittellos zu sein.
Ende Februar zieht Aiko nach Berlin. Ungefähr zur gleichen Zeit zieht auch Tom dorthin. Er hat nun keinen Fernzugriff mehr auf ihr Telefon, trotzdem lauert er ihr immer wieder vor ihrem Wohnblock auf, in dessen Umgebung, an der S-Bahn. Einmal finden Polizist*innen, die zu ihrer Sicherheit vor Aikos Haus patrouillieren, Tom in einem Gebüsch. Die Szene beschreibt das Amtsgericht Tiergarten in einem Urteil, das später gegen Tom fällt.
Das Amtsgericht in Berlin-Tiergarten erwirkt einen Haftbefehl gegen Tom. Von Mai bis Juni sitzt er 27 Nächte in Untersuchungshaft. Er wird nur unter der Auflage entlassen, Berlin zu verlassen und sich Aiko nicht mehr zu nähern. Und doch steht er kurz darauf wieder vor ihrer Haustür. Es ist die eingangs geschilderte Szene. Aiko ruft die Polizei und Tom landet noch einmal für fast zwei Monate in Untersuchungshaft.
Am 24. September 2025 verurteilt das Amtsgericht Tiergarten Tom wegen Nachstellung zu sechs Monaten Haft auf Bewährung. Er gesteht die Vorwürfe, will das Urteil aber nicht akzeptieren und geht in Berufung. Das Verfahren läuft.
Das Ende?
Ende Januar 2026 steht Tom noch einmal vor Gericht, diesmal in der Stadt, in der er und Aiko zuvor gewohnt haben. Es geht um die Geschehnisse, die vor ihrem Umzug stattfanden. Und anders als in Berlin geht es diesmal auch um mSpy: In ihrer Anklageschrift wegen Nachstellung erwähnt die Staatsanwaltschaft auch eine Software, die Tom auf Aikos Handy installiert habe, um ihren Standort zu verfolgen und „gezielte Zusammenkünfte herbeizuführen“.
Während ihrer Aussage kommen Aiko immer wieder die Tränen. Sie spricht dennoch weiter.
Tom gesteht alle Vorwürfe. Er bekommt ein Jahr und vier Monate Haft, keine Bewährung. In ihrem Urteil spricht die Richterin von einer „sehr hohen kriminellen Energie“. Sie erwähnt die Spionage-Software, die Nachrichten an den Kundendienst. „Die Skrupellosigkeit, die sie da an den Tag gelegt haben, das ist besonders und zeigt eine besondere Rücksichtslosigkeit.“
Das Urteil ist noch nicht rechtskräftig. Tom sagte bei einem Telefonat mit netzpolitik.org, dass er Berufung einlegen will. Aiko sagt, für sie sei es wichtig gewesen, dass ihre Realität anerkannt wurde. Befreit fühle sie sich aber nicht, sondern vor allem: erschöpft.
Chris Köver recherchiert und schreibt über Migrationskontrolle, biometrische Überwachung, digitale Gewalt und Jugendschutz. Recherche-Anregungen und -Hinweise gerne per Mail oder via Signal (ckoever.24). Seit 2018 bei netzpolitik.org. Hat Kulturwissenschaften studiert und bei Zeit Online mit dem Schreiben begonnen, später eine eigene Zeitschrift mitgegründet. Ihre Arbeit wurden ausgezeichnet mit dem Journalistenpreis Informatik, dem Grimme-Online-Award und dem Rainer-Reichert-Preis zum Tag der Pressefreiheit. Kontakt: E-Mail (OpenPGP), BlueSky, Mastodon, Signal: ckoever.24. Martin Schwarzbeck ist seit 2024 Redakteur bei netzpolitik.org. Er hat Soziologie studiert, als Journalist für zahlreiche Medien gearbeitet, von ARD bis taz, und war lange Redakteur bei Berliner Stadtmagazinen, wo er oft Digitalthemen aufgegriffen hat. Martin interessiert sich für Machtstrukturen und die Beziehungen zwischen Menschen und Staaten und Menschen und Konzernen. Ein Fokus dabei sind Techniken und Systeme der Überwachung. Kontakt: E-Mail (OpenPGP), Mastodon, Signal: yoshi.42042. Dieser Beitrag ist eine Übernahme von netzpolitik, gemäss Lizenz Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.
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Real-Time in Focus: Server-Sent Events in Core Java without Frameworks
Chapter 1 – Introduction
1.1 Motivation: Real-time communication without polling
In modern applications, it is often necessary to provide new information to the client as quickly as possible. Classic polling, i.e. regularly querying a REST endpoint, is inefficient: it generates unnecessary network traffic and puts a load on both server and client, as requests continue even when there is no new data.
Server-sent events (SSE) offer a resource-saving alternative here. Instead of the client constantly sending new requests, it maintains an open HTTP connection over which the server can send messages at any time. This creates a continuous stream of data with minimal overhead.
- Chapter 1 – Introduction
- Chapter 2 – The SSE Protocol
- Chapter 3 – Minimal REST/SSE Server in Core Java
- Chapter 4 – Minimal SSE Client in Core Java
- Chapter 5 – Testing and Debugging SSE
- Chapter 6 – Application Scenarios and Limitations
1.2 Differentiation from WebSockets and Long Polling
In the context of current communication paradigms, three basic approaches can be distinguished. In so-called long polling, the client initiates a request that the server keeps open as long as possible until new information is available. After this has been transmitted, the connection is closed, whereupon the client immediately opens a new request. Although this method appears to be more efficient than classic polling, it remains resource-intensive due to the frequent reinitialization of the connections.
In contrast, WebSockets establish a full-duplex communication relationship. Here, both client and server can exchange messages continuously and bidirectionally. This model offers high flexibility and performance, but it also introduces increased complexity in implementation and operation, often resulting in oversizing when only server-side push messages are needed.
Server-sent events (SSE) act as an intermediary approach. They establish a standardised, unidirectional data stream from the server to the client via a persistent HTTP connection. The native support of current browsers and the comparatively low implementation effort on the server side make SSE a practical option, especially in scenarios where simplicity and resource conservation are paramount.
Sourcecode is on GitHub
https://github.com/Java-Publications/Blog—Java—Server-Sent-Events-SSE-in-Core-Java-Basics-and-Implementation1.3 Objective of the article
This article provides a basic introduction to Server-Sent Events (SSE) using Core Java. The focus is on consistent implementation based on the Java Development Kit (JDK), without recourse to external frameworks. The aim is to analyse the specifics of the protocol as well as the minimal implementations on both the server side and the client side in a systematic form and to present them in a comprehensible manner.
In the course of the study, it is illustrated how an elementary REST/SSE server can be constructed in Java, how a client can receive and process event streams using the Java HttpClient, which typical difficulties arise in the context of testing and debugging, and in which application scenarios the use of SSE offers significant added value.
Finally, the position of SSE in the area of tension between polling and WebSocket-based methods is critically classified and the transition to the following, practice-oriented implementation chapters is prepared.
Chapter 2 – The SSE Protocol
2.1 MIME type text/event-stream
The foundation of server-sent events is the dedicated MIME type text/event-stream. As soon as a server declares this Content-Type in the HTTP header, it signals to the client that the subsequent data is to be interpreted as a continuous event stream. In contrast to conventional textual response formats, which are closed after complete transmission, SSE deliberately keeps the connection open persistently. This semantic definition creates the basis for a resource-saving push model that can be integrated into existing HTTP infrastructures without proprietary extensions.
2.2 Message structure: event:, data:, id: and comments
An SSE data stream is organised on a row-based basis. Each message can consist of multiple fields preceded by a keyword and a colon. The most important fields are:
- event: defines the type of event that the client can handle specifically.
- data: contains the actual payload. Consecutive data lines summarise multi-line data fields.
- id: represents an event ID that is used for resumption after disconnections.
- Comments: start with a colon and are used both for semantic documentation and to maintain keep-alive signals.
The delimitation of individual events is done by a blank line (double line breaks), which completes the semantic unit of a message.
2.3 Automatic Reconnect and Event IDs
A significant advantage of SSE over simpler push mechanisms is the integrated reconnect behaviour. If a connection is unexpectedly interrupted, the client automatically initiates a new connection. Using the Last Event ID HTTP header fields or explicit ID assignments in the data stream, it is possible to continue at the exact point where the data stream was interrupted. This principle reduces data loss and facilitates the implementation of robust, state-preserving communication patterns.
2.4 Limitations: UTF-8, Unidirectionality, Proxy Behaviour
Despite its simplicity, the protocol has inherent limitations. On the one hand, the character encoding is strictly set to UTF-8, which means that binary payloads cannot be transmitted directly. In addition, the direction of communication is limited to server-side messages; a bidirectional interaction requires recourse to alternative methods such as WebSockets. Finally, the behaviour of intermediary network nodes – such as proxies or load balancers – can affect the longevity and stability of open HTTP connections, which deserves special attention in production environments.
Chapter 3 – Minimal REST/SSE Server in Core Java
3.1 Implementation with HttpServer
An elementary SSE server can be implemented in Java using the classes included in the JDK. Of particular note is the com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer class, which allows HTTP endpoints to be provided without external dependencies. Such a server can be created with a few lines of code, bound to a port number and extended by handlers that process incoming requests.
A minimal basic framework looks like this:
HttpServer server = HttpServer.create(new InetSocketAddress(8080), 0);server.createContext("/events", exchange -> { exchange.getResponseHeaders().add("Content-Type", "text/event-stream"); exchange.sendResponseHeaders(200, 0); OutputStream os = exchange.getResponseBody(); //This is where the events will be written later});server.start();It is crucial to set the content type to text/event-stream and not to close the HTTP connection immediately. This creates the basis for continuously transmitting event data to the client.
3.2 Sending Events (Text, Comments, IDs)
The server-side logic for transmitting messages follows the formats defined in the protocol. A typical message can contain both a data: field with payload and optional metadata. Comments are beneficial for realising keep-alive signals.
A simple example of how to transmit messages:
PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(os, true);writer.println("id: 1");writer.println("event: greeting");writer.println("data: Hello client!");writer.println(); End messagewriter.flush();//Comment as a heartbeatwriter.println(": keep-alive");writer.println();writer.flush();Here, a message is transmitted with ID, event type, and data. The double line break concludes the semantic unit. The comment is to maintain the connection.
3.3 Keep-Alive and Connection Stability
A critical aspect of running SSE servers is ensuring connection stability. HTTP connections can be terminated by inactivity or by restrictive network infrastructures. To avoid this, it is common practice to periodically send comments or blank messages that are ignored by the client but registered as activity by the network. This technique, often referred to as heartbeat or keep-alive, helps keep the connection stable for extended periods of time.
A robust implementation should also ensure that there are no resource leaks when the connection is lost. In particular, this means that OutputStreams must be reliably closed and background threads must be terminated in a controlled manner.
This step-by-step implementation creates a functional SSE server that meets the fundamental protocol requirements. In the following chapters, this is built on by developing a corresponding client and examining the robustness of the communication.
3.4 Step-by-step implementation – complete minimal example
In the following, an executable minimal server is set up in clearly defined steps. The implementation uses only the JDK (no external dependencies) and relies on com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer.
Create and start the server
package com.svenruppert.sse;import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer;import com.svenruppert.dependencies.core.logger.HasLogger;import java.io.*;import java.net.InetSocketAddress;import static java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets.UTF_8;public class SseServer implements HasLogger { protected static final String PATH_SSE = "/sse"; private volatile boolean sendMessages = false; private volatile boolean shutdownMessage = false; // Reference so we can properly stop the server from the CLI private HttpServer server; public void start() throws Exception { int port = 8080; this.server = HttpServer.create(new InetSocketAddress(port), 0); // Background thread for CLI control (start | stop | shutdown) Thread cli = new Thread(() -> { try (BufferedReader console = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in))) { String line; while ((line = console.readLine()) != null) { String cmd = line.trim().toLowerCase(); switch (cmd) { case "start" -> cmdStart(); case "stop" -> cmdStop(); case "shutdown" -> cmdShutdown(); default -> logger().info("Unknown command: {} (allowed: start | stop | shutdown)", cmd); } } } catch (IOException ioe) { logger().warn("CLI control terminated: {}", ioe.getMessage()); } }, "cli-control"); cli.setDaemon(true); cli.start(); server.createContext(PATH_SSE, exchange -> { if (!"GET".equalsIgnoreCase(exchange.getRequestMethod())) { exchange.sendResponseHeaders(405, -1); return; } exchange.getResponseHeaders().add("Content-Type", "text/event-stream; charset=utf-8"); exchange.getResponseHeaders().add("Cache-Control", "no-cache"); exchange.getResponseHeaders().add("Connection", "keep-alive"); exchange.sendResponseHeaders(200, 0); try (OutputStream os = exchange.getResponseBody(); OutputStreamWriter osw = new OutputStreamWriter(os, UTF_8); BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(osw); PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(bw, true)) { long id = 0; while (!shutdownMessage) { if (sendMessages) { id++; String data = "tick @" + System.currentTimeMillis(); writeEvent(out, "tick", data, Long.toString(id)); } else { heartbeat(out); } Thread.sleep(1000); } // Optional: send farewell event before shutting down writeEvent(out, "shutdown", "Server is shutting down", Long.toString(++id)); } catch (IOException | InterruptedException ioe) { logger().warn("SSE client disconnected: {}", ioe.getMessage()); } finally { logger().info("SSE stream closed"); } }); server.start(); logger().info("SSE server running at http://localhost:{}/sse", port); Runtime.getRuntime().addShutdownHook(new Thread(() -> { logger().info("Stopping server …"); if (server != null) { server.stop(0); } })); } private void cmdShutdown() { logger().info("Shutdown command received – 'shutdown' event will be sent …"); shutdownMessage = true; // signals all active handlers to send a shutdown event try { // Grace period so handlers can still execute writeEvent(..., "shutdown", ...) + flush Thread.sleep(1200); } catch (InterruptedException ie) { Thread.currentThread().interrupt(); } try { if (server != null) { server.stop(0); // stop HTTP server afterwards } } catch (Exception e) { logger().warn("Error while stopping: {}", e.getMessage()); } logger().info("Application is shutting down."); System.exit(0); } private void cmdStop() { sendMessages = false; logger().info("SSE message sending stopped via CLI"); } private void cmdStart() { sendMessages = true; logger().info("SSE message sending started via CLI"); } // Helper function for sending an event in SSE format private void writeEvent(PrintWriter out, String event, String data, String id) { if (event != null && !event.isEmpty()) { out.printf("event: %s%n", event); } if (id != null && !id.isEmpty()) { out.printf("id: %s%n", id); } if (data != null) { // Correctly output multiline data for (String line : data.split("\\R", -1)) { out.printf("data: %s%n", line); } } out.print("\n"); // terminate message with empty line out.flush(); } // Comment-based heartbeat, ignored by client – keeps connection alive private void heartbeat(PrintWriter out) { out.print(": keep-alive\n\n"); out.flush(); }}Quick function test
- Start: java Application (or compile/execute via javac/java).
- Check with a small Java program:
import java.net.URI;import java.net.http.HttpClient;import java.net.http.HttpRequest;import java.net.http.HttpResponse;import static java.net.http.HttpClient.newHttpClient;public class SseTestClient { public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { // Create a new HTTP/2 client HttpClient client = newHttpClient(); // Build GET request to connect to the SSE endpoint HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.newBuilder() .uri(URI.create("http://localhost:8080/sse")) .GET( .build(); // Asynchronously send request and consume the response stream line by line client.sendAsync(request, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofLines()) .thenAccept(response -> response.body().forEach(System.out::println)) .join(); }}This simple program opens a connection to the server and outputs the received SSE messages line by line to the console. Continuous event:/id:/data: blocks and : keep-alive comments are expected.
Chapter 4 – Minimal SSE Client in Core Java
4.1 Implementation with HttpClient
On the client side, the JDK has offered a powerful API since Java 11 with java.net.http.HttpClient to process HTTP connections asynchronously. Because SSE is based on a persistent GET request, the client can continuously receive incoming data via HttpClient. In contrast to classic REST requests, which are completed after the body has been entirely accepted, the connection remains open and delivers lines in text/event-stream format.
We encapsulate the implementation in a dedicated class SseClient, which contains no static methods. The client is then started via a separate class SseClientApp.
package com.svenruppert.sse.client;import com.svenruppert.dependencies.core.logger.HasLogger;import java.io.IOException;import java.net.URI;import java.net.http.HttpClient;import java.net.http.HttpRequest;import java.net.http.HttpResponse;import java.time.Duration;import java.util.function.Consumer;import java.util.stream.Stream;/** * Minimal, instance-based SSE client built on java.net.http.HttpClient. * - manages Last-Event-ID * - implements a reconnect loop * - parses text/event-stream */public final class SseClient implements HasLogger, AutoCloseable { private final HttpClient http; private final URI uri; private final Duration reconnectDelay = Duration.ofSeconds(2); private volatile boolean running = true; private volatile String lastEventId = null; public SseClient(URI uri) { this.uri = uri; this.http = HttpClient.newBuilder() .connectTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(5)) .build(); } /** * Starts the streaming loop and invokes the callback for each complete event. */ public void run(Consumer<SseEvent> onEvent) { while (running) { try { HttpRequest.Builder b = HttpRequest.newBuilder() .uri(uri) .timeout(Duration.ofMinutes(10)) .GET(); if (lastEventId != null) { b.setHeader("Last-Event-ID", lastEventId); } HttpRequest req = b.build(); // synchronous streaming so we can parse line by line HttpResponse<Stream<String>> resp = http.send(req, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofLines()); if (resp.statusCode() != 200) { logger().warn("Unexpected status {} from {}", resp.statusCode(), uri); sleep(reconnectDelay); continue; } try { parseStream(resp.body(), onEvent); } catch (java.io.UncheckedIOException uioe) { // Common case on server shutdown: stream is closed → reconnect gracefully var cause = uioe.getCause(); logger().info("Stream closed ({}). Reconnecting …", cause != null ? cause.getClass().getSimpleName() : uioe.getClass().getSimpleName()); } catch (RuntimeException re) { logger().warn("Unexpected runtime exception in parser: {}", re.getMessage()); } } catch (IOException | InterruptedException e) { if (!running) break; // terminated normally logger().warn("Connection interrupted ({}). Reconnecting in {}s …", e.getClass().getSimpleName(), reconnectDelay.toSeconds()); sleep(reconnectDelay); } } } private void parseStream(Stream<String> lines, Consumer<SseEvent> onEvent) { String event = null, id = null; StringBuilder data = null; try { for (String line : (Iterable<String>) lines::iterator) { if (line.isEmpty()) { // finish current message if (data != null) { String payload = data.toString(); SseEvent ev = new SseEvent(event, payload, id); if (id != null) lastEventId = id; // remember progress // shutdown signal from server → client terminates gracefully if ("shutdown".equalsIgnoreCase(ev.event())) { try { onEvent.accept(ev); } catch (RuntimeException ex) { logger().warn("Event callback threw exception: {}", ex.getMessage()); } this.running = false; break; // leave parsing loop } try { onEvent.accept(ev); } catch (RuntimeException ex) { logger().warn("Event callback threw exception: {}", ex.getMessage()); } } event = null; id = null; data = null; continue; } if (line.startsWith(":")) { // comment/heartbeat — silently ignore (avoid log spam) continue; } int idx = line.indexOf(':'); String field = (idx >= 0 ? line.substring(0, idx) : line).trim(); String value = (idx >= 0 ? line.substring(idx + 1) : ""); if (value.startsWith(" ")) value = value.substring(1); // drop optional leading space switch (field) { case "event" -> event = value; case "id" -> id = value; case "data" -> { if (data == null) data = new StringBuilder(); if (!data.isEmpty()) data.append(' '); data.append(value); } default -> { /* unknown field ignored */ } } } } catch (java.io.UncheckedIOException uioe) { // Typically EOF/closed when server stops → do not throw further var cause = uioe.getCause(); logger().info("Input stream ended ({}).", cause != null ? cause.getClass().getSimpleName() : uioe.getClass().getSimpleName()); } } private void sleep(Duration d) { try { Thread.sleep(d.toMillis()); } catch (InterruptedException ignored) { Thread.currentThread().interrupt(); } } @Override public void close() { running = false; }}package com.svenruppert.sse.client;import com.svenruppert.dependencies.core.logger.HasLogger;import java.net.URI;public final class SseClientApp implements HasLogger { public static void main(String[] args) { String url = (args.length > 0 ? args[0] : "http://localhost:8080/sse"); URI uri = URI.create(url); try (SseClient client = new SseClient(uri)) { Runtime.getRuntime().addShutdownHook(new Thread(client::close)); client.run(ev -> { // You could branch based on ev.event(); for now we just log if (ev.id() != null) { System.out.printf("[%s] id=%s data=%s%n", ev.event(), ev.id(), ev.data()); } else { System.out.printf("[%s] data=%s%n", ev.event(), ev.data()); } }); } }}4.2 Interpreting Events
The SseClient has a parseEvents(Stream<String>) method that parses incoming rows for event:, data:, and id: fields and returns them as SseEvent objects. This allows the received data to be structured and processed in a targeted manner.
4.3 Behaviour in case of aborting and reconnect
The infinite loop mechanism implemented in the start() method ensures that the client automatically establishes a new connection in the event of an abort. A short break is taken between reconnects to avoid endless loops in the event of permanent connection problems.
With this architecture, the client is clearly structured: SseClient encapsulates the logic, while SseClientApp is the starting point for execution. This means that the implementation remains modular, testable and platform-independent.
Hints
- SseClient has no static methods; it is controlled by instance state (running, lastEventId).
- SseClientApp is the entry point. The URL can be passed as an argument; Standard is http://localhost:8080/sse.
- Reconnect takes place automatically with the last received Last Event ID.
- The callback interface (Consumer<SseEvent>) enables flexible further processing (logging, UI updates, persistence, etc.).
Chapter 5 – Testing and Debugging SSE
5.1 Using curl and browser EventSource
To check SSE endpoints, developers often turn to curl because it’s available on almost all platforms. With the -N option (no buffering) the messages can be made directly visible:
curl -N http://localhost:8080/sse
The received events appear in the terminal in their raw form, including event:, data: and id: fields. An alternative is to use the JavaScript API EventSource in the browser:
const source = new EventSource(“http://localhost:8080/sse”);
source.onmessage = e = > console.log(e.data);
This allows the behavior of the server to be tracked directly in the browser.
5.2 Checking with Java Client
Since this article deliberately emphasizes platform independence, a separate Java client is a good idea instead of external tools (see chapter 4). This can be used both as a permanent listener and specifically for test cases, for example by consuming only a certain number of events and then terminating them.
Example: A test run that collects exactly five events and then ends:
SseClient client = new SseClient(URI.create("http://localhost:8080/sse"));List<SseEvent> events = new ArrayList<>();client.run(ev -> { events.add(ev); if (events.size() >= 5) { client.close(); }});This allows functional and integration tests to be carried out directly in the Java environment without dependence on curl or telnet .
5.3 Monitoring and logging
Precise monitoring of SSE connections is indispensable for the operation of productive systems. Monitoring is the systematic recording of key figures such as the number of active clients or the average duration of a connection. Equally important is end-to-end error tracking, which documents occurring IO errors, timeouts and aborted transmissions and thus forms the basis for rapid troubleshooting. In addition, continuous monitoring of the heartbeats ensures that comments or keep-alive signals are sent at regular intervals, keeping the connections stable.
Effective logging supports this monitoring and should be done on both the server and client sides. This makes it possible to isolate network problems or interference caused by proxies more quickly. It is beneficial to record unique identifiers for connections and individual events in the log to make communication paths transparent and comprehensible even in complex scenarios.
These tools can be used to reliably track, reproduce and monitor the behaviour of SSE implementations in production environments.
Chapter 6 – Application Scenarios and Limitations
Server-sent events (SSE) find their strength in fields of application where continuous, unidirectional data transmission from the server to the client is required. It is particularly obvious to use it in the field of notification systems. Here, events such as the arrival of new messages, status changes in a workflow or system warnings can be transmitted directly to users without them having to make repeated requests actively. Another typical scenario is monitoring solutions, in which measured values or system metrics are visualised in real time. SSE also offers a resource-saving option for continuous data delivery in telemetry, for example, in the transmission of sensor data from distributed systems.
At the same time, it is essential to consider the limitations of the procedure. Since SSE only transmits UTF-8 encoded text data, it is not possible to transmit binary content directly. Although binary data can be encoded in text form (e.g. using Base64), this is at the expense of efficiency. SSE is also limited to one-way communication: the server can send data to the client, but not vice versa. For scenarios that require bidirectional exchange, WebSockets or similar technologies are more suitable. Network Restrictive problem infrastructures represent another problem area. Proxies or firewalls can block or disconnect long-term open HTTP connections after a certain amount of time, necessitating an additional reconnect strategy.
Safety aspects should also not be neglected when using SSE. Since the connection is maintained via the HTTP protocol, particular attention must be paid to transport encryption using HTTPS. In addition, mechanisms should be implemented to prevent misuse by unauthorised clients, such as authentication and access control to the SSE endpoint. After all, resource conservation is a central issue: While SSE works much more efficiently than polling, the simultaneous supply of a massive number of clients can lead to a high load on server resources. Scaling strategies such as load balancing or splitting clients across multiple SSE endpoints can help here.
In addition, it makes sense to name the functions provided in the specification in detail. The message structure provides several possible fields: event: determines the type of the message and allows differentiated event handlers in the client; data: contains the actual message body and can be continued across multiple lines, with the client automatically combining the contents into a data block; id: allows each message to be uniquely labeled so that the Last-Event-ID header can be seamlessly continued when the connection is re-established; retry: signals to the client after which time an automatic connection should be established in case the connection is interrupted; finally, comments can be inserted via a leading colon: which are ignored by the client but used for keep-alive mechanisms. These fields together form the normative framework that every compliant SSE server should meet.
Overall, SSE is suitable for a wide range of real-time scenarios, as long as the inherent limitations are taken into account and compensated for by appropriate architectural decisions. The technology offers an elegant solution for cases where simplicity, standards compliance, and stable, server-side push communication are paramount.
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The Greenland Gambit: Trump’s Arctic Appointment Tests NATO Unity
In a bold stroke of Arctic geopolitics, President Donald Trump’s appointment of a special envoy to Greenland has ignited a diplomatic firestorm, challenging the core principles of NATO and European sovereignty as the great powers circle the melting ice.
A Christmas Eve Diplomatic Earthquake
On December 22, 2025, from his Mar-a-Lago residence, President Donald Trump delivered a geopolitical surprise that instantly recalibrated Arctic politics. He announced the appointment of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as the United States Special Envoy to Greenland, a position without historical precedent.
“Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security,” Trump declared on Truth Social, “and will strongly advance our Country’s Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World.”
The response from Europe was swift and uncompromising. Within hours, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a stark rejoinder on X, asserting: “Territorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law… We stand in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland.”
This exchange is not merely diplomatic friction; it represents a fundamental clash of visions for the Arctic’s future at a moment when melting polar ice caps are unlocking unprecedented strategic and economic possibilities.
The Strategic Prize: Why Greenland Matters in 2025
Greenland’s significance has been magnified by the accelerating effects of climate change. By 2025, the Northwest Passage is experiencing longer periods of navigability, transforming global shipping routes. The United States, Russia, and China are engaged in a silent competition for influence in what was once a frozen frontier.
For the U.S., Greenland represents:
- A critical missile defense and early-warning bulwark against advanced Russian hypersonic capabilities, monitored from the upgraded Thule Air Base.
- A potential key to mineral independence, with vast deposits of rare-earth elements crucial for green technology and advanced electronics.
- A strategic vantage point to monitor increased Russian submarine activity and burgeoning Chinese polar research initiatives, often viewed as dual-purpose scientific and strategic endeavors.
Trump’s 2025 move can be seen as the operationalization of his earlier, dismissed idea of purchasing the island—a shift from acquisition to intensive, direct engagement.
The Sovereignty Breach: A Legal and Diplomatic Offense
The core of the international outcry lies in a clear violation of diplomatic protocol and sovereignty. Greenland, while self-governing in domestic affairs, remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which constitutionally manages its foreign, security, and defense policy.
The creation of a “Special Envoy” bypasses the Danish government entirely, establishing a direct channel between Washington and Nuuk. To Copenhagen and Brussels, this mirrors 19th-century “gunboat diplomacy” tactics, treating a sovereign ally’s territory as a sphere of influence. It undermines the very post-World War II international order that the U.S. helped build and that is based on the inviolability of borders.
Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, labeled the appointment “deeply regrettable and unacceptable,” stating it would be met with “firm and united resistance.” The move has unified a typically fractious Danish parliament against a common perceived threat.
The NATO Rift: An Alliance Under Stress
The crisis strikes at the heart of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Denmark has been a reliable NATO ally, exceeding the 2% GDP defense spending target and contributing forces to alliance missions. For it to be treated in this manner by the treaty’s leading power sends a chilling signal to all members, particularly the Baltic states and Poland, who rely on American commitment to collective defense.
The incident exacerbates an existing tension within NATO between:
- American Strategic Imperatives: The U.S. view, particularly under the Trump administration, that prioritizes unilateral action and tangible security assets (like Greenland’s location) over alliance etiquette.
- European Legalism and Sovereignty: The EU and Denmark’s adherence to a rules-based international system where the sovereignty of allies is non-negotiable.
This rift creates a strategic opening for Russia, which can exploit Western disunity to advance its own Arctic claims and energy projects with less coordinated opposition.
Greenland’s Dilemma: Between Autonomy and Great Power Politics
Caught in the middle are the 56,000 people of Greenland. The local government in Nuuk faces a complex calculus:
- Economic Independence: Greenland craves economic self-sufficiency to move beyond Denmark’s substantial annual block grant. U.S. investment in mining and infrastructure is tantalizing.
- Environmental and Cultural Cost: Large-scale extraction threatens pristine ecosystems and the traditional Inuit way of life, which is already under pressure from climate change.
- Sovereign Agency: While rejecting colonial overtones, Greenlanders see an opportunity to leverage great-power interest to enhance their own international standing and negotiation power with Copenhagen.
The risk for Greenland is becoming a proxy battleground, where its developmental and environmental choices are dictated by Washington, Beijing, or Moscow rather than Nuuk.
The Path Forward: Scenarios for a Fracturing Arctic
As we enter 2026, several scenarios could unfold from this crisis:
- Escalation: Denmark and the EU could respond with symbolic sanctions, limit intelligence sharing on the Arctic, or expedite the EU’s own strategic partnership with Greenland, further drawing institutional battle lines.
- Quiet Demotion: Behind-the-scenes negotiations could see the “Special Envoy” title downgraded to a liaison role that works through Copenhagen, allowing all parties to save face while maintaining U.S. strategic access.
- Greenland’s Empowerment: This crisis may accelerate Greenland’s push for full independence, as it realizes both the burdens and leverages of its geopolitical desirability. It could seek a status akin to a “permanently neutral” state to avoid being ensnared in great-power conflict.
What is certain is that the Arctic will never again be a zone of low tension. President Trump’s Greenland gambit has made that a reality. It has demonstrated that in the new era of strategic competition, even the territories of close allies are subject to renegotiation based on raw power and national interest. The foundations of the transatlantic alliance, already strained, now face a cold, direct test in the warming North.
👉 Share your thoughts in the comments, and explore more insights on our Journal and Magazine. Please consider becoming a subscriber, thank you: https://dunapress.org/subscriptions – Follow The Dunasteia News on social media. Join the Oslo Meet by connecting experiences and uniting solutions: https://oslomeet.org
References:
- The White House. (2025, December 22). Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Appointment of a Special Envoy to Greenland.
- European Commission. (2025, December 22). Remarks by President von der Leyen on Arctic Security and Sovereignty.
- Government of Denmark. (2025). Foreign Policy Statement: On the Integrity of the Realm.
- NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence. (2025). Annual Report on Arctic Security Dynamics.
- Arctic Council. (2025). Assessment Report on Climate Impacts and Geopolitical Risks.
- Naalakkersuisut (Government of Greenland). (2025). White Paper on Sustainable Development and International Partnerships.
#Arctic #ArcticGeopolitics #diplomacy #ForeignPolicy #Geopolitics #Greenland #NATO #NATOCrisis #sovereignty #USDenmarkRelations #USEU
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One common thing #StateSponsoredMalware™ from #GammaGroup . Com's #FinFisher #FinSpy #Finsky does is a downgrade attack on your encryption by using older protocols that are already compromised and also using port 80 over port 443 on web browsers at logins as well as replacing and utilizing different certificates with lower bits and easily broken ciphers so that you still have a green lock on your browser.
