COLUMBUS, OH — Sources close to local man Jevon Willis say that the 28-year-old was tragically deprived of the opportunity to be moved by Vergil's "Aeneid" because the classical masterpiece did not contain a character of exactly his race, sex, and socio-economic class.
According to Willis, the "Aeneid," a classic of Roman literature which has instrumentally shaped the entire world, culture, and history of the world Willis inhabits, simply has "nothing to say to him" because it has no characters for him to identify with based on his skin tone and annual income.
"I mean, it might be fine for an ancient Roman affluent male, but I simply can't find myself in the 'Aeneid'," Willis said, dubiously eyeing Vergil's magnum opus as he sipped on a venti mocha with skim and 6 pumps mocha, ex mocha drizzle with whip and half praline crumble, ex ex dark choc curls 2 pumps toasted white mocha ex sugar cookie topping 4 pumps dark caramel crunch double blended and cardamom powder. "I mean, it's like, there's just no way for me to be moved by literature with characters who don't precisely map onto my exact intersectional individuality. That would be kinda like, authorially oppressive normativity or whatever."
Willis admitted that the story was "a little bit interesting" but clarified that it was also "not as good as Percy Jackson."
"It's just hard for me to even understand why Vergil would have wanted to exclude the lived experiences of people like me if he actually wanted to write a universal epic," Willis said, sadly. "How can I see myself represented in the class struggle to overturn the dictatorship of the patrician bourgouise by the Roman proletariat if there isn't even a browner-skin-toned person of modest means playing the pivotal role in the founding of Rome? It just seems kinda exclusionary, that's all."
At publishing time, Willis finally found a character he could identify with in a Latino fanfic reimagining of Stephen King's It.
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