#which is mad right cause he was meant to be a smallie

[stormofdefiance]

I wanted to share some wee thoughts about Ratio’s E6 art & why I believe it is a symbolic parallel to Michelangelo’s David. This speaks to both Ratio’s humanist beliefs and possible future plot points.

Ratio’s E6 is Vincit Omnia Veritas or Truth Conquers All. I’ve heard it claimed (although I have no idea if it’s explicitly stated anywhere?) that the character’s E6 art represents them at their innermost core, an honest and deeply vulnerable shard of themselves. Evoking David here is an interesting choice; the biblical figure who, using nothing but a stone and sling, took down the tyrannical Goliath. The parallel is perhaps as simple as this: Ratio views himself - and by extension the truth - as the underdog, someone never accepted into the Genius society, forever to be kept from Nous and THEIR gaze, but nonetheless will, in the end, prove himself the final victor. Truth will topple the seemingly unconquerable, whatever that might be.

But I also think Michelangelo’s David is a specifically interesting parallel to draw on from a historical perspective. Ratio is pretty much the textbook definition of a renaissance man - he is a philosopher, a scholar, interested in medicine and science and the vast array of human achievement. He speaks in Latin (the language of education during the renaissance in Europe that allowed the transmission of information without having to rely on translation) while heavily styling himself on Ancient Greek symbols and drawing from Greek philosophy (often seen at the time as more ‘sophisticated’ and interested in ‘wisdom’ than the contemporary ‘militaristic’ Romans).

Michelangelo’s David was the first colossal marble statue to be carved since antiquity, and it came to be a symbol of the renaissance itself. This is interesting to me for Ratio and what I believe are his humanist beliefs. Humanism was an ideal that propagated during the renaissance that championed the belief that man had beauty, dignity and worth that deserved as much respect and adoration as any deity. Keep in mind this philosophy was emerging following the Middle Ages and at a time where religious institutions across Europe held exorbitant and sometimes absolute power. David as a statue is an ode to the sublime beauty of the human body, completely unashamed and uninhibited in his gigantic nakedness (Doctor! You’re huge!) retaliating against the idea that prominent idea at the time that man’s body is inherently sinful. The humanists sought to recenter humanity, and David became a symbol of man’s independence against the seemingly unconquerable might of the Church.

Consider how Ratio centres humanity in his Simulated Universe project, how he values every life, how interested he is in constant self-improvement. How this symbol - of not just the renaissance but of the re-centring of humanity itself - becomes an echo of an effigy fixed in the centre of his soul.

Ratio has never - as far as I’m aware? - stated or hinted at any desire to overthrow the Aeons or even disparage or rubbish them, but it is clear to me that he believes in the strength man can draw on despite them, through sheer force of intelligence and clever planning and fiercely independent thought, the weak can ultimately overcome, or at least stand shoulder to shoulder with, the strong. Perhaps this will become a more pertinent plot point in the future - who knows? - but this was fun to chew through nonetheless 🫶

[therisingtithes]

a public statement

Near midnight on February 5, 2013, my ex-girlfriend pretended to have committed suicide, pretended to be her older sister to message me on Tumblr to tell me that it was my fault and I should commit suicide too, and then spent the early morning threatening to kill my brother and my friends via text for not loving her. At that point we were not in a relationship any more.

On March 6, 2017, my brother performed a piece in the semifinals of a poetry slam that undoes that event, and years of previous threats on my life, her own life, and the lives of my loved ones by alleging that several of the moments she physically assaulted me were moments I assaulted her instead.

Several days earlier, my brother came to me to ask for my blessing to perform the poem. I had read the poem several weeks before by accident; at that event, simply seeing that it referred to my ex-girlfriend triggered a panic attack. On this day, however, he said that he wanted to know what I thought of the piece before performing it. I told him that I didn’t want him to do it. I told him that not only did I not want anyone misrepresenting or insisting to take ownership of my story, but that I didn’t want to revisit the event at all, even through his misrepresentation, and that if I am going to be a member of his company (then an employee of the.art.IS Performing Arts Company, and the Literary Director of the Griot Guild), I need to know that as coworkers and as family I can rely on him to not fundamentally breach my trust. He insisted that he didn’t have much time to do another piece (by that point he had three mornings to rehearse a poem, and claims to have not begun doing so yet), so because this was his strongest poem, he would do it.

He insisted that, for the sake of the Griot Guild’s optics, it would be valuable to work toward writing a piece to reply to him as a result - something I was adamant about not doing. He insisted that he had no other options. I told him that if he made the decision to do whatever piece he wanted, as was his right, I couldn’t stop him, but that such an action would have consequences, mostly for me - the person who had to live that experience. He insisted regardless.