Libraries of overlay icons have also been found to overlay and replace icons on each os also mimicking icons that make you think you are using ' secure ' settings also for common programs for communications.
This software is commonly used for investigation purposes but it's been see also primarily used as a financial crime tool in the South Eastern United States in Red States attacking Blue States since 2015 when it's source code was hacked.
#infosec #SSM™ #GammaGroup #FinFisher #FinSpy #Finsky #CALEA #CALEAmalware™ #greymarket #financialcrimes #investigations #ForcedMDM #MITM
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For the German OWASP Day in Leipzig on November 13 we're excited to announce the first round of speakers/ talks which the program committee determined yesterday.
* @freddy (builds security for the web as a security engineer and manager for Mozilla Firefox) will present "Modern solutions against Cross-Site Leaks (xs-leaks) and #CSRF"
* Shubham Agarwal will raise his voice against "Double-Edged Crime: How Browser Extension Fingerprinting Might Endanger Users and Extensions Alike"
* Nicolas Schickert, Ole Wagner and Matthias Göhring will tackle most companies problem child "#SAP from an Attacker’s Perspective – Common Vulnerabilities and Pitfalls"
* @bkimminich is celebrating the "OWASP Juice Shop 10th anniversary" . There'll be also a Juice Shop training on the 12th!
* While Dr. Daniel Fett will be talking about "How (Not) to Use OAuth in 2024", Kristina Yasuda will tell you "The Crucial Role of Web Protocols and Standards in Digital Wallet Ecosystems" (EUDI Wallet)
* @TimPhSchaefers will demystify #NIS2 and hopefully #NIS2UmsuCG
* Stephan Pinto Spindler will share his experiences wrt "Network Fingerprinting for Securing User Accounts"
* Thomas Barber will give us a short insights into project #foxhound, a taint tracking project using a patched firefox .
More to announced soon! Expect more excellent topics to be announced during the next days!
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Open source communications server with portable identity, managed conversations, and cloud storage.
My name is Mike. I'm a retired software developer, amongst many other things. Back in the day, I was pretty active in the development of email protocols and associated projects/products. Did that for 25-30 years, with stints at Stanford, Netscape, AOL, and Sun Microsystems. Around 15 years ago, I tired of email spam and looked into alternative decentralised communication protocols to replace it (the decision to accept spam forever in E/SMTP was political, not technical). Anyway, I found OStatus. It had the flaw that everything, everywhere; was public to anybody and everybody. Big flaw. Not really suitable for sharing things with limited audiences such as family and friends. But it was otherwise a useful communications stack, so I created something that was more suitable for restricted/limited conversations and media. Then I federated this with every social network that would let us have API access or open protocols. We even "federated" with Facebook and Twitter briefly.
That software became known later as Friendica.
A wee bit more ancient history... I went on to do other things to explore the limits of decentralised protocols (there are very few) and a thing we call 'nomadic identity'. This work became Hubzilla. Then OStatus (the common language of the early fediverse) was subsumed by ActivityPub about 7-8 years ago, and a project called Mastodon adopted it. I had played with it briefly, but found I was literally the only person who had, and Mastodon's adoption gave me a reason to dust off ActivityPub and try again.
There were many other things that happened between then and now, but the end result is that now there's this thing called 'forte'. It's something I spent a lot of time on to bring all the community and identity management and online safety and spam resistant features we developed over the years to the ActivityPub protocol. It took a few years, because like OStatus, the design of ActivityPub was pretty short-sighted and many decisions were made based on how well they aligned with (the former) Twitter's behaviour years ago. That's the situation and it took years to wrangle ActivityPub into compliance with the needs of our privacy-oriented communities, but that work is now reasonably complete.
TL;DR This software does some pretty cool stuff. We're not copying anybody or trying to be 'something-something, but federated'. We came up with these tools and abilities because real people needed them today. And that was fifteen years ago. If people need something, and the protocol doesn't permit it, that doesn't mean people need it any less.
People need these abilities more than ever now.
There is very little interest in my work from the fediverse at large, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, that we're into other things besides Twitter and have an architecture that prevents dog-piling and spam. I personally use forte as a spam free (by design) modern replacement for email, built on open standards. Many other people have contributed their ideas over the last 15 years, and it also federates with the rest of the ActivityPub fediverse and looks/works like a social network if you want, or can be isolated to friends, family, and private communities -- if you don't. I've always built software for people who wish to control who they communicate with, and to make it difficult for total strangers to push themselves into your online face unless you consciously make the decision to permit it.
As always, this repository is a gift to the universe with no strings attached. Have a great day.
Mike Macgirvin
#^https://codeberg.org/fortified/forte
#Miki #Forte #Fediverse -
Stupid #Shimano #Di2 charge connector has an intermittent connection fault, which apparently is *very* common with these (€40!) cables.
So instead of buying a new one, I'm going to try and #3dprint a replacement myself. All I have to do now is wait for 2mm pitch pogo pin connectors to arrive and slot them in the connector I “designed”.
FWIW, only the 2 middle pins (of 4) are relevant, those are the + and - 5V pins. The other two don’t do anything I think (or perhaps they allow for some top secret protocol to be passed over USB).
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Will you be using your AI agent for payment? Google thinks yes.
Google is rolling out AP2 - an open, shared protocol that provides a common language for secure, compliant transactions between agents and merchants. It supports different payment types–from credit and debit cards to stablecoins and real-time bank transfers. It supports 2 shopping modes: "Real-time purchases" (human present), and "Delegated tasks" (human not present).
AP2 uses "Mandates"—tamper-proof, cryptographically-signed digital contracts that serve as verifiable proof of a user's instructions to establish trust. https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol #AI #Google #AP2 #Payments #AIPayments #Shopping #PaymentSystems #CreditCard #StableCoins #Crypto #BankTransfers #Cryptography
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Will you be using your AI agent for payment? Google thinks yes.
Google is rolling out AP2 - an open, shared protocol that provides a common language for secure, compliant transactions between agents and merchants. It supports different payment types–from credit and debit cards to stablecoins and real-time bank transfers. It supports 2 shopping modes: "Real-time purchases" (human present), and "Delegated tasks" (human not present).
AP2 uses "Mandates"—tamper-proof, cryptographically-signed digital contracts that serve as verifiable proof of a user's instructions to establish trust. https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol #AI #Google #AP2 #Payments #AIPayments #Shopping #PaymentSystems #CreditCard #StableCoins #Crypto #BankTransfers #Cryptography
-
Will you be using your AI agent for payment? Google thinks yes.
Google is rolling out AP2 - an open, shared protocol that provides a common language for secure, compliant transactions between agents and merchants. It supports different payment types–from credit and debit cards to stablecoins and real-time bank transfers. It supports 2 shopping modes: "Real-time purchases" (human present), and "Delegated tasks" (human not present).
AP2 uses "Mandates"—tamper-proof, cryptographically-signed digital contracts that serve as verifiable proof of a user's instructions to establish trust. https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol #AI #Google #AP2 #Payments #AIPayments #Shopping #PaymentSystems #CreditCard #StableCoins #Crypto #BankTransfers #Cryptography
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#nobot is good enough... until it is de-facto #standard and there's no way back from #protocol decay, that is now common practice across the installed base.
That an actor has a profile specified in a particular way, and that that profile has a bio description, and that that bio description may contain a growing number of special control words. A growing collection of #domain-specific language that arbitrary #apps impose, is severe example of protocol decay that significantly decreases the attractiveness and value of adopting #ActivityPub. To adopt, you are required to hem yourself into very particular approaches, accepting all kinds of app-specific leaky abstractions that may be totally irrelevant to the business or application domain your project models solutions for.
On app-centric #fediverse-we-have an app developer has to force their app into a pretzel for interoperable wire exchange that doesn't look and feel like #microblogging.
This will only grow worse over time.
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Hello, again :ablobcatnodfast:
Today is officially the worst day of this month, no electricity whole day, I wasn't able to get much done, I did do a little bit of packet analysis.
I can confidently identify common nmap scans. It all boils down to the TCP three way handshake for the TCP connect scan, and Stealth scan.
UDP scan utilizes the icmp protocol to scan the open ports.
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#science and #democracy have (at least) one thing in common: They take into account that #humans are #flawed and put #policies and #protocols in place to minimise the #damage such flaws (#greed, #bias, #stupidity, #corruption, #narcissism, #ego, #burnout, #ignorance etc.) can do.
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CW: IM VERTRAUENSRAUM TRANSPARENT SEIN
❓ Was ermöglicht die Nachvollziehbarkeit einzelner und gemeinsamer Entscheidungen und Handlungen? Wie entsteht tatsächliche Transparenz jenseits offizieller Rechenschaftspflicht?
❕Vertrauen entsteht nur dort, wo Transparenz ist. Und umgekehrt. Für Transparenz sind daher nicht nur geeignete Strukturen und Verfahren wichtig, sondern vor allem Praktiken, die Vertrauen stiften und stärken. Um dies zu ermöglichen wird Argumenten genauso Raum gelassen wie der Gefühlsebene. Eine Umgebung des Vertrauens trägt dazu bei, dass verlässliche Informationen – auch unangenehme – eingebracht werden.
👉 Routinierte Dokumentationen, auf die alle Zugriff haben, sind wichtig. Aber auch protokollfreie Räume werden gebraucht, um Gefühle und Unsicherheiten ausdrücken zu können.
👉 Bei der selbstverwalteten Stipendienvergabe der Cusanus Studierendenschaft werden heikle Geldfragen nur in der jeweiligen Jahrgangsgruppe und nicht in der Vollversammlung diskutiert.🗨 Was sind deine Gedanken dazu?
#commons #commoning #fediverse #vertrauen #transparency #selbstorganisation
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Clair Obscur: To be accountable to those that come after
In my prior essays, I related themes woven through Clair Obscur to show how it can parallel real world complexities and oppression.
For the character of Alicia and Gustave (and even Lune if we accept my assertion of her as neurodivergent), disability cords through the story and asks questions the game may not have intended. I explored in that essay how Disability was a class constructed by capitalism to control labor and those unable to labor, and through that I showed how disability has been used to denote evil and bad throughout American history. But Clair Obscur twists those tropes on their head and refuses to villianize the disabled within the game. Instead, Alicia, Gustave, and others are given complex journeys and heralded as heroes in a way. Yet, by the end, the final ending choice between Verso and Maelle felt as if the player was the judge determining the fate of the disabled person for them. I wrote:
Will we be given the care and support we need to thrive? Will we be given agency to choose our own fate and route to healing?
Clair Obscur offers that choice to the player, thus placing the fate of a disabled person in their hands. In a way, the player acts as the judge who determines the fate of a disabled person, to determine whether they ever access the care and benefits they need. It is a replica of how our real world works, and it forces a painful glimpse into the struggles of disabled people.
This essay led me to my next where I explored the nature of the Canvas people and whether they are real. I examined how this paralleled dehumanizing narratives that subjugate and destroy unique cultures. I laid down a map of the shifting temporal realities the game presents through the different main characters of each act: Gustave (Lumierian reality), Verso (immortal painted Dessendre reality), and Maelle (both Dessendre reality and Lumierian reality). How weaving these different realities forces us to contend with the nature of what is real and who is allowed to exist within that reality.
The conclusion I came to, which perhaps will not surprise anyone reading my writings, is that I chose the ending that gave agency to people and saved the most lives. I could not accept that the unique lives of those in the Canvas were less than the Dessendre family. Nor could I accept anyone deciding for a disabled person how they must exist and heal.
By exploring these darker aspects of Clair Obscur, I undoubtedly focused on the more abusive and manipulative aspects of the Dessendre family to show how unsupportive they’ve been to Alicia/Maelle. The evidence painted within the game left me uneasy about the Dessendre family, partly informed by my own traumas as a queer nonbinary disabled person. Yes, they do love each other but love does not mean abuse cannot happen or exist, which I argued in my essay on Disability. That darkness echoed trauma and pain that destroying the Canvas cannot truly heal. A cycle of violence doesn’t heal through the use of more violence, but only when the cycle is stopped.
One could argue that Verso sought to stop the cycle of grief, and isn’t that stopping the cycle of violence? But that negates the temporal reality of the Canvas people, who endured countless oppressive actions and outright genocide. Sacrificing a population of people in an effort to ‘heal’ one family only continues the cycle of violence, and it doesn’t solve the lack of support in the Dessendre world, which Verso’s ending never truly reconciles. Alicia is still isolated, still without a voice, still disabled in a world that has done little to meet any of her needs.
So then, do we ever exit the cycle of violence? And what would it look like to attempt such a thing?
In my Disability essay, I pointed out healing cannot begin until we exit the abusive/traumatic environment/situation. Part of healing involves the end of the cycle of violence, which differs based on who abused and who endured the abuse. Those that abuse must hold themselves accountable and engage in repair as well as work on their own healing. Those that endured abuse must work on their own healing, and recognize the best place for that, which might require them to not engage again the person who harmed them. Ending the cycle of violence and moving toward accountability and healing is not an easy process and the trajectory will differ based on who is involved.
Yet even with those differing paths, one must still hold oneself accountable in order to push forward in the healing process. We will backslide. We will mess up, but it is crucial to acknowledge when we cause harm or when we make a mistake, apologize, and do better. That’s all part of the accountability process.
So in this essay, I want to explore what accountability is and how it does and doesn’t manifest in the characters’ storylines. Whether the characters were able to truly end the cycle of violence and move forward into healing or if the game leaves those questions open-ended.
What is Accountability? And how do we do it?
Accountability within today’s culture, especially within America where I’m situated, is wrought with videos and images of call-out culture. Where people call others out publically the harm and demand repair. While this may be a useful tactic when facing off against the rich and powerful, it ultimately isn’t true accountability. Or at least not the kind that may lead to actual healing and change.
So when I speak of accountability, I do not mean that public spectacle. I instead mean conversations like what Maelle and Verso have in Clair Obscur. They happen on a personal level and/or within the community, and often are not on a public stage. They may instead happen behind closed doors with or without a mediator. The survivor may decide or not decide to be present, while the person who harmed them works toward healing and accountability. It’s a complex process that goes far, far beyond the initial identification of the harm.
In the first chapter of the anthology Beyond Suvival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, editors Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha writes:
“Transformative justice and community accountability are terms that describe ways to address violence without relying on police or prisons. These approaches often work to prevent violence, to intervene when harm is occurring, to hold people accountable, and to transform individuals and society to build safer communities. These strategies are some of hte only options that marginalized communities have to address harm.
The work of transformative justice can happen in a variety of ways. Some groups support survivors by helping them identify their needs and boundaries while ensuring their attackers agree to these boundaries and atone for the harm they caused. Other groups create safe spaces and sanctuaries to support people escaping from violence.”
Here they show how accountability is only one piece of a larger puzzle of addressing violence. Without accountability, much of the work to address and end the cycle of violence would fracture and fall apart, yet as crucial as it is, full healing requires far more than just accountability.
Ejeris Dixon goes on to add:
“Violence and oppression break community ties and breed fear and distrust. At its core, the work to create safety is to build meaningful, accountable relationships within our neighborhoods and communities.”
Without trust, one cannot build safety. Without safety, one struggles to be vulnerable. Without vulnerability, one struggles to heal. And without the choice to heal, one will fail to hold oneself accountable.
This isn’t to say these are steps in a process, but more they are interlinking threads that are woven into a larger tapestry. Each thread crucial to the final form, and the tapestry wouldn’t be the same without each thread and stitch. None of this is easy, but then healing isn’t ever easy.
Healing always requires a choice. Do we choose to heal? Do we choose to hold ourselves accountable to that journey? Do we choose to be accountable for our actions and engage in repair when we inevitably cause harm? How do we engage in repair? Are we willing to be responsible and listen to those harmed by us? To let those harmed take the lead? Can we separate shame from guilt? To not fear accountability but instead embrace it so all involved can move forward in healing?
Of course, asking those questions can feel daunting, and it’s why relationship-building is so crucial. Healing requires support of one’s family, friends, and/or community. We can’t really heal in isolation. In chapter three of Beyond Survival, Blythe Barnow speaks about how isolation harmed her ability to heal:
“In the end, that was the most damaging. Doing it alone. Believing it was all my responsibility. Not the assault. But the healing. The justice. The protection for nameless other girls. I leaned heavy into the skills I learned as a child, over responsibility, independence, sharp analysis, and self-sacrifice. Which meant I never asked for the support I was so desperate for.
Because what I needed, maybe more than his apology, was a community of people who could help me hold and honor the stories that led to this one, who could help me uproot the layers of silence learned through too much violence. I needed to be asked what I wanted and what I was hoping for. I needed someone to help me craft those letters, someone to remind me that I could list expectations. I needed someone who was going to sit with me through the fallout. Someone who could read the responses people sent me and tell me to wait before reading them myself. I needed someone beside me to reflect the ways my own trauma, old and new, was informing the process. I needed someone who could show me love that was deeper and more nuanced than just hating him.”
I relate deeply to Barnow’s words here because isolation can steal away our voice, where we put on a brave mask for others. Often society and even friends and family can put tremendous pressure on survivors to ‘move on’ from the harm, to not speak of it, to stay silent, but that too is part of the cycle of violence. If we cannot acknowledge violence happened, how can we ever stop it from replaying again and again? Many therapists and researchers have written of the cycle of domestic violence and how it can sometimes thread through families. Part of that relies on silence and isolation.
Breaking silence and isolation requires the support of others, and it’s not easy to do. Believe me, I’ve struggled with this my whole life, but I’ve made progress on my healing from abuse because of the support of dear friends and good therapists.
This is why Maelle and Verso are able to have any conversation that deals with accountability. Lune, Sciel, Esquie, and Monoco form a support system to help them break the cycle of silence and isolation. This chosen family gives Maelle the love she needs to learn and grow, and they attempt to offer this to Verso as well.
For example, exploring the Reacher area will lead to the peak, where Painted Alicia ignores her brother to speak with Maelle privately — here the color fades into greyscale. She leads Maelle into the cavern at the peak to show her the true axon, and also to express her thoughts to Maelle through gestures and their fencing match.
After Painted Alicia leads Maelle back to the others, the scene snaps back into color. Maelle offers Alicia “a new beginning,” and I think she meant to repaint Alicia’s face and restore her voice. However, Painted Alicia grasps Maelle’s hand and presses it against her, thus thwarting Maelle’s attempt to repaint her face. Instead, she gasps out her desire for Maelle to gommage her. Verso doesn’t have a chance to stop it, because Maelle does as Painted Alicia asks.
Verso responds by trying to stop Maelle, and ends up holding the red petal remains of Painted Alicia. Sciel is at his side to comfort him in his grief.
The conversation they have later at camp delves into the impact of Maelle’s act:
MAELLE: I’m sorry.
VERSO: …
MAELLE: It’s what she wanted. I owed her that much. We owed her that much. I honoured her wishes. That’s something neither you nor Renoir ever did. And not Maman either.
VERSO: … I didn’t get to say goodbye. You didn’t wait. You didn’t give me a chance to persuade her.
MAELLE: She knew what she wanted. You wouldn’t have been able to sway her.
VERSO: She’s not you. You don’t know that. I know her better than you do. But you didn’t even give me the chance to try. You just erased her.
MAELLE: Verso…
VERSO: You’ve lost two brothers. You know what it’s like to lose your sibling and never get the chance to say goodbye.
MAELLE: …
VERSO: You Painters. You just do what you want, you don’t care how it affects the rest of us.
MAELLE: I do care. I know you’re hurting, but the person who made that decision wasn’t me. It was her. It would have been wrong to deny her just so you could try and talk her out of her decision.Here Maelle seeks to understand Verso and why he is upset. She wants him to understand her reasons, where she sought to honor Painted Alicia’s wishes. She argues here for Painted Alicia’s agency in this, and how taking away her agency wouldn’t have been right.
Verso lashes out because of his grief and pain, but his words here “you don’t care how it affects the rest of us,” doesn’t align with the truth of Painted Alicia and Maelle’s actions at the peak of Reacher. Painted Alicia had made her wishes known, where she did not wish to continue in the disabled body Aline had given her in punishment for an action she’d never done. Perhaps there could have been other ways for her to thrive, but Painted Alicia had tried for decades to find that. Yet, perhaps it is irony that she sought the same annihilation that Painted Verso secretly seeks.
Maelle tries, in her own way, to honor the agency of others. To offer them different solutions, but Painted Alicia didn’t want any other solution. She had taken Maelle’s hand to press against her and urged her to gommage her away.
Does Maelle come to understand what Verso is trying to articulate here? Because so far, she gives her reasons and argues for Painted Alicia’s agency. The scene continues:
VERSO: She’s the last of my family. I have no one left now.
MAELLE: You have me. You have us.
VERSO: MAELLE. I wasn’t ready.
MAELLE: I don’t understand. You were ready when you set Papa free. You expected that he would erase the Canvas and everyone in it. Isn’t that the same thing?
VERSO: It’s different! It’s different. Why did she do that?
MAELLE: You know why.
VERSO: …
MAELLE: But you’re right. I should have thought of you. I should have given you a chance to say goodbye. I’m truly sorry, Verso.
VERSO: … *cries* At least she’s free now.Maelle briefly gets defensive because she struggles to understand, but then she takes a moment to think. She may view the two events of setting Renoir free to erase everyone versus her honoring Alicia’s wishes to be erased as equivalent, but Verso does not. We then see Maelle hold herself accountable by putting herself in Verso’s shoes in an effort to understand. She admits that Verso is indeed right. She should have thought of him, and she apologizes. As one continues through the journey, Maelle does her best to honor this by doing better.
She also tries to show Verso that he does have people left. He has Maelle, Lune, Sciel, Monoco, and others as they all have been trying to reach out and build connections with him. He chooses to hold himself in isolation from them, whether he is conscious of it or not.
She actively does her best to hold herself accountable, to learn from her actions, and this shows how she wishes to end the cycle of harm. She wants everyone’s agency to be honored, for people to find what they need, and although she may offer different ways to do that, if the person ultimately rejects a solution, who is Maelle to refuse to honor their decision? For a sixteen-year-old, she’s remarkably mature here.
Verso, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to hold that same self-awareness, or if he did, he seems to have lost it. He’s so caught up in his cycle of violence, that he struggles to see any other solution as viable. To see this, let’s look at a conversation near the start of Act 3, when Maelle returns to the Canvas:
MAELLE: You should have helped me remember.
VERSO: Yeah… I wanted to, but I… I’m sorry.
MAELLE: I’m sorry too. If I’d listened to Maman… if I hadn’t trusted the Writers, Verso would still be alive, and you —
VERSO: Wouldn’t exist.
MAELLE: Wouldn’t be caught in the middle. Maman did a terrible thing, painting you into Verso’s Canvas. Giving you his memories. Pretending the fire only took me. But I’m glad you exist.
VERSO: Your father was right to erase everyone. It’s better this way.
MAELLE: Better for who? Verso would have never wanted his Canvas gone. He loved Esquie and his Gestrals and the Grandis.
VERSO: It was killing my … our mother, staying here so long in a make-believe world with her make-believe family.
MAELLE: It’s not make-believe. It’s not… you’re not.. To me…Here Verso sees only one solution: annihilation. However, his reasons for why he manipulated and lied to Maelle are just that — excuses. So he acknowledges the hurt he did and apologizes. For true accountability to happen, it’s not enough to simply apologize; one’s present and future behaviors will need changed to avoid replicating the harm and continuing the cycle of violence.
For Maelle, she also apologizes, but in this instance, what is there for her to apologize for? Perhaps she shouldn’t have trusted whoever the Writers were, but she is not responsible for them starting a fire and for Verso’s death. Maelle is only responsible for her own actions, not the actions of others. This shows how she’s internalized the shame and guilt Clea and Aline both shoved onto her; both needed someone to blame, and Alicia, the survivor, is a convenient person to lay down the blame. Maelle/Alicia is young and lacking the support to realize that she does not need to carry this blame as it is not hers to bear.
Painted Verso does not try to negate the blame Maelle/Alicia puts on herself. Instead, he tries to convince Maelle that it is better for those in the Canvas to not exist, for the Canvas to be destroyed, but Maelle refuses to accept that destruction of entire people’s is the right answer. She disagrees that everyone in the Canvas is make-believe. To her they are as real as herself. This ties into what I discussed in my Right to Exist essay.
I wrote there:
We have now returned to one of the most crucial questions in the game: What is the right decision in regards to the fate of the Canvas people and the fate of Alicia/Maelle? As I have hopefully shown thus far, erasing people’s temporal realities causes immense harm and is genocide; people have a right to exist, and sacrificing them for the ‘greater good of society’ (or in this case the Dessendre family) cannot ever be the morally right answer.
Necrosecurity, as I spoke of earlier, paints a bleak and death-filled reality, where healing cannot ever take place because denial and control is at its roots. Until people’s temporal realities are respected and their agency honored, healing will forever stay out of reach.
Thus, escaping pain by committing genocide is not healing. It’s a continuation of the cycle of violence. The marginalized populations facing genocide have a right to exist, and their temporal realities are as valid and important as the oppressor. Just as the temporal reality of the Canvas people are as valid and important as the Dessendre family.
Healing can only happen when the cycle of violence ends.
Verso tries to justify the death and destruction as necessary to end the cycle, but Maelle refuses to accept that reasoning. She believes Verso is wrong when he claims his self and those of the Canvas people are make-believe, and she believes they have a right to exist. She acknowledges harm happened to Painted Verso. She apologizes for her part in it. This is a step forward in the addressing of harm and ending the cycle: acknowledging what happened and why it wasn’t okay.
Again, Maelle cannot repair what her mother did because it’s not her burden to bear. Only Aline can take responsibility for her own actions. Maelle can only take responsibility for Maelle’s actions, which Maelle tries her best to do. She tries to hold herself accountable, which is something neither Clea nor Aline ever seem to do. This act of being accountable seems to have been taught to Maelle perhaps by Renoir, but far more likely it was Gustave, Lune, Sciel, and the Lumierians who taught her this.
She may have regained her memories from the real world, but that doesn’t mean she lost her memories of growing up as a Lumierian. She holds both in her head, as she will admit to Lune and Sciel after she brings them back:
MAELLE: I’m sorry. I didn’t — My memories — I would’ve told you if I’d known —
LUNE: Don’t apologize. You were trapped too. You lived among us. You’re one of us. Even if you’re also one of them.
MAELLE: It’s… so weird. I have memories of two childhoods. Two homes. Two Lumieres.
SCIEL: You’re not an orphan anymore. You just found your family. Don’t you want to be with them?
MAELLE: I love my family, but … they’re all gone. In one way of another. And you’re my family too. So are Gustave and Emma. And I didn’t see it at the time, but all the families who took turns taking care of me…Here Maelle, once again, tries to take on burdens that aren’t hers to hold. She had no memory of being a Paintress, so how could she have told them? Lune understands this and gently points this out to her. To root her in the facts of what they now know. She accepts who Maelle is — Maelle’s full self of being of Lune’s Lumiere but also of the Dessendre’s Lumiere — and provides comfort in this way.
Sciel, in turn, asks a crucial question, even though her voice aches with grief. “Don’t you want to be with them?”
Maelle’s answer is heart-rending, because truthfully, her family is gone. Clea is off fighting a one-person war with the Writers, Aline — Maelle’s mother — blames Maelle and casts her aside, Renoir may seek to bring Maelle back but he too has been neglectful of her, and Verso is gone. So what roots her in the Dessendre World? There she is disabled with no support system and half the family is abusive toward her (as I discuss in my Disability essay). So in a way, her Dessendre family is “gone” in the sense they do not truly support her, not like the Canvas Lumierians.
When Maelle blames herself for those that have harmed her or those she loved, she exhibits a common traumatic response; when she apologizes for actions that aren’t truly hers to own, that is also a traumatic response.
I know I’ve fallen into those trauma responses, where I had internalized the blame that it was my fault for the abuse done to me, my fault for the sexual assault. However, that blame is false. In reality, it wasn’t my fault as I did not do those actions. Those actions were done by other people to me. Just as Maelle did not paint Painted Verso, Aline did that. Just as Maelle didn’t start the fire, the Writers did that. Just as Maelle didn’t kill Verso, the fire and whoever started the fire did that. Just as Maelle didn’t lie to Lune and Sciel, she had no memories of her Dessendre life and thus no information to share; instead, Verso had that information and chose to not share it.
Maelle still tries to take accountability, but truthfully, it is not hers to bear. Lune gently teaches her that in that scene above.
Understanding these truths are hard when society and/or loved ones pressure us into thinking it’s our fault we were hurt. That’s just a falsehood to avoid accountability and to pressure survivors into silence, which effectively continues the cycle of violence.
To break out of that cycle, we must acknowledge that we are only responsible for our own actions and speech. Then we must separate out shame and guilt. We must choose to heal and continue toward healing no matter how hard that trajectory may become. But to even make that choice requires us to have support of others, to help us see when we are falling back into harmful thought processes that inhibit our ability to heal. Those that support us help us stay accountable to the process of healing.
Lune and Sciel both act as supporters for Maelle here. Lune, especially as she has also been hurt by Verso’s actions, seeks to hold Verso accountable. At this point in the game, Lune acts as a protective older sister to Maelle, while Sciel often falls into a motherly role. That’s part of how chosen families relate to one another — they fall into roles with one another, and those roles may change depending on the situation. Sometimes Maelle may be the more sisterly one to offer support to Lune or Sciel.
Chosen family can be a powerful support group and a crucial one, especially if one’s biological family has been abusive toward us. In the case of Maelle, some of her family members have been abusive toward her. So her chosen family provides the support for Maelle to work toward healing from that.
So what about Painted Verso? How does he hold himself accountable after this massive reveal? He hid the truth of who Maelle was from not only Maelle but everyone in the party. He manipulated them toward his end-goals. He chooses to talk to each individually, which the player can choose which character to start these conversations (or could choose to avoid them). If the player chooses to have these conversations, then how do they go?
Lune calls Painted Verso out for his lies:
LUNE: I was right not to trust you.
VERSO: And what would you have done in my position?
LUNE: I wouldn’t have betrayed my expedition. I would have warned them that everyone they cared about was about to be erased. That THEY were about to be erased. I would have told them the truth. Because after everything we’ve been through, we deserved that.
VERSO: So you’d choose your expedition over your mother?
LUNE: That’s your problem. You think in false dichotomies. It wasn’t an “either / or” a situation. Other solutions were possible, if you’d only trusted us enough to ask.
VERSO: Knowing what you know now, would you have helped me force my mother out of the Canvas?
LUNE: … *sighs*
VERSO: I don’t apologize for saving her. But I am sorry I broke your trust. And I will do everything I can to help bring everyone back.
LUNE: I guess we’ll see.Here Verso is intent on his reasons for his lies and manipulations. Lune, of course, points to the faults in his argument, because there might have been more solutions possible. Verso’s response is to put Lune on the spot, which when it comes to intense conversations like this? It’s very hard to consider alternatives when one is upset, so of course Lune couldn’t respond right away. She takes her time deliberating and analyzing possible solutions. Put her on the spot? And she falls quiet because she has not been given adequate time to process the information and analyze for other solutions. So Verso acts rather unfairly toward her, and then makes a promise to win back her trust.
For Sciel, she processes her anger and hurt differently. She may have chosen to ‘get over’ her anger, but the hurt in her voice betrays how she feels. She tries to keep her tone light, but the desperate hope still slips through. Their conversation ends with her saying:
SCIEL: As long as you help me bring Pierre back. You owe me.
VERSO: You got it.Once again, he makes a promise. Yet, his conversation with Maelle shows he may not honor the promise to Lune and Sciel:
MAELLE: We have to push Papa out of the Canvas before he erases everything.
VERSO: I’m surprised he hasn’t already.
MAELLE: He’s been weakened by his battle with Maman. That’s probably why he hasn’t come after us. But it won’t stop him for long.
VERSO: If you and your father keep fighting, you risk breaking the world again. Another Fracture, but this time, it might be you trapped inside the Monolith.
MAELLE: What’s the alternative?
VERSO: Maybe… maybe you should go home.
MAELLE: Verso…
VERSO: You’re fighting each other but you’re all doing the same thing.
MAELLE: No.
VERSO: Aline wants her son back. Renoir wants you and Aline back. You want Gustave back. The cycle we needed to break wasn’t the Gommage. It’s your family’s cycle of grief.
MAELLE: …
VERSO: Our whole world carries the burden of your family’s grief.Although there is truth that the Canvas world carries the burden of the Dessendre’s family’s grief, he makes an assumption about Maelle’s motivations. Yes, Maelle may want Gustave back, but she earlier had clarified that she doesn’t believe Painted Verso nor the Canvas people are ‘make-believe.’ She views them as real, and she refuses to let people die simply because her father decided they were a threat. So his assertion that it’s her continuing the cycle fails to understand the complexity in her motivations.
