#tristia I

[ulquiorrapleasecallmetrash]

Where is the court of darkness smut?

Am i going to have to taint the community with smut?

You bet your sweet ass i am going to.

[velomono]

Sorry have not finished much art so you get to see OC posting for a second instead. Also friend's OC in there

[girlcaelius]

mean to him

[shrews-art]

Traditional art dump!!!

[cupidswurld]

roman empire is for males this . woman version of roman empires that . what about the secret, more complex third thing, huh?

[scvrletvision]

having a lot of ovid related feelings today....

[melancholyfool]

A Thousand Kisses

Pairing: Henry Winter x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Henry lay together on the sofa while he reads to you in Latin

a/n: this is a short little piece including one of my favourite poems from catullus so i just had to write henry reading it!

Henry’s voice is steady as he reads, the Latin flowing like a slow-moving river, rich and deliberate. His breath is warm against your temple, each syllable slipping from his lips with the kind of precision that makes you think he isn’t just reading—he’s savouring the words, rolling them over his tongue like a fine wine.

You are curled against him, your head resting on his chest, rising and falling with each measured inhale. His fingers move through your hair absentmindedly, threading through the strands with a slow, almost methodical gentleness, like he’s committing the texture to memory. Occasionally, his fingertips brush the nape of your neck, the briefest ghost of a touch before they return to their slow, hypnotic motion.

"Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis?" His voice drops, quieter now, like the words are meant for you alone.

You shift slightly, your hand coming to rest over his ribs, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your palm. “What shame is there in longing, or what limit should there be in grief for one so dear?” you murmur, translating softly before he can.

Henry hesitates. Not because he doubts your translation—he knows you’re right—but because hearing you say the words, like an echo of his own thoughts, does something to him. His fingers pause in your hair, his touch lingering at the curve of your ear before resuming, slower now.

"Tristia…" you say quietly. “But beautiful.”

He exhales, the sound soft against your skin. “Yes.”

Silence stretches between you, not uncomfortable, but charged. Your fingertips trace slow, absentminded circles against his side, following the shape of his ribs beneath his shirt. His breath is steady, but you can feel the way it deepens ever so slightly under your touch.

“You always read the saddest things,” you say eventually.

Henry hums, a small sound that rumbles through him, through you. “Dulce et decorum est pro tristibus legere.” It is sweet and fitting to read sad things.

You let out a quiet breath of amusement, shaking your head. “That is not how the quote goes.”

He smirks, and you feel it against your hair. “No, but it should.”

You’re about to argue when he turns the page, his voice dropping even lower, almost like a whisper.

"Da mi basia mille…" His fingers ghost along the curve of your jaw before trailing back into your hair. “Give me a thousand kisses…”

Your breath stills. The words are so familiar, yet something about the way he says them feels different.

“Deinde centum.” Then a hundred more.

He doesn’t translate. He doesn’t have to. His fingers slip lower, brushing the bare skin at the nape of your neck, slow and deliberate.

You feel the shift in the air before you feel him move. He tilts his head slightly, and you lift yours, just enough that your nose grazes his jaw. He breathes in, slow and measured, but you feel the way it shudders slightly at the end.

You murmur the next line before he can. “Dein mille altera.” Then another thousand.

His fingers tighten in your hair, just slightly. He exhales, and you feel it against your lips before he even closes the book.

[boyslit]

ok i rotated it some more as i was falling asleep but like

accidental BL otome MC guy is so fucking funny. he's been dropped in the wrong genre, certainly, and this is all a big misunderstanding. why are men trying to kiss his hand and flirt with him?! have some shame, you're a prince for god's sake. the only one that makes sense to be flirting with him is the princess of vanum, but honestly she (and violet and sherry) are sitting on their fujo thrones to watch how this plays out lmfaooo

his own repression only fuels his bewilderment and flustered feelings, and since this is a BL, male-male attraction is bog standard and the princes are taking his reticence and hesitation for shyness/tsundere disposition xD

i feel like eventually he'd kind of get it through his head that A.) he can't go back to his own world in a timely manner B.) marrying a prince is the fastest way to power that he can see in this world and C.) if he works harder to get his apparent nuclear power station of magic under control he can be the most powerful mage in this entire world ... wherein he sort of does a 180, calculates which royal to pursue based on projected political power it would afford him/his spouse, studies like a beast, and still winds up no-homo'ing his engagement to a literal man simply because, look. he's a prince who will one day be king and that will make Guy a prince consort and if he can get the prince wrapped around his little finger, he can effectively rule from the shadows.

but the schmoopy part of my heart maintains that after a while of being with his paramour he'd sort of. let himself melt a little bit. bc wow actually ok this is really nice. but only when we're alone! he's still a prickly little sourpuss in public lol

also, my brain wondered where that left Jasper, if Avari was the fallen kingdom instead of Vanum, and it might be fun to have him be a research librarian at the school, someone specializing in the kingdoms of ruins aka Avari and Tristias. He's still a scheniving little smarm but he mostly uses this to get his hands on ancient manuscripts and access to archaeological sites in order to document more of Avari's history. Yes, he still has red eyes.

