#also answering what is life with thus always to tyrants sorry i was a history major. sorry i used to live in virginia. SORRY

[castielsupernatural]

hi ron @superhell i love you thank you for tagging me

tagging ummmm @sketchbookdean @heartcastiel @heartshapedcas @hauntedpearl @bedpissercastiel @angelfishofthelord @altarofrowena this was fun so i'm tagging lots of you sorry

#1 - shuffle 10 songs from your wrapped's top 100

1. on the mountain tall - the oh hellos

2. younger days - the wild reeds

3. bowery ballroom - morningsiders

4. oh, sleeper - arcadian wild (OOF)

5. adonai - lowland hum (😬)

6. passerine - the oh hellos

7. heaven knows - first aid kit

8. torches - the oh hellos

9. new moon (the meadow) - alexandre desplat from the new moon soundtrack ASDFJGSKDJSH

10. equator line - lowland hum

#2 - choose an artist you like and use the titles of their songs to answer to these questions:

name of the artist: the oh hellos hehe

what is your gender? planetarium stickers on a bedroom ceiling

describe yourself: second child, restless child

how do you feel? holding on where i am able

If you could go anywhere, where would it be? on the mountain tall

describe your best friend: pale white horse

favorite time of day: in the blue hours of morning

if your life was a tv show, what would it be called? in memoriam

what's life to you? thus always to tyrants

relationship status: hello my old heart, 10 year anniversary edition

what do you fear? mandatory evac / counting cars

#3 - YOUR top 5 songs like TO YOU PERSONALLY. no matter what your wrapped says. you know yourself better

1. theseus - the oh hellos

2. 2082 - lowland hum (this was already my number 1 she earned it)

3. lapis lazuli - the oh hellos

4. cold - the oh hellos

5. of lovers and liars - family and friends

[frighthouseofalighthouse]

History Asks: 2, 3, 7, 8, 19, 29, & 61, please!

Hi! This is late I’m so sorry!

2: Favorite underrated historical figure?

Julie D’Aubigny! Click the link to read about her bisexual dueling antics.

3: Funniest historical kerfuffle?

All the ways the CIA and others tried to assassinate Fidel Castro. Here is a link to the wikipedia page because it’s so fucking wild. One time he was at a hotel and put his shoes outside the door to be polished and they put hair loss powder in his shoes thinking it would make his mustache fall out and no one would respect him anymore.

7: Which time period would you like to live in?

I’m taking this as completely ideally, barring lack of medical knowledge or misogyny or homophobia etc. So either late Victorian England or oh just please take me back to the revolutionary war.

8: Favorite tv show based on historical events, but not really faithful to real life?

My top 4 are Outlander, Black Sails, TURN: Washington’s Spies, and Ripper Street.

19: If you could travel back in time and kill anyone, who would it be?

Listen I’m not a fan of these questions when people are like “I’d kill Hitler” etc. bc butterfly effect, BUT

The British officer who shot John Laurens can CATCH THESE MF HANDS

29: Rant about your favorite topic.

Ohhhhh I don’t know if you’re ready for this. I have so many favorite topics. so here’s what I’m gonna do. Remember the other history ask I answered with the question about the presidential assassinations? I had spent an hour and a half writing a whole thing about the background of Lincoln’s assassination before I realized it wasn’t needed in order to answer the question about the repercussions. So here’s that plus the thing about the repercussions that I was leading into.