Instead, Verso tries to argue again why Maelle should leave the Canvas, but if she does, that means Renoir will finish erasing the Canvas and Lune and Sciel will never see their friends and family again. In fact, Lune and Sciel will cease to exist too. This conversation reveals that Verso is simply telling Lune and Sciel what they want to hear so that they can aid him in his goals. He isn’t holding himself accountable here. He’s manipulating everyone to push them toward the end-goal that he’s decided is best.
In doing this, he shows a lack of ability to understand and learn from the hurt and pain he’s done to others. He’s not really listening to them because he’s mapped out ways to carefully push each person into the actions he needs for his own goals. Thus, he’s continuing the cycle of violence.
Maelle has made it clear she wants the cycle of violence to end. She wants to save the Canvas people, because she believes they have a right to exist, that they are not ‘make-believe’ but real. Yet in these conversations, Verso turns up his charm and manipulation tactics to try to tweak the situation to his benefit. He wants Maelle to give up and leave the canvas so Renoir can erase it. He needs Lune and Sciel to work with them so that he can reach Renoir as he suspects that confrontation will be the only way he can push Maelle out of the Canvas.
Healing cannot happen in a manipulative environment that continues to cause harm to others. In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. The first step:
“‘Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Thom here lists what Verso struggles to do in these conversations. He listens but is also defensive with Lune about his actions and proceeds to make excuses for his actions. In a way, Verso struggles to not see these confrontation as an attack, but truthfully, Lune calling out the harm isn’t an attack, it’s a consequence. Pointing out harm isn’t an attack but a courageous moment of honesty and vulnerability. Whether Verso sees that gift of vulnerability is hard to say as his actions and words are conflict depending on the person to whom he speaks.
Verso tends to make himself the center of the story being told in both Lune and Maelle’s conversations. The only one he doesn’t do this with is Sciel, but then Sciel doesn’t really give him that chance. Sciel recognizes that he speaks to give his reasons, and she doesn’t want to hear it, so she instead takes the conversation toward what they will do next. It’s a masterful way of pivoting the conversation to a more active form of accountability — Sciel is essentially asking Verso, “So, you hurt us, what are you going to do to fix this? Here’s one solution.”
Verso accepts Sciel solution, but then his conversation with Maelle, he goes on the rampage. He points out her family’s cycle of grief continues to hurt this Canvas, but he also knows that if Maelle leaves, there is no possible way he can honor his promises to Sciel and Lune. He speaks of a cycle of grief that causes harm, which is important to acknowledge, yet he refuses to listen to what Maelle is saying. In turn, Maelle goes quiet, which she often does to think over what others have said.
Thus, Verso’s defensiveness with Lune and Maelle ends up being:
“… the cycle of violence talking. This is the script that rape culture has built for us: a script in which there must be a hero and a villain, a right and a wrong, an accuser and an accused. What if we understood being confronted about perpetuating abuse as an act of courage — even a gift — on the part of the survivor?
What if, instead of reacting immediately in our own defense, we instead took the time to listen, to really try to understand the harm we might have done to another person?
When we think of accountability in terms of listening and love instead of accusation and punishment, everything changes. Listenign without becoming defensive does not necessarily mean relinquishing one’s own truth. We must be able to make room for varying perspectives and multiple emotional truths in our hearts.”
Painted Verso doesn’t make room for varying perspectives or multiple emotional truths. He may take some responsibility for his actions, or at least acknowledges the harm his actions have done, where he takes on only what he has done — no more, no less, but he doesn’t truly grow from that.
Thom writes how taking responsibility for the abuse is next but one must also “accept that your reasons are not excuses.”
There is no reason good enough to excuse abusive behavior. Reasons help us understand abuse, but they do not excuse it. Accepting this is essential to transforming culpability into accountability and turning justice into healing.
Painted Verso spends a lot of time giving his reasons and expecting that to excuse his actions. Lune will have none of it as his reasons doesn’t excuse his lying and manipulative actions. He didn’t just betray them but also lied to them and manipulated them in harmful ways. Can Verso recognize the harm and truly be accountable?
This is where support of others can be crucial. Thom writes:
“When having a dialogue with someone who has been abused, it’s essential to give the survivor the space to take the lead in expressive their needs and setting boundaries. You should also take time to think about your own needs and boundaries without making the person you have harmed take care of you. This is why having support in the community is crucial. If basic needs are going unmet, no one can heal from abuse, nor can anyone truly be accountable.
If you have abused someone, it’s not up to you to decide how the process of healing or accountability should work. This doesn’t mean that you don’t get to have rights or boundaries, or that you can’t contribute actively to the process. It means that you don’t get to say that the person you have hurt is “crazy” or that what they are expressing doesn’t matter.
Instead, it might be good idea to try asking the person who has confronted you questions like these: what do you need right now? Is there anything I can do to make this feel better? How much contact would you like to have with me going forward? If we share a community, how should I navigate situations where we might end up int he same place? How does this conversation feel for you, right now?
At the same time, it’s important to understand that the needs of survivors of abuse can change over time, and that survivors may not always know right away — or ever — what their needs are.
Being accountable and responsible for abuse means being patient, flexible, and reflective about the process of having dialogue with the survivor.”
It’s crucial to note here that Thom is not saying that the survivor is an expert on accountability or that they should have full control over the process. Thom adds:
“I feel strongly that as long as punishment remains at the center of our thinking around accountability and justice, survivor-led processes are doomed to fall into the trap of individuals desperately trying to avoid accountability out of fear. Survivor-led, to me, means that survivors get to lead their own process of recovery, that survivors are given space to tell their stories and speak their needs (which criminal justice usually does not allow).
It does not mean that people who have been deeply wounded are suddenly handed full responsibility for a community dialogue and rehabilitation process. Survivor-led does not mean that the community gets to abdicate its responsibility for providing support, safety, expertise, and leadership in making healing happen.”
There are multiple paths in the accountability and healing process: the survivor, the one who caused harm, and the community. These paths may intersect at times, but Thom is arguing that none should exert control over the other’s path. Instead, listening, understanding, and opening onself up to changing present and future behaviors is what ‘survivor-led’ should mean.
Thom also makes it clear that the community itself needs to be involved to lay the groundwork to meet the needs of those within this process. Support by building safety, sharing expertise to help guide, and providing leadership to keep those involved accountable are all needed to assist in the healing process here.
Community support allows those involved to have someone with which to work through their emotions and thoughts. By working through emotions and thoughts, one can come to understand one’s own behaviors, emotions, actions, and through that find a path forward. This work means they are also holding themself accountable in the sense they are continuing to move forward on the path toward healing. Supportive friends, family, and community members can assist in helping those in this process stay on the healing path — that’s another type of accountability.
Supportive community is is what Painted Verso lacks. He does not allow anyone to truly be in community with him, and those that try are held at arm’s length with him manipulating events toward his own ends. Whether he ever allowed community to help him work through his trauma and pain relies on his own shared stories, of which seem suspect since what he says to one person doesn’t always align with what he says to another of the same event. The best we have is a journal entry from a prior expedition where he expresses his pain and hopes — hopes he doesn’t seem to have in Maelle’s time.
VERSO’S JOURNAL:
I miss you. I don’t have the right to miss you but I do. I wish I could talk to you. Tell you. Fuck. I don’t know what I would tell you. Just ask that you forgive me. Julie, forgive me. I’m not… I’m not a traitor. I’m not. I’m trying to save… I’m trying to save us all. But you’re right. I am a coward. I’m a fucking coward. You deserved to know why. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face you properly. Not and still do what had to be done. Papa believes you are Clea’s creation, and even if you’re not, we can no longer trust you. But I think you just wanted answers.
Why? Why couldn’t you just let it go? Why did you convince them to abduct me? Interrogate me? No. I shouldn’t say that. You thought I was a traitor. You were doing what you thought was right, just like we are. I swear to you, I’m doing what’s right. I should have known when you started questioning things that you wouldn’t be fooled. But how could I even explain? You’d have thought I’d gone mad. Doppelgangers. Countless worlds. But Papa’s right. We can’t take the risk. Too much is at stake. Too much. It had to be done. It had to. Clea already took our sister. If we want to save our family, our world, our people, we can’t take any chances. And once we free Maman, she… she’ll bring you back. It won’t be forever. I promise. We deserve to live. All of us. We deserve to exist.
In this journal, Verso admits to his pain and how much he misses Julie, who seems to be a loved one. He justifies his actions, but also shows a willingness to understand why Julie did what she thought was right. He does his best to not internalize the hurtful words that Julie and her expedition likely threw at him — traitor for one. However, he makes a crucial mistake here by assuming Julie’s reactions to the actual truth. He doesn’t allow her to have agency, and instead took that from her by keeping her in the dark. This fueled distrust, especially as he acknowledges Julie had started to question things and notice what doesn’t make sense. Julie wanted answers, and Verso, here at least, acknowledges that she did deserve to know why things transpired the way they did.
He also asserts that they “deserve to exist.” Yet, in Maelle’s time, he seems to have changed his mind entirely as he spends far too much energy trying to convince Maelle to let the Canvas be erased. In his ending, he goes to great lengths to make sure the Canvas is erased. So he breaks all of his promises, and decides that no one deserves to exist in the Canvas. That they are not real and thus it is okay to erase populations.
Why does he come to this conclusion? Partly due to the massive amount of death he witnesses over the decades, and also because he doesn’t have a community to hold him accountable. When one is isolated like Painted Verso, it is all too easy to fall into despair and a desire for annihilation. This is why those who are suicidal shouldn’t be left alone, but need supportive family and friends to help them heal and find new meaning in life.
In Maelle’s ending, Maelle will try to give Verso that opportunity when she offers him the choice of “if you could grow old, would you… find a reason to smile?”
She’s trying to break the cycle of violence by making sure Verso doesn’t have to live the immortal life he so abhors. So she offers solutions that doesn’t end in a genocide of peoples or Painted Verso’s death. Despite the harm Verso has done, Maelle seeks to humanize him and offer him a compromise. Her ending hints strongly that he accepts her alternate solution and seems to find some hope in it, as he does indeed grow old.
This humanization of the person causing harm is also critical to the healing process. The survivor of abuse doesn’t have to be the one to humanize the one causing harm, but those in the community ought to be able to step in for that.
In another essay in the Beyond Survival Anthology, there is an excerpt from the handbook, Ending Child Sexual Abuse:
“We see that abuse happens when one person believes, consciously or unconsciously, that their needs, wants, and preferences take precedence over others. People engaging in abusive behaviors are often numb to, or seemingly unable to feel, the impacts of their behaviors on others.
A process of accountability and transformation requires that the person who has been harmful:
- Stop doing the harm.
- Feels empathy and remorse for the pain and impact of their actions.
- Takes measures, like restitution or reparations, to address the harm caused.
- Takes measures to prevent future harm.
- Works to understand the root causes of their harmful behavior.
- Engages in the ongoing work of accountability, healing, and integration.
- Take action and organizes to support others to heal or to be part of changing community and social conditions that allow for CSA and other forms of violence.”
Here the list shows how difficult healing can be, and how scary it is to make the choice to heal. Yet, it’s crucial for ending the cycle of violence to not dehumanize anyone involved. Dehumanization continues the cycle of violence. As the handbook excerpt says:
“It is important to center the needs of those most directly impacted by the harm in a situation. We also hold that recognizing and attending to the humanity of those who harm is a central aspect of transforming our families, communities, and society. Seeing and dignifying the healing needs of people who abuse also runs counter to the idea that some people “out there” are “monsters” who are expendable or need to be “weeded out.” By standing for everyone’s need for healing, we challenge the dehumanizing logic that is central to systems of oppression, domination, and abuse. By standing for everyone’s need for healing, we maintain our commitment to a vision of true liberation.”
Part of this process means those who cause harm need to understand that not all consequences are “harm.” Consequences to their actions are often necessary and may not be a form of “harm.” For example, Lune calling out the harm of Verso’s lies is the consequence of his actions. She lost trust in him is another consequence. Him having to earn back that trust is yet another consequence. None of these consequences are “harms” done to Verso. It’s simply part of the accountability process.
Humanizing those involved are absolutely critical to ending the cycle of violence. When people are dehumanized, they are stripped of who they are, and this causes harm to all involved. If the cycle of violence is to be ended, then those involved must be humanized and their dignity honored.
This is incredibly difficult to do at times. As a survivor of abuse, I struggled greatly with wanting my abuser to feel the weight of my pain, but through therapy, I learned that truthfully I didn’t want my abuser to be harmed in return. I wanted the cycle of abuse to end. That revelation allowed me to move past the anger and make a conscious choice to heal.
This conscious choice to heal is required of those that cause harm as well. However, shame, guilt, and fear can often make that choice extremely difficult.
Both Verso and Maelle struggle with shame and guilt. Maelle’s guilt and shame lay in her internalizing the blame Aline and Clea lay at her feet. Except, the fire is not Maelle’s fault, but that of the Writers that cause it. Her guilt and shame originate from actions that are not her own.
However, for Verso, his guilt and shame do originate from his own actions, for he did kill members of his prior expeditions, he did lie to people, and he did manipulate people for his own ends. However, it’s crucial to separate shame from guilt. In Kai Cheng Thom’s essay, shame and guilt is defined:
“Shame and social stigma are powerful emotional forces that can prevent us from holding ourselves accountable for being abusive. We don’t want to admit to “being that person,” so we don’t admit to having been abusive at all.
Some people might suggest that people who have been abusive ought to feel shame — after all, perpetuating abuse is wrong. I would argue, though, that this is where the difference between guilt and shame is key. Guilt is feeling bad about something you’ve done; shame is feeling bad about who you are. People who have been abusive should feel guilty for the specific acts of abuse they are responsible for. They should not feel shame about who they are because this means that abuse has become a part of their identity. It means they believe that they are fundamentally a bad person — in other words, “an abuser.”
But if you believe that you are an “abuser,” a bad person who hurts others, then you have already lost the struggle for change — because we cannot change who we are. If you believe that you are a fundamentally good person who has done hurtful or abusive things, then you open the possibility for change.”
When Thom says we “cannot change who we are,” this is in regard to our identities and personality. The “possibility for change” is in regard to our decisions, actions, and future decisions and actions. Those we can change, but we shouldn’t try to alter our personality and identity to be someone we are not. We should focus on how to make better decisions and to act in ways that are more healthy and holistic for us and those around us.
Verso, when he first introduces himself to Expedition 33, calls himself a liar. By doing so, he shows he internalized his actions as part of his identity. This makes it very difficult to hold oneself accountable and being open to the “possibility for change.” If he views lying as crucial to his identity, then why should he stop? It’s who he is, isn’t it? It’s a complete 180 from his journal entry where he refused to accept ‘traitor’ as being who he is.
But lying isn’t who he truly is. He’s, instead, taken a behavior and marked it as a personality trait. Truthfully, his personality isn’t a lying manipulator — we can see bits and pieces of who he is in the scenes where he plays a piano with Maelle, goes out of his way to help Sciel move past her fear of water, shares music with Lune, chats with Esquie, or hangs out with Monoco. He’s a bit silly, fun-loving, jokester, that wants to do the right thing but doesn’t know how. He’s trapped in a cycle of his own making, yet he’s unwilling to recognize his own cycle. Instead, he internalizes the lies as part of who he is, when it’s not — that’s his trauma speaking.
Until Verso can recognize his own cycle of violence and shame, he remains trapped in his cycle, unable to acknowledge his abuse and never able to progress toward healing. Even in his ending, when he fights Maelle to force her from the Canvas, his solution to his cycle is to annihilate himself and everyone in the Canvas. He refuses to see another way. Yet, until he recognizes that his harmful behaviors are not core to his personality, he won’t ever see how to stop his cycle of harm.
This is where Thom goes on to state that as much as those who cause harm shouldn’t “expect anyone to forgive you,” they should, however, forgive themselves:
“Being accountable is not about earning forgiveness. This is to say, it doesn’t matter how accountable you are — nobody has to forgive you for being abusive, least of all the person you have abused. In fact, using the process of “doing” accountability to manipulate or coerce someone into their forgiveness to you is an extension of the abuse dynamic. It center the abuser, not the survivor. One shouldn’t aim for forgiveness when holding oneself accountable. Rather self-accountability is about learning how we have harmed others, why we have harmed others, and how we can stop.
But… you do have to forgive yourself. Because you can’t stop hurting other people until you stop hurting yourself. When one is abusive, when one is hurting so much on the inside that it feels like the only way to make it stop is to hurt other people, it can be terrifying to face the hard truth of words like abuse and accountability. One might rather blame others, blame society, blame the people we love, instead of ourselves.
This is true, I think, of community as well as individuals. It is so much easier, so much simpler, to create hard lines between good and bad people, to create walls to shut the shadowy archetype of “the abuser” out instead of mirrors to look at the abuser within.
Perhaps this is why self-accountability tools like this list are so rare. It takes courage to be accountable. To decide to heal. But when we do decide, we discover incredible new possibilities. There is good and bad in everyone. Anyone can heal, given the right circumstances, and everyone can heal, given the same. You are capable of loving and being loved. Always. Always. Always.”
These are critical points for accountability. The process isn’t so we can “earn forgiveness” like it’s some sort of game achievement. Accountability is about learning, listening, seeking to understand why we did what we did, and finding solutions on how we can stop. Where we end the cycle of violence and instead move into a trajectory toward healing and choosing actions that cause the least harm and the most good.
And what is the most good? How do we know what is good?
To understand what ‘good’ means, we need to briefly explore ethics and morality. This game, thankfully, has already given us that exploration already in the Lumierians — Gustave and Lune in particular. I won’t dig too deeply into this as I feel that Lord Khoury does a much better job in his video here (which I recommend as he lays out an excellent case for why Maelle’s ending is a morally good one). I will simply briefly highlight Gustave’s and Lune’s use of Utilitarianism.
Consequences and Utilitarianism
Gustave, at the start of the game points out how the Gommage seems almost gentle, how it makes Lumiere seem complacent, but it is no less violent. He defines the act of violence and injustice, and in his temporal reality, Lumiere identified the best route to liberation is through confrontation with the Paintress.
Throughout the Prologue and Act 1, we are shown how Gustave lives his morals and how he determines actions to be morally good. These deliberations rely on what is known as utilitarianism. The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines this as:
“…utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. There are many ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is that the theory is a form of consequentialism: the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced. What distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope of the relevant consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought to maximize the overall good — that is, consider the good of others as well as one’s own good.”
Gustave’s moralism shows through the projects he describes — teaching his apprentices, Aquafarms, etc. — and in how he interacts with those around him. He understands quite well the consequences of possible actions, and chooses the ones that will do the most good.
For example, when Expedition 33 is separated, Gustave determines the right action is to seek Maelle. He evaluates the consequences of this, and although his emotions push for a specific end result, he still evaluates based on the known information at that time. As in, the note inscribed on the Indigo Tree, the lack of survivors at the Indigo Tree meeting point, and the knowledge of how difficult it is to survive alone.
GUSTAVE: It’s a lead, or only lead, whoever this is has Maelle. We have to go.
LUNE: No, not yet. Protocol is to regroup at rendevous point and wait three days. This message feels off. If it was an Expeditioner, they would have stayed here. Everyone knows the protocol.
GUSTAVE: Right, but they may have been in danger. Maybe this location has been compromised. Things change in the field.
LUNE: There’s a reason its protocol.
GUSTAVE: Protocol doesn’t cover every contingency. You know that.
LUNE: There’s a reason its Protocol. We designed it to yield the optimal result in the vast majority of situations.
GUSTAVE: Was our entire team dying part of that “optimal result?”
LUNE: …
GUSTAVE: Look, I’m going after Maelle. Protocol also states ‘never move solo.’ I’ll let you choose what protocol to break.Here we see how both Gustave and Lune lay out their reasoning for the preferred actions. Gustave focuses on the consequences and concludes going after Maelle will save the most lives based on their current information. Lune, who attempts to argue for the Protocol, finds herself faced with possible consequences that could either endanger Gustave — if he goes alone — or herself — if she stays and he goes — or the mission — if the team is split up.
Lune follows him because of the two protocols they are breaking — one results in a higher number of lives saved and better chance at surviving long enough to complete their mission. Thus, after evaluating what is known and the consequences of various actions, she determines the action that achieve the most good.
In survival, determining the consequences of actions that result in the most lives saved fits firmly in the utilitarianism worldview. Thus, in determining what actions are ‘good,’ it is crucial to seek to understand the consequences of that action for everyone — not just ourselves. This is where Verso falls short as his understanding of the consequences of his actions revolves around the impact on himself; he continues to assert his view, even when others protest and show the harm of it.
Part of that is because he doesn’t show a willingness to examine the situation fully with other people. He’s kept himself relatively isolated for decades, and sought to meet his needs on his own. Isolation can easily distort our thinking and lead us toward despair.
With the Lumierians, we see an alternate route. Gustave and Lune actively talk through the situation at the Indigo Tree. Gustave lays out his analysis and Lune does as well. Gustave, however, focuses on the lives he can actively save in that moment rather than the lives they do not know still live or not. Though this dialogue, the two examine consequences of their actions. Both go back and forth in acknowledging what the other is saying, and also responding to the concerns brought up. In the end, Gustave’s decision to go after Maelle is vindicated in his eyes, and he offers Lune a choice. Lune, in turn, honors the protocol that will save the most lives — staying with Gustave and saving someone that is likely still alive. Considering, they have no further data on anyone else surviving, going after Maelle ends up being justified as the ‘good’ decision through the consequences of their actions.
We see this same sort of analysis play out a few times in Act 1 with how the group analyzes the situation, examines consequences, and come to a decision. Gustave and Lune lead the charge here, and their example provides a litmus test for Maelle to use in trying to determine what decisions are ‘good.’
For another example, Gustave and Lune’s intense fight before they find Maelle:
GUSTAVE: I am not letting Maelle die out here. I’m taking her home.
LUNE: What? No, no, no, we have a mission —
GUSTAVE: Oh, fuck the mission! Fuck the mission, Lune. What are we gonna do? Tell me. What are we gonna do? We’re gonna take down the Paintress, just the three of us? My — my gun and your sparks?
LUNE: I didn’t take you for a coward.
GUSTAVE: I’m not a coward.
LUNE: You swore the oath. “When one falls, we continue.”
GUSTAVE: Yes, I know.
LUNE: When one falls. WHEN one falls. Not if. When. We knew not all of us would make it. But “We Continue.” As long even one of us stands, our fight is not over.
GUSTAVE: But I’m not afraid to fight, it’s just Maelle, she’s —
LUNE: Maelle swore the same oath!
GUSTAVE: I know that!
LUNE: She choose her life! Come on, we always said that the future of Lumiere was more important than any —
GUSTAVE: individual life, yes.
LUNE: Do you still believe that?Here Lune reminds Gustave of the consequences of swearing their oath. Consequences all of them knew before they swore the oath. She also makes it clear that Maelle also swore this oath, knowing the risks, and that she choose that. Lune is reminding Gustave of Maelle’s agency. Through this conversation, she’s challenging him on the consequences of what will happen if he takes Maelle back: he’d break his oath, he’d leave Lune here to continue alone, he’d violate Maelle’s agency, and he would put the future of Lumiere at risk.
This conversation pushes Gustave toward the ‘good’ decision, which is to honor Maelle’s agency. Something he will confirm in a later conversation after they are reunited with Maelle and have found Sciel with the Gestrals:
GUSTAVE: Maybe you should stay…
MAELLE: What?
GUSTAVE: It’s safer in the village.
MAELLE: And miss the change to meet Esquie? No way.
GUSTAVE: Maelle…
MAELLE: I’m okay. We stick together.This conversation proved Lune to be correct. The consequences Lune had laid out as her reasoning on the ‘good choice,’ made it clear that Maelle had chosen this life. Gustave here confirms it with Maelle herself, and he then honors that choice.
Thus, Gustave and Lune provide excellent examples of the use of utilitarianism for determining the morally ‘good’ choice, as well as how to handle conflict. They also show how the Canvas Lumierians honor the agency of others.
It’s through our dialogue with those around us that we come to understand possible consequences and how they may impact others. That dialog then allows us to generate ideas that cause the least harm to all involved and saves the most lives (or in less dire situations, helps the most people feel heard, understood, and agency honored). This can be difficult to do, and in times of danger, we often act on instinct because there isn’t enough time to deliberate on consequences.
However, after the danger is over, we must be willing to analyze what happened and take accountability for our actions. We must not take on the responsibility of other people’s actions, only take on our own. We need to listen to others, and they in turn listen to us. We need to be open to change behaviors if we cause harm, which we see Lune, Gustave, Maelle, and Sciel do on their journey. That’s part of holding one another accountable and choosing healing.
Maelle having the support of her Canvas family is critical to her own journey toward healing. The scene where Maelle has a waking nightmare in Act 1 after the Gestral Village, we see Gustave, Sciel, and Lune gather around her to comfort her. They bring down her panic, and stay at her side until she’s calm. This level of care is not shown by the Dessendre family toward Maelle. Thus, Maelle finds her strongest support system within the Canvas, away from an environment of abuse and neglect. This chosen family helps hold her accountable and supports her as she makes decisions to end the cycle of violence. To choose to heal.
Verso struggles to understand this lesson the entirety of the game. The only clue we are given that he may finally learn it is in Maelle’s ending, when Maelle offers a different solution to his desire to cease his immortal life. He still lives in her ending, but he’s grown old. His fingers find it harder to play the piano — hence the dissonance at first before he plays. Perhaps in this ending he learns how to be accountable and chooses healing. The game seems to imply it, but the game also leaves it open-ended.
In Verso’s ending, Verso doesn’t choose healing but instead chooses to take the agency from everyone involved — Maelle, the faded boy, the different Canvas peoples — and fades into annihilation. Maelle, then, returns to life as Alicia Dessendre, who is disabled and essentially institutionalized in her family’s manor. She has no support system, and her mother still looks at her with disdain. Clea still offers no support, only goes off to do her one-person war. In the ending, Renoir doesn’t even look at Alicia — only at Aline. Alicia stands isolated, and tries to smile, tries to see anything good in this, but instead, she hallucinates the family she’s lost. As they gommage away, I noticed how her shoulders droop and she holds Esquie tighter. A sign that her hope evaporates with them? Again, the game leaves it open-ended.
When still in an abusive environment, healing is out of reach, even if one chooses it, because the circumstances causing the trauma is ongoing. One must exit the abusive environment, but to do so often requires support of others to assist in finding a safer place to be. If there is no one there to provide the necessary support to heal, then it is incredibly difficult to actively heal.
Thus, healing from grief and from abuse both require breaking cycles, but to break those cycles, we need the necessarily family/friends and/or community support. It is not truly possible to do this when we are isolated, because isolation itself is a form of harm that can easily lead us into despair, as we saw with Painted Verso.
Breaking the cycle of violence can only happen when we have built up a community of people who love us for who we are. Then and only then, will we have the support to choose to heal, to hold ourselves accountable, to actively listen to others, and when needed alter our behaviors toward more healthy patterns.
This is not an easy process, and it will require hard work from all involved. Yet the payoff is a healthier existence and a chance to thrive rather than just survive.
#abuse #accountability #Characters #clairObscurExpedition33 #disability #GameAnalysis #gameNarrative #healing #healingJourney #justice #mentalHealth #narrativeAnalysis #responsibility #transformativeJustice #writing
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Clair Obscur: To be accountable to those that come after
CROSSPOST FROM COMRADERY. Part of a three part series: Disability (part 1), Right to Exist (part 2), and Accountability and Healing (part 3).
In my prior essays, I related themes woven through Clair Obscur to show how it can parallel real world complexities and oppression.
For the character of Alicia and Gustave (and even Lune if we accept my assertion of her as neurodivergent), disability cords through the story and asks questions the game may not have intended. I explored in that essay how Disability was a class constructed by capitalism to control labor and those unable to labor, and through that I showed how disability has been used to denote evil and bad throughout American history. But Clair Obscur twists those tropes on their head and refuses to villianize the disabled within the game. Instead, Alicia, Gustave, and others are given complex journeys and heralded as heroes in a way. Yet, by the end, the final ending choice between Verso and Maelle felt as if the player was the judge determining the fate of the disabled person for them. I wrote:
Will we be given the care and support we need to thrive? Will we be given agency to choose our own fate and route to healing?
Clair Obscur offers that choice to the player, thus placing the fate of a disabled person in their hands. In a way, the player acts as the judge who determines the fate of a disabled person, to determine whether they ever access the care and benefits they need. It is a replica of how our real world works, and it forces a painful glimpse into the struggles of disabled people.
This essay led me to my next where I explored the nature of the Canvas people and whether they are real. I examined how this paralleled dehumanizing narratives that subjugate and destroy unique cultures. I laid down a map of the shifting temporal realities the game presents through the different main characters of each act: Gustave (Lumierian reality), Verso (immortal painted Dessendre reality), and Maelle (both Dessendre reality and Lumierian reality). How weaving these different realities forces us to contend with the nature of what is real and who is allowed to exist within that reality.
The conclusion I came to, which perhaps will not surprise anyone reading my writings, is that I chose the ending that gave agency to people and saved the most lives. I could not accept that the unique lives of those in the Canvas were less than the Dessendre family. Nor could I accept anyone deciding for a disabled person how they must exist and heal.
By exploring these darker aspects of Clair Obscur, I undoubtedly focused on the more abusive and manipulative aspects of the Dessendre family to show how unsupportive they’ve been to Alicia/Maelle. The evidence painted within the game left me uneasy about the Dessendre family, partly informed by my own traumas as a queer nonbinary disabled person. Yes, they do love each other but love does not mean abuse cannot happen or exist, which I argued in my essay on Disability. That darkness echoed trauma and pain that destroying the Canvas cannot truly heal. A cycle of violence doesn’t heal through the use of more violence, but only when the cycle is stopped.
One could argue that Verso sought to stop the cycle of grief, and isn’t that stopping the cycle of violence? But that negates the temporal reality of the Canvas people, who endured countless oppressive actions and outright genocide. Sacrificing a population of people in an effort to ‘heal’ one family only continues the cycle of violence, and it doesn’t solve the lack of support in the Dessendre world, which Verso’s ending never truly reconciles. Alicia is still isolated, still without a voice, still disabled in a world that has done little to meet any of her needs.
So then, do we ever exit the cycle of violence? And what would it look like to attempt such a thing?
In my Disability essay, I pointed out healing cannot begin until we exit the abusive/traumatic environment/situation. Part of healing involves the end of the cycle of violence, which differs based on who abused and who endured the abuse. Those that abuse must hold themselves accountable and engage in repair as well as work on their own healing. Those that endured abuse must work on their own healing, and recognize the best place for that, which might require them to not engage again the person who harmed them. Ending the cycle of violence and moving toward accountability and healing is not an easy process and the trajectory will differ based on who is involved.
Yet even with those differing paths, one must still hold oneself accountable in order to push forward in the healing process. We will backslide. We will mess up, but it is crucial to acknowledge when we cause harm or when we make a mistake, apologize, and do better. That’s all part of the accountability process.
So in this essay, I want to explore what accountability is and how it does and doesn’t manifest in the characters’ storylines. Whether the characters were able to truly end the cycle of violence and move forward into healing or if the game leaves those questions open-ended.
What is Accountability? And how do we do it?
Accountability within today’s culture, especially within America where I’m situated, is wrought with videos and images of call-out culture. Where people call others out publically the harm and demand repair. While this may be a useful tactic when facing off against the rich and powerful, it ultimately isn’t true accountability. Or at least not the kind that may lead to actual healing and change.
So when I speak of accountability, I do not mean that public spectacle. I instead mean conversations like what Maelle and Verso have in Clair Obscur. They happen on a personal level and/or within the community, and often are not on a public stage. They may instead happen behind closed doors with or without a mediator. The survivor may decide or not decide to be present, while the person who harmed them works toward healing and accountability. It’s a complex process that goes far, far beyond the initial identification of the harm.
In the first chapter of the anthology Beyond Suvival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, editors Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha writes:
“Transformative justice and community accountability are terms that describe ways to address violence without relying on police or prisons. These approaches often work to prevent violence, to intervene when harm is occurring, to hold people accountable, and to transform individuals and society to build safer communities. These strategies are some of hte only options that marginalized communities have to address harm.
The work of transformative justice can happen in a variety of ways. Some groups support survivors by helping them identify their needs and boundaries while ensuring their attackers agree to these boundaries and atone for the harm they caused. Other groups create safe spaces and sanctuaries to support people escaping from violence.”