Hm, that could be fun if Guy's natural eye color is red and Lou has it changed to Vanum's white/grey for a disguise :3c

a Jasper route could be fun too. accidentally falling for the librarian in his search for power through magical study and political research for maneuvering is kind of cute actually.

and jasper's the one insane person outside of specific cultivation areas that grows, roasts and brews his own Avarian coffee which otherwise is like. crazy expensive due to the exclusivity and difficulty in growing it outside of Avari lands. And guy's like oh my god i haven't had coffee in months I could cry. and jasper starts preparing his limited coffee grounds to have it specially with Guy :D

and like of course in our world he had been some kind of ladder climbing corporate dude. I could almost see him being a lawyer, actually, due to the diligence and intelligence he usually displays. and lord knows the man likes to argue and be correct alsdkfjsldf (but i've also been watching a lot of ace attorney lately so i might be biased xD)

hm anyway. ill probably think of more later but im having fun :)

[sugar-glaze-donut]

OMG AKUNEKO WRITER??? I LOVE YOU ALREADY.

may i request headcanons where aruji-sama comforts butlers after bad day/bad dream? if that's too much, then maybe just comforting basement butlers? they're really like a family to me, especially after reading the newest episode...

thank you!! may you have a great day!!

Hello hello! Is this an anon I see? AND THEY LOVE ME????? >:O (ily too anon >:) )

TW: OOC butlers, spoilers from butler cards, Episode 2 and 3

Aruji-sama comforting the butlers has gotten me thinking... are they touch-starved?

Most butlers lost their families and haven't felt that warm, safe feeling in centuries probably. Some were mistreated and others were not even accepted into society at all (and still are).

So Aruji-sama giving them hugs and comfort after a long day/ nightmare would definitely bring them to tears.

~ 🐸 - 💜 - 🌟- 💜 - 🐸 ~

One of which, I think our energetic and bubbly Lamli would have a full-on breakdown the moment you hug him and praise him for working hard. It's not the same feeling when Lucas praises him. It's... a new feeling. A feeling so warm, his heart aches and he smiles while crying tears. His 1st-anniversary card (I think), reveals that in the past, he had been neglected by his mother who made him work for money. Perhaps all that neglect and a pinch of the influence of Lucas (from one of Lamli's free stories) made the boy we know today.

~ 🍪 - 💙 - ✝️ - 💙 - 🍪 ~

Another is Haures. In Episode 2, can take a glimpse of how Haures and his sister Tristia lived in the past. Haures coming back home to see Tristia all healed up and waiting at the doorstep for his arrival seemed to be a daily routine for both of them (until the events from Episode 2 happened).

When you hug Haures and welcome him back to the mansion after a trip to the Grosvenor mansion, he tenses. The feeling is so nostalgic to him, he was frozen in place for a few moments before hugging you back with tears running down his face. He's been through a lot :(

~ ☕️ - 🧡 - 🥀 - ❤️ - 🍵 ~

And our newest addition to the Devil butlers, Yuuhan and Teddy! Only recently they had felt enough “despair” for them to become Devil butlers (from Episode 2 and 2.5). Even though it has only been a few months after the incident happened, waking up everyday realising your life style changed because of 1 thing they weren’t able to stop will definitely weigh more burdens upon themselves. Both wear happy smiles everyday trying to hide the ugly past chasing them everyday.

That’s where you (and Grandpa Hanamaru) come along and comfort them. Even though they may have lost what was dear to them… now they have a new goal. Protecting you from the reason why their happiness got stolen from them.

~ 🧵 - 💖 - 🌿- 💖 - 🕯️ ~

As for the Basement butlers, we haven’t seen the ending for Episode 3 yet but it is hinted and theorised that Lato may “despair” and lose control

So after when all the events come to a close, Aruji-sama is here to the rescue!! Summoned to comfort the Basement butlers!!! Words of reassurance are in need! QUICK QUICK QUICK!!!!!