“ John Wilkes Booth was a well-known confederate sympathizer, and though he himself never joined the confederate army, he had many contacts within the disastrously put together confederate government and secret service. Since 1864, Booth had been forming a plan similar to one put forth by Confederate Secret Service member and Virginia Tech president Thomas Nelson Conrad. A plan to kidnap Union President Abraham Lincoln. Conrad’s plan was approved and they sent a team of men after Lincoln, but the mission was soon abandoned because Lincoln’s security was too tight. Unlike Conrad’s plan, Booth’s was to get the president at a moment of vulnerability outside the White House - and to kidnap key members of his cabinet as well, ransoming them for Confederate prisoners. However, after seeing an April 11th speech in which Lincoln promoted giving Blacks the right to vote, Booth decided to assassinate him instead. The next day, April 12th, the Union victory over Richmond and the Confederate army’s surrender was announced, making kidnapping a moot point anyway. On the morning of April 14th, Booth went to get his mail at Ford’s Theatre, where he was an occasional stage actor, and the owner’s brother started bragging to him that Lincoln and his wife would be attending a play there that night. He knew it was the best chance he had, and he arranged for a getaway horse to be waiting for him, and for his co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward at their respective homes. By targeting Lincoln and the next two successors to the presidency, it’s clear that Booth intended to chop the heads off the Union government, throwing it from post-war victory into chaos, giving the Confederates a chance to reorganize and rally their remaining forces. Union Commander in Chief Ulysses Grant was supposed to attend the play as well, but he and his wife decided last minute to visit relatives instead. At 10:14 that night, during the second act of the play, Booth snuck into the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the back of the head. His escape was cut off by the man who had come in Grant’s stead - Major Henry Rathbone. Booth stabbed him, jumped over the balcony to the stage, and raised his knife, yelling “Sic Semper Tyrannis.” (Thus Always to Tyrants, which Brutus is alleged to have said after killing Caesar. Also the state motto of Virginia.) Then he and his co-conspirators ran, having failed to kill Johnson and Seward. (The guy supposed to kill Seward only managed to non-fatally stab him, DESPITE THE FACT THAT SEWARD WAS BEDRIDDEN BECAUSE OF A CARRIAGE ACCIDENT. The guy who was supposed to kill Johnson chickened out and got drunk instead. Which sucks because...well, you’ll see.) Lincoln died just after seven the next morning. The secret service and Union army caught up to him and the others and killed booth. The eight other conspirators were sentenced to life in prison. Then Johnson was sworn in as president. 17th president Andrew Johnson is regarded as one of the worst presidents in history, and is one of 3 presidents to be impeached - the only one who actually left office as a result. He had an anti-black stance that went against everything Lincoln stood for, opposing the 14th amendment and every other bill that would grant civil rights to freed slaves. Back then, the rule was still that the runner-up in the presidential race was VP, so the President and VP were opposing parties, which is actually smart and kept power from becoming too imbalanced and corrupt in either direction. The stances of the parties were essentially the opposite of what they are now, as well, so Lincoln as a Republican was far more liberal than Johnson. Southern states rejoining the union re-elected many of their old leaders and the strong rights of individual states that fanned the early flames of the war allowed them to pass anti-black laws that deprived freed slaves in their individual states of the rights to which the Emancipation Proclamation entitled them. Congressional Republicans (read: liberals) who still held the majority, refused to accept senators from those states, and wrote legislation to overrule them. Johnson vetoed them all, and Republican (read: liberal) congress overruled him right back, and this pattern went on for the rest of the administration. Sound familiar, anybody? So much of his cabinet spoke out against him and he fired so many of them that Congress restricted his ability to fire people. He continued trying to impeach the Secretary of War who had put out a reward for Booth’s capture, electing to go down causing as much chaos as he could, and was impeached as a result. Essentially, if Lincoln hadn’t been killed, Johnson would never have been president, and the transition from war to reconstruction wouldn’t have been as awful as it was. Congress wouldn’t have been distracted by Johnson’s antics and would have been able to focus on sending aid to suffering rural areas and rebuilding the country. The lack of aid to rural areas gave an upper hand to urban areas, hence, companies. This is when corporations started to get their foot in the door and tip the scales in favor of higher populated areas/more wealthy areas. So “democratic-republicanism” which favored stronger states rights instead of central government, because they thought it would be “better for farmers and rural communities,” actually led to the alienation and starving out of farmers and rural communities. Hmm, almost like it was never a valid stance to begin with. The Democratic Republicans, back in the Hamilton-era days, weren’t even a proper political party. They had to scramble for a stance that made sense, because they were originally called the Anti-federalists, and their ONLY stance was to oppose the Federalists because they (Thomas Jefferson mainly) hated Hamilton. BUT THAT IS ITS OWN RANT. Anyway. We are still in the Reconstruction period. If it weren’t for Booth, it’s likely that we would have made it further than this.” END RANT

61: Favorite ancient civilization?

Oh I am such a sucker for the Greeks.

THANKS FOR THIS AND SORRY IT TOOK ME LIKE A WEEK TO GET TO IT.