Here they show how accountability is only one piece of a larger puzzle of addressing violence. Without accountability, much of the work to address and end the cycle of violence would fracture and fall apart, yet as crucial as it is, full healing requires far more than just accountability.
Ejeris Dixon goes on to add:
“Violence and oppression break community ties and breed fear and distrust. At its core, the work to create safety is to build meaningful, accountable relationships within our neighborhoods and communities.”
Without trust, one cannot build safety. Without safety, one struggles to be vulnerable. Without vulnerability, one struggles to heal. And without the choice to heal, one will fail to hold oneself accountable.
This isn’t to say these are steps in a process, but more they are interlinking threads that are woven into a larger tapestry. Each thread crucial to the final form, and the tapestry wouldn’t be the same without each thread and stitch. None of this is easy, but then healing isn’t ever easy.
Healing always requires a choice. Do we choose to heal? Do we choose to hold ourselves accountable to that journey? Do we choose to be accountable for our actions and engage in repair when we inevitably cause harm? How do we engage in repair? Are we willing to be responsible and listen to those harmed by us? To let those harmed take the lead? Can we separate shame from guilt? To not fear accountability but instead embrace it so all involved can move forward in healing?
Of course, asking those questions can feel daunting, and it’s why relationship-building is so crucial. Healing requires support of one’s family, friends, and/or community. We can’t really heal in isolation. In chapter three of Beyond Survival, Blythe Barnow speaks about how isolation harmed her ability to heal:
“In the end, that was the most damaging. Doing it alone. Believing it was all my responsibility. Not the assault. But the healing. The justice. The protection for nameless other girls. I leaned heavy into the skills I learned as a child, over responsibility, independence, sharp analysis, and self-sacrifice. Which meant I never asked for the support I was so desperate for.
Because what I needed, maybe more than his apology, was a community of people who could help me hold and honor the stories that led to this one, who could help me uproot the layers of silence learned through too much violence. I needed to be asked what I wanted and what I was hoping for. I needed someone to help me craft those letters, someone to remind me that I could list expectations. I needed someone who was going to sit with me through the fallout. Someone who could read the responses people sent me and tell me to wait before reading them myself. I needed someone beside me to reflect the ways my own trauma, old and new, was informing the process. I needed someone who could show me love that was deeper and more nuanced than just hating him.”
I relate deeply to Barnow’s words here because isolation can steal away our voice, where we put on a brave mask for others. Often society and even friends and family can put tremendous pressure on survivors to ‘move on’ from the harm, to not speak of it, to stay silent, but that too is part of the cycle of violence. If we cannot acknowledge violence happened, how can we ever stop it from replaying again and again? Many therapists and researchers have written of the cycle of domestic violence and how it can sometimes thread through families. Part of that relies on silence and isolation.
Breaking silence and isolation requires the support of others, and it’s not easy to do. Believe me, I’ve struggled with this my whole life, but I’ve made progress on my healing from abuse because of the support of dear friends and good therapists.
This is why Maelle and Verso are able to have any conversation that deals with accountability. Lune, Sciel, Esquie, and Monoco form a support system to help them break the cycle of silence and isolation. This chosen family gives Maelle the love she needs to learn and grow, and they attempt to offer this to Verso as well.
For example, exploring the Reacher area will lead to the peak, where Painted Alicia ignores her brother to speak with Maelle privately — here the color fades into greyscale. She leads Maelle into the cavern at the peak to show her the true axon, and also to express her thoughts to Maelle through gestures and their fencing match.
After Painted Alicia leads Maelle back to the others, the scene snaps back into color. Maelle offers Alicia “a new beginning,” and I think she meant to repaint Alicia’s face and restore her voice. However, Painted Alicia grasps Maelle’s hand and presses it against her, thus thwarting Maelle’s attempt to repaint her face. Instead, she gasps out her desire for Maelle to gommage her. Verso doesn’t have a chance to stop it, because Maelle does as Painted Alicia asks.
Verso responds by trying to stop Maelle, and ends up holding the red petal remains of Painted Alicia. Sciel is at his side to comfort him in his grief.
The conversation they have later at camp delves into the impact of Maelle’s act:
MAELLE: I’m sorry.
VERSO: …
MAELLE: It’s what she wanted. I owed her that much. We owed her that much. I honoured her wishes. That’s something neither you nor Renoir ever did. And not Maman either.
VERSO: … I didn’t get to say goodbye. You didn’t wait. You didn’t give me a chance to persuade her.
MAELLE: She knew what she wanted. You wouldn’t have been able to sway her.
VERSO: She’s not you. You don’t know that. I know her better than you do. But you didn’t even give me the chance to try. You just erased her.
MAELLE: Verso…
VERSO: You’ve lost two brothers. You know what it’s like to lose your sibling and never get the chance to say goodbye.
MAELLE: …
VERSO: You Painters. You just do what you want, you don’t care how it affects the rest of us.
MAELLE: I do care. I know you’re hurting, but the person who made that decision wasn’t me. It was her. It would have been wrong to deny her just so you could try and talk her out of her decision.Here Maelle seeks to understand Verso and why he is upset. She wants him to understand her reasons, where she sought to honor Painted Alicia’s wishes. She argues here for Painted Alicia’s agency in this, and how taking away her agency wouldn’t have been right.
Verso lashes out because of his grief and pain, but his words here “you don’t care how it affects the rest of us,” doesn’t align with the truth of Painted Alicia and Maelle’s actions at the peak of Reacher. Painted Alicia had made her wishes known, where she did not wish to continue in the disabled body Aline had given her in punishment for an action she’d never done. Perhaps there could have been other ways for her to thrive, but Painted Alicia had tried for decades to find that. Yet, perhaps it is irony that she sought the same annihilation that Painted Verso secretly seeks.
Maelle tries, in her own way, to honor the agency of others. To offer them different solutions, but Painted Alicia didn’t want any other solution. She had taken Maelle’s hand to press against her and urged her to gommage her away.
Does Maelle come to understand what Verso is trying to articulate here? Because so far, she gives her reasons and argues for Painted Alicia’s agency. The scene continues:
VERSO: She’s the last of my family. I have no one left now.
MAELLE: You have me. You have us.
VERSO: MAELLE. I wasn’t ready.
MAELLE: I don’t understand. You were ready when you set Papa free. You expected that he would erase the Canvas and everyone in it. Isn’t that the same thing?
VERSO: It’s different! It’s different. Why did she do that?
MAELLE: You know why.
VERSO: …
MAELLE: But you’re right. I should have thought of you. I should have given you a chance to say goodbye. I’m truly sorry, Verso.
VERSO: … *cries* At least she’s free now.Maelle briefly gets defensive because she struggles to understand, but then she takes a moment to think. She may view the two events of setting Renoir free to erase everyone versus her honoring Alicia’s wishes to be erased as equivalent, but Verso does not. We then see Maelle hold herself accountable by putting herself in Verso’s shoes in an effort to understand. She admits that Verso is indeed right. She should have thought of him, and she apologizes. As one continues through the journey, Maelle does her best to honor this by doing better.
She also tries to show Verso that he does have people left. He has Maelle, Lune, Sciel, Monoco, and others as they all have been trying to reach out and build connections with him. He chooses to hold himself in isolation from them, whether he is conscious of it or not.
She actively does her best to hold herself accountable, to learn from her actions, and this shows how she wishes to end the cycle of harm. She wants everyone’s agency to be honored, for people to find what they need, and although she may offer different ways to do that, if the person ultimately rejects a solution, who is Maelle to refuse to honor their decision? For a sixteen-year-old, she’s remarkably mature here.
Verso, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to hold that same self-awareness, or if he did, he seems to have lost it. He’s so caught up in his cycle of violence, that he struggles to see any other solution as viable. To see this, let’s look at a conversation near the start of Act 3, when Maelle returns to the Canvas:
MAELLE: You should have helped me remember.
VERSO: Yeah… I wanted to, but I… I’m sorry.
MAELLE: I’m sorry too. If I’d listened to Maman… if I hadn’t trusted the Writers, Verso would still be alive, and you —
VERSO: Wouldn’t exist.
MAELLE: Wouldn’t be caught in the middle. Maman did a terrible thing, painting you into Verso’s Canvas. Giving you his memories. Pretending the fire only took me. But I’m glad you exist.
VERSO: Your father was right to erase everyone. It’s better this way.
MAELLE: Better for who? Verso would have never wanted his Canvas gone. He loved Esquie and his Gestrals and the Grandis.
VERSO: It was killing my … our mother, staying here so long in a make-believe world with her make-believe family.
MAELLE: It’s not make-believe. It’s not… you’re not.. To me…Here Verso sees only one solution: annihilation. However, his reasons for why he manipulated and lied to Maelle are just that — excuses. So he acknowledges the hurt he did and apologizes. For true accountability to happen, it’s not enough to simply apologize; one’s present and future behaviors will need changed to avoid replicating the harm and continuing the cycle of violence.
For Maelle, she also apologizes, but in this instance, what is there for her to apologize for? Perhaps she shouldn’t have trusted whoever the Writers were, but she is not responsible for them starting a fire and for Verso’s death. Maelle is only responsible for her own actions, not the actions of others. This shows how she’s internalized the shame and guilt Clea and Aline both shoved onto her; both needed someone to blame, and Alicia, the survivor, is a convenient person to lay down the blame. Maelle/Alicia is young and lacking the support to realize that she does not need to carry this blame as it is not hers to bear.
Painted Verso does not try to negate the blame Maelle/Alicia puts on herself. Instead, he tries to convince Maelle that it is better for those in the Canvas to not exist, for the Canvas to be destroyed, but Maelle refuses to accept that destruction of entire people’s is the right answer. She disagrees that everyone in the Canvas is make-believe. To her they are as real as herself. This ties into what I discussed in my Right to Exist essay.
I wrote there:
We have now returned to one of the most crucial questions in the game: What is the right decision in regards to the fate of the Canvas people and the fate of Alicia/Maelle? As I have hopefully shown thus far, erasing people’s temporal realities causes immense harm and is genocide; people have a right to exist, and sacrificing them for the ‘greater good of society’ (or in this case the Dessendre family) cannot ever be the morally right answer.
Necrosecurity, as I spoke of earlier, paints a bleak and death-filled reality, where healing cannot ever take place because denial and control is at its roots. [Defined as sacrificing a population for the greater ‘good’ of society.] Until people’s temporal realities are respected and their agency honored, healing will forever stay out of reach.
Thus, escaping pain by committing genocide is not healing. It’s a continuation of the cycle of violence. The marginalized populations facing genocide have a right to exist, and their temporal realities are as valid and important as the oppressor. Just as the temporal reality of the Canvas people are as valid and important as the Dessendre family.
Healing can only happen when the cycle of violence ends.
Verso tries to justify the death and destruction as necessary to end the cycle, but Maelle refuses to accept that reasoning. She believes Verso is wrong when he claims his self and those of the Canvas people are make-believe, and she believes they have a right to exist. She acknowledges harm happened to Painted Verso. She apologizes for her part in it. This is a step forward in the addressing of harm and ending the cycle: acknowledging what happened and why it wasn’t okay.
Again, Maelle cannot repair what her mother did because it’s not her burden to bear. Only Aline can take responsibility for her own actions. Maelle can only take responsibility for Maelle’s actions, which Maelle tries her best to do. She tries to hold herself accountable, which is something neither Clea nor Aline ever seem to do. This act of being accountable seems to have been taught to Maelle perhaps by Renoir, but far more likely it was Gustave, Lune, Sciel, and the Lumierians who taught her this.
She may have regained her memories from the real world, but that doesn’t mean she lost her memories of growing up as a Lumierian. She holds both in her head, as she will admit to Lune and Sciel after she brings them back:
MAELLE: I’m sorry. I didn’t — My memories — I would’ve told you if I’d known —
LUNE: Don’t apologize. You were trapped too. You lived among us. You’re one of us. Even if you’re also one of them.
MAELLE: It’s… so weird. I have memories of two childhoods. Two homes. Two Lumieres.
SCIEL: You’re not an orphan anymore. You just found your family. Don’t you want to be with them?
MAELLE: I love my family, but … they’re all gone. In one way of another. And you’re my family too. So are Gustave and Emma. And I didn’t see it at the time, but all the families who took turns taking care of me…Here Maelle, once again, tries to take on burdens that aren’t hers to hold. She had no memory of being a Paintress, so how could she have told them? Lune understands this and gently points this out to her. To root her in the facts of what they now know. She accepts who Maelle is — Maelle’s full self of being of Lune’s Lumiere but also of the Dessendre’s Lumiere — and provides comfort in this way.
Sciel, in turn, asks a crucial question, even though her voice aches with grief. “Don’t you want to be with them?”
Maelle’s answer is heart-rending, because truthfully, her family is gone. Clea is off fighting a one-person war with the Writers, Aline — Maelle’s mother — blames Maelle and casts her aside, Renoir may seek to bring Maelle back but he too has been neglectful of her, and Verso is gone. So what roots her in the Dessendre World? There she is disabled with no support system and half the family is abusive toward her (as I discuss in my Disability essay). So in a way, her Dessendre family is “gone” in the sense they do not truly support her, not like the Canvas Lumierians.
When Maelle blames herself for those that have harmed her or those she loved, she exhibits a common traumatic response; when she apologizes for actions that aren’t truly hers to own, that is also a traumatic response.
I know I’ve fallen into those trauma responses, where I had internalized the blame that it was my fault for the abuse done to me, my fault for the sexual assault. However, that blame is false. In reality, it wasn’t my fault as I did not do those actions. Those actions were done by other people to me. Just as Maelle did not paint Painted Verso, Aline did that. Just as Maelle didn’t start the fire, the Writers did that. Just as Maelle didn’t kill Verso, the fire and whoever started the fire did that. Just as Maelle didn’t lie to Lune and Sciel, she had no memories of her Dessendre life and thus no information to share; instead, Verso had that information and chose to not share it.
Maelle still tries to take accountability, but truthfully, it is not hers to bear. Lune gently teaches her that in that scene above.
Understanding these truths are hard when society and/or loved ones pressure us into thinking it’s our fault we were hurt. That’s just a falsehood to avoid accountability and to pressure survivors into silence, which effectively continues the cycle of violence.
To break out of that cycle, we must acknowledge that we are only responsible for our own actions and speech. Then we must separate out shame and guilt. We must choose to heal and continue toward healing no matter how hard that trajectory may become. But to even make that choice requires us to have support of others, to help us see when we are falling back into harmful thought processes that inhibit our ability to heal. Those that support us help us stay accountable to the process of healing.
Lune and Sciel both act as supporters for Maelle here. Lune, especially as she has also been hurt by Verso’s actions, seeks to hold Verso accountable. At this point in the game, Lune acts as a protective older sister to Maelle, while Sciel often falls into a motherly role. That’s part of how chosen families relate to one another — they fall into roles with one another, and those roles may change depending on the situation. Sometimes Maelle may be the more sisterly one to offer support to Lune or Sciel.
Chosen family can be a powerful support group and a crucial one, especially if one’s biological family has been abusive toward us. In the case of Maelle, some of her family members have been abusive toward her. So her chosen family provides the support for Maelle to work toward healing from that.
So what about Painted Verso? How does he hold himself accountable after this massive reveal? He hid the truth of who Maelle was from not only Maelle but everyone in the party. He manipulated them toward his end-goals. He chooses to talk to each individually, which the player can choose which character to start these conversations (or could choose to avoid them). If the player chooses to have these conversations, then how do they go?
Lune calls Painted Verso out for his lies:
LUNE: I was right not to trust you.
VERSO: And what would you have done in my position?
LUNE: I wouldn’t have betrayed my expedition. I would have warned them that everyone they cared about was about to be erased. That THEY were about to be erased. I would have told them the truth. Because after everything we’ve been through, we deserved that.
VERSO: So you’d choose your expedition over your mother?
LUNE: That’s your problem. You think in false dichotomies. It wasn’t an “either / or” a situation. Other solutions were possible, if you’d only trusted us enough to ask.
VERSO: Knowing what you know now, would you have helped me force my mother out of the Canvas?
LUNE: … *sighs*
VERSO: I don’t apologize for saving her. But I am sorry I broke your trust. And I will do everything I can to help bring everyone back.
LUNE: I guess we’ll see.Here Verso is intent on his reasons for his lies and manipulations. Lune, of course, points to the faults in his argument, because there might have been more solutions possible. Verso’s response is to put Lune on the spot, which when it comes to intense conversations like this? It’s very hard to consider alternatives when one is upset, so of course Lune couldn’t respond right away. She takes her time deliberating and analyzing possible solutions. Put her on the spot? And she falls quiet because she has not been given adequate time to process the information and analyze for other solutions. So Verso acts rather unfairly toward her, and then makes a promise to win back her trust.
For Sciel, she processes her anger and hurt differently. She may have chosen to ‘get over’ her anger, but the hurt in her voice betrays how she feels. She tries to keep her tone light, but the desperate hope still slips through. Their conversation ends with her saying:
SCIEL: As long as you help me bring Pierre back. You owe me.
VERSO: You got it.Once again, he makes a promise. Yet, his conversation with Maelle shows he may not honor the promise to Lune and Sciel:
MAELLE: We have to push Papa out of the Canvas before he erases everything.
VERSO: I’m surprised he hasn’t already.
MAELLE: He’s been weakened by his battle with Maman. That’s probably why he hasn’t come after us. But it won’t stop him for long.
VERSO: If you and your father keep fighting, you risk breaking the world again. Another Fracture, but this time, it might be you trapped inside the Monolith.
MAELLE: What’s the alternative?
VERSO: Maybe… maybe you should go home.
MAELLE: Verso…
VERSO: You’re fighting each other but you’re all doing the same thing.
MAELLE: No.
VERSO: Aline wants her son back. Renoir wants you and Aline back. You want Gustave back. The cycle we needed to break wasn’t the Gommage. It’s your family’s cycle of grief.
MAELLE: …
VERSO: Our whole world carries the burden of your family’s grief.Although there is truth that the Canvas world carries the burden of the Dessendre’s family’s grief, he makes an assumption about Maelle’s motivations. Yes, Maelle may want Gustave back, but she earlier clarified that she doesn’t believe Painted Verso nor the Canvas people are ‘make-believe.’ She views them as real, and she refuses to let people die simply because her father decided they were a threat. So his assertion that it’s her continuing the cycle fails to understand the complexity in her motivations.
Instead, Verso tries to argue again why Maelle should leave the Canvas, but if she does, that means Renoir will finish erasing the Canvas and Lune and Sciel will never see their friends and family again. In fact, Lune and Sciel will cease to exist too. This conversation reveals that Verso is simply telling Lune and Sciel what they want to hear so that they can aid him in his goals. He isn’t holding himself accountable here. He’s manipulating everyone to push them toward the end-goal that he’s decided is best.
In doing this, he shows a lack of ability to understand and learn from the hurt and pain he’s done to others. He’s not really listening to them because he’s mapped out ways to carefully push each person into the actions he needs for his own goals. Thus, he’s continuing the cycle of violence.
Maelle has made it clear she wants the cycle of violence to end. She wants to save the Canvas people, because she believes they have a right to exist, that they are not ‘make-believe’ but real. Yet in these conversations, Verso turns up his charm and manipulation tactics to try to tweak the situation to his benefit. He wants Maelle to give up and leave the canvas so Renoir can erase it. He needs Lune and Sciel to work with them so that he can reach Renoir as he suspects that confrontation will be the only way he can push Maelle out of the Canvas.
Healing cannot happen in a manipulative environment that continues to cause harm to others. In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. The first step:
“‘Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Thom here lists what Verso struggles to do in these conversations. He listens but is also defensive with Lune about his actions and proceeds to make excuses for his actions. In a way, Verso struggles to not see these confrontation as an attack, but truthfully, Lune calling out the harm isn’t an attack, it’s a consequence. Pointing out harm isn’t an attack but a courageous moment of honesty and vulnerability. Whether Verso sees that gift of vulnerability is hard to say as his actions and words are conflict depending on the person to whom he speaks.
Verso tends to make himself the center of the story being told in both Lune and Maelle’s conversations. The only one he doesn’t do this with is Sciel, but then Sciel doesn’t really give him that chance. Sciel recognizes that he speaks to give his reasons, and she doesn’t want to hear it, so she instead takes the conversation toward what they will do next. It’s a masterful way of pivoting the conversation to a more active form of accountability — Sciel is essentially asking Verso, “So, you hurt us, what are you going to do to fix this? Here’s one solution.”
Verso accepts Sciel’s solution, but then his conversation with Maelle, he goes on the rampage. He points out her family’s cycle of grief continues to hurt this Canvas, but he also knows that if Maelle leaves, there is no possible way he can honor his promises to Sciel and Lune. He speaks of a cycle of grief that causes harm, which is important to acknowledge, yet he refuses to listen to what Maelle is saying. In turn, Maelle goes quiet, which she often does to think over what others have said.
Thus, Verso’s defensiveness with Lune and Maelle ends up being:
“… the cycle of violence talking. This is the script that rape culture has built for us: a script in which there must be a hero and a villain, a right and a wrong, an accuser and an accused. What if we understood being confronted about perpetuating abuse as an act of courage — even a gift — on the part of the survivor?
What if, instead of reacting immediately in our own defense, we instead took the time to listen, to really try to understand the harm we might have done to another person?
When we think of accountability in terms of listening and love instead of accusation and punishment, everything changes. Listenign without becoming defensive does not necessarily mean relinquishing one’s own truth. We must be able to make room for varying perspectives and multiple emotional truths in our hearts.”
Painted Verso doesn’t make room for varying perspectives or multiple emotional truths. He may take some responsibility for his actions, or at least acknowledges the harm his actions have done, where he takes on only what he has done — no more, no less, but he doesn’t truly grow from that.
Thom writes how taking responsibility for the abuse is a crucial step, but one must also “accept that your reasons are not excuses.”
There is no reason good enough to excuse abusive behavior. Reasons help us understand abuse, but they do not excuse it. Accepting this is essential to transforming culpability into accountability and turning justice into healing.
Painted Verso spends a lot of time giving his reasons and expecting that to excuse his actions. Lune will have none of it as his reasons doesn’t excuse his lying and manipulative actions. He didn’t just betray them but also lied to them and manipulated them in harmful ways. Can Verso recognize the harm and truly be accountable?
This is where support of others can be crucial. Thom writes:
“When having a dialogue with someone who has been abused, it’s essential to give the survivor the space to take the lead in expressive their needs and setting boundaries. You should also take time to think about your own needs and boundaries without making the person you have harmed take care of you. This is why having support in the community is crucial. If basic needs are going unmet, no one can heal from abuse, nor can anyone truly be accountable.
If you have abused someone, it’s not up to you to decide how the process of healing or accountability should work. This doesn’t mean that you don’t get to have rights or boundaries, or that you can’t contribute actively to the process. It means that you don’t get to say that the person you have hurt is “crazy” or that what they are expressing doesn’t matter.
Instead, it might be good idea to try asking the person who has confronted you questions like these: what do you need right now? Is there anything I can do to make this feel better? How much contact would you like to have with me going forward? If we share a community, how should I navigate situations where we might end up int he same place? How does this conversation feel for you, right now?
At the same time, it’s important to understand that the needs of survivors of abuse can change over time, and that survivors may not always know right away — or ever — what their needs are.
Being accountable and responsible for abuse means being patient, flexible, and reflective about the process of having dialogue with the survivor.”
It’s crucial to note here that Thom is not saying that the survivor is an expert on accountability or that they should have full control over the process. Thom adds:
“I feel strongly that as long as punishment remains at the center of our thinking around accountability and justice, survivor-led processes are doomed to fall into the trap of individuals desperately trying to avoid accountability out of fear. Survivor-led, to me, means that survivors get to lead their own process of recovery, that survivors are given space to tell their stories and speak their needs (which criminal justice usually does not allow).
It does not mean that people who have been deeply wounded are suddenly handed full responsibility for a community dialogue and rehabilitation process. Survivor-led does not mean that the community gets to abdicate its responsibility for providing support, safety, expertise, and leadership in making healing happen.”
There are multiple paths in the accountability and healing process: the survivor, the one who caused harm, and the community. These paths may intersect at times, but Thom is arguing that none should exert control over the other’s path. Instead, listening, understanding, honoring boundaries, and opening onself up to changing present and future behaviors is what ‘survivor-led’ should mean.
Thom also makes it clear that the community itself needs to be involved to lay the groundwork to meet the needs of those within this process. Support by building safety, sharing expertise to help guide, and providing leadership to keep those involved accountable are all needed to assist in the healing process here.
Community support allows those involved to have someone with which to work through their emotions and thoughts. By working through emotions and thoughts, one can come to understand one’s own behaviors, emotions, actions, and through that find a path forward. This work means they are also holding themself accountable in the sense they are continuing to move forward on the path toward healing. Supportive friends, family, and community members can assist in helping those in this process stay on the healing path — that’s another type of accountability.
Supportive community is is what Painted Verso lacks. He does not allow anyone to truly be in community with him, and those that try are held at arm’s length with him manipulating events toward his own ends. Whether he ever allowed community to help him work through his trauma and pain relies on his own shared stories, of which seem suspect since what he says to one person doesn’t always align with what he says to another of the same event. The best we have is a journal entry from a prior expedition where he expresses his pain and hopes — hopes he doesn’t seem to have in Maelle’s time.
VERSO’S JOURNAL:
I miss you. I don’t have the right to miss you but I do. I wish I could talk to you. Tell you. Fuck. I don’t know what I would tell you. Just ask that you forgive me. Julie, forgive me. I’m not… I’m not a traitor. I’m not. I’m trying to save… I’m trying to save us all. But you’re right. I am a coward. I’m a fucking coward. You deserved to know why. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face you properly. Not and still do what had to be done. Papa believes you are Clea’s creation, and even if you’re not, we can no longer trust you. But I think you just wanted answers.
Why? Why couldn’t you just let it go? Why did you convince them to abduct me? Interrogate me? No. I shouldn’t say that. You thought I was a traitor. You were doing what you thought was right, just like we are. I swear to you, I’m doing what’s right. I should have known when you started questioning things that you wouldn’t be fooled. But how could I even explain? You’d have thought I’d gone mad. Doppelgangers. Countless worlds. But Papa’s right. We can’t take the risk. Too much is at stake. Too much. It had to be done. It had to. Clea already took our sister. If we want to save our family, our world, our people, we can’t take any chances. And once we free Maman, she… she’ll bring you back. It won’t be forever. I promise. We deserve to live. All of us. We deserve to exist.
In this journal, Verso admits to his pain and how much he misses Julie, who seems to be a loved one. He justifies his actions, but also shows a willingness to understand why Julie did what she thought was right. He does his best to not internalize the hurtful words that Julie and her expedition likely threw at him — traitor for one. However, he makes a crucial mistake here by assuming Julie’s reactions to the actual truth. He doesn’t allow her to have agency, and instead took that from her by keeping her in the dark. This fueled distrust, especially as he acknowledges Julie had started to question things and notice what doesn’t make sense. Julie wanted answers, and Verso, here at least, acknowledges that she did deserve to know why things transpired the way they did.
He also asserts that they “deserve to exist.” Yet, in Maelle’s time, he seems to have changed his mind entirely as he spends far too much energy trying to convince Maelle to let the Canvas be erased. In his ending, he goes to great lengths to make sure the Canvas is erased. So he breaks all of his promises, and decides that no one deserves to exist in the Canvas. That they are not real and thus it is okay to erase populations.
Why does he come to this conclusion? Partly due to the massive amount of death he witnesses over the decades, and also because he doesn’t have a community to hold him accountable. When one is isolated like Painted Verso, it is all too easy to fall into despair and a desire for annihilation. This is why those who are suicidal shouldn’t be left alone, but need supportive family and friends to help them heal and find new meaning in life.
In Maelle’s ending, Maelle will try to give Verso that opportunity when she offers him the choice of “if you could grow old, would you… find a reason to smile?”
She’s trying to break the cycle of violence by making sure Verso doesn’t have to live the immortal life he so abhors. So she offers solutions that doesn’t end in a genocide of peoples or Painted Verso’s death. Despite the harm Verso has done, Maelle seeks to humanize him and offer him a compromise. Her ending hints strongly that he accepts her alternate solution and seems to find some hope in it, as he does indeed grow old.
This humanization of the person causing harm is also critical to the healing process. The survivor of abuse doesn’t have to be the one to humanize the one causing harm, but those in the community ought to be able to step in for that.
In another essay in the Beyond Survival Anthology, there is an excerpt from the handbook, Ending Child Sexual Abuse:
“We see that abuse happens when one person believes, consciously or unconsciously, that their needs, wants, and preferences take precedence over others. People engaging in abusive behaviors are often numb to, or seemingly unable to feel, the impacts of their behaviors on others.
A process of accountability and transformation requires that the person who has been harmful:
- Stop doing the harm.
- Feels empathy and remorse for the pain and impact of their actions.
- Takes measures, like restitution or reparations, to address the harm caused.
- Takes measures to prevent future harm.
- Works to understand the root causes of their harmful behavior.
- Engages in the ongoing work of accountability, healing, and integration.
- Take action and organizes to support others to heal or to be part of changing community and social conditions that allow for CSA and other forms of violence.”
Here the list shows how difficult healing can be, and how scary it is to make the choice to heal. Yet, it’s crucial for ending the cycle of violence to not dehumanize anyone involved. Dehumanization continues the cycle of violence. As the handbook excerpt says:
“It is important to center the needs of those most directly impacted by the harm in a situation. We also hold that recognizing and attending to the humanity of those who harm is a central aspect of transforming our families, communities, and society. Seeing and dignifying the healing needs of people who abuse also runs counter to the idea that some people “out there” are “monsters” who are expendable or need to be “weeded out.” By standing for everyone’s need for healing, we challenge the dehumanizing logic that is central to systems of oppression, domination, and abuse. By standing for everyone’s need for healing, we maintain our commitment to a vision of true liberation.”
Part of this process means those who cause harm need to understand that not all consequences are “harm.” Consequences to their actions are often necessary and may not be a form of “harm.” For example, Lune calling out the harm of Verso’s lies is the consequence of his actions. She lost trust in him is another consequence. Him having to earn back that trust is yet another consequence. None of these consequences are “harms” done to Verso. It’s simply part of the accountability process.
Humanizing those involved are absolutely critical to ending the cycle of violence. When people are dehumanized, they are stripped of who they are, and this causes harm to all involved. If the cycle of violence is to be ended, then those involved must be humanized and their dignity honored.
This is incredibly difficult to do at times. As a survivor of abuse, I struggled greatly with wanting my abuser to feel the weight of my pain, but through therapy, I learned that truthfully I didn’t want my abuser to be harmed in return. I wanted the cycle of abuse to end. That revelation allowed me to move past the anger and make a conscious choice to heal.
This conscious choice to heal is required of those that cause harm as well. However, shame, guilt, and fear can often make that choice extremely difficult.
Both Verso and Maelle struggle with shame and guilt. Maelle’s guilt and shame lay in her internalizing the blame Aline and Clea lay at her feet. Except, the fire is not Maelle’s fault, but that of the Writers that cause it. Her guilt and shame originate from actions that are not her own.
However, for Verso, his guilt and shame do originate from his own actions, for he did kill members of his prior expeditions, he did lie to people, and he did manipulate people for his own ends. However, it’s crucial to separate shame from guilt. In Kai Cheng Thom’s essay, shame and guilt is defined:
“Shame and social stigma are powerful emotional forces that can prevent us from holding ourselves accountable for being abusive. We don’t want to admit to “being that person,” so we don’t admit to having been abusive at all.
Some people might suggest that people who have been abusive ought to feel shame — after all, perpetuating abuse is wrong. I would argue, though, that this is where the difference between guilt and shame is key. Guilt is feeling bad about something you’ve done; shame is feeling bad about who you are. People who have been abusive should feel guilty for the specific acts of abuse they are responsible for. They should not feel shame about who they are because this means that abuse has become a part of their identity. It means they believe that they are fundamentally a bad person — in other words, “an abuser.”
But if you believe that you are an “abuser,” a bad person who hurts others, then you have already lost the struggle for change — because we cannot change who we are. If you believe that you are a fundamentally good person who has done hurtful or abusive things, then you open the possibility for change.”
When Thom says we “cannot change who we are,” this is in regard to our identities and personality. The “possibility for change” is in regard to our decisions, actions, and future decisions and actions. Those we can change, but we shouldn’t try to alter our personality and identity to be someone we are not. We should focus on how to make better decisions and to act in ways that are more healthy and holistic for us and those around us.
