#let's say i'm not fond of the aeneid

[randomnameless]

Of all the masterful and progressive storytelling elements and themes conveyed by the humanity-defining, unparalled work of art in written format that is the Aeneid, which is your personal favorite?

I'm personally stuck between:

Every woman perceives herself as an innocent little child, has her ultimate goal be to give birth to children and start a family, and will see themselves as ugly and unworthy of love the second they have a mild inconvenience happen to them

Every man with an iota of self-esteem is secretly an evil violent sexist child-liking grapist who deserves to be beaten near to death for little to no reason, and only by either being a doormat to the women around them and allowing themselves to get cheated on with no actual protest or anger or being redeemed by the purity of heterosexual love can they ever hope to be anything more than human scum

Mixed-race people are inherently born wrong due to not solely belonging to a single race, needing to choose a singular side in order to ever find any sort of happiness, with the pain of the uncertainty being so great they'd genuinely be better off un-aliving themselves than to continue to live with such a massive burden

And, last but not least, genocide survivors are not only selfish cowards for not announcing to an entire continent that had just wiped out most of their race that they still had the things they were genocided for in the first place and choosing instead to lie to them to restore peace and order and avoid being killed simply for existing, but also people with comparable, if not inferior, suffering to someone who was tortured as a child and became a racist, imperialistic warmongerer who started a war just to gain more territory and finish the genocide her inspiration started because of it

Replying to an earlier ask I just thought about tying it with this one lol

The Aeneid is peak exemple of something touted as canon when it's pure headcanon, and when people try to explain how the many takes and "points" from that fic aren't in the games at all with links to the sources and all, those people are harassed and cyberbullied because I guess some people really are asses and don't like when others point out their ship isn't canon.

Now, back to your award winning list,

#1

Mixed-race people are inherently born wrong due to not solely belonging to a single race, needing to choose a singular side in order to ever find any sort of happiness, with the pain of the uncertainty being so great they'd genuinely be better off un-aliving themselves than to continue to live with such a massive burden

I would say this one takes the cake, with the added topping that this fic also portrays the "other" race as inferior, making you more violent and, in general less "human".

I recently learnt (you learn new things everyday!) the word used back then mulatto (mulâtre for us!) was used to described mixed-race people, the parallel being made with a mule being important, because a mule is neither a horse nor a donkey but something seen, back then, as "inferior" to both and that cannot produce offspring, aka - again i stress the "back then" era - something "wrong" that isn't supposed to exist.

And Billy feeling like she's wrong because she's mixed race feels really... well, in check with the theories of "back then" about mixed race people - hell, even in certain parts of the world today, being mixed race is seen as fucking bad thing and the mixed-race persons are discriminated against because they're not totally "A" but also "B" and "B" is seen as worthless/shitty.

I know some fics tackle dark themes and dark fics (iirc) don't have a happy ending, the author is free to do whatever they want after all it's their fic - but the way this fic tackles this issue, and how said resolution is touted in the fandom as something "good" - like how the fuck someone wanting to die because they are mixed-race became touted as "the pinnacle of the mc's story where they finally become A again, and get rid of their B blood!"???

#2

Every woman perceives herself as an innocent little child, has her ultimate goal be to give birth to children and start a family, and will see themselves as ugly and unworthy of love the second they have a mild inconvenience happen to them Every man with an iota of self-esteem is secretly an evil violent sexist child-liking grapist who deserves to be beaten near to death for little to no reason, and only by either being a doormat to the women around them and allowing themselves to get cheated on with no actual protest or anger or being redeemed by the purity of heterosexual love can they ever hope to be anything more than human scum

I'm cheating and grouping the two lol

It's the usual brand of sexism, and no, I don't think the pseudo "role reversal between who is an ass and who isn't" removes the sexism label, especially since women still want to start families and become Mothers (tm).

It's as if someone is saying they're not sexist because while they defend the tradwife movement (pure love! Must be pretty to be married! Babies!), they also think men deserve to die and be treated like subhumans or second rate humans who can be abused whenever a woman feels like it.

What is even the point? The message? If men BaD and "pure" women GoOd, if the "pure" women do the same thing as the men did, are they BaD too or not?

And lol@ the casual homophobia, "peepee on peepee action" is bad and leads people astray, Man must be redeemed by womanly love!