All the stress weighed down upon them ever since Lato got taken away by the Grosvenor soldiers vanished, leaving a sense of relief. From the new chapters of Episode 3, we can see that the Basement butlers were the most affected, leaving us more almost-beyond-repair butlers. I think at this point, you need to have a sleepover with the Basement butlers and hug them to sleep.

~ 🌼 - 📝 - 🍩 - 📝 - 🌼 ~

That’s all Anon! I hope yo liked it 💕 (sorry for the OOC butlers 😅)

[lionofchaeronea]

On the Lasting Power of Art

Ovid, Tristia III.7.45-52 See – although I lack my fatherland, and you, And my home, and what could be taken from me’s been stolen, Nevertheless I keep company with my genius, I enjoy it – Caesar could have no power over this. Let whoever wishes end this life of mine With savage sword – though I’m dead, my fame will survive, And while Mars’ Rome, victorious, shall look on the whole world, Conquered, from its hills, I shall be read.

En ego, cum caream patria uobisque domoque,      raptaque sint, adimi quae potuere mihi, ingenio tamen ipse meo comitorque fruorque:      Caesar in hoc potuit iuris habere nihil. Quilibet hanc saeuo uitam mihi finiat ense,      me tamen extincto fama superstes erit, dumque suis uictrix omnem de montibus orbem      prospiciet domitum Martia Roma, legar.

Ovid among the Scythians, Eugène Delacroix, 1859

[expectris-patronum]

i've seen a lot of "dead poets society characters as..." posts on tumblr and I thought I could do the same thing with Latin texts/fragments/... since the poets learn Latin at Welton.

Two things first:

1. almost all translations are from the internet

and 2. English is not my mother tongue, so don't be surprised if something sounds very strange.

Neil

Neil could be this passage of Horace's Odes because that's where the term "carpe diem" comes from

Todd

At first I thought a poem would be the best kind of text for Todd. But when I was going through the Ovid texts we were studying in Latin class, I came across this extract from Ovid's Tristia. I think it fits Todd quite well because it combines poetry, an older brother and a father who isn't particularly proud of his younger son. But I don't know if it counts as a poem.

Charlie

The fragment that suits Charlie best would surely be the introduction to Ovid's Ars Amatoria, because presenting himself as the god of love is something that Charlie would actually do

Meeks

I wanted to give Meeks something more scientific than lyrical. The only texts of this kind that I know are Pliny's letters about a volcanic eruption. No quotes this time. The whole letter suits him.

Pitts

Pitts just gives me Martial vibes. Martial wrote a lot of short poems in which he basically made fun of people.

This one means something like: I don't know what you write to so many girls, Faustus, but I know that no girl writes you.

Knox

Knox has a huge crush on Chris, which reminds me of Catullus' poems about Lesbia.

Cameron

Cameron could be some typical Latin class reading that is hated by students and loved by teachers. So I thought Caesar's works would be a good choice for him. I can't find a specific line or book for him, he just gives me general Caesar texts vibes

[ulquiorrapleasecallmetrash]

Work week done now I can write, talk and gush over Ulquiorra, Dia Akedia and Grayson Hotz.

Also LOVED Dia's last event story. It was cute it was sweet and I bought the epilogue for it.

Here are screenshots of my favorite moments of the event story.

Now THESE Are great quotes.

[floralpoeticss]

I have learned the art of departure.

Osip Mandelstam, from "Tristia"

[saintatomique]

Dev diaries - Tristia inspiration

(This is a part of dev diaries on my visual novel 'Heroes Of Oblivion', which is out now on itch.io. Please be aware of the mild spoilers below.)

In the beginning, I was imagining Tristia a bit sunnier, a bit like Italy or somewhere in the Balkans perhaps (while they still bore the Austro-Hungarian spirit). But in the end, typical wartime dioramas served more of an inspiration (although the traces of the former remained, too). There is a particular sort of a diorama that is common in showing WW1 or WW2 ruins - a small, hopeless kind of town. In the WW1 case, it's often a town in Belgium or so it seems, in WW2 it's often Polish or German town and, interestingly, I found some similarities between them in the form of some typical 'germanic' architecture mixed with romanic neoclassical or maybe even modernist. Few people know it, but many polish cities have 'Italianized' architecture, especially in the south of the country. I was surprised to find out there IS a common thread between all these small European cities, eastern and western, and this commonality, characterized by simple shapes where only facade adornments hint at the time period, is what can be a 'Tristian' style.

(A roughly-made but dramatic scene shows a city villa very similar to Alex's house.)

(The lovely wartime french resort scene is very reminiscent of Tristia. )

(The picture above shows 'Doloris suburbs' as I imagined - constant rows of stone fences, old stone houses, gardens.)