[stephicness]

How do you think, what does Ravus thinks about Emperor Iedolas? I loved Iedolas in Kingsglaive and I really wanted to see more of him in the game (it took me embarrassingly long time to even realize he's already dead by the end). Was it explained why Empire even started this whole thing, conquering other countries and I missed it? (Also, Tenebrae was a kingdom, right? So was Ravus going to be a king?) Sorry for so many questions :(

Dear anon, don’t ever feel like you’re asking too manyquestions. c: I love being able to answer these questions, especially when theyinvolve character analysis, headcanons, and just being able to give you a bunchof information. Answering these sorts of things are always really cool becauseit really gets you to think about it more in depth, you know? But I’ll trytackling these questions one at a time for ya! Just let me figure out the orderto answer them… Hm…

Look under the Keep Reading, because this is gonna get lengthy!

Was it explained by the Empire started taking countries?Not really, so you didn’t really miss much, to be honest. At least, it wasn’t explained openly in the game to why Iedolas himself wanted to take over the world of Eos. But here’s a brief history lesson on how the Empire became buttheads.

You see, the situation with the Empire being a bit of a power monger started over two-thousand years ago when Eos was ruled by the Solheim empire. Consider them the big honchos of everything. That is, until Ifrit decided to be a hot-head (HA) about the humans. Thus, Ifrit the Astral created the Starscourge! The parasitic virus that turned humans into daemons because they aren’t getting enough of a tan or are just plain cursed with the parasite itself after they died and stuff. So that’s where Ardyn supposedly comes in with the First Oracle of the Fleuret family to help heal the world, and they manage to suppress the Starscourge, etc.

But as a result of Solheim falling, four new kingdoms were formed as their own independent areas: Lucis, Tenebrae, Accordo, and Niflheim. It took about another thousand years in about ME 358, before the Aldercapt family decided ‘Hey. Solheim was cool. Let’s make Solheim again!’ And so they decided to wage war on the opposing countries to make Niflheim into a shining gem that Solheim was, perhaps even better. In the following year, Niflheim takes over Tenebrae, but they exclude taking Fenestalla Manor (AKA House Fleuret), the overseers of the country, because PSSH. The Fleurets are the family for Oracles. They’re pretty important, so messing with them in particular mean 1) messing with any sort of hope of them healing the Starscourge and 2) messing with an advocate to the Astrals and, in a way, messing with the Astrals themselves. So they allowed the Fleurets to have their own little place while Niflheim took the rest of Tenebrae for themselves.

Fast-forward three-hundred years, ME 605, and Lucis and Accordo finally realize that ‘Wow. The Aldercapts are being assholes’ – especially as their empire only keeps growing and growing. So Lucis and Accordo team up to try taking down the Empire. The Empire though has always been pretty well-advanced, in military power and in technology. They easily managed to squash Lucis and Accordo, annexing Accordo as their victory and getting Lucis to cower behind the wall that you see around Insomnia in particular. Another hundred years later in the ME 720′s, and Niflheim (specifically Iedolas by now) decides that with Lucis being the last kingdom left, they’d ramp up their magical technology and begin their fight against Lucis.

Regis takes the throne at about ME 729/730, meaning that he was definitely butting heads with Iedolas the most. From ME 725 until 756, they were at each other’s throats. Over thirty years. And Iedolas would do anything to see Lucis falter even a little bit, including using daemons in the magiteks (after Ardyn shows them that it’s possible) and going after the Fleuret family after they tried helping Noctis recover from a serious injury after traveling with his mother. So Iedolas came in, wrecked Fenestalla Manor, and killed Queen Sylva, much to Ravus’s despair. And so, all of Tenebrae became under Niflheim’s official rule until Lucis eventually fell as well during the events of Kingsglaive.

And that’s pretty much a historical recap of what happened before the game even started. Drama galore!

But WHY?

Well, think of it this way: the Aldercapts basically fueled themselves on a war-like empire, finding a good majority of their economic benefits in assimilating other countries’ economies, trade systems, and more into their own. This has been going on for at least a thousand years prior to the fall of Lucis when Final Fantasy XV begins. And what kept them going on their war path was the fact that they were actually benefiting more from their war conquest now than they were as an independent kingdom. Yeah, they were good enough on their own, but if a kingdom has to rely on themselves for resources only exclusive to them – especially with a highly developing kingdom like Niflheim was – they’re going to end up running out of supplies or ways to continue to strive for improvement. But instead of playing nice and making a treaty, they decided to go about their resourcing Solheim style. At least, it’s a good chance it was all about resources.