Verso, when he first introduces himself to Expedition 33, calls himself a liar. By doing so, he shows he internalized his actions as part of his identity. This makes it very difficult to hold oneself accountable and being open to the “possibility for change.” If he views lying as crucial to his identity, then why should he stop? It’s who he is, isn’t it? It’s a complete 180 from his journal entry where he refused to accept ‘traitor’ as being who he is.
But lying isn’t who he truly is. He’s, instead, taken a behavior and marked it as a personality trait. Truthfully, his personality isn’t a lying manipulator — we can see bits and pieces of who he is in the scenes where he plays a piano with Maelle, goes out of his way to help Sciel move past her fear of water, shares music with Lune, chats with Esquie, or hangs out with Monoco. He’s a bit silly, fun-loving, jokester, that wants to do the right thing but doesn’t know how. He’s trapped in a cycle of his own making, yet he’s unwilling to recognize his own cycle. Instead, he internalizes the lies as part of who he is, when it’s not — that’s his trauma speaking.
Until Verso can recognize his own cycle of violence and shame, he remains trapped in his cycle, unable to acknowledge his abuse and never able to progress toward healing. Even in his ending, when he fights Maelle to force her from the Canvas, his solution to his cycle is to annihilate himself and everyone in the Canvas. He refuses to see another way. Yet, until he recognizes that his harmful behaviors are not core to his personality, he won’t ever see how to stop his cycle of harm.
This is where Thom goes on to state that as much as those who cause harm shouldn’t “expect anyone to forgive you,” they should, however, forgive themselves:
“Being accountable is not about earning forgiveness. This is to say, it doesn’t matter how accountable you are — nobody has to forgive you for being abusive, least of all the person you have abused. In fact, using the process of “doing” accountability to manipulate or coerce someone into their forgiveness to you is an extension of the abuse dynamic. It center the abuser, not the survivor. One shouldn’t aim for forgiveness when holding oneself accountable. Rather self-accountability is about learning how we have harmed others, why we have harmed others, and how we can stop.
But… you do have to forgive yourself. Because you can’t stop hurting other people until you stop hurting yourself. When one is abusive, when one is hurting so much on the inside that it feels like the only way to make it stop is to hurt other people, it can be terrifying to face the hard truth of words like abuse and accountability. One might rather blame others, blame society, blame the people we love, instead of ourselves.
This is true, I think, of community as well as individuals. It is so much easier, so much simpler, to create hard lines between good and bad people, to create walls to shut the shadowy archetype of “the abuser” out instead of mirrors to look at the abuser within.
Perhaps this is why self-accountability tools like this list are so rare. It takes courage to be accountable. To decide to heal. But when we do decide, we discover incredible new possibilities. There is good and bad in everyone. Anyone can heal, given the right circumstances, and everyone can heal, given the same. You are capable of loving and being loved. Always. Always. Always.”
These are critical points for accountability. The process isn’t so we can “earn forgiveness” like it’s some sort of game achievement. Accountability is about learning, listening, seeking to understand why we did what we did, and finding solutions on how we can stop. Where we end the cycle of violence and instead move into a trajectory toward healing and choosing actions that cause the least harm and the most good.
And what is the most good? How do we know what is good?
To understand what ‘good’ means, we need to briefly explore ethics and morality. This game, thankfully, has already given us that exploration already in the Lumierians — Gustave and Lune in particular. I won’t dig too deeply into this as I feel that Lord Khoury does a much better job in his video here (which I recommend as he lays out an excellent case for why Maelle’s ending is a morally good one). I will simply briefly highlight Gustave’s and Lune’s use of Utilitarianism.
Consequences and Utilitarianism
Gustave, at the start of the game points out how the Gommage seems almost gentle, how it makes Lumiere seem complacent, but it is no less violent. He defines the act of violence and injustice, and in his temporal reality, Lumiere identified the best route to liberation is through confrontation with the Paintress.
Throughout the Prologue and Act 1, we are shown how Gustave lives his morals and how he determines actions to be morally good. These deliberations rely on what is known as utilitarianism. The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines this as:
“…utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. There are many ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is that the theory is a form of consequentialism: the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced. What distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope of the relevant consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought to maximize the overall good — that is, consider the good of others as well as one’s own good.”
Gustave’s moralism shows through the projects he describes — teaching his apprentices, Aquafarms, etc. — and in how he interacts with those around him. He understands quite well the consequences of possible actions, and chooses the ones that will do the most good.
For example, when Expedition 33 is separated, Gustave determines the right action is to seek Maelle. He evaluates the consequences of this, and although his emotions push for a specific end result, he still evaluates based on the known information at that time. As in, the note inscribed on the Indigo Tree, the lack of survivors at the Indigo Tree meeting point, and the knowledge of how difficult it is to survive alone.
GUSTAVE: It’s a lead, or only lead, whoever this is has Maelle. We have to go.
LUNE: No, not yet. Protocol is to regroup at rendevous point and wait three days. This message feels off. If it was an Expeditioner, they would have stayed here. Everyone knows the protocol.
GUSTAVE: Right, but they may have been in danger. Maybe this location has been compromised. Things change in the field.
LUNE: There’s a reason its protocol.
GUSTAVE: Protocol doesn’t cover every contingency. You know that.
LUNE: There’s a reason its Protocol. We designed it to yield the optimal result in the vast majority of situations.
GUSTAVE: Was our entire team dying part of that “optimal result?”
LUNE: …
GUSTAVE: Look, I’m going after Maelle. Protocol also states ‘never move solo.’ I’ll let you choose what protocol to break.Here we see how both Gustave and Lune lay out their reasoning for the preferred actions. Gustave focuses on the consequences and concludes going after Maelle will save the most lives based on their current information. Lune, who attempts to argue for the Protocol, finds herself faced with possible consequences that could either endanger Gustave — if he goes alone — or herself — if she stays and he goes — or the mission — if the team is split up.
Lune follows him because of the two protocols they are breaking — one results in a higher number of lives saved and better chance at surviving long enough to complete their mission. Thus, after evaluating what is known and the consequences of various actions, she determines the action that achieve the most good.
In survival, determining the consequences of actions that result in the most lives saved fits firmly in the utilitarianism worldview. Thus, in determining what actions are ‘good,’ it is crucial to seek to understand the consequences of that action for everyone — not just ourselves. This is where Verso falls short as his understanding of the consequences of his actions revolves around the impact on himself; he continues to assert his view, even when others protest and show the harm of it.
Part of that is because he doesn’t show a willingness to examine the situation fully with other people. He’s kept himself relatively isolated for decades, and sought to meet his needs on his own. Isolation can easily distort our thinking and lead us toward despair.
With the Lumierians, we see an alternate route. Gustave and Lune actively talk through the situation at the Indigo Tree. Gustave lays out his analysis and Lune does as well. Gustave, however, focuses on the lives he can actively save in that moment rather than the lives they do not know still live or not. Though this dialogue, the two examine consequences of their actions. Both go back and forth in acknowledging what the other is saying, and also responding to the concerns brought up. In the end, Gustave’s decision to go after Maelle is vindicated in his eyes, and he offers Lune a choice. Lune, in turn, honors the protocol that will save the most lives — staying with Gustave and saving someone that is likely still alive. Considering, they have no further data on anyone else surviving, going after Maelle ends up being justified as the ‘good’ decision through the consequences of their actions.
We see this same sort of analysis play out a few times in Act 1 with how the group analyzes the situation, examines consequences, and come to a decision. Gustave and Lune lead the charge here, and their example provides a litmus test for Maelle to use in trying to determine what decisions are ‘good.’
For another example, Gustave and Lune’s intense fight before they find Maelle:
GUSTAVE: I am not letting Maelle die out here. I’m taking her home.
LUNE: What? No, no, no, we have a mission —
GUSTAVE: Oh, fuck the mission! Fuck the mission, Lune. What are we gonna do? Tell me. What are we gonna do? We’re gonna take down the Paintress, just the three of us? My — my gun and your sparks?
LUNE: I didn’t take you for a coward.
GUSTAVE: I’m not a coward.
LUNE: You swore the oath. “When one falls, we continue.”
GUSTAVE: Yes, I know.
LUNE: When one falls. WHEN one falls. Not if. When. We knew not all of us would make it. But “We Continue.” As long even one of us stands, our fight is not over.
GUSTAVE: But I’m not afraid to fight, it’s just Maelle, she’s —
LUNE: Maelle swore the same oath!
GUSTAVE: I know that!
LUNE: She choose her life! Come on, we always said that the future of Lumiere was more important than any —
GUSTAVE: individual life, yes.
LUNE: Do you still believe that?Here Lune reminds Gustave of the consequences of swearing their oath. Consequences all of them knew before they swore the oath. She also makes it clear that Maelle also swore this oath, knowing the risks, and that she choose that. Lune is reminding Gustave of Maelle’s agency. Through this conversation, she’s challenging him on the consequences of what will happen if he takes Maelle back: he’d break his oath, he’d leave Lune here to continue alone, he’d violate Maelle’s agency, and he would put the future of Lumiere at risk.
This conversation pushes Gustave toward the ‘good’ decision, which is to honor Maelle’s agency. Something he will confirm in a later conversation after they are reunited with Maelle and have found Sciel with the Gestrals:
GUSTAVE: Maybe you should stay…
MAELLE: What?
GUSTAVE: It’s safer in the village.
MAELLE: And miss the change to meet Esquie? No way.
GUSTAVE: Maelle…
MAELLE: I’m okay. We stick together.This conversation proved Lune to be correct. The consequences Lune had laid out as her reasoning on the ‘good choice,’ made it clear that Maelle had chosen this life. Gustave here confirms it with Maelle herself, and he then honors that choice.
Thus, Gustave and Lune provide excellent examples of the use of utilitarianism for determining the morally ‘good’ choice, as well as how to handle conflict. They also show how the Canvas Lumierians honor the agency of others.
It’s through our dialogue with those around us that we come to understand possible consequences and how they may impact others. That dialog then allows us to generate ideas that cause the least harm to all involved and saves the most lives (or in less dire situations, helps the most people feel heard, understood, and agency honored). This can be difficult to do, and in times of danger, we often act on instinct because there isn’t enough time to deliberate on consequences.
However, after the danger is over, we must be willing to analyze what happened and take accountability for our actions. We must not take on the responsibility of other people’s actions, only take on our own. We need to listen to others, and they in turn listen to us. We need to be open to change behaviors if we cause harm, which we see Lune, Gustave, Maelle, and Sciel do on their journey. That’s part of holding one another accountable and choosing healing.
Maelle having the support of her Canvas family is critical to her own journey toward healing. The scene where Maelle has a waking nightmare in Act 1 after the Gestral Village, we see Gustave, Sciel, and Lune gather around her to comfort her. They bring down her panic, and stay at her side until she’s calm. This level of care is not shown by the Dessendre family toward Maelle. Thus, Maelle finds her strongest support system within the Canvas, away from an environment of abuse and neglect. This chosen family helps hold her accountable and supports her as she makes decisions to end the cycle of violence. To choose to heal.
Verso struggles to understand this lesson the entirety of the game. The only clue we are given that he may finally learn it is in Maelle’s ending, when Maelle offers a different solution to his desire to cease his immortal life. He still lives in her ending, but he’s grown old. His fingers find it harder to play the piano — hence the dissonance at first before he plays. Perhaps in this ending he learns how to be accountable and chooses healing. The game seems to imply it, but the game also leaves it open-ended.
In Verso’s ending, Verso doesn’t choose healing but instead chooses to take the agency from everyone involved — Maelle, the faded boy, the different Canvas peoples — and fades into annihilation. Maelle, then, returns to life as Alicia Dessendre, who is disabled and essentially institutionalized in her family’s manor. She has no support system, and her mother still looks at her with disdain. Clea still offers no support, only goes off to do her one-person war. In the ending, Renoir doesn’t even look at Alicia — only at Aline. Alicia stands isolated, and tries to smile, tries to see anything good in this, but instead, she hallucinates the family she’s lost. As they gommage away, I noticed how her shoulders droop and she holds Esquie tighter. A sign that her hope evaporates with them? Again, the game leaves it open-ended.
When still in an abusive environment, healing is out of reach, even if one chooses it, because the circumstances causing the trauma is ongoing. One must exit the abusive environment, but to do so often requires support of others to assist in finding a safer place to be. If there is no one there to provide the necessary support to heal, then it is incredibly difficult to actively heal.
Thus, healing from grief and from abuse both require breaking cycles, but to break those cycles, we need the necessarily family/friends and/or community support. It is not truly possible to do this when we are isolated, because isolation itself is a form of harm that can easily lead us into despair, as we saw with Painted Verso.
Breaking the cycle of violence can only happen when we have built up a community of people who love us for who we are. Then and only then, will we have the support to choose to heal, to hold ourselves accountable, to actively listen to others, and when needed alter our behaviors toward more healthy patterns.
This is not an easy process, and it will require hard work from all involved. Yet the payoff is a healthier existence and a chance to thrive rather than just survive.
#abuse #accountability #Characters #clairObscurExpedition33 #disability #GameAnalysis #gameNarrative #healing #healingJourney #justice #mentalHealth #narrativeAnalysis #responsibility #transformativeJustice #writing
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Clair Obscur: To be accountable to those that come after
CROSSPOST FROM COMRADERY. Part of a three part series: Disability (part 1), Right to Exist (part 2), and Accountability and Healing (part 3).
In my prior essays, I related themes woven through Clair Obscur to show how it can parallel real world complexities and oppression.
For the character of Alicia and Gustave (and even Lune if we accept my assertion of her as neurodivergent), disability cords through the story and asks questions the game may not have intended. I explored in that essay how Disability was a class constructed by capitalism to control labor and those unable to labor, and through that I showed how disability has been used to denote evil and bad throughout American history. But Clair Obscur twists those tropes on their head and refuses to villianize the disabled within the game. Instead, Alicia, Gustave, and others are given complex journeys and heralded as heroes in a way. Yet, by the end, the final ending choice between Verso and Maelle felt as if the player was the judge determining the fate of the disabled person for them. I wrote:
Will we be given the care and support we need to thrive? Will we be given agency to choose our own fate and route to healing?
Clair Obscur offers that choice to the player, thus placing the fate of a disabled person in their hands. In a way, the player acts as the judge who determines the fate of a disabled person, to determine whether they ever access the care and benefits they need. It is a replica of how our real world works, and it forces a painful glimpse into the struggles of disabled people.
This essay led me to my next where I explored the nature of the Canvas people and whether they are real. I examined how this paralleled dehumanizing narratives that subjugate and destroy unique cultures. I laid down a map of the shifting temporal realities the game presents through the different main characters of each act: Gustave (Lumierian reality), Verso (immortal painted Dessendre reality), and Maelle (both Dessendre reality and Lumierian reality). How weaving these different realities forces us to contend with the nature of what is real and who is allowed to exist within that reality.
The conclusion I came to, which perhaps will not surprise anyone reading my writings, is that I chose the ending that gave agency to people and saved the most lives. I could not accept that the unique lives of those in the Canvas were less than the Dessendre family. Nor could I accept anyone deciding for a disabled person how they must exist and heal.
By exploring these darker aspects of Clair Obscur, I undoubtedly focused on the more abusive and manipulative aspects of the Dessendre family to show how unsupportive they’ve been to Alicia/Maelle. The evidence painted within the game left me uneasy about the Dessendre family, partly informed by my own traumas as a queer nonbinary disabled person. Yes, they do love each other but love does not mean abuse cannot happen or exist, which I argued in my essay on Disability. That darkness echoed trauma and pain that destroying the Canvas cannot truly heal. A cycle of violence doesn’t heal through the use of more violence, but only when the cycle is stopped.
One could argue that Verso sought to stop the cycle of grief, and isn’t that stopping the cycle of violence? But that negates the temporal reality of the Canvas people, who endured countless oppressive actions and outright genocide. Sacrificing a population of people in an effort to ‘heal’ one family only continues the cycle of violence, and it doesn’t solve the lack of support in the Dessendre world, which Verso’s ending never truly reconciles. Alicia is still isolated, still without a voice, still disabled in a world that has done little to meet any of her needs.
So then, do we ever exit the cycle of violence? And what would it look like to attempt such a thing?
In my Disability essay, I pointed out healing cannot begin until we exit the abusive/traumatic environment/situation. Part of healing involves the end of the cycle of violence, which differs based on who abused and who endured the abuse. Those that abuse must hold themselves accountable and engage in repair as well as work on their own healing. Those that endured abuse must work on their own healing, and recognize the best place for that, which might require them to not engage again the person who harmed them. Ending the cycle of violence and moving toward accountability and healing is not an easy process and the trajectory will differ based on who is involved.
Yet even with those differing paths, one must still hold oneself accountable in order to push forward in the healing process. We will backslide. We will mess up, but it is crucial to acknowledge when we cause harm or when we make a mistake, apologize, and do better. That’s all part of the accountability process.
So in this essay, I want to explore what accountability is and how it does and doesn’t manifest in the characters’ storylines. Whether the characters were able to truly end the cycle of violence and move forward into healing or if the game leaves those questions open-ended.
What is Accountability? And how do we do it?
Accountability within today’s culture, especially within America where I’m situated, is wrought with videos and images of call-out culture. Where people call others out publically the harm and demand repair. While this may be a useful tactic when facing off against the rich and powerful, it ultimately isn’t true accountability. Or at least not the kind that may lead to actual healing and change.
So when I speak of accountability, I do not mean that public spectacle. I instead mean conversations like what Maelle and Verso have in Clair Obscur. They happen on a personal level and/or within the community, and often are not on a public stage. They may instead happen behind closed doors with or without a mediator. The survivor may decide or not decide to be present, while the person who harmed them works toward healing and accountability. It’s a complex process that goes far, far beyond the initial identification of the harm.
In the first chapter of the anthology Beyond Suvival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, editors Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha writes:
“Transformative justice and community accountability are terms that describe ways to address violence without relying on police or prisons. These approaches often work to prevent violence, to intervene when harm is occurring, to hold people accountable, and to transform individuals and society to build safer communities. These strategies are some of hte only options that marginalized communities have to address harm.
The work of transformative justice can happen in a variety of ways. Some groups support survivors by helping them identify their needs and boundaries while ensuring their attackers agree to these boundaries and atone for the harm they caused. Other groups create safe spaces and sanctuaries to support people escaping from violence.”
Here they show how accountability is only one piece of a larger puzzle of addressing violence. Without accountability, much of the work to address and end the cycle of violence would fracture and fall apart, yet as crucial as it is, full healing requires far more than just accountability.
Ejeris Dixon goes on to add:
“Violence and oppression break community ties and breed fear and distrust. At its core, the work to create safety is to build meaningful, accountable relationships within our neighborhoods and communities.”
Without trust, one cannot build safety. Without safety, one struggles to be vulnerable. Without vulnerability, one struggles to heal. And without the choice to heal, one will fail to hold oneself accountable.
This isn’t to say these are steps in a process, but more they are interlinking threads that are woven into a larger tapestry. Each thread crucial to the final form, and the tapestry wouldn’t be the same without each thread and stitch. None of this is easy, but then healing isn’t ever easy.
Healing always requires a choice. Do we choose to heal? Do we choose to hold ourselves accountable to that journey? Do we choose to be accountable for our actions and engage in repair when we inevitably cause harm? How do we engage in repair? Are we willing to be responsible and listen to those harmed by us? To let those harmed take the lead? Can we separate shame from guilt? To not fear accountability but instead embrace it so all involved can move forward in healing?
Of course, asking those questions can feel daunting, and it’s why relationship-building is so crucial. Healing requires support of one’s family, friends, and/or community. We can’t really heal in isolation. In chapter three of Beyond Survival, Blythe Barnow speaks about how isolation harmed her ability to heal:
“In the end, that was the most damaging. Doing it alone. Believing it was all my responsibility. Not the assault. But the healing. The justice. The protection for nameless other girls. I leaned heavy into the skills I learned as a child, over responsibility, independence, sharp analysis, and self-sacrifice. Which meant I never asked for the support I was so desperate for.
Because what I needed, maybe more than his apology, was a community of people who could help me hold and honor the stories that led to this one, who could help me uproot the layers of silence learned through too much violence. I needed to be asked what I wanted and what I was hoping for. I needed someone to help me craft those letters, someone to remind me that I could list expectations. I needed someone who was going to sit with me through the fallout. Someone who could read the responses people sent me and tell me to wait before reading them myself. I needed someone beside me to reflect the ways my own trauma, old and new, was informing the process. I needed someone who could show me love that was deeper and more nuanced than just hating him.”
I relate deeply to Barnow’s words here because isolation can steal away our voice, where we put on a brave mask for others. Often society and even friends and family can put tremendous pressure on survivors to ‘move on’ from the harm, to not speak of it, to stay silent, but that too is part of the cycle of violence. If we cannot acknowledge violence happened, how can we ever stop it from replaying again and again? Many therapists and researchers have written of the cycle of domestic violence and how it can sometimes thread through families. Part of that relies on silence and isolation.
Breaking silence and isolation requires the support of others, and it’s not easy to do. Believe me, I’ve struggled with this my whole life, but I’ve made progress on my healing from abuse because of the support of dear friends and good therapists.
This is why Maelle and Verso are able to have any conversation that deals with accountability. Lune, Sciel, Esquie, and Monoco form a support system to help them break the cycle of silence and isolation. This chosen family gives Maelle the love she needs to learn and grow, and they attempt to offer this to Verso as well.
For example, exploring the Reacher area will lead to the peak, where Painted Alicia ignores her brother to speak with Maelle privately — here the color fades into greyscale. She leads Maelle into the cavern at the peak to show her the true axon, and also to express her thoughts to Maelle through gestures and their fencing match.
After Painted Alicia leads Maelle back to the others, the scene snaps back into color. Maelle offers Alicia “a new beginning,” and I think she meant to repaint Alicia’s face and restore her voice. However, Painted Alicia grasps Maelle’s hand and presses it against her, thus thwarting Maelle’s attempt to repaint her face. Instead, she gasps out her desire for Maelle to gommage her. Verso doesn’t have a chance to stop it, because Maelle does as Painted Alicia asks.
Verso responds by trying to stop Maelle, and ends up holding the red petal remains of Painted Alicia. Sciel is at his side to comfort him in his grief.
The conversation they have later at camp delves into the impact of Maelle’s act:
MAELLE: I’m sorry.
VERSO: …
MAELLE: It’s what she wanted. I owed her that much. We owed her that much. I honoured her wishes. That’s something neither you nor Renoir ever did. And not Maman either.
VERSO: … I didn’t get to say goodbye. You didn’t wait. You didn’t give me a chance to persuade her.
MAELLE: She knew what she wanted. You wouldn’t have been able to sway her.
VERSO: She’s not you. You don’t know that. I know her better than you do. But you didn’t even give me the chance to try. You just erased her.
MAELLE: Verso…
VERSO: You’ve lost two brothers. You know what it’s like to lose your sibling and never get the chance to say goodbye.
MAELLE: …
VERSO: You Painters. You just do what you want, you don’t care how it affects the rest of us.
MAELLE: I do care. I know you’re hurting, but the person who made that decision wasn’t me. It was her. It would have been wrong to deny her just so you could try and talk her out of her decision.Here Maelle seeks to understand Verso and why he is upset. She wants him to understand her reasons, where she sought to honor Painted Alicia’s wishes. She argues here for Painted Alicia’s agency in this, and how taking away her agency wouldn’t have been right.
Verso lashes out because of his grief and pain, but his words here “you don’t care how it affects the rest of us,” doesn’t align with the truth of Painted Alicia and Maelle’s actions at the peak of Reacher. Painted Alicia had made her wishes known, where she did not wish to continue in the disabled body Aline had given her in punishment for an action she’d never done. Perhaps there could have been other ways for her to thrive, but Painted Alicia had tried for decades to find that. Yet, perhaps it is irony that she sought the same annihilation that Painted Verso secretly seeks.
Maelle tries, in her own way, to honor the agency of others. To offer them different solutions, but Painted Alicia didn’t want any other solution. She had taken Maelle’s hand to press against her and urged her to gommage her away.
Does Maelle come to understand what Verso is trying to articulate here? Because so far, she gives her reasons and argues for Painted Alicia’s agency. The scene continues:
VERSO: She’s the last of my family. I have no one left now.
MAELLE: You have me. You have us.
VERSO: MAELLE. I wasn’t ready.
MAELLE: I don’t understand. You were ready when you set Papa free. You expected that he would erase the Canvas and everyone in it. Isn’t that the same thing?
VERSO: It’s different! It’s different. Why did she do that?
MAELLE: You know why.
VERSO: …
MAELLE: But you’re right. I should have thought of you. I should have given you a chance to say goodbye. I’m truly sorry, Verso.
VERSO: … *cries* At least she’s free now.Maelle briefly gets defensive because she struggles to understand, but then she takes a moment to think. She may view the two events of setting Renoir free to erase everyone versus her honoring Alicia’s wishes to be erased as equivalent, but Verso does not. We then see Maelle hold herself accountable by putting herself in Verso’s shoes in an effort to understand. She admits that Verso is indeed right. She should have thought of him, and she apologizes. As one continues through the journey, Maelle does her best to honor this by doing better.
She also tries to show Verso that he does have people left. He has Maelle, Lune, Sciel, Monoco, and others as they all have been trying to reach out and build connections with him. He chooses to hold himself in isolation from them, whether he is conscious of it or not.
She actively does her best to hold herself accountable, to learn from her actions, and this shows how she wishes to end the cycle of harm. She wants everyone’s agency to be honored, for people to find what they need, and although she may offer different ways to do that, if the person ultimately rejects a solution, who is Maelle to refuse to honor their decision? For a sixteen-year-old, she’s remarkably mature here.
Verso, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to hold that same self-awareness, or if he did, he seems to have lost it. He’s so caught up in his cycle of violence, that he struggles to see any other solution as viable. To see this, let’s look at a conversation near the start of Act 3, when Maelle returns to the Canvas:
MAELLE: You should have helped me remember.
VERSO: Yeah… I wanted to, but I… I’m sorry.
MAELLE: I’m sorry too. If I’d listened to Maman… if I hadn’t trusted the Writers, Verso would still be alive, and you —
VERSO: Wouldn’t exist.
MAELLE: Wouldn’t be caught in the middle. Maman did a terrible thing, painting you into Verso’s Canvas. Giving you his memories. Pretending the fire only took me. But I’m glad you exist.
VERSO: Your father was right to erase everyone. It’s better this way.
MAELLE: Better for who? Verso would have never wanted his Canvas gone. He loved Esquie and his Gestrals and the Grandis.
VERSO: It was killing my … our mother, staying here so long in a make-believe world with her make-believe family.
MAELLE: It’s not make-believe. It’s not… you’re not.. To me…Here Verso sees only one solution: annihilation. However, his reasons for why he manipulated and lied to Maelle are just that — excuses. So he acknowledges the hurt he did and apologizes. For true accountability to happen, it’s not enough to simply apologize; one’s present and future behaviors will need changed to avoid replicating the harm and continuing the cycle of violence.
For Maelle, she also apologizes, but in this instance, what is there for her to apologize for? Perhaps she shouldn’t have trusted whoever the Writers were, but she is not responsible for them starting a fire and for Verso’s death. Maelle is only responsible for her own actions, not the actions of others. This shows how she’s internalized the shame and guilt Clea and Aline both shoved onto her; both needed someone to blame, and Alicia, the survivor, is a convenient person to lay down the blame. Maelle/Alicia is young and lacking the support to realize that she does not need to carry this blame as it is not hers to bear.
Painted Verso does not try to negate the blame Maelle/Alicia puts on herself. Instead, he tries to convince Maelle that it is better for those in the Canvas to not exist, for the Canvas to be destroyed, but Maelle refuses to accept that destruction of entire people’s is the right answer. She disagrees that everyone in the Canvas is make-believe. To her they are as real as herself. This ties into what I discussed in my Right to Exist essay.
I wrote there:
We have now returned to one of the most crucial questions in the game: What is the right decision in regards to the fate of the Canvas people and the fate of Alicia/Maelle? As I have hopefully shown thus far, erasing people’s temporal realities causes immense harm and is genocide; people have a right to exist, and sacrificing them for the ‘greater good of society’ (or in this case the Dessendre family) cannot ever be the morally right answer.
Necrosecurity, as I spoke of earlier, paints a bleak and death-filled reality, where healing cannot ever take place because denial and control is at its roots. [Defined as sacrificing a population for the greater ‘good’ of society.] Until people’s temporal realities are respected and their agency honored, healing will forever stay out of reach.
Thus, escaping pain by committing genocide is not healing. It’s a continuation of the cycle of violence. The marginalized populations facing genocide have a right to exist, and their temporal realities are as valid and important as the oppressor. Just as the temporal reality of the Canvas people are as valid and important as the Dessendre family.
Healing can only happen when the cycle of violence ends.
Verso tries to justify the death and destruction as necessary to end the cycle, but Maelle refuses to accept that reasoning. She believes Verso is wrong when he claims his self and those of the Canvas people are make-believe, and she believes they have a right to exist. She acknowledges harm happened to Painted Verso. She apologizes for her part in it. This is a step forward in the addressing of harm and ending the cycle: acknowledging what happened and why it wasn’t okay.
Again, Maelle cannot repair what her mother did because it’s not her burden to bear. Only Aline can take responsibility for her own actions. Maelle can only take responsibility for Maelle’s actions, which Maelle tries her best to do. She tries to hold herself accountable, which is something neither Clea nor Aline ever seem to do. This act of being accountable seems to have been taught to Maelle perhaps by Renoir, but far more likely it was Gustave, Lune, Sciel, and the Lumierians who taught her this.
She may have regained her memories from the real world, but that doesn’t mean she lost her memories of growing up as a Lumierian. She holds both in her head, as she will admit to Lune and Sciel after she brings them back:
MAELLE: I’m sorry. I didn’t — My memories — I would’ve told you if I’d known —
LUNE: Don’t apologize. You were trapped too. You lived among us. You’re one of us. Even if you’re also one of them.
MAELLE: It’s… so weird. I have memories of two childhoods. Two homes. Two Lumieres.
SCIEL: You’re not an orphan anymore. You just found your family. Don’t you want to be with them?
MAELLE: I love my family, but … they’re all gone. In one way of another. And you’re my family too. So are Gustave and Emma. And I didn’t see it at the time, but all the families who took turns taking care of me…Here Maelle, once again, tries to take on burdens that aren’t hers to hold. She had no memory of being a Paintress, so how could she have told them? Lune understands this and gently points this out to her. To root her in the facts of what they now know. She accepts who Maelle is — Maelle’s full self of being of Lune’s Lumiere but also of the Dessendre’s Lumiere — and provides comfort in this way.
Sciel, in turn, asks a crucial question, even though her voice aches with grief. “Don’t you want to be with them?”
Maelle’s answer is heart-rending, because truthfully, her family is gone. Clea is off fighting a one-person war with the Writers, Aline — Maelle’s mother — blames Maelle and casts her aside, Renoir may seek to bring Maelle back but he too has been neglectful of her, and Verso is gone. So what roots her in the Dessendre World? There she is disabled with no support system and half the family is abusive toward her (as I discuss in my Disability essay). So in a way, her Dessendre family is “gone” in the sense they do not truly support her, not like the Canvas Lumierians.
When Maelle blames herself for those that have harmed her or those she loved, she exhibits a common traumatic response; when she apologizes for actions that aren’t truly hers to own, that is also a traumatic response.
I know I’ve fallen into those trauma responses, where I had internalized the blame that it was my fault for the abuse done to me, my fault for the sexual assault. However, that blame is false. In reality, it wasn’t my fault as I did not do those actions. Those actions were done by other people to me. Just as Maelle did not paint Painted Verso, Aline did that. Just as Maelle didn’t start the fire, the Writers did that. Just as Maelle didn’t kill Verso, the fire and whoever started the fire did that. Just as Maelle didn’t lie to Lune and Sciel, she had no memories of her Dessendre life and thus no information to share; instead, Verso had that information and chose to not share it.
Maelle still tries to take accountability, but truthfully, it is not hers to bear. Lune gently teaches her that in that scene above.
Understanding these truths are hard when society and/or loved ones pressure us into thinking it’s our fault we were hurt. That’s just a falsehood to avoid accountability and to pressure survivors into silence, which effectively continues the cycle of violence.
To break out of that cycle, we must acknowledge that we are only responsible for our own actions and speech. Then we must separate out shame and guilt. We must choose to heal and continue toward healing no matter how hard that trajectory may become. But to even make that choice requires us to have support of others, to help us see when we are falling back into harmful thought processes that inhibit our ability to heal. Those that support us help us stay accountable to the process of healing.