#3

And, last but not least, genocide survivors are not only selfish cowards for not announcing to an entire continent that had just wiped out most of their race that they still had the things they were genocided for in the first place and choosing instead to lie to them to restore peace and order and avoid being killed simply for existing, but also people with comparable, if not inferior, suffering to someone who was tortured as a child and became a racist, imperialistic warmongerer who started a war just to gain more territory and finish the genocide her inspiration started because of it

Victim blaming is so mainstream in the canon Fodlan games!

As a rule of thumb, I don't like the "trauma contest", but I've seen a lot of fics were this specific issue - absolutely not resolved in FE Fodlan!! - is resolved in a similar way, the Nabatean genocide is revealed just like the greater lie about the origin of crusts, and yet some people react with "yay you might have been hunted to near extinction to the point you can't even call your relatives relatives and lived in perpetual fear for the last 1k years of being slaughtered, but do you realise your lie made me feel sad because people want to marry me???"

I still think this take teeters a tad too close to the "it's your fault/you deserved being genocided/hunted because you belong to the wrong race" nauseabond take.

Again I need to stress how there's nothing inherently wrong with a Dark Fic, or fanfiction that tackles, elegantly or not, certain themes, and that's not what I'm ranting about here.

The Aeneid however takes itself as canon, is rec over canon and is lauded as essential to understand the canon (let it be through the very same reasonings and plot points developed in redshit essays about the canon, or fans rec'ing to other people).

It isn't the canon discrepencies that kind of annoy me, but it's rather how people will tell you how to interpret canon, in the light of this fic - from harmless stuff like "Supreme Leader totes has scars - so her FEH beach alt, made by IS mind you, is wrong" to the "toxic Faerghus masculinity values chivalry thus BaD, that's why they need to be civili- I mean, Adrestianised" to the various Rhea shitstorms/takes that are way too numerous for me to list, and ends up with people being puzzled when canon!Rhea (voiced by Kikuko Inoue) bakes cookies.

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

any books you wish more people have read

thank you anon!

i don't have any particular ones in mind, just... i wish people read more classic books. i know that in school there's this built-up hatred towards classics they forced us to read (i was one of those kids lol, i used to hate la celestina and el lazarillo de tormes) but trust me, those books are classics for a reason! maybe it's the history and writing nerd in me but most of the classic books i've read have made me scream with joy at one point or another, and i think it's pretty cool to learn about how these characters decades or centuries ago viewed life and thrived (or not) in their contexts! and especially i would recommend reading literature from your own culture (i am guilty of not doing this myself), there's nothing like recognizing patterns and places and cultural elements in past settings while being able to fully immerse in the writing craft of the author, as translations will never be as good as reading the original text.

oh and on the topic of classics, i would also recommend going way back and reading texts from the ancient and classical periods! i know they might be scary, but imo they show how humanity has never changed and i think that's neat. i'll recommend some of them below - note that i'll only recommend books written by cultures i've studied, but i would love to read / know about other texts written by asian or mesoamerican cultures as well (if anyone has any recommendations please let me know!):

-i haven't read much of egyptian literature but it has always surprised me with how human it is, i would especially recommend reading the lamentations and the instruction texts! they are not really literature but they're incredible.

-the epic of gilgamesh is a must!!!! it's the oldest literary text ever written, and it makes me feel so much, i recommend it 10/10

-in the greek world there's a bunch of stuff i would recommend: sappho and hesiod are a must imo for the oldest stuff, and like if you want you can read a couple books in the illiad or the odyssey but i have to warn you - they're a bit boring honestly. if you are a geography nerd then plutarch is a must, and a hidden gem i got to read for uni is lucian's a true story (a huge inspiration for gulliver's travels!). plato - contrary to what one would think - has some really light and beautifully written books, i would say definitely check symposium and the book that narrates socrates' death, i don't remember the name but i think it's the critias? could be wrong tho. finally, oedipus rex, lysistrata, medea, and antigone are essential plays, absolute bangers all of them.

-roman literature is my favourite of the four so i don't even know where to start lol. i would say the quintessential roman book is the aeneid, which serves as a mini illiad + odyssey but way more interesting and with lots of hidden themes and references and everyone who has translated it knows that it's a pleasure to read in latin. my professor once said the aeneid was the greatest piece of literature in the ancient world, and i once was against this but... she had a point. i also recommend catullus and martial's poetry, as well as my personal favourite classical book, ovid's heroids. if you are fond of gossip while learning about 'history' suetonius' the twelve caesars is a banger. finally, seneca's medea is my absolute favorite roman tragedy, and it contains my favorite latin phrase so of course i had to recommend it.

i'm sorry that this ended up being so long 😅