Another contributing factor, as mentioned about, is that Niflheim wanted to restore the glory of one large empire, just like how Solheim was. Which, a fun fact for you, Niflheim, when looking at word origins, can mean ‘The Dark World.’ Solheim, in contrast, can mean ‘The Light World’ or even ‘Sun World.’ But I digress. The glory of Solheim was a jewel of humans before Ifrit decided to mess with everything. The Aldercapts pride ultimately helped fuel their conquest as they used political reasons to mask their pride as well.

Iedolas was just another emperor bred into a lineage of pride and conquest. But the thing is was that he wasn’t a tyrant in his endeavors. It seemed like the Aldercapt family in general were highly revered rulers, bringing prosperity through war and conflict. He knew how to play people like a fiddle, appealing to them despite his terrible intentions afterwards, but that’s what made him such a good tactician in his assault against Lucis. He knew when to play nice while also knowing when to lash out. And with Ardyn as his advisor as well, two manipulative souls were able to bring forth the fall of Lucis.

However, Iedolas failed to realize that even a manipulator like himself could be manipulated. Iedolas’s lust for power and his desire to strengthen the Niflheim empire proved to be something that Ardyn could manipulate. Thus, Iedolas ultimately perished in Ardyn’s quest for revenge against the world that wronged him. Iedolas was turned into the daemon Fortas, and, well, RIP to him after Noctis and the others ran into him. Ardyn knew how kings were, especially since he was once king of Lucis on his end, so Iedolas was easy money to toy with, especially as Ardyn tempted him with the wonders of the Crystal and the Ring of the Lucii. So despite being a good ruler and tactician, he fell on his own sword by allowing Ardyn to gain the upper hand against him.

Going Back to Ravus…

Consider Ravus in amidst Iedolas’s war path as a prisoner of war. Despite Tenebrae being its own sovereign kingdom thanks to the Oracle’s status before, Tenebrae, after it was attack, was by no means truly free. Niflheim always lingered some way, somehow, and it was probably extremely stressful knowing that if the Fleurets did anything remotely wrong, they would face the wrath of the empire. And what do you know? They did. After helping Regis save Noctis’s life, Niflheim launched an assault again the Fleurets, only establishing more than Tenebrae was never free.

And Ravus probably didn’t really mind it much growing up until the Magiteks attacked Fenestalla Manor and killed Queen Sylva. A young man, passive and oblivious to the world and just trying to grow up and become the man of the house to support the Oracle and those he was sworn to protect. His path was chosen for him the day he was born, and he wanted to make sure to uphold his legacy and protect his sister just as he promised his mother.

You asked about Ravus becoming king, and honestly, I don’t think he was destined to become king at all. You see, the Oracle, I imagine, is essentially the ruler of Tenebrae, meaning that whoever is chosen or destined to become the Oracle becomes the authoritative power in the kingdom. His mother, I believe, was the Oracle before Lunafreya was picked to become the youngest one in history. Or, at the very least, some sort of direct relative, though I don’t believed it was mentioned that they had any. If they did, the probably perished during the assault on the manor. Yes, Ravus did have Oracle blood in him, but he wasn’t picked to become the next Oracle. Thus, I don’t imagine him being anywhere close to becoming king any time soon.

Thus, that left Ravus with the only other option: to enlist into Niflheim’s military, which he ultimately did. Deciding that was one of the best ways for him to be able to protect Lunafreya, he trained under Niflheim’s rigorous military and eventually became a high enough status to follow after Glauca’s legacy after the High Commander had fallen to Nyx Ulric’s blades. Perhaps a mock title, but Ravus used his status as the new High Commander to do everything he could to keep Lunafreya safe – including messing with Iedolas by staring him right in the eye and telling him ‘I’ll deal with Luna and get you the ring.’ The Ring of Lucii. The one thing Iedolas would literally kill for. And Ravus basically did the exact opposite of what he promised Iedolas, which is, in a way, a major middle finger to the Empire. He hated Regis for abandoning Tenebrae in their time of need, but he probably hates Iedolas and Niflheim even more for attacking them in the first place.

Ravus doesn’t really care about what Iedolas wants, and he could care less about an empire who didn’t give a damn about Sylva dying or Lunafreya becoming a political hostage. If Iedolas expected his loyalty from the very beginning, he shouldn’t have pissed Ravus off.

I hope that answered your questions! A lot of history behind the lore of the game, but hopefully I explained what I could and gave you my opinions about the moody high commander. c: Any time you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask me, and I’ll help to bring some clarity for ya!