Lune and Sciel both act as supporters for Maelle here. Lune, especially as she has also been hurt by Verso’s actions, seeks to hold Verso accountable. At this point in the game, Lune acts as a protective older sister to Maelle, while Sciel often falls into a motherly role. That’s part of how chosen families relate to one another — they fall into roles with one another, and those roles may change depending on the situation. Sometimes Maelle may be the more sisterly one to offer support to Lune or Sciel.
Chosen family can be a powerful support group and a crucial one, especially if one’s biological family has been abusive toward us. In the case of Maelle, some of her family members have been abusive toward her. So her chosen family provides the support for Maelle to work toward healing from that.
So what about Painted Verso? How does he hold himself accountable after this massive reveal? He hid the truth of who Maelle was from not only Maelle but everyone in the party. He manipulated them toward his end-goals. He chooses to talk to each individually, which the player can choose which character to start these conversations (or could choose to avoid them). If the player chooses to have these conversations, then how do they go?
Lune calls Painted Verso out for his lies:
LUNE: I was right not to trust you.
VERSO: And what would you have done in my position?
LUNE: I wouldn’t have betrayed my expedition. I would have warned them that everyone they cared about was about to be erased. That THEY were about to be erased. I would have told them the truth. Because after everything we’ve been through, we deserved that.
VERSO: So you’d choose your expedition over your mother?
LUNE: That’s your problem. You think in false dichotomies. It wasn’t an “either / or” a situation. Other solutions were possible, if you’d only trusted us enough to ask.
VERSO: Knowing what you know now, would you have helped me force my mother out of the Canvas?
LUNE: … *sighs*
VERSO: I don’t apologize for saving her. But I am sorry I broke your trust. And I will do everything I can to help bring everyone back.
LUNE: I guess we’ll see.Here Verso is intent on his reasons for his lies and manipulations. Lune, of course, points to the faults in his argument, because there might have been more solutions possible. Verso’s response is to put Lune on the spot, which when it comes to intense conversations like this? It’s very hard to consider alternatives when one is upset, so of course Lune couldn’t respond right away. She takes her time deliberating and analyzing possible solutions. Put her on the spot? And she falls quiet because she has not been given adequate time to process the information and analyze for other solutions. So Verso acts rather unfairly toward her, and then makes a promise to win back her trust.
For Sciel, she processes her anger and hurt differently. She may have chosen to ‘get over’ her anger, but the hurt in her voice betrays how she feels. She tries to keep her tone light, but the desperate hope still slips through. Their conversation ends with her saying:
SCIEL: As long as you help me bring Pierre back. You owe me.
VERSO: You got it.Once again, he makes a promise. Yet, his conversation with Maelle shows he may not honor the promise to Lune and Sciel:
MAELLE: We have to push Papa out of the Canvas before he erases everything.
VERSO: I’m surprised he hasn’t already.
MAELLE: He’s been weakened by his battle with Maman. That’s probably why he hasn’t come after us. But it won’t stop him for long.
VERSO: If you and your father keep fighting, you risk breaking the world again. Another Fracture, but this time, it might be you trapped inside the Monolith.
MAELLE: What’s the alternative?
VERSO: Maybe… maybe you should go home.
MAELLE: Verso…
VERSO: You’re fighting each other but you’re all doing the same thing.
MAELLE: No.
VERSO: Aline wants her son back. Renoir wants you and Aline back. You want Gustave back. The cycle we needed to break wasn’t the Gommage. It’s your family’s cycle of grief.
MAELLE: …
VERSO: Our whole world carries the burden of your family’s grief.Although there is truth that the Canvas world carries the burden of the Dessendre’s family’s grief, he makes an assumption about Maelle’s motivations. Yes, Maelle may want Gustave back, but she earlier clarified that she doesn’t believe Painted Verso nor the Canvas people are ‘make-believe.’ She views them as real, and she refuses to let people die simply because her father decided they were a threat. So his assertion that it’s her continuing the cycle fails to understand the complexity in her motivations.
Instead, Verso tries to argue again why Maelle should leave the Canvas, but if she does, that means Renoir will finish erasing the Canvas and Lune and Sciel will never see their friends and family again. In fact, Lune and Sciel will cease to exist too. This conversation reveals that Verso is simply telling Lune and Sciel what they want to hear so that they can aid him in his goals. He isn’t holding himself accountable here. He’s manipulating everyone to push them toward the end-goal that he’s decided is best.
In doing this, he shows a lack of ability to understand and learn from the hurt and pain he’s done to others. He’s not really listening to them because he’s mapped out ways to carefully push each person into the actions he needs for his own goals. Thus, he’s continuing the cycle of violence.
Maelle has made it clear she wants the cycle of violence to end. She wants to save the Canvas people, because she believes they have a right to exist, that they are not ‘make-believe’ but real. Yet in these conversations, Verso turns up his charm and manipulation tactics to try to tweak the situation to his benefit. He wants Maelle to give up and leave the canvas so Renoir can erase it. He needs Lune and Sciel to work with them so that he can reach Renoir as he suspects that confrontation will be the only way he can push Maelle out of the Canvas.
Healing cannot happen in a manipulative environment that continues to cause harm to others. In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. The first step:
“‘Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Thom here lists what Verso struggles to do in these conversations. He listens but is also defensive with Lune about his actions and proceeds to make excuses for his actions. In a way, Verso struggles to not see these confrontation as an attack, but truthfully, Lune calling out the harm isn’t an attack, it’s a consequence. Pointing out harm isn’t an attack but a courageous moment of honesty and vulnerability. Whether Verso sees that gift of vulnerability is hard to say as his actions and words are conflict depending on the person to whom he speaks.
Verso tends to make himself the center of the story being told in both Lune and Maelle’s conversations. The only one he doesn’t do this with is Sciel, but then Sciel doesn’t really give him that chance. Sciel recognizes that he speaks to give his reasons, and she doesn’t want to hear it, so she instead takes the conversation toward what they will do next. It’s a masterful way of pivoting the conversation to a more active form of accountability — Sciel is essentially asking Verso, “So, you hurt us, what are you going to do to fix this? Here’s one solution.”
Verso accepts Sciel’s solution, but then his conversation with Maelle, he goes on the rampage. He points out her family’s cycle of grief continues to hurt this Canvas, but he also knows that if Maelle leaves, there is no possible way he can honor his promises to Sciel and Lune. He speaks of a cycle of grief that causes harm, which is important to acknowledge, yet he refuses to listen to what Maelle is saying. In turn, Maelle goes quiet, which she often does to think over what others have said.
Thus, Verso’s defensiveness with Lune and Maelle ends up being:
“… the cycle of violence talking. This is the script that rape culture has built for us: a script in which there must be a hero and a villain, a right and a wrong, an accuser and an accused. What if we understood being confronted about perpetuating abuse as an act of courage — even a gift — on the part of the survivor?
What if, instead of reacting immediately in our own defense, we instead took the time to listen, to really try to understand the harm we might have done to another person?
When we think of accountability in terms of listening and love instead of accusation and punishment, everything changes. Listenign without becoming defensive does not necessarily mean relinquishing one’s own truth. We must be able to make room for varying perspectives and multiple emotional truths in our hearts.”
Painted Verso doesn’t make room for varying perspectives or multiple emotional truths. He may take some responsibility for his actions, or at least acknowledges the harm his actions have done, where he takes on only what he has done — no more, no less, but he doesn’t truly grow from that.
Thom writes how taking responsibility for the abuse is a crucial step, but one must also “accept that your reasons are not excuses.”
There is no reason good enough to excuse abusive behavior. Reasons help us understand abuse, but they do not excuse it. Accepting this is essential to transforming culpability into accountability and turning justice into healing.
Painted Verso spends a lot of time giving his reasons and expecting that to excuse his actions. Lune will have none of it as his reasons doesn’t excuse his lying and manipulative actions. He didn’t just betray them but also lied to them and manipulated them in harmful ways. Can Verso recognize the harm and truly be accountable?
This is where support of others can be crucial. Thom writes:
“When having a dialogue with someone who has been abused, it’s essential to give the survivor the space to take the lead in expressive their needs and setting boundaries. You should also take time to think about your own needs and boundaries without making the person you have harmed take care of you. This is why having support in the community is crucial. If basic needs are going unmet, no one can heal from abuse, nor can anyone truly be accountable.
If you have abused someone, it’s not up to you to decide how the process of healing or accountability should work. This doesn’t mean that you don’t get to have rights or boundaries, or that you can’t contribute actively to the process. It means that you don’t get to say that the person you have hurt is “crazy” or that what they are expressing doesn’t matter.
Instead, it might be good idea to try asking the person who has confronted you questions like these: what do you need right now? Is there anything I can do to make this feel better? How much contact would you like to have with me going forward? If we share a community, how should I navigate situations where we might end up int he same place? How does this conversation feel for you, right now?
At the same time, it’s important to understand that the needs of survivors of abuse can change over time, and that survivors may not always know right away — or ever — what their needs are.
Being accountable and responsible for abuse means being patient, flexible, and reflective about the process of having dialogue with the survivor.”
It’s crucial to note here that Thom is not saying that the survivor is an expert on accountability or that they should have full control over the process. Thom adds:
“I feel strongly that as long as punishment remains at the center of our thinking around accountability and justice, survivor-led processes are doomed to fall into the trap of individuals desperately trying to avoid accountability out of fear. Survivor-led, to me, means that survivors get to lead their own process of recovery, that survivors are given space to tell their stories and speak their needs (which criminal justice usually does not allow).
It does not mean that people who have been deeply wounded are suddenly handed full responsibility for a community dialogue and rehabilitation process. Survivor-led does not mean that the community gets to abdicate its responsibility for providing support, safety, expertise, and leadership in making healing happen.”
There are multiple paths in the accountability and healing process: the survivor, the one who caused harm, and the community. These paths may intersect at times, but Thom is arguing that none should exert control over the other’s path. Instead, listening, understanding, honoring boundaries, and opening onself up to changing present and future behaviors is what ‘survivor-led’ should mean.
Thom also makes it clear that the community itself needs to be involved to lay the groundwork to meet the needs of those within this process. Support by building safety, sharing expertise to help guide, and providing leadership to keep those involved accountable are all needed to assist in the healing process here.
Community support allows those involved to have someone with which to work through their emotions and thoughts. By working through emotions and thoughts, one can come to understand one’s own behaviors, emotions, actions, and through that find a path forward. This work means they are also holding themself accountable in the sense they are continuing to move forward on the path toward healing. Supportive friends, family, and community members can assist in helping those in this process stay on the healing path — that’s another type of accountability.
Supportive community is is what Painted Verso lacks. He does not allow anyone to truly be in community with him, and those that try are held at arm’s length with him manipulating events toward his own ends. Whether he ever allowed community to help him work through his trauma and pain relies on his own shared stories, of which seem suspect since what he says to one person doesn’t always align with what he says to another of the same event. The best we have is a journal entry from a prior expedition where he expresses his pain and hopes — hopes he doesn’t seem to have in Maelle’s time.
VERSO’S JOURNAL:
I miss you. I don’t have the right to miss you but I do. I wish I could talk to you. Tell you. Fuck. I don’t know what I would tell you. Just ask that you forgive me. Julie, forgive me. I’m not… I’m not a traitor. I’m not. I’m trying to save… I’m trying to save us all. But you’re right. I am a coward. I’m a fucking coward. You deserved to know why. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face you properly. Not and still do what had to be done. Papa believes you are Clea’s creation, and even if you’re not, we can no longer trust you. But I think you just wanted answers.
Why? Why couldn’t you just let it go? Why did you convince them to abduct me? Interrogate me? No. I shouldn’t say that. You thought I was a traitor. You were doing what you thought was right, just like we are. I swear to you, I’m doing what’s right. I should have known when you started questioning things that you wouldn’t be fooled. But how could I even explain? You’d have thought I’d gone mad. Doppelgangers. Countless worlds. But Papa’s right. We can’t take the risk. Too much is at stake. Too much. It had to be done. It had to. Clea already took our sister. If we want to save our family, our world, our people, we can’t take any chances. And once we free Maman, she… she’ll bring you back. It won’t be forever. I promise. We deserve to live. All of us. We deserve to exist.
In this journal, Verso admits to his pain and how much he misses Julie, who seems to be a loved one. He justifies his actions, but also shows a willingness to understand why Julie did what she thought was right. He does his best to not internalize the hurtful words that Julie and her expedition likely threw at him — traitor for one. However, he makes a crucial mistake here by assuming Julie’s reactions to the actual truth. He doesn’t allow her to have agency, and instead took that from her by keeping her in the dark. This fueled distrust, especially as he acknowledges Julie had started to question things and notice what doesn’t make sense. Julie wanted answers, and Verso, here at least, acknowledges that she did deserve to know why things transpired the way they did.
He also asserts that they “deserve to exist.” Yet, in Maelle’s time, he seems to have changed his mind entirely as he spends far too much energy trying to convince Maelle to let the Canvas be erased. In his ending, he goes to great lengths to make sure the Canvas is erased. So he breaks all of his promises, and decides that no one deserves to exist in the Canvas. That they are not real and thus it is okay to erase populations.
Why does he come to this conclusion? Partly due to the massive amount of death he witnesses over the decades, and also because he doesn’t have a community to hold him accountable. When one is isolated like Painted Verso, it is all too easy to fall into despair and a desire for annihilation. This is why those who are suicidal shouldn’t be left alone, but need supportive family and friends to help them heal and find new meaning in life.
In Maelle’s ending, Maelle will try to give Verso that opportunity when she offers him the choice of “if you could grow old, would you… find a reason to smile?”
She’s trying to break the cycle of violence by making sure Verso doesn’t have to live the immortal life he so abhors. So she offers solutions that doesn’t end in a genocide of peoples or Painted Verso’s death. Despite the harm Verso has done, Maelle seeks to humanize him and offer him a compromise. Her ending hints strongly that he accepts her alternate solution and seems to find some hope in it, as he does indeed grow old.
This humanization of the person causing harm is also critical to the healing process. The survivor of abuse doesn’t have to be the one to humanize the one causing harm, but those in the community ought to be able to step in for that.
In another essay in the Beyond Survival Anthology, there is an excerpt from the handbook, Ending Child Sexual Abuse:
“We see that abuse happens when one person believes, consciously or unconsciously, that their needs, wants, and preferences take precedence over others. People engaging in abusive behaviors are often numb to, or seemingly unable to feel, the impacts of their behaviors on others.
A process of accountability and transformation requires that the person who has been harmful:
- Stop doing the harm.
- Feels empathy and remorse for the pain and impact of their actions.
- Takes measures, like restitution or reparations, to address the harm caused.
- Takes measures to prevent future harm.
- Works to understand the root causes of their harmful behavior.
- Engages in the ongoing work of accountability, healing, and integration.
- Take action and organizes to support others to heal or to be part of changing community and social conditions that allow for CSA and other forms of violence.”
Here the list shows how difficult healing can be, and how scary it is to make the choice to heal. Yet, it’s crucial for ending the cycle of violence to not dehumanize anyone involved. Dehumanization continues the cycle of violence. As the handbook excerpt says:
“It is important to center the needs of those most directly impacted by the harm in a situation. We also hold that recognizing and attending to the humanity of those who harm is a central aspect of transforming our families, communities, and society. Seeing and dignifying the healing needs of people who abuse also runs counter to the idea that some people “out there” are “monsters” who are expendable or need to be “weeded out.” By standing for everyone’s need for healing, we challenge the dehumanizing logic that is central to systems of oppression, domination, and abuse. By standing for everyone’s need for healing, we maintain our commitment to a vision of true liberation.”
Part of this process means those who cause harm need to understand that not all consequences are “harm.” Consequences to their actions are often necessary and may not be a form of “harm.” For example, Lune calling out the harm of Verso’s lies is the consequence of his actions. She lost trust in him is another consequence. Him having to earn back that trust is yet another consequence. None of these consequences are “harms” done to Verso. It’s simply part of the accountability process.
Humanizing those involved are absolutely critical to ending the cycle of violence. When people are dehumanized, they are stripped of who they are, and this causes harm to all involved. If the cycle of violence is to be ended, then those involved must be humanized and their dignity honored.
This is incredibly difficult to do at times. As a survivor of abuse, I struggled greatly with wanting my abuser to feel the weight of my pain, but through therapy, I learned that truthfully I didn’t want my abuser to be harmed in return. I wanted the cycle of abuse to end. That revelation allowed me to move past the anger and make a conscious choice to heal.
This conscious choice to heal is required of those that cause harm as well. However, shame, guilt, and fear can often make that choice extremely difficult.
Both Verso and Maelle struggle with shame and guilt. Maelle’s guilt and shame lay in her internalizing the blame Aline and Clea lay at her feet. Except, the fire is not Maelle’s fault, but that of the Writers that cause it. Her guilt and shame originate from actions that are not her own.
However, for Verso, his guilt and shame do originate from his own actions, for he did kill members of his prior expeditions, he did lie to people, and he did manipulate people for his own ends. However, it’s crucial to separate shame from guilt. In Kai Cheng Thom’s essay, shame and guilt is defined:
“Shame and social stigma are powerful emotional forces that can prevent us from holding ourselves accountable for being abusive. We don’t want to admit to “being that person,” so we don’t admit to having been abusive at all.
Some people might suggest that people who have been abusive ought to feel shame — after all, perpetuating abuse is wrong. I would argue, though, that this is where the difference between guilt and shame is key. Guilt is feeling bad about something you’ve done; shame is feeling bad about who you are. People who have been abusive should feel guilty for the specific acts of abuse they are responsible for. They should not feel shame about who they are because this means that abuse has become a part of their identity. It means they believe that they are fundamentally a bad person — in other words, “an abuser.”
But if you believe that you are an “abuser,” a bad person who hurts others, then you have already lost the struggle for change — because we cannot change who we are. If you believe that you are a fundamentally good person who has done hurtful or abusive things, then you open the possibility for change.”
When Thom says we “cannot change who we are,” this is in regard to our identities and personality. The “possibility for change” is in regard to our decisions, actions, and future decisions and actions. Those we can change, but we shouldn’t try to alter our personality and identity to be someone we are not. We should focus on how to make better decisions and to act in ways that are more healthy and holistic for us and those around us.
Verso, when he first introduces himself to Expedition 33, calls himself a liar. By doing so, he shows he internalized his actions as part of his identity. This makes it very difficult to hold oneself accountable and being open to the “possibility for change.” If he views lying as crucial to his identity, then why should he stop? It’s who he is, isn’t it? It’s a complete 180 from his journal entry where he refused to accept ‘traitor’ as being who he is.
But lying isn’t who he truly is. He’s, instead, taken a behavior and marked it as a personality trait. Truthfully, his personality isn’t a lying manipulator — we can see bits and pieces of who he is in the scenes where he plays a piano with Maelle, goes out of his way to help Sciel move past her fear of water, shares music with Lune, chats with Esquie, or hangs out with Monoco. He’s a bit silly, fun-loving, jokester, that wants to do the right thing but doesn’t know how. He’s trapped in a cycle of his own making, yet he’s unwilling to recognize his own cycle. Instead, he internalizes the lies as part of who he is, when it’s not — that’s his trauma speaking.
Until Verso can recognize his own cycle of violence and shame, he remains trapped in his cycle, unable to acknowledge his abuse and never able to progress toward healing. Even in his ending, when he fights Maelle to force her from the Canvas, his solution to his cycle is to annihilate himself and everyone in the Canvas. He refuses to see another way. Yet, until he recognizes that his harmful behaviors are not core to his personality, he won’t ever see how to stop his cycle of harm.
This is where Thom goes on to state that as much as those who cause harm shouldn’t “expect anyone to forgive you,” they should, however, forgive themselves:
“Being accountable is not about earning forgiveness. This is to say, it doesn’t matter how accountable you are — nobody has to forgive you for being abusive, least of all the person you have abused. In fact, using the process of “doing” accountability to manipulate or coerce someone into their forgiveness to you is an extension of the abuse dynamic. It center the abuser, not the survivor. One shouldn’t aim for forgiveness when holding oneself accountable. Rather self-accountability is about learning how we have harmed others, why we have harmed others, and how we can stop.
But… you do have to forgive yourself. Because you can’t stop hurting other people until you stop hurting yourself. When one is abusive, when one is hurting so much on the inside that it feels like the only way to make it stop is to hurt other people, it can be terrifying to face the hard truth of words like abuse and accountability. One might rather blame others, blame society, blame the people we love, instead of ourselves.
This is true, I think, of community as well as individuals. It is so much easier, so much simpler, to create hard lines between good and bad people, to create walls to shut the shadowy archetype of “the abuser” out instead of mirrors to look at the abuser within.
Perhaps this is why self-accountability tools like this list are so rare. It takes courage to be accountable. To decide to heal. But when we do decide, we discover incredible new possibilities. There is good and bad in everyone. Anyone can heal, given the right circumstances, and everyone can heal, given the same. You are capable of loving and being loved. Always. Always. Always.”
These are critical points for accountability. The process isn’t so we can “earn forgiveness” like it’s some sort of game achievement. Accountability is about learning, listening, seeking to understand why we did what we did, and finding solutions on how we can stop. Where we end the cycle of violence and instead move into a trajectory toward healing and choosing actions that cause the least harm and the most good.
And what is the most good? How do we know what is good?
To understand what ‘good’ means, we need to briefly explore ethics and morality. This game, thankfully, has already given us that exploration already in the Lumierians — Gustave and Lune in particular. I won’t dig too deeply into this as I feel that Lord Khoury does a much better job in his video here (which I recommend as he lays out an excellent case for why Maelle’s ending is a morally good one). I will simply briefly highlight Gustave’s and Lune’s use of Utilitarianism.
Consequences and Utilitarianism
Gustave, at the start of the game points out how the Gommage seems almost gentle, how it makes Lumiere seem complacent, but it is no less violent. He defines the act of violence and injustice, and in his temporal reality, Lumiere identified the best route to liberation is through confrontation with the Paintress.
Throughout the Prologue and Act 1, we are shown how Gustave lives his morals and how he determines actions to be morally good. These deliberations rely on what is known as utilitarianism. The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines this as:
“…utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. There are many ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is that the theory is a form of consequentialism: the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced. What distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope of the relevant consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought to maximize the overall good — that is, consider the good of others as well as one’s own good.”
Gustave’s moralism shows through the projects he describes — teaching his apprentices, Aquafarms, etc. — and in how he interacts with those around him. He understands quite well the consequences of possible actions, and chooses the ones that will do the most good.
For example, when Expedition 33 is separated, Gustave determines the right action is to seek Maelle. He evaluates the consequences of this, and although his emotions push for a specific end result, he still evaluates based on the known information at that time. As in, the note inscribed on the Indigo Tree, the lack of survivors at the Indigo Tree meeting point, and the knowledge of how difficult it is to survive alone.
GUSTAVE: It’s a lead, or only lead, whoever this is has Maelle. We have to go.
LUNE: No, not yet. Protocol is to regroup at rendevous point and wait three days. This message feels off. If it was an Expeditioner, they would have stayed here. Everyone knows the protocol.
GUSTAVE: Right, but they may have been in danger. Maybe this location has been compromised. Things change in the field.
LUNE: There’s a reason its protocol.
GUSTAVE: Protocol doesn’t cover every contingency. You know that.
LUNE: There’s a reason its Protocol. We designed it to yield the optimal result in the vast majority of situations.
GUSTAVE: Was our entire team dying part of that “optimal result?”
LUNE: …
GUSTAVE: Look, I’m going after Maelle. Protocol also states ‘never move solo.’ I’ll let you choose what protocol to break.Here we see how both Gustave and Lune lay out their reasoning for the preferred actions. Gustave focuses on the consequences and concludes going after Maelle will save the most lives based on their current information. Lune, who attempts to argue for the Protocol, finds herself faced with possible consequences that could either endanger Gustave — if he goes alone — or herself — if she stays and he goes — or the mission — if the team is split up.
Lune follows him because of the two protocols they are breaking — one results in a higher number of lives saved and better chance at surviving long enough to complete their mission. Thus, after evaluating what is known and the consequences of various actions, she determines the action that achieve the most good.
In survival, determining the consequences of actions that result in the most lives saved fits firmly in the utilitarianism worldview. Thus, in determining what actions are ‘good,’ it is crucial to seek to understand the consequences of that action for everyone — not just ourselves. This is where Verso falls short as his understanding of the consequences of his actions revolves around the impact on himself; he continues to assert his view, even when others protest and show the harm of it.
Part of that is because he doesn’t show a willingness to examine the situation fully with other people. He’s kept himself relatively isolated for decades, and sought to meet his needs on his own. Isolation can easily distort our thinking and lead us toward despair.
With the Lumierians, we see an alternate route. Gustave and Lune actively talk through the situation at the Indigo Tree. Gustave lays out his analysis and Lune does as well. Gustave, however, focuses on the lives he can actively save in that moment rather than the lives they do not know still live or not. Though this dialogue, the two examine consequences of their actions. Both go back and forth in acknowledging what the other is saying, and also responding to the concerns brought up. In the end, Gustave’s decision to go after Maelle is vindicated in his eyes, and he offers Lune a choice. Lune, in turn, honors the protocol that will save the most lives — staying with Gustave and saving someone that is likely still alive. Considering, they have no further data on anyone else surviving, going after Maelle ends up being justified as the ‘good’ decision through the consequences of their actions.
We see this same sort of analysis play out a few times in Act 1 with how the group analyzes the situation, examines consequences, and come to a decision. Gustave and Lune lead the charge here, and their example provides a litmus test for Maelle to use in trying to determine what decisions are ‘good.’
For another example, Gustave and Lune’s intense fight before they find Maelle:
GUSTAVE: I am not letting Maelle die out here. I’m taking her home.
LUNE: What? No, no, no, we have a mission —
GUSTAVE: Oh, fuck the mission! Fuck the mission, Lune. What are we gonna do? Tell me. What are we gonna do? We’re gonna take down the Paintress, just the three of us? My — my gun and your sparks?
LUNE: I didn’t take you for a coward.
GUSTAVE: I’m not a coward.
LUNE: You swore the oath. “When one falls, we continue.”
GUSTAVE: Yes, I know.
LUNE: When one falls. WHEN one falls. Not if. When. We knew not all of us would make it. But “We Continue.” As long even one of us stands, our fight is not over.
GUSTAVE: But I’m not afraid to fight, it’s just Maelle, she’s —
LUNE: Maelle swore the same oath!
GUSTAVE: I know that!
LUNE: She choose her life! Come on, we always said that the future of Lumiere was more important than any —
GUSTAVE: individual life, yes.
LUNE: Do you still believe that?Here Lune reminds Gustave of the consequences of swearing their oath. Consequences all of them knew before they swore the oath. She also makes it clear that Maelle also swore this oath, knowing the risks, and that she choose that. Lune is reminding Gustave of Maelle’s agency. Through this conversation, she’s challenging him on the consequences of what will happen if he takes Maelle back: he’d break his oath, he’d leave Lune here to continue alone, he’d violate Maelle’s agency, and he would put the future of Lumiere at risk.
This conversation pushes Gustave toward the ‘good’ decision, which is to honor Maelle’s agency. Something he will confirm in a later conversation after they are reunited with Maelle and have found Sciel with the Gestrals:
GUSTAVE: Maybe you should stay…
MAELLE: What?
GUSTAVE: It’s safer in the village.
MAELLE: And miss the change to meet Esquie? No way.
GUSTAVE: Maelle…
MAELLE: I’m okay. We stick together.This conversation proved Lune to be correct. The consequences Lune had laid out as her reasoning on the ‘good choice,’ made it clear that Maelle had chosen this life. Gustave here confirms it with Maelle herself, and he then honors that choice.
Thus, Gustave and Lune provide excellent examples of the use of utilitarianism for determining the morally ‘good’ choice, as well as how to handle conflict. They also show how the Canvas Lumierians honor the agency of others.
It’s through our dialogue with those around us that we come to understand possible consequences and how they may impact others. That dialog then allows us to generate ideas that cause the least harm to all involved and saves the most lives (or in less dire situations, helps the most people feel heard, understood, and agency honored). This can be difficult to do, and in times of danger, we often act on instinct because there isn’t enough time to deliberate on consequences.
However, after the danger is over, we must be willing to analyze what happened and take accountability for our actions. We must not take on the responsibility of other people’s actions, only take on our own. We need to listen to others, and they in turn listen to us. We need to be open to change behaviors if we cause harm, which we see Lune, Gustave, Maelle, and Sciel do on their journey. That’s part of holding one another accountable and choosing healing.
Maelle having the support of her Canvas family is critical to her own journey toward healing. The scene where Maelle has a waking nightmare in Act 1 after the Gestral Village, we see Gustave, Sciel, and Lune gather around her to comfort her. They bring down her panic, and stay at her side until she’s calm. This level of care is not shown by the Dessendre family toward Maelle. Thus, Maelle finds her strongest support system within the Canvas, away from an environment of abuse and neglect. This chosen family helps hold her accountable and supports her as she makes decisions to end the cycle of violence. To choose to heal.
Verso struggles to understand this lesson the entirety of the game. The only clue we are given that he may finally learn it is in Maelle’s ending, when Maelle offers a different solution to his desire to cease his immortal life. He still lives in her ending, but he’s grown old. His fingers find it harder to play the piano — hence the dissonance at first before he plays. Perhaps in this ending he learns how to be accountable and chooses healing. The game seems to imply it, but the game also leaves it open-ended.
In Verso’s ending, Verso doesn’t choose healing but instead chooses to take the agency from everyone involved — Maelle, the faded boy, the different Canvas peoples — and fades into annihilation. Maelle, then, returns to life as Alicia Dessendre, who is disabled and essentially institutionalized in her family’s manor. She has no support system, and her mother still looks at her with disdain. Clea still offers no support, only goes off to do her one-person war. In the ending, Renoir doesn’t even look at Alicia — only at Aline. Alicia stands isolated, and tries to smile, tries to see anything good in this, but instead, she hallucinates the family she’s lost. As they gommage away, I noticed how her shoulders droop and she holds Esquie tighter. A sign that her hope evaporates with them? Again, the game leaves it open-ended.
When still in an abusive environment, healing is out of reach, even if one chooses it, because the circumstances causing the trauma is ongoing. One must exit the abusive environment, but to do so often requires support of others to assist in finding a safer place to be. If there is no one there to provide the necessary support to heal, then it is incredibly difficult to actively heal.
Thus, healing from grief and from abuse both require breaking cycles, but to break those cycles, we need the necessarily family/friends and/or community support. It is not truly possible to do this when we are isolated, because isolation itself is a form of harm that can easily lead us into despair, as we saw with Painted Verso.
Breaking the cycle of violence can only happen when we have built up a community of people who love us for who we are. Then and only then, will we have the support to choose to heal, to hold ourselves accountable, to actively listen to others, and when needed alter our behaviors toward more healthy patterns.
This is not an easy process, and it will require hard work from all involved. Yet the payoff is a healthier existence and a chance to thrive rather than just survive.
#abuse #accountability #Characters #clairObscurExpedition33 #disability #GameAnalysis #gameNarrative #healing #healingJourney #justice #mentalHealth #narrativeAnalysis #responsibility #transformativeJustice #writing
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Your BlueSky Feed Is Porn You Didn’t Ask For Because Your Friends Are Gooners With a Severe Porn Addiction
A common complaint I see people make on Bluesky is: why am I being served so much porn or things I am not interested in? They will incorrectly believe that the algorithm is broken. It’s not broken. You didn’t know the people you knew as well as you thought you did. Porn addiction is a thing, and porn addiction is especially common with weebs. You’re seeing deranged shit because people you follow have porn addictions and are into deranged shit. So, though you may not be consuming porn, people in your network are. That activity kicks into your feeds.
The issue I have with that is that it essentially normalizes being sex pests in a space on the Internet. That sets the expectation that it is good—attractive, even—to act like that elsewhere. That expectation alienates relationships. Bluesky creates a cultural space that offers an unrealistic, bizarre representation of social relationships, which isolates and alienates the users who stay on there consuming erotica and porn like they do.
So, user repos in Bluesky have a property for likes. Bluesky’s underlying AT Protocol stores likes as first-class structured records in each user’s AT Protocol repository. In the AT Protocol lexicon, a like is an app.bsky.feed.like record type. Unlike a simple boolean flag on a post, it is its own record with a creation timestamp and a subject field that holds a strong reference to the liked record.
That strong reference is composed of an AT-URI and a CID. The AT-URI identifies the exact record in the network by DID, collection, and record key. The CID is a cryptographic content identifier that uniquely identifies the exact content of that liked record.