(And here is how some of the bridges they passed looked - apart from the too full of a river, in my opinion, since Doloris bridges are mostly over narrow channels and rocks, not rivers.)

(And that's the hill Alex probably climbed down to reach the shore that night. Everything is mostly peaceful but somber.)

[hovelicher-unsin]

So.

The following happend and derailed my evening (and therefore the evening of my best friend too).

I was wondering, if there was a German translation of Tristan (Gottfried von Straßburg) available on the internet. And there is, from 1904 by Wilhelm Hertz, here.

It's a scan of a old library book and apparently someone (an English speaking person) wrote the names and relations of the characters on one of the first pages which I am normal about (/pos). They probably didn't get further than the Marjodo episode or Isot (Iseut? Isolde?) with the white hands or her brother would have been mentioned. Anyway, besides the point!

The book itself starts with this absolutely insane Latin quote.

Amor est quaedam mentis insania,

Quae vagum hominem ducit per devia;

Sitit delicias et bibit tristia

Crebris doloribus commiscens gaudia.

Now, of course I needed to find out, where to find this quote and also what it meant. The translation is roughly (and please be nice about it, this is only backed up by another translation that I'll mention in a bit):

Love is such a mental insanity that leads the wandering human astray; it thirsts for happiness and drinks misery, often mixing pain with pleasure.

So naturally ... I needed to find out where the quote came from even more! It took me 15 minutes to figure out "Romania IV, 383" meant Romania, the journal that is being published since the 1870s, the fourth volumen, page 383, found here.

I was so stoked to find out the entire journal (or at least from their first edition up until 2020) was freely available on JSTOR. So, there I was, giddy because I thought my side quest of the evening was over. LIES, I TELL YOU!

The article was in French. I do not speak French and my pitiful Spanish and — without a dictionary almost equally pitiful — Latin knowledge can only get me so far. On page 383 I found my quote, but I was also at a crucial point of helplessness.

Luckily just at that moment my partner (not involved in the detective work) asked what I was doing, I explained my situation and then my best friend offered to take a look at it. After two minutes they pulled out their own phone to google around, meaning I had gotten them invested. And with their excellent help I got some answers out of the French article!

First things first, the author of the article is saying in a footnote (following those three quotes) that the French translation is bad. I can't say anything about that, but I thought it was important to mention.

Then they (friend) figured out that the quote was from a book a certain Francis Douce had had in his collection and which he left to the Bodleain Library after his death. This particular quote came from book number 139, page 148.

The books from this collection are being digitized and a good portion of them is available already right here (there are so many old playing cards!!). The book from which this quote was taken has not been digitized yet, but a starting page can be found here. More information on the whole book can be found right here.

So what we are left with is this:

The quote is from a 13th century manuscript that mostly features songs, as far as I can see.

It will probably be digitized some day since the project is still ongoing.

The quote itself is not from Douce, since he only collected the books. We don't know who said/wrote this, at least neither my friend nor I could find out more about it.

I am tempted to ask @bodleianlibs if they can tell me more about this particular book/the quote in it, but I also really just want to fuck around and find out, so it doesn't have any priority I fear. Contextualizing the quote in relation to my blorbo medieval piece of literature is probably not enough of a reason.

Anyway, that's how I spent a good hour of my evening and I am so hyped now, this was so incredibly interesting to do!

[catilinas]

hi hello what are your thoughts on propertius? <- we’re about to study a couple of his poems in latin and i do not know much about him!!

hi!! so bear in mind i have only read book 3 in any detail and also i haven't read much of ovid's tristia Yet but propertius is my favourite of the elegists for reasons of The Civil War Is There. so 1.21 and 1.22 are faves. it's kind of a trope more generally in elegy but i do love it when propertius embeds little epitaphs in his poems. they are something to look out for or also you can choose to read lines that aren't obviously epitaphs as epitaphs anyway. for fun. 3.18 slaps and is doing evil and fun things with aeneid 6 and marcellus' ghost is there in a vaguely anti-augustan fashion. 4.11 also has a ghost and also has legal procedures in the underworld. i can't remember which one has cynthia's ghost but??? that is also good. um. book 3 he is constantly wriggling around the epic genre (kinda like ovid does at the start of the amores) but in a civil war flavoured way. to me. oh and if you haven't read anything on him this article is like. required and very good reading on not taking the 'love poems' literally (seems obvious) in a specific direction (fun and meta). hope this is helpful and have fun! i also read some propertius for a-level and really liked it :-)