The other director (full disclosure - his girlfriend) also insisted that it was his best piece, and that there was no time. She held that my brother never informed her that I didn’t want him to do it at all, only that it would make me uncomfortable, and that it was not true. I told her that I did not want to do it. She insisted that, barring him dropping out or switching semifinal days with another performer (there is a second semifinal on April 2nd, in which I am performing), he has little choice but to do this poem. I was asked if perhaps it would address some of my fears if we publicly presented as if the piece were just a poem and I still supported him for performing it - a decision I ended up making beside myself.

On March 6th 2017, as he performed, a fellow performer leaned toward me in the audience and whispered,

“dan... you does hit smallies, o’ what?” (Mister, do you hit young women?)

Several other performers and friends confronted me and asked if the ‘brother’ in question was me. All of them knew that he had but one brother - me. The closest I came to any semblance of comfort was from a poet and mentor whose first statement was that it was incorrect to assume that all poetry is autobiographical.

The poem references me, my work, and my public-facing life directly. It does not mention any of the abuse I suffered. It literally lies about moments I suffered abuse and reframes them as moments when I was instead the abuser.

When I confronted him about this days before he performed the piece, visibly shaking in front of him, he insisted that he did not believe that I was being honest with him, and that if I wanted him to believe it, I should have come to him sooner about it.

At 5:03pm on March 27, I received the following messages:

[5:03 PM, 3/27/2017] Brendon O'Brien: Hey Brandon. I realize that, over the last year or so, working on Griot Guild and other projects with me has caused a lot of contention for you, some of that completely unnecessary from your perspective. I think you are, at the very least, having difficulty working with me, or worse, the way I wish to work.                         [5:06 PM, 3/27/2017] Brendon O'Brien: I've spoken a lot with you about the power you might gain from leaving. Today, I want to double down on that, and give you your freedom to work with folks you trust. Effective today, I'm removing you from the Guild, and detaching you from all brands and services attached. If you still want to work on some of those things, we'll have to negotiate some sort of subcontractor arrangement.                         [5:08 PM, 3/27/2017] Brendon O'Brien: From today, I think it's great you don't market yourself as the Bard, because that may not truly be your brand. All the same, I plan to support you on Sunday and throughout the competition. I hope you get ready with an amazing piece. Blessings flowing as always.

So as of this moment, after my brother literally devalued my own experiences, I am no longer a member of his company.

I still have to perform on Sunday. I will no longer do so under the Griot Guild as its Guildmaster Bard.

Full disclosure: being let out of a company where someone would be so dishonest for the sake of hopefully becoming a finalist in a competition is honestly the best outcome. And I admittedly did tweet at around 2pm on the same day, since deleted before the actual messages, that this isn’t the first time my brother has breached my trust in this way or a similar way, and that I no longer felt comfortable in general working with him. It isn’t the first time working with him has led to this. I would much rather work solely on the projects that have drawn my focus and my passion - my speculative poetry and prose, my work for FIYAH, and others. It isn’t that I wanted to remain a member of the Griot Guild. Frankly, I don’t.

That isn’t what bothers me about his behaviour.

What bothers me about his behaviour is that he visibly hasn’t taken responsibility for any of it. He hasn’t taken responsibility for the poem. He hasn’t taken responsibility for the poem before this one, ‘Monster Parts’, which refers to me as well and misrepresents the same trauma - a poem he has since performed at least a dozen times that I am aware of, a poem that has had teachers of mine confront me privately about whether the poem is about me.

When I asked the other director of the Griot Guild if I told her that I told him that I didn’t want him to perform the piece, she said that I did not tell her, and that he said I didn’t tell him.

I told them both.

I don’t even know if I want to perform. The decision to enter auditions in the first place was one he insisted that I make for the sake of the Griot Guild brand; months before auditions were announced, I was prepared to retire from performance poetry in general. Then, immediately after publicly revisiting my trauma - taking my agency from me, insisting on my wrongdoing in specific moments where the actual events were me being physically assaulted by my ex-girlfriend - he fired me from the Griot Guild via text message.

I don’t even know if I want to perform. I shouldn’t have to perform in the shadow of someone else’s dishonesty, or their refusal to take responsibility for that dishonesty’s consequences.

My story is mine. If I had not literally experienced physical and emotional abuse in my last relationship, what my brother had decided to do would be bad enough. But he didn’t merely publicly present me as an abuser. He publicly presented the abuse that actually existed in that relationship as false, for no other reason than because he needed to place in the finals of a poetry slam.

He has yet to even speak to me personally about it.

I’m mad and I’m tired and I’m shaking and I’ve only just stopped crying before writing this post. I don’t know what I’m even supposed to do in this instance. I’m not even asking for answers. But if I don’t take ownership of my story - the story I wish I didn’t have to tell in the first place - then people will evidently do whatever they wish with it regardless. And that is all this post is meant to do. Take ownership of this small moment in a story I just want to stop having to fucking telling.