These like records exist under the app.bsky.feed.like namespace in the user’s repo. Bluesky’s repo model is built so that these repos are hosted on a user’s Personal Data Server and are publicly readable through the AT Protocol APIs. Because of that, the like record and its fields can be fetched, indexed, and used by any client or service that can query the protocol.
The protocol exposes operations like getLikes. This returns all of the like records tied to a particular subject’s AT-URI and CID. It also exposes getActorLikes. This returns all of the subject references a given actor has liked. Those API calls return structured like objects with timestamps and subject references directly from the public repository data.
Various feeds hosted by different PDSs use the likes property to construct the feeds that you see. Since the likes of people you follow are included in your social graph, along with your own likes, you’re going to get served the porn they are consuming. Because likes are public and anyone can write an algorithm to see everyone’s likes, you can clearly see just how much porn people are consuming.
Honestly, what started to turn my stomach about the people on Bluesky is how they behave across different contexts. If you look through the records of the posts they interact with, you’ll see them engaging with political posts in the replies like a normal person. Then, when you look through their AT Protocol records, you see hours and hours of them interacting with every kind of porn imaginable. I am not exaggerating. Hours of likes for porn posts within 1–10 minutes of each other. Am I sex-negative? A prude? No, this site is filled with furry, gay bara porn, lol. You can have a drink without being an alcoholic. The problem with these people is like people who can’t have one drink without drinking the whole fucking day; they can’t consume porn in healthy ways.
I think people assume that their feed is customized for them and based on their likes. No—feeds are generalized based on what everyone likes and then served to your subgraph. It’s not just about who you follow; it’s about who they follow. So if you follow someone who follows a lot of people with porn addictions, you will see porn. Bluesky isn’t weighting the algorithm to do this. Basically, it’s the people in your social network with furry, hentai, or trans porn addictions who are driving it.
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@Ben Pate 🤘🏻 Allow me to take a look at this from a Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte point of view.The Sin of Overwhelming Complexity: Instance Selection Paralysis
The only way to really combat this effectively is by hiding the whole concept of servers/instances at first, railroading everyone to a server and only letting them know about decentralisation and servers/instances after the fact.
In theory, this could be doable with Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, and even better than with Mastodon with its themed servers. It wouldn't make sense to offer Hubzilla, (streams) or Forte servers for certain topics or target audiences, seeing as the whole thing would become moot the very moment when you make your first clone on another server. Simply build a kind of "automatic on-boarder" that sends everyone to the geographically closest open-registration server.
In practice, that'd be a bad idea, but for a different reason than on Mastodon. And that's how these servers tend to be very different. Not in topic. Not in target audiences. Not in rules. But in features. Hubzilla is modular, (streams) is modular, Forte is modular, and each admin decides differently on which "apps" to activate. Then you want to join Hubzilla for one cool feature, but the on-boarder railroads you to a server where that very feature isn't even activated.
Sure, the on-boarder could include the option to select certain features that you absolutely must have in your new home and then pick a server that has them. But that'd be extra hassle and extra confusing.
Besides, where'd you put that on-boarder? On the official Hubzilla website? Haha, no can do. The official Hubzilla website is a webpage on a Hubzilla channel itself. It's all just dumb old static HTML with a CSS. If it's even HTML and not Markdown or BBcode, that is. You couldn't add scripts to it if you tried.
Oh, and (streams) and Forte don't even have official websites. And (streams) will never have one, seeing as it's officially and intentionally nameless, brandless and totally not even a project. Their "websites" are readme files in their code repositories on Codeberg.The Sin of Inconsistent Navigation: Timeline Turmoil
The streams on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte are quite a bit different from Mastodon timelines.
First of all, what you usually don't have on public servers is the counterpart to Mastodon's local timeline and Mastodon's federated timeline. On all three, this would be only one stream, the "public stream" or "pubstream". It can be switched by the admin to either what'd be local or what'd be federated. However, public servers usually have it off entirely. Unavailable even to local users. That's because the admins don't want to be held liable for what's happening on the pubstream.
Technically speaking, you only have one stream on a public server, and that's your channel stream. It's much more efficient than a Mastodon timeline because it always shows entire conversations by default instead of detached single-message piecemeal, and because it has a counter for unread messages which even lists these unread messages for you to directly go to the corresponding conversation. But that's another story.
However, your channel stream can be viewed on your channel page, conversation by conversation, or it can be viewed on the stream page as an actual stream with all conversations shown in a feed/timeline-like fashion, one upon another, and with its own set of built-in filters such as "only my own messages" or "only conversations started by members of one particular privacy group/access list" or "only conversations from one particular group actor". It's actually much more convenient than any Mastodon timeline, but for those who want a Twitter clone for dumb-dumbs, it can be very overwhelming.
Yes, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte are much more complex in handling than, say, snac2. But they're also much more complex in features than snac2. That power is their USP. And that power must be harnessed somehow.The Sin of Remote Interaction Purgatory: Federation Gymnastics
Sure, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte have some of the best built-in search systems in the whole Fediverse. They can pull almost everything onto your channel stream just by searching for it. And if it has replies, chances are they pull these in as well.
But still, they're geared towards desktop users. They still require copy-paste. Phone users don't copy paste. Most of them don't even know the very concept of copy-paste. For most of those who do, copy-paste is much too fumbly if the input device available to them is a 6" touch screen.
You can't blame them, though. This is next to impossible to do any differently. I mean, you won't see a button magically appear with which you can pull in just that one post or comment you want to pull in.
Rather, the issue is that they can only reel in almost everything. Sometimes the search returns nothing, like a void. Sometimes the search runs indefinitely without any kind of result. This may be because someone has blocked your channel, because someone has blocked your entire server, because the server someone is on has blocked you or your entire server, because Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte doesn't understand the URI pasted into the search field or whatever.
So this is made worse by Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte not knowing what they can search for, what they can't and why not.
Connecting with someone whom you encounter on your channel stream is fairly easy. Connections can be initiated with only two clicks. Either you click their long name, and you're taken to a pretty much distraction-less local "intermediate page" with a striking green button that's labelled "+ Connect". Or if you don't want to leave the channel page, you hover your mouse cursor over their profile picture, click on the little white arrow that appears, and you get a small menu that offers you the "Connect" option as well. Granted, even some veterans don't know the latter trick because it isn't immediately advertised on the channel page.
Also, sure, you don't simply follow them right off the bat with nothing else to do like on Mastodon. You're taken to your Connections page, and you have to configure the connection (you don't have to do that on Mastodon because you can't configure connections on Mastodon).
Following accounts/channels from the directory is a bit easier. The green "+ Connect" button is there right away (unless you're already connected). However, Hubzilla's directory only lists channels based on the Nomad protocol, i.e. Hubzilla and (streams) channels, because ActivityPub is only implemented in an optional, off-by-default-for-new-channels add-on whereas it's in the core and on by default on (streams) and the only available protocol on Forte.
Importing contents or following actors when seeing them locally on other servers without copy-pasting and searching can be done. It requires OpenWebAuth magic single sign-on, however, and it requires it to be implemented on all servers of all Fediverse server applications from Mastodon to WordPress to Ghost to Flipboard. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte are the only Fediverse server applications with full (client-side and server-side) OpenWebAuth implementations. But that's of little use if the rest of the Fediverse doesn't have server-side implementations, and Mastodon has even silently rejected a mere client-side implementation already developed to a pull request two years ago.The Sin of DM Disasters Waiting to Happen
I think this is less of an issue on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte because they handle DMs differently from Mastodon (which "the Fediverse" actually refers to in the article).
On all three, DMs are integrated into their extensive, fine-grained permissions system in which everything is only public if it's really public. The difference between a post and a DM is not just a switch.
If I want to DM you, I can either tag you@!{[email protected]}rather than@[url=https://mastodon.social/@benpate]Ben Pate 🤘🏻[/url]. Then you're a) the only one to whom the message is sent (it literally doesn't even go out to any other server than mastodon.social plus my clone on hub.hubzilla.de as can be seen in the delivery report) and b) the only one who is granted permission to view the message.
Or I can use the padlock icon and select you from the opening list as the sole recipient. The very moment that I select certain recipients, the post I'm composing quits being public, and the padlock icon switches from open to closed. This isn't a one-click or two-click toggle. You don't do that casually. It's basically configuration. It requires so many mouse clicks that you do it consciously and intentionally. If you want to post in private, you have to really want to post in private.
Better yet: You can default to posting only to a certain limited target audience. In fact, by default on a brand-new channel, you only post to the members of one privacy group/access list (which is a Mastodon list on coke and 'roids). You have to manually reconfigure your new channel if you want to post to the general public by default.
If you preview your post, you can see whether it's a direct message to one or multiple single connections (envelope icon next to your long name), a limited-permissions message to one or multiple privacy groups/access lists/group actors (closed padlock icon) or actually public (no icon).
Even better yet: Posts to group actors generally aren't public. Posts to at least Friendica groups, Hubzilla forums, (streams) groups and Forte groups are never public. They do not go out to your followers as well unless they're connected to the same group. And this is independent from whether a group is public or private. You can't accidentially post to a group actor in public, and if you do, you don't post to that group actor at all, at least not in a way that makes the group actor forward your post to its other connections.
Granted, what does not happen is your background switching from your background colour or background image (which can be user-configured) to red #800000 or a yellow-and-back chevron pattern when you change visibility and permissions to something that isn't public.The Sin of Ghost Conversations and Phantom Follower Counts
And again, when @Tim Chambers says, "the Fediverse", he almost exclusively means Mastodon. He writes as if the entire Fediverse handled conversations as terribly as Mastodon, as if the entire Fediverse was as blissfully unaware of enclosed conversations as Mastodon. Which is not the case.
Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, as well as their ancestor Friendica, handle conversations in ways that exceed Mastodon users' imaginations and wildest dreams by magnitudes. Unlike Mastodon, they know threaded conversations, and they see them as enclosed objects where only the start post counts as a post, and everything else counts as a comment.
This means that once you've received a post on your stream, you will also receive all comments on that post, regardless of whether or not you follow the commenters, regardless of whether or not they mention you. That's because all four reel in the comments not from the commentors, but from the original poster who is perceived as the owner of the thread. Only blocks or channel-wide filters can prevent comments from coming in.
Beyond that, (streams) was the first to introduce Conversation Containers. Forte inherited them from (streams), and when they were defined in FEP-171b, Hubzilla implemented them, too.
Here on Hubzilla, I can see all comments in this thread because my channel has fetched them directly from @Johannes Ernst. And I can actually see them right away because that's the default view here on Hubzilla, rather than Mastodon's piecemeal.
Even if you import a post manually using the search feature (and you better import the actual start post), AFAIK existing comments will eventually be backfilled. Comments that come in after importing will definitely end up on your stream as part of the thread.
So this is not a shortcoming of the Fediverse. The Fediverse has been able to do better for 15 years. It's a shortcoming of Mastodon.
The only "issue" here may be that it sometimes takes some time for a comment to show up for some reasons. But unless there are blocks or filters in play, it eventually will.The Sin of Invisible Discovery: The Content Mirage
I'm not going to pick on the audacious implication that "Eugen and team" invented the Fediverse.
But Tim writes like literally everyone wants "the Fediverse" (read, actually Mastodon) to be literally Twitter without Musk.
Also:- Friendica has had full-blown full-text search since its inception as early as 2010. Five and a half years longer than Mastodon has even existed.
- Hubzilla has had full-blown full-text search since its inception as early as 2011 when it was forked from Free-Friendika. It has inherited full-text search from Friendica.
- (streams) and Forte have had full-blown full-text search since their respective inception in 2021 and 2024, both having inherited it themselves.
Oh, and none of them has an explicit opt-in switch to soothe panicking Twitter converts because panicking Twitter converts have never been the primary target audience of either of them.
Instead, on Hubzilla, whether someone can find your content depends on whether they've got permission to view it in the first place ("Can view my channel stream and posts"). If it's public, they have it. Full stop. Public is public is public. Stop whining. You've made it public, now deal with everything being able to see it.
(streams) and Forte behave the same. In addition, they have an extra permission: "Grant search access to your channel stream and posts". This controls who may search your channel stream using your own local search feature while visiting your channel locally. Something that isn't even possible on Mastodon.
As for not having any content on my channel stream before I connect to anyone: I, for one, do not want some algorithm to force content upon me that I'm not interested in. Full. Frigging. Stop. I want to have full and exclusive control over what I see and what I don't.The Sin of User Discovery Hell
Can it really be that Mastodon's directory is so much worse than Friendica's, Hubzilla's, (streams)' and Forte's directories? I guess it is because it really only lists local accounts on that one particular server. A side-effect of Mastodon being a microblogging service and Twitter clone. And not a full-blown, fully-featured social network and Facebook alternative. No, seriously, it isn't that.
Friendica is. It was designed as such. It was designed to take Facebook's place, and not by aping and cloning Facebook, but by being better than Facebook.
The directory on each node is decentralised. It lists all actors known to that node. What's outright unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view: It takes the keywords in the profiles into account. Better even: It ranks suggestions by the number of matching keywords.
Want something centralised instead? Try the Friendica Directory. Looking for people? Looking for news accounts? Looking for groups? There are specialised tabs for that. Friendica can tell them apart, and so can the Friendica Directory.
Caveat: The Friendica Directory only lists Friendica accounts. Friendica's built-in directory should list everything it knows. I haven't used Friendica in many years, but I guess this even includes diaspora* accounts because why not?
Hubzilla has indirectly inherited its directory from Friendica. This is the directory on Netzgemeinde, the biggest Hubzilla hub.
Again, it lists local as well as federated channels. You can choose whether to see only local channels ("This Website Only") or federated channels as well. You can choose whether channels flagged NSFW shall be listed or not ("Safe Mode"). You can choose to only have group actors listed that let themselves be listed ("Public Forums Only"). You have a cloud of keywords from the keyword lists in the profiles that you can filter by (Mastodon doesn't even have keyword lists in profiles). You have full-text search for names and keywords. There's even a Facebook-style suggestion mode that proposes connections to you with a ranking based on your keywords and their keywords as well as the number of common connections, and that still has the same filters.
Caveat this time: Hubzilla's directory only supports the one sole protocol built into Hubzilla's core. And that's Zot6. This means that Hubzilla's directory only lists Hubzilla and (streams) channels because Hubzilla and (streams) are the only Fediverse server applications that support Zot6.
(streams) and Forte have inherited their directories again. And they probably have the most powerful decentralised directories in the entire Fediverse. I'd give you a link, but (streams) directories generally aren't public; only local channels can access them.
These directories are similar to the ones on Hubzilla. You see local and federated actors, and you can choose to only see local actors ("This Website Only"). You can choose to only see group actors ("Groups Only"). You can choose to not see channels flagged NSFW ("Safe Mode"). What's new: Inactive actors can be kept out, too ("Recently Updated").
Now it comes: (streams) has ActivityPub built into its core, and it's on by default on new channels. Forte is entirely based on ActivityPub.
This means that their directories can list anything from anywhere that uses ActivityPub. "Groups Only" gives you Guppe groups, Lemmy communities, /kbin and Mbin magazines, PieFed communities, Mobilizon groups, Flipboard magazines, Friendica groups, Hubzilla forums, (streams) groups, Forte groups etc., all on one list.
(streams) has a slight edge over Forte here because it also lists Hubzilla and (streams) channels that have ActivityPub off such as the Streams Users Tea Garden where ActivityPub was turned off with the very intention to keep Mastodon out.
If there was a gigantic Forte server, as big as mastodon.social, and its directory was accessible to the public, that directory would be the best directory in the Fediverse for anything really. If it was on (streams), it would list more, but it would confuse some users of e.g. Mastodon who'd try to follow Hubzilla or (streams) channels that have ActivityPub off. Forte simply doesn't list these because it can't find them.
A global directory of everything sounds like a good idea, but it's next to impossible to implement.
Either the directory would go look for actors itself. In order to do that, it would have to know within a split-second not only whenever a new actor is created somewhere so it can index that actor right away, but also whenever a new server is spun up so that the admin actor can be indexed, and that server can be watched. How is it supposed to know all that?
Well, or the directory, a single, monolithic, centralised website, would have to be hard-coded into all Fediverse server software. That way, each server could immediately report newly created actors to the central directory upon their creation.
For starters, this would make the whole Fediverse depend on one single centralised website under the control of, if bad comes to worse, one person.
Besides, this would be a privacy nightmare. Let's suppose I create a new (streams) channel that's supposed to be private. Its existence and all its properties would be sent to the central directory before I can set it to private and restrict its permissions. This wouldn't be so bad on Hubzilla because I'd make the channel private before I turn on PubCrawl and make the channel accessible to the directory in the first place because the directory would only understand ActivityPub.
Of course, the directory would mostly be built against Mastodon. It would not understand the permissions systems implemented on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, and it might happily siphon off the profiles of channels where access to the profile is restricted and make them publicly accessible. On the other hand, this is likely to mean that the directory couldn't read most of Hubzilla's, (streams)' and Forte's profile text fields anyway because Mastodon doesn't have them.
But such a centralised directory wouldn't make connecting to other users that much easier and more convenient. You'd still have to copy and paste URLs or IDs into your local search and search for them (unless you're on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) or Forte where you can connect to URLs directly). At the very least, you should be able to go to the centralised directory and follow anyone just by clicking or tapping them. That, however, would require OpenWebAuth support on both your home server and that directory.
Ideally, that directory would be firmly built into all instances of all Fediverse software from snac2 to Mastodon to Hubzilla, even replacing any existing directory to confuse people less. But that would make the Fediverse even more dependent on one central website and its owner, something which should be avoided at all cost.
Lastly, nothing can ever be built into all instances of all Fediverse software. Remember that there's software with living instances that's barely being developed such as Plume. There's even software with living instances that's been officially pronounced dead such as Calckey, Firefish or /kbin. How are Firefish servers supposed to implement such a feature if nobody maintains Firefish anymore, and even the code repository was deleted?
CC: @Risotto Bias
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #OpenWebAuth #SingleSignOn #NomadicIdentity #Search #FullTextSearch #Directory #Permissions #Privacy #Conversations #ThreadedConversations #FEP_171b #ConversationContainers -
Wouldn't it be nice if you could have a real telephone, that wasn't wiretapped by default?
Encrypted, decentralized and truly peer-to-peer voice calls and telephony over Reticulum is now a reality with the newly released LXST framework. Because it uses Reticulum for data transport, LXST voice calls require no intermediary servers or accounts anywhere. Anyone with an LXST-enabled device or software client can call anyone else - as long as there is a network connection between the devices.
Using the efficient hybrid mesh routing of Reticulum, this also means that your calls aren't routed anywhere they shouldn't be. If you call an endpoint in the same building, the telephones connect directly, and not over somebody elses VoIP server in another country.
These two prototypes are fully functional telephones, that can dial to and receive calls from any other LXST endpoint. It takes about 20 minutes to assemble one, and it's built from completely standard and readily available components, obtainable from common electronics vendors.
Initial client support is already implement in the Sideband application for desktop, the command line applicationrnphone, and of course the physical telephone implementation.
Like other Reticulum-based protocols, authentication and encryption is handled by the self-sovereign identity layer in Reticulum. This means that you truly own your addresses, and that you can move around to anywhere in the network (or another network altogether) and still be reachable for anyone else. If you have an LXST "number", nobody can take it away from you, and there is no phone service provider to pay for the privilege of keeping it.
The system provides high-quality, real-time full-duplex voice calls between endpoints, and uses only open source software components. This includes the voice codecs, which can real-time switch between OPUS (for high quality) and Codec2 (for ultra low bandwidth) without any frame loss.
But LXST was not only designed for telephony and voice calls. In fact, it is a general purpose secure signal transport framework, that allows sending any type of analogue or digital signal over Reticulum networks, either efficiently encoded or completely uncompressed. The protocol currently supports transporting up to 32 simultaneous signal carriers with up to 128-bit floating point precision in a single stream.
It also supports transmitting digital signalling and control data in-band with the carried signal frames. This allows creating almost any kind of real-time application.
At this early stage of development, the framework includes ready-to-use primitives for telephony, signal input, output and mixing, and network transport. Future development will focus on even more primitives such as:
- Real-time distributed radio communications
- Decentralized 2-way radio systems, similar to (but more flexible than) trunked systems such as DMR and P.25
- Media broadcasting for information content such as podcasts and digital broadcast radio that anyone can set up and use
- And many more useful and interesting applications
If you want to dive deeper into this, there is more information available on the LXST source repository and in discussion threads. It's still very early days for LXST, but if you're interested in this kind of thing, it might be a good time to jump in.
#reticulum #lxst #sideband #privacy #security #voip #opensource -
I hope one of the #LessonsLearned is to implement a “maker-checker” protocol.
For many hierachical, command-and-control, authority-conscious organizations, this can be a common #AntiPattern: the head/executive/leader goes offline to create “content”, and nobody reviews it for #sensemaking, #blindspots, or unintended #messaging.
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Emergence of governance in open communities
How the Fediverse is growing to meet its challenges
[German language version of this text will be published in FIfF-Kommunikation, the journal of the Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung (FIfF e.V.)]
ToC
The dead live longer
Multi-layered self-regulation
Gab: the Nazis are coming
Threads and Bluesky: Federation Washing?
Conclusio: Small is Beautiful
LiteraturThe social media landscape has been undergoing a tectonic shift since Elon Musk took over Twitter and Donald Trump took over the USA. The Fediverse emerged at a time when the previous phase of decentralised social networks – the blogosphere – was being supplanted by globally centralised platforms such as Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005) and Twitter (2006). With them came the problems: surveillance-based advertising, election manipulation by Cambridge Analytica, addictive design, enshittification of previously useful services (Cory Doctorow), techno-feudalism (Yanis Varoufakis).
In contrast, a counter-movement for the recentralisation of the Internet (Kahle 2016, Berners-Lee et al. 2016) is emerging and for sovereignty in Europe, which is becoming painfully aware of its comprehensive technological dependence on the US.
The perception of a crisis is giving rise to a new digital universe, the decentralised and federated Fediverse. For many migrants from toxic environments, it feels like a friendly neighbourhood where reason and civilised conversation prevail. Of course, this is not a genetic trait, hard-coded into Mastodon & Co. But how does an open community oriented towards the common good, a bustling field of players and technologies, organise itself? How does the governance of complex socio-technical systems unfold?
Resilient structures of self-organisation, so the theory goes, are the result of experiences of conflict. Current external or internal conflicts as well as structural problems (onboarding, money, etc.) trigger a collective reflection that challenges open communities to emerge from a lack of structure. The solutions, as I would like to show with examples, can be of technical or social protocols, usually a combination of both.
The dead live longer
Distributed and federated protocols have been around since 1999 with XMPP. According to official historiography, the Fediverse began in 2008 with the decentralised OpenMicroBlogging protocol and the platform Identi.ca, a free version of Twitter based on it, both developed by Evan Prodromou.
In January 2016, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) presented the ActivityPub protocol to improve the interoperability of the various decentralised platforms in the Fediverse. Prodromou is again co-author. Also since 2016, Eugen Rochko has been developing the microblog Mastodon, which is now the star among the decentralised platforms with around ten million users. In addition to Mastodon, the microblog Misskey, the photo platform Pixelfed, the link aggregator Lemmy and the video platform Peertube are also popular in the ActivityPub universe (FediDB: Software, April 2025).
As already mentioned, the development is motivated by criticism of the techno-feudalism of the mega-platforms. The current lead author of ActivityPub, Christine Lemmer-Webber, notes that no companies are involved in the team developing the protocol, which is very unusual for technical committees. In addition, the team identifies predominantly as queer, which leads to functions in the protocol and in the clients that help users and administrators to protect themselves from ‘unwanted interaction’ (Klemens 2023).
Mastodon is run by a non-profit limited company. The community excludes venture capital as well as surveillance advertising, which has made the mega-platforms the richest companies in the world. Mastodon per default does not even include a function for displaying adverts. But how is a global community that is essentially financed by collecting donations supposed to build an alternative to this overwhelming power and lure people out of the lock-in by the mega-companies?
As the Fediverse contradicts all business logic, experts predicted that it would soon come to an end (Woźniak 2025). The opposite is the case. At Berlin Fediday 2024, Prodromou (2024) reported on growth by all criteria: ActivityPub is being implemented by more and more platforms (WordPress, Ghost.org, Flipboard, Threads). The number of users is growing continuously, as are the bridges to other protocols, applications, content, publications and institutions of self-organisation: the SocialCG (Community Group) for ActivityPub at the W3C, the online conference FediForum, the moderator community IFTAS, Mastodon’s non-profit offshoot in the USA. He answers the question of his presentation title ‘Is Bigger Better?’ with a resounding yes.
A week later, Prodromou announced the creation of the Social Web Foundation (SWF), whose mission is a ‘growing, healthy, sustainable and multipolar Fediverse’. Shortly afterwards, the foundation became a member of the W3C as a community front-end for ActivityPub: ‘We collect requirements and design potential extensions to the ActivityPub protocol and guide them through standardisation’ (SWF 2025).
Multi-layered self-regulation
The Fediverse is, of course, also subject to external regulation through laws, etc. The focus here is on the area in which the Fediverse players are free to regulate themselves. The Fediverse project unites them on the basis of a normative conviction: a different, decentralised, federated Internet is possible. Civil society and the public sector can collectively create an online environment in which people treat each other in a civilised and respectful manner. Common values are initially shared tacitly. As the community grows and becomes more diverse, but especially when conflicts challenge these values, they are made explicit in rules of conduct, mission statements, etc. and operationalised with mechanisms for their implementation and enforcement.
Projects usually start with minimal ad hoc organisational structures and move on to more permanent forms as required. Regulation arises in order to solve problems, e.g. a legal form must be established in order to open a bank account and thus collect donations. Internal dynamic lead to the problem of the Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL). A free software project is started by a man (is there really not a single woman in the Wikipedia list of BDFLs?), becomes popular, grows into a community of co-developers and users, in which the founder remains at the top, respected for his valuable contributions. A meritocracy that, if left unchecked, becomes dysfunctional. The term was coined for Linus Torvalds and his Linux kernel. In the Fediverse, this currently affects Matt Mullenweg from WordPress, Daniel Supernault from Pixelfed and Loops and Eugen Rochko from Mastodon, for example. The latter announced in January 2025 that he would retire from management and concentrate on development. A new non-profit company is to be founded to which he will transfer the Mastodon brand and the copyrights to the code. This means that Mastodon’s independence no longer depends on a single person (Mastodon 2025).
Gab: the Nazis are coming
2016 was a breakthrough year for the Fediverse. It was also the year of Brexit and Trump’s first presidential election. And behind both, the Alt-Right movement emerged onto the research radar from image boards like 4Chan. An Internet-native movement that only half-jokingly boasts of having voted Trump into office and promotes “Fashy”, a “fashionable fascism” (Cramer 2017).
Gab was launched in August 2016 as a social network for radical free speech. Co-founder Andrew Torba cited ‘the total left-wing monopoly of Big Social’ as the motive. Especially during the 2016 election, Facebook and Twitter censored conservative voices. Gab started on its own technology as a mixture of Twitter and Reddit.
Gab was soon banned from the app stores for hate and pornography. In October 2018, a white supremacist killed eleven people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The perpetrator had posted his anti-Semitism on Gab for almost a year. As a result, payment services, web hosts and cloud providers also blocked Gab. To circumvent this block, the creators decided to migrate Gab to a fork of Mastodon in July 2019, making it accessible with every Mastodon app.
Mastodon founder Rochko spoke out on the same day. He explained that the licence (AGPLv3) does not allow certain uses or users to be excluded as long as it is complied with. At the same time, he expressed his disgust at Gab,
“which uses the pretense of free speech absolutism as an excuse to platform racist and otherwise dehumanizing content. Mastodon has been originally developed by a person of Jewish heritage and first-generation immigrant background, and Mastodon’s userbase includes many people from marginalized communities.
Mastodon’s decentralized approach that allows communities to self-govern according to their needs has enabled those marginalized communities to create safe spaces for themselves where previously they were reliant on big companies like Twitter to stand up for them, which these companies have often failed to do.” (Rochko 2019)
It was precisely decentralisation and federation that brought about a social protocol as a solution. On the one hand, many Mastodon admins had already decided to block Gab, including mastodon.social, which is operated by the Mastodon gGmbH itself. On the other hand, rules have been made explicit for the servers listed on joinmastodon.org, which is also operated by the gGmbH. With the Mastodon Server Covenant, server operators commit to
1. Active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia,
2. Daily backups,
3. At least one other person with emergency access to the server infrastructure,
4. And to give users at least 3 months of advance warning in case of shutting down. (Mastodon: Covenant)
There is no technical switch against Nazis. Although there have been discussions about inserting code into the clients to prevent them from logging into Gab servers, such changes can be easily reversed. The copyright licence also does not allow Nazis to be excluded from using one’s own software. There is a long debate about banning use for military purposes, for example (Kreutzer 2006). In practice, restrictions on use by licence violate the definition of free software and have not become established.
Nazis can set up their own Fediverse servers. However, the Federation’s code of conduct, the Covenant, ensures that these instances remain isolated, like Gab and Truth Social, and do no harm in the Federation. For newcomers, this level is less visible than the policies of the individual instances. However, it is crucial for the information space as a whole.
Regulations are only as good as their enforcement. Block lists for accounts and instances are maintained as tools for the daily work of admins and moderators (e.g. Oliphant). The moderators have joined forces in the IFTAS (Independent Federated Trust & Safety) forum.
Looking back at research on “alternative social media” (ASM), Robert W. Gehl (2025) notes that the widespread assumption that ASM are progressive had a blind spot: they can just as easily be used by the political right. The deplatforming of right-wing radicals on the mega-platforms increased the pressure to build their own places for radical freedom of speech. Now the research has turned into the opposite and reduced ASM to ‘alt-right social media’. However, Gehl sees an advantage in the fact that an aspect that was largely missing from the earlier literature has since been addressed: governance. ‘Much of the earliest scholarship focused on how technical elements such as free and open source software and decentralized architectures would shift power away from corporate social media to end users, but had less to say about how those users might govern themselves.’ (ibid.)
Threads and Bluesky: Federation Washing?
The next invasion of the Fediverse threatened to come from one of the mega-platforms that the alternative was up against. Meta wanted to capitalise on the Twitter exodus following Musk’s takeover and planned a text-based companion app to Instagram. Threads launches with fanfare on 5 July 2023. Thanks to Instagram’s more than two billion users, the new service gained 100 million users within five days, except in Europe, where a data protection clarification delayed the launch until December. Threads also began integrating the ActivityPub protocol in December 2023 (The Verge 2023).
The bridge from Instagram to the Fediverse has triggered even more heated debates than Gab, including reciprocal death threats. Above all, there were fears about the well-known strategy of embrace, extend, extinguish. From this camp, the tried and tested instrument used against Gab was brought up: a campaign for the collective exclusion of threads from the federation, which was followed by many instances.
Conversely, Fediverse stakeholders welcomed threads because they see interoperability between platforms as a major step forward. ‘We’ve been advocating for this for years,’ wrote Rochko (2023) on the day of the threads launch. In his blog post, he addresses accusations (data tracking, advertising, being overwhelmed by huge servers, embrace-extend-extinguish, moderation). However, he describes the lock-in of the social graph as the biggest problem, which prevents users from switching platforms if they do not want to lose all their contacts.
“The fact that large platforms are adopting ActivityPub is not only validation of the movement towards decentralized social media, but a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers. Which in turn, puts pressure on such platforms to provide better, less exploitative services. This is a clear victory for our cause, hopefully one of many to come.” (ibid.)
Prodromou also welcomed the mega-platform’s access so that the Fediverse can quickly grow and become a powerful alternative. If there are problems, every site and all users are free not to connect to the newcomers. ‘Choice is part of the strength of the Fediverse.’ (Prodromou 2024)
Another invasion came from Twitter, specifically from its co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. In 2019, he launched an initiative that gave rise to the AT Protocol and Bluesky Social. The platform with the look and feel of the original Twitter was launched in 2023. In January 2025, Bluesky claimed to have 30 million users (BNO News 2025).
Technically, the AT protocol allows decentralisation. In fact, the system is currently neither decentralised nor federated, as Lemmer-Webber (2024) discusses in detail. Furthermore, venture capital financing, not least from blockchain circles, raises doubts about sustainable freedom.
Conclusio: Small is Beautiful
The mega-platforms must continue to be rendered less hazardous through legal regulation. Buying oneself free is not an option. Rather, building alternatives is crucial. Decentralisation from above leads to a Fedi-Washing that only looks like it. The inherently decentralised network of protocol-connected nodes that has grown over the years and organises itself from below is sustainable. Last but not least, the Fediverse offers an opportunity for Europe. Many of the developers and more than twice as many Fediverse servers are in the EU (8,818) than in the USA (4,275) (Fediverse Observer, April 2025).
The non-profit nature and small size of the communities are clearly positive features of the Fediverse. Kissane & Kazemi (2024) have investigated how governance is organised on individual servers and between servers. Their conclusion: ‘Fediverse governance as we encountered it in our research conversations is emergent, unevenly distributed, and often reactive.’ The majority of Fediverse servers are operated by individuals or small groups. Medium-sized servers offer uniquely favourable conditions for community self-governance according to local norms and allow for very direct, context-dependent moderation that is superior to that of centralised platforms. ‘The Fediverse’s combined emphasis on the sovereignty of local norms and a federated form of network diplomacy can offer a real and optimistic challenge to the dead end of centralized content moderation at scale’ (ibid.).
To summarise: local, manageable communities form the basis, create diplomatic networks and grow organically into a fediverse that is more than the sum of its parts. Small is Beautiful as a prerequisite for Bigger is Better.
Literatur
Berners-Lee, Tim et al. (2016). Solid: A Platform for Decentralized Social Applications Based on Linked Data, 2016, http://emansour.com/research/meccano/solid_protocols.pdf.
BNO News (2015). Twitter alternative Bluesky hits 30 million users, 28.01.2025, https://bnonews.com/index.php/2025/01/twitter-alternative-bluesky-hits-30-million-users/.
Cramer, Florian (2017). Meme Wars: Internet culture and the ‘alt right’, at FACT Liverpool, 07.03.2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiNYuhLKzi8.
FediDB: Software (o.J.). https://fedidb.org/software.
Fediverse Observer (o.J.). Server nach Land, https://fediverse.observer/stats.
Gehl, Robert W. (2025). A Brief History of Alternative Social Media Scholarship, 07.02.2025, https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2025/02/07/asm-scholarship-history.html.
Kahle, Brewster (2016). Locking the Web Open: A Call for a Decentralized Web, Juni 2016, https://archive.org/details/LockingTheWebOpen_2016.
Kissane, Erin & Darius Kazemi (2024). Findings Report: Governance on Fediverse Microblogging Servers, https://fediverse-governance.github.io/.
Klemens, Ben (2023). Mastodon – and the pros and cons of moving beyond Big Tech gatekeepers, Ars Technica, 02.01.2023, https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/01/mastodon-highlights-pros-and-cons-of-moving-beyond-big-tech-gatekeepers/.
Kreutzer, Till (2006). Open-Source-Software zwischen Moral und Freiheit, iRights, 15.08.2006, https://irights.info/artikel/open-source-software-zwischen-moral-und-freiheit/6219.
Lemmer-Webber, Christine (2024). How decentralized is Bluesky really?, 22.11.2024, https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/.
Lemmer-Webber, Christine (2025). Toot, 19.01.2025, https://social.coop/@cwebber/113856458328842294.
Mastdon: Covenant (n.d.), https://joinmastodon.org/covenant.
Mastodon (2025). The people should own the town square, 13.01.2025, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/.
Prodromou, Evan (2024). A Bigger Better Fediverse, presentation at Berlin Fediday 2024, 14.10.2024, https://berlinfedi.day/2024/.
Rochko, Eugen (2019). Gab switches to Mastodon’s code. Our statement, 04.07.2019, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/07/statement-on-gabs-fork-of-mastodon/.
Rochko, Eugen (2023). What to know about Threads, 05.07.2023, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/.
SWF (2025). The Social Web Foundation announces its membership in the World Wide Web Consortium, 11.2.2025, https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/02/11/the-social-web-foundation-announces-its-membership-in-the-world-wide-web-consortium/.
The Verge (2023). Threads is officially starting to test ActivityPub integration, 13.12.2023, https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/13/24000120/threads-meta-activitypub-test-mastodon.
Woźniak, Michał “rysiek” (2025). Eight years on, Mastodon stubbornly survives, personal blog, 05.04.2025, https://rys.io/en/177.html.
#Fediverse #FreeCulture #Internet #mediaScience #publicSphere
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Are AI-Restricted 3D Printers Killing Innovation?
5,595 words, 30 minutes read time.
Introduction: The Unintended Consequences of AI Restrictions in 3D Printing
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into the world of 3D printing, offering unprecedented capabilities for efficiency, precision, and speed. The implementation of AI-driven controls aims to enhance safety, protect intellectual property, and help manufacturers comply with various legal standards. However, while these restrictions represent a major step forward in terms of security and compliance, they also introduce a host of challenges that could significantly hinder innovation, alienate users, and even open the door to new types of security breaches.
AI systems are now capable of making decisions about what can and cannot be printed, often based on political, corporate, or social biases. This has created an environment where makers, hobbyists, and small businesses could feel increasingly restricted in what they are able to design and produce. For many in the 3D printing community, AI controls have begun to resemble the types of moderation systems seen on social media platforms—deciding what is permissible without much transparency or accountability. The concerns about AI-driven controls not only reflect broader debates about technology and freedom but also raise important questions about the balance between safety and innovation.
The challenge is that, while these systems are designed to help prevent illegal activity, protect proprietary information, and adhere to regulatory standards, they could unintentionally stifle creativity and block access to technologies that have been empowering makers and manufacturers. As companies impose more AI restrictions, especially in areas like aerospace, healthcare, and consumer electronics, some worry that it will push innovation and production into an underground, unregulated market. This could ultimately lead to a fragmented industry where legitimate businesses and individuals lose access to vital tools, and hackers or rogue elements dominate.
Furthermore, AI systems themselves are not foolproof. As we’ve seen in other contexts, AI-driven technologies can be susceptible to errors, biases, and vulnerabilities. The same applies to AI in 3D printing. As printers increasingly rely on cloud-based systems for decision-making, there are more points of attack for hackers looking to exploit these AI controls, either by bypassing restrictions or stealing sensitive data. This creates a real and pressing risk, not just for individuals but for industries that depend on 3D printing for their operations.
Ultimately, the ongoing debate about AI restrictions in 3D printing will require finding a balance between maintaining security and promoting openness. While AI systems offer unprecedented advantages for safety and efficiency, their overreach could stifle the very innovation and creativity that the technology was designed to support. The challenge for policymakers, manufacturers, and the 3D printing community will be to strike the right balance between regulation and freedom, ensuring that AI systems help protect valuable assets while also preserving access to the tools and possibilities that have made 3D printing such a game-changing technology.
The Growing Role of AI in Restricting 3D Printing
AI-powered 3D printers are now capable of scanning digital files to identify “restricted” items—such as firearms, controversial designs, or intellectual property violations—before they are printed. These systems use cloud-based monitoring to flag files that don’t meet pre-determined guidelines, ensuring compliance with safety regulations or copyright laws. On paper, it seems like a good solution for mitigating risks associated with the proliferation of dangerous or illegal items.
However, the growing reliance on these AI systems to enforce restrictions could have serious unintended consequences. One of the most concerning issues is the way in which these restrictions curtail the freedom that defines the 3D printing community. Much like how social media platforms have been accused of overreach when moderating content, 3D printer manufacturers are now assuming the role of gatekeepers over what can and cannot be made, potentially based on political or corporate interests rather than public safety or legality.
How Political Agendas Could Limit 3D Printing Freedom
Just like social media platforms selectively censor content they find objectionable, AI-restricted 3D printers could enforce ideological or corporate biases. Companies that produce 3D printers might block certain designs based on their own policies or external pressures, such as lobbying from interest groups or government agencies. For instance, the debate surrounding 3D-printed firearms has raised concerns that manufacturers might restrict designs that could be used to create guns, even when such printing is legal.
While these restrictions may be framed as a safety measure, many in the 3D printing community see them as an overreach—an attempt to control what people can create. This mirrors the challenges social media platforms face when they moderate speech, leading to concerns over who gets to decide what is “acceptable” and what is not. By restricting certain prints, manufacturers could inadvertently limit the potential of 3D printing to foster creativity, innovation, and collaboration.
Security Risks: Hacking AI-Driven Restrictions in 3D Printing
Despite manufacturers’ efforts to safeguard against misuse, AI-restricted 3D printers are not immune to hacking. As the technology becomes more integrated with cloud-based monitoring systems, the potential for breaches grows significantly. These cloud systems are often responsible for processing and storing design files, which means that if a hacker gains access to them, they could alter the files, bypass restrictions, or steal valuable data. In the worst-case scenario, this could lead to intellectual property theft, damaging the reputation and financial stability of businesses. Hackers may exploit vulnerabilities in cloud platforms, taking advantage of weak security measures or misconfigurations, enabling them to manipulate design files or disable the AI algorithms that govern the printing process.
Additionally, as 3D printers become more connected to the internet and rely on IoT systems, they become more susceptible to remote attacks. A hacker could gain unauthorized access to these devices, controlling the printing process without the need for physical access to the printer itself. By exploiting security loopholes, attackers can manipulate or completely disable the AI-driven restrictions, allowing them to print illegal or restricted items. This has significant implications for businesses that depend on these systems for secure production of sensitive products. Furthermore, such breaches could lead to the theft of proprietary designs, which could be copied or sold on the black market, undermining the integrity of the entire 3D printing industry. The risks of hacking underscore the need for stronger security measures and proactive defense mechanisms in the evolving landscape of 3D printing.
Examples of Hardware Being Hacked
There have already been notable instances of hardware vulnerabilities being exploited in the 3D printing world, highlighting the risks inherent in these systems:
- Stealing Intellectual Property in Aerospace: Hackers have exploited vulnerabilities in 3D printers used by aerospace companies. In one case, hackers accessed industrial 3D printers to steal design files of aircraft components, leading to the production of counterfeit parts that could be sold at cheaper prices, endangering safety standards.
- 3D Printer Firmware Hacks: In one incident, a researcher spent months cracking encrypted firmware of a 3D printer to fix software issues, discovering that such vulnerabilities could also be exploited to steal design files and bypass security measures. This vulnerability is particularly concerning in industrial settings where proprietary designs are crucial.
- Acoustic Hacking: At the University of California, Irvine, researchers demonstrated that the sounds a 3D printer makes during operation could be used to reverse-engineer parts. By recording these sounds, hackers could gain enough detail to reproduce parts with high accuracy, circumventing security that encrypts design files.
- Unauthorized Access to Cloud Storage: Hackers have targeted cloud-based storage platforms linked to 3D printers, stealing valuable design files and intellectual property. Once inside the cloud storage, attackers can alter files, bypass restrictions, and even inject malicious code into designs, potentially compromising the integrity of the printer’s output.
- Jailbreaking the Printer Software: Hackers have also used jailbreaking techniques to break into the software of 3D printers. This enables them to disable restrictions and gain unrestricted access to the printer’s functionality, allowing them to print illegal or unauthorized items.
These examples emphasize the growing threat of hacking in the 3D printing world. As AI-driven systems become more common, so do the opportunities for hackers to exploit weaknesses in these technologies. Stronger security measures and vigilance will be essential to maintaining the integrity of the industry and protecting against misuse.
Ways Hackers Could Bypass Restrictions
As AI-driven restrictions on 3D printers become more common, the potential for hackers to exploit vulnerabilities in these systems grows. While manufacturers are working to tighten security, the evolving nature of both AI and hacking techniques means these systems may not be as foolproof as intended. Let’s explore in more detail how unauthorized individuals could bypass these restrictions and what that could mean for the future of 3D printing.
Manipulating Printer Firmware and AI Controls
One of the most immediate ways hackers could circumvent AI-driven restrictions is by targeting the printer’s firmware. The firmware acts as the core software that controls the printer’s operations, including the AI algorithms that detect and prevent restricted items from being printed. If a hacker gains access to this firmware—perhaps by exploiting weak security protocols or gaining physical access to the printer—they could disable or alter the AI controls.
By modifying or removing the AI’s scanning algorithm, hackers could effectively allow printers to produce prohibited or restricted items. This opens the door for individuals to create dangerous weapons, counterfeit products, or other items that would otherwise be flagged. These exploits could be performed for personal use, or worse, sold on the black market to those with malicious intent. The potential scale of misuse here is significant, as once AI controls are disabled, the possibility for unethical or illegal prints becomes almost limitless. Additionally, such modifications might not be easily detectable, allowing hackers to operate without raising red flags for long periods.
Moreover, altering the printer’s firmware doesn’t just allow hackers to bypass restrictions; it could also be used to hide the origin of illicit designs. Hackers could reprogram the printer to generate “clean” print logs, erasing any trace of the banned content that was produced. Such sophisticated methods would make it harder for authorities or manufacturers to trace the misuse back to the culprit.
Exploiting Cloud-Based Vulnerabilities
Another major vulnerability in AI-restricted 3D printing systems is the reliance on cloud-based platforms for analyzing and storing designs. When 3D printers scan digital files for compliance with AI rules, these files are often uploaded to cloud servers for real-time processing. This centralized storage method simplifies the process for both users and manufacturers but also creates an attractive target for hackers.
If an attacker can gain access to the cloud platform, they could alter the design files being analyzed, bypass the AI’s detection system, or even upload malicious files designed to exploit flaws in the printer’s security. For example, an attacker could inject code into the digital files to override the AI’s scanning protocol or remove the identification markers that trigger the restrictions. This would allow users to print restricted items, all while bypassing the safety measures put in place.
Moreover, cloud breaches also expose the risk of intellectual property theft. Companies that rely on proprietary designs for their products or processes store valuable data in these cloud systems. If a hacker successfully infiltrates the cloud storage, they could steal these designs, leading to significant financial losses and even potential lawsuits if the stolen designs are used or sold without authorization. Not only does this undermine the trust users place in these platforms, but it could discourage businesses from using AI-restricted printers at all, fearing the security risks involved.
Jailbreaking and Unlocking 3D Printers
Similar to the techniques used to jailbreak smartphones or gaming consoles, 3D printers can also be “jailbroken” to remove restrictions imposed by the manufacturer. Jailbreaking typically involves altering or replacing the device’s operating system, allowing it to bypass the intended limitations. In the case of AI-restricted 3D printers, jailbreaking could involve unlocking the printer’s software to allow for unrestricted printing.
Once jailbroken, the printer would no longer follow the manufacturer’s rules or restrictions, making it possible for users to print anything they wish—whether legal or not. This could range from creating counterfeit goods to producing dangerous, banned items like firearms or drug-related paraphernalia. Since the software is no longer locked down, hackers can also install their own modified versions of the software, opening even more doors for malicious activity.
This type of hacking is particularly concerning because it’s a relatively accessible way for non-expert users to disable AI-driven restrictions. It’s not just large-scale hackers or criminals who can exploit this; everyday users with basic knowledge of software modifications could potentially gain full control over their printers. Once the system is compromised, the potential for misuse skyrockets, as the technology becomes as free to operate as the maker’s imagination allows.
Remote Hacking and Data Theft
While many 3D printing systems rely on local firmware or cloud-based processing, the growing trend toward Internet of Things (IoT)-connected devices introduces new risks. 3D printers that are connected to the internet for easier file transfers or remote monitoring could be targeted by hackers from anywhere in the world. These remote attacks could exploit known vulnerabilities in the printer’s software or its internet connection to bypass AI restrictions without the need for physical access.
Such remote hacking attempts can involve manipulating the printer’s communication protocols, gaining unauthorized access to the design data, or even installing malware that forces the printer to follow illicit instructions. For instance, hackers could inject a piece of code into the printer that causes it to ignore specific restrictions or print files that are flagged as dangerous.
This remote access could also lead to serious data theft. If a business is using a 3D printer to prototype products or create sensitive designs, remote hacking could expose these assets to theft. With cloud-based storage or IoT connectivity, valuable company data—ranging from trade secrets to new product designs—could be stolen, copied, or sold on the black market. This threat has been growing across all IoT-connected industries, and 3D printing could quickly become a prime target for cybercriminals looking to exploit weaknesses in these technologies.
The Future of Hacking 3D Printing Systems
As 3D printing technology continues to evolve, so too will the methods used by hackers to exploit vulnerabilities in AI-driven systems. The sophistication of attacks will likely increase, with hackers utilizing a combination of firmware manipulation, cloud exploits, jailbreaking, and remote hacking to circumvent restrictions. The challenge for manufacturers will be to stay one step ahead of these threats by continuously upgrading security measures and ensuring that AI-driven restrictions cannot be easily bypassed.
For users, the best defense against these risks is vigilance and understanding the potential dangers associated with AI-restricted 3D printers. By staying informed about the latest threats and adopting best practices for security, individuals and businesses can help mitigate the risks posed by hackers. However, the larger issue remains: if AI restrictions are too easily bypassed or manipulated, the value of these systems in securing 3D printing will diminish, ultimately forcing the industry to rethink its approach to safety and control.
The Risk of a Black Market for Unrestricted Printers
As 3D printing technology becomes more integrated with AI-driven restrictions, the potential for a black market offering unrestricted printers grows. These underground networks would cater to those who want to bypass the AI controls placed on commercial 3D printers. People willing to break the law or avoid the ethical considerations of printing restricted items could easily find access to machines that enable them to do so. This could lead to an increase in demand for hacked, modified, or counterfeit 3D printers capable of bypassing these built-in security measures. With the technology becoming more widespread and accessible, these black market operations would likely continue to grow in size and scope, potentially undermining the legitimacy of the entire 3D printing industry.
The presence of such a black market would complicate regulatory and legal efforts to control the technology. Governments and businesses would face challenges in identifying and controlling the use of unregulated machines, especially as these systems may not be traceable to a legitimate manufacturer. As these illegal printers spread, they could lead to the production of harmful or dangerous items, such as weapons, counterfeit parts for vehicles, or even hazardous products. With no oversight or accountability, the risk of unsafe printing practices would rise, putting the general public at risk. As more people gain access to these unrestricted printers, the scale of unethical or dangerous printing could increase rapidly, becoming a significant public safety concern.
The creation of a black market for printers could also negatively impact legitimate manufacturers, who already face significant pressure to maintain strict quality controls and security measures. As people turn to hacked or modified machines, manufacturers who maintain high standards may see a drop in sales, especially as consumers opt for cheaper, unregulated alternatives. This could reduce innovation in the market, as companies may fear that any advancements they make could be undermined by widespread hacking or the growth of the black market. Additionally, the legitimacy of the 3D printing industry as a whole could be questioned, as it becomes increasingly associated with illegal activity, overshadowing its legitimate uses in medical, engineering, and manufacturing fields.
Furthermore, the black market could foster a host of other criminal activities. As hackers gain expertise in modifying 3D printers, they may find new ways to exploit these systems for personal gain. This could include selling stolen designs, creating fake products to trick consumers, or even developing new ways to use printers for illegal or dangerous purposes. The combination of these illegal operations could lead to further degradation of trust in the 3D printing industry. If the public perceives 3D printing as a tool for illicit activity, rather than innovation and progress, the entire field could suffer reputational damage that would take years to recover from.
The Economic and Ethical Impact of Restrictions
AI-driven restrictions on 3D printing are not only a technical and security issue but also pose significant economic challenges, especially for industries that depend on 3D printing for innovation, production, and prototyping. Sectors like aerospace, automotive, and healthcare have made tremendous strides using 3D printing to create complex prototypes and functional parts, often in short runs that would otherwise be too costly or time-consuming to produce with traditional manufacturing. If manufacturers restrict certain designs or types of printing based on vague or politically motivated criteria, it could drastically limit these industries’ ability to innovate and push the boundaries of what’s possible. Companies that rely on the flexibility and customization that 3D printing offers may find themselves stifled by these limitations, hindering their competitiveness in an increasingly fast-paced global market.
For small businesses and independent creators, the financial impact of compliance with AI-driven systems could be prohibitively high. Many independent makers, startups, and entrepreneurs rely on 3D printing technology to prototype products quickly and affordably or to create unique, limited-edition items. If AI restrictions are introduced to prevent them from printing certain designs or products, they may face increased costs due to the need to invest in specialized printers or software to comply with these rules. Additionally, many of these businesses may not have the capital or resources to adhere to the rigid restrictions imposed by large manufacturers, leaving them at a significant disadvantage. As a result, small-scale creators may abandon official, regulated 3D printing systems altogether, turning to open-source, DIY, or unregulated alternatives in an attempt to remain competitive. This trend could contribute to an underground, fragmented marketplace that lacks security, oversight, and accountability.
This shift toward unregulated or underground 3D printing has far-reaching consequences for both innovation and security. By moving away from the official channels that support regulated designs, creators could inadvertently compromise the integrity of their products. Unrestricted printers, while cheaper, may not be subject to the same safety standards or quality control processes that legitimate systems undergo, leading to the proliferation of substandard or dangerous products. This trend could undermine the efforts of companies working to bring high-quality, safe, and reliable 3D-printed items to market, creating a more chaotic and potentially harmful environment. Moreover, as creators abandon ethical standards, the reputation of the entire 3D printing industry could be damaged, as consumers might associate the technology with unreliable or unsafe products.
Another major issue that could arise from these restrictions is the exacerbation of the digital divide. 3D printing has the potential to democratize manufacturing, allowing small creators, individuals, and developing nations to access tools for production that were once exclusive to larger companies with significant resources. However, with AI-driven restrictions forcing smaller creators to either adopt expensive, restricted models or use unregulated alternatives, the technology may become less accessible to those who need it the most. This could lock out innovators from lower-income areas or startups that lack the funds to purchase restricted machines or pay for compliance. At the same time, it would create a widening gap between major corporations and independent creators, potentially stifling competition and reducing the diversity of ideas within the market.
In addition to these economic concerns, the ethical implications of restricting 3D printing are profound. As the technology becomes more powerful and accessible, it has the potential to revolutionize fields ranging from medicine (e.g., printing custom prosthetics or organs) to sustainability (e.g., creating eco-friendly products with reduced waste). However, limiting certain designs based on political or arbitrary criteria could create a dangerous precedent for censorship and control over technology. If the criteria for restricting 3D printing become influenced by political pressure, corporate interests, or fear of misuse, it could stifle creativity, innovation, and even suppress access to life-changing technologies. The ethical debate will only continue to intensify as 3D printing becomes an integral part of more industries and personal projects, and it will be critical for society to find a balance that allows for innovation while protecting public safety.
What Can Be Done to Protect Innovation Without Sacrificing Security?
While the goal of keeping 3D printing safe and secure is understandable, it’s clear that imposing broad, restrictive controls on all users is not the solution. The future of 3D printing hinges on finding a balance between safety and freedom.
One possible solution is to offer optional restrictions rather than mandating them across the board. By allowing users to opt into more rigorous security features, manufacturers can cater to both those who want additional protections and those who prefer greater autonomy. Additionally, decentralizing AI systems—processing design files locally rather than relying on cloud storage—could reduce privacy concerns and increase trust within the 3D printing community.
Another way forward could be the introduction of educational initiatives that focus on ethical 3D printing practices. By empowering users with knowledge about safety and legality, manufacturers can encourage responsible use without resorting to heavy-handed enforcement.
3D Printing Without Internet: Challenges and Workarounds
One of the primary concerns with AI-driven restrictions in 3D printers is their reliance on cloud-based servers and internet connectivity to enforce limitations. These systems analyze and verify print files to determine if they meet predefined criteria, such as whether they contain restricted designs. But what happens when the printer is air-gapped—disconnected from the internet—either due to security concerns or in remote areas where connectivity is unreliable? In this scenario, the printer would likely still operate, but the AI restrictions may become ineffective or unable to function properly.
Functionality Without Cloud Access
When a 3D printer is offline, many of the cloud-based AI-driven controls that enforce restrictions become inaccessible. In such cases, the printer could default to more basic or local file verification methods. However, without the continuous data stream from the manufacturer’s servers, the printer might lack access to the most up-to-date restriction protocols, leading to a situation where restricted or unauthorized designs could be printed without AI interference. This is a potential vulnerability, as users could bypass controls simply by working offline. For instance, in military or high-security environments where printers are air-gapped to prevent hacking, the devices would still function, but there would be a greater risk of misuse or unauthorized printing.
Functionality Without Cloud Access: The Cost of Internet Outages
When a 3D printer is offline due to an internet outage or is deliberately air-gapped for security reasons, the cloud-based AI-driven controls that regulate what can and cannot be printed become inaccessible. Typically, these AI systems help to ensure that designs adhere to specific legal or safety protocols by verifying files before they’re printed. Without access to the continuous data stream from the manufacturer’s cloud servers, the printer may default to more basic, local file verification methods, which lack the sophistication and updates provided by the online system. In the absence of real-time validation, printers may either fail to operate altogether or operate without the necessary safeguards, potentially allowing restricted or unauthorized designs to be printed.
The financial and productivity costs of this type of disruption can be significant. In industries that rely on 3D printing for just-in-time manufacturing, prototyping, or rapid product development, the inability to access updated cloud protocols means the printer might print designs that are outdated, flawed, or even illegal. If such printing activities are discovered, companies could face fines, lawsuits, or damaged reputations, all of which result in considerable costs. For example, in sectors like aerospace or automotive, where strict regulatory compliance is mandatory, printing unauthorized parts could lead to product recalls, safety violations, or even regulatory sanctions. Beyond the legal ramifications, a delay in production due to a printer being offline or working with outdated guidelines could lead to missed deadlines, delayed product launches, and supply chain disruptions.
Additionally, the absence of AI-driven cloud protocols can also result in downtime and inefficiency in high-stakes environments. For instance, industries like healthcare or electronics manufacturing rely on 3D printing for precision and time-sensitive outputs. A single outage, whether due to internet failure or a more systemic issue with the cloud infrastructure, could halt an entire production line, causing a bottleneck that affects downstream operations. The resulting downtime is expensive, not only in terms of lost productivity but also in terms of the costs associated with reprogramming machines, verifying compliance with updated standards, or potentially reprinting faulty items.
Moreover, the productivity losses are compounded by the resources needed to troubleshoot offline systems. Without access to online customer support, updates, or remote diagnostics, manufacturers and businesses may need to invest in in-house technical expertise to ensure that the machines are still functioning properly. This is particularly costly for smaller companies that lack dedicated IT departments. The reliance on manual intervention to ensure compliance and system functionality leads to increased labor costs and can shift the focus away from more productive tasks like innovation and scaling.
Lastly, the long-term impact of frequent internet outages or air-gapping can damage the overall reliability of 3D printing as a core manufacturing tool. When companies face consistent disruptions in cloud access, they may begin to reconsider their reliance on cloud-connected printers, potentially turning to traditional, non-AI-driven 3D printers that do not have the same capabilities but are less susceptible to such interruptions. While this may mitigate some risks, it also eliminates the advantages of AI-driven innovation and efficiency, leading to slower production times, reduced quality, and ultimately higher operational costs. This shift could lead to a greater fragmentation of the market, as companies may turn to less sophisticated or outdated technologies that can handle production independently of cloud-based services, but at a much higher cost to long-term business agility and growth.
In conclusion, while air-gapping or offline modes may offer temporary relief from AI restrictions, they present considerable economic and productivity challenges. These disruptions can lead to delays, security vulnerabilities, and increased operational costs, all of which add up over time. The 3D printing industry must balance the need for secure, AI-driven systems with strategies that ensure functionality, minimize downtime, and maintain compliance, even in the event of an internet outage or cloud disruption.
The Risk of Hacking in Air-Gapped Environments
While being offline may seem like a secure solution, it does not make the 3D printer immune to hacking. Air-gapping a printer simply means that it is not directly connected to the internet, but it can still be accessed via physical means, such as USB drives or external storage devices. Hackers could exploit this by inserting compromised files into the printer via physical media, allowing them to bypass the AI restrictions that would otherwise prevent printing. As a result, even in isolated environments, there is a risk that unauthorized users could inject malicious code or print illicit designs. This is similar to how cybersecurity experts worry about air-gapped systems in other industries—while these systems are harder to hack remotely, they are still vulnerable to local breaches.
Workarounds and Countermeasures
To mitigate these risks, some manufacturers and organizations have implemented their own local verification systems. Instead of relying solely on cloud servers, these printers may include a local database of acceptable design files, print patterns, and encryption keys that the AI can check against before allowing the print job to proceed. In such cases, even though the printer is air-gapped, the security checks would still be based on predefined and vetted files, reducing the likelihood of printing unauthorized designs. Additionally, some air-gapped environments may use encrypted flash drives or other secure methods of transferring files to ensure that no malicious designs are introduced.
However, the trade-off with offline printing is that the printer would no longer receive real-time updates, meaning that security protocols could become outdated. As 3D printing technology rapidly advances, keeping these systems up-to-date with the latest security measures is crucial. Without internet access to push these updates, the risk of a security gap increases, and manufacturers may need to develop offline solutions that allow for periodic, secure updates to ensure that restrictions remain current.
The Future of Offline 3D Printing
As the 3D printing industry continues to evolve, the question of how printers will operate offline, while still adhering to legal and ethical standards, becomes even more pressing. Manufacturers may look into hybrid solutions, where printers can work offline for routine operations but also have periodic connectivity for updates and verifications. This could ensure that users can still print within the boundaries of the law while maintaining a level of security and functionality that prevents abuse. Ultimately, whether air-gapped or online, it will be essential to find the right balance between security and convenience for 3D printers in both commercial and industrial sectors.
In conclusion, while AI-driven restrictions on 3D printers may rely heavily on cloud access, printers operating without internet access still present challenges for both security and functionality. Hackers can exploit offline systems through local interventions, and manufacturers will need to devise creative ways to ensure these systems remain secure and compliant, regardless of their connectivity status.
Conclusion: Innovation Versus Control—The Future of 3D Printing
The debate surrounding AI-restricted 3D printing is a reflection of the broader conversation about technology, control, and freedom in our modern world. As the 3D printing industry matures, it faces increasing pressure from manufacturers and governments to impose stricter regulations—often under the guise of safety, security, or preventing illegal activity. However, this tightening of control runs the risk of stifling the very innovation that has made 3D printing one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century.
Security is undeniably crucial in a world where the potential for misuse is real. Yet, overregulation—especially when driven by political or corporate interests—could severely damage the open, experimental culture that has allowed individuals, startups, and small businesses to thrive in the 3D printing space. The strength of 3D printing lies in its accessibility and flexibility. It has empowered hobbyists, engineers, and creators to push boundaries, experiment, and iterate rapidly on ideas. If manufacturers continue to act as gatekeepers, limiting access to certain designs or types of printing through AI-driven restrictions, they risk creating a more closed ecosystem. This would not only limit the ability to innovate but also create a fragmented market where underground, unregulated printing systems become the only viable option for those seeking to bypass the restrictions.
Moreover, the introduction of AI restrictions, while intended to prevent harmful designs, could inadvertently force entire industries, including aerospace, healthcare, and automotive, to abandon the very tools that have allowed them to thrive. These industries rely on 3D printing not just for prototyping but also for highly specialized, low-volume manufacturing, where flexibility and the ability to work with diverse designs are paramount. Restricting access to certain designs based on political or subjective criteria could lead to significant delays, inefficiencies, and innovation roadblocks.
The real question is whether we are willing to sacrifice the autonomy of makers, small businesses, and individuals for the sake of control. A growing body of evidence suggests that when access to innovation is curtailed, it doesn’t stop people from creating—it drives those creations underground, where they are far less safe, less regulated, and far more prone to exploitation. The advent of the black market for restricted 3D printers and modified machines only further complicates the issue, as it forces legitimate businesses to either adapt to an increasingly closed ecosystem or risk being left behind in a rapidly changing world.
In the end, the future of 3D printing will hinge on finding a balance between innovation and regulation. If manufacturers, lawmakers, and industry leaders take a heavy-handed approach to control, they will risk not only harming the creators and businesses that make the 3D printing revolution possible but also undermining the very principles of freedom, creativity, and accessibility that have driven its success. Instead, we must create a framework that allows for safety and security while ensuring that innovation is not quashed in the process.
D. Bryan King
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▪️ RFC 3164 (BSD Syslog Protocol)
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▪️ RFC 3164 (BSD Syslog Protocol)
▪️ RFC 5424 (Structured Syslog Protocol)
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▪️ Syslog TCP/UDP (Multiline format)#Syslog is a logging protocol that is supported across many applications as well as hardware, and despite having been developed in the 1980s is still a very common format in use today. Many newer logging formats have come out over the years, but Syslog will still be with us for quite some time.
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▪️ RFC 3164 (BSD Syslog Protocol)
▪️ RFC 5424 (Structured Syslog Protocol)
▪️ RFC 3195 (Reliable Delivery for Syslog)
▪️ RFC 6587 (Syslog over TCP)
▪️ Syslog Kafka (formatted as per RFC 3164 or RFC 5424)
▪️ Syslog AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol)
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