#ludger doesn't even need to have feelings for julius or anything. it's just about the awkwardness

[lastthroes]

/taps mic julius finding out about the hidden stash ludger has of incest porn send post

[mr-leach]

So the thing about Tales of Xillia 2 is that while you are given choices to make and ultimately, a definitive path to choose at the end, the choices are, indeed, limited, and really, your path is fairly set in stone throughout most of the game. This is often--correctly--cited as a flaw in the game design, but I am a firm believer that even if the curtains are just blue, one can still find meaning in meaningless decisions made on the creative side, so hear me out:

[Tales of Xillia 2 spoilers ahead]

The lack of meaningful decisions throughout Ludger's journey and the ultimate dearth of choices to make nearing the end can, in a certain light, be seen as foreshadowing the fact that, ultimately, Chronos rigged the game from the beginning such that the choices the Kresnik clan would have to make would not only be extremely limited, but also, inherently, be awful no matter what.

Ludger's unique family situation also happens to give the player a window into the limited choices one can make long before the endgame rears its ugly purple foetus head; the members of his family that you encounter are, in fact, all in the process of choosing one of the three major pathways Ludger can take. While some prefer to refer to the three major endings as the "neutral" ending, the "bad" ending, and the "good" or "true" ending, myself and a few others I personally know have taken up the habit of calling them the "Victor" ending, the "Julius" ending, and the "Ludger" or "Elle" ending, respectively. The reason for this being, by trying to selfishly choose to save Elle over the world, you, in fact, make the same choice that Victor had made before you, killing your brother and father so that you can use your one wish to rescue the little girl you fell in love with from her fate as the key of Kresnik. Also, by choosing to save Julius, even if it means having to forsake everyone else, is exactly the choice Julius made when he decided to adopt Ludger and hide him from Bisley all those years ago. Or, you can instead choose to sacrifice yourself, save everyone, including Elle...by heeding Bisley's final words before he, too, sacrifices himself to buy you enough time to make the right choice.

Yeeeaaah, I got you! This post is about Bisley Bakur, sorry. I was gonna make a less generalized post about his role as a father so I could properly defend him against the ACTUAL Elympios' Worst Dad winner but then I started thinking about his MASSIVE role in the story and how salty I am that most people's impression of him is "mean nasty CEO guy who also happens to be your dad" when by all accounts he is extremely badass and integral to Ludger's successes throughout the trial. And yeah, I DO think that by choosing the Good/Elle ending, Ludger is, in fact, following in Bisley's footsteps. Allow me to explain:

The thing about Ludger is that all of this stuff is absolutely brand spanking new to him. One day he was a normal dude with a new job at the train station deli and the next he is the key to saving all of humanity from collapsing under it's own hubris. That's kind of a lot! And just in case he doesn't really feel like being a hero, the world's most powerful rich guy shows up to threaten to destroy his life if he doesn't step up and do what needs doing. The problem is, what needs doing is extremely morally wretched and could easily be described as mass genocide, and is thus incredibly emotionally taxing on top of taking a serious physical toll. Ludger has no context for anything that's going on and has to be coerced to even consider participating in it, and on top of that, everything is happening to him extremely fast. Meanwhile, Julius and Bisley know exactly what is going on, as both of them got to go through the exact same awakening journey a lot earlier and at a much more reasonable pace, and of the two, the only one who might be willing to explain this shit to Ludger is currently public enemy #1 and doesn't exactly have a lot of time to chat.

The thing is, while Bisley's need-to-know basis for informing Ludger of what's going on is actually just the norm for everyone in Spirius. Bisley never had access to all of the knowledge about the trial when he was an agent, and only became privy to everything there was to know when he became CEO of Spirius following his father's death. Julius only found out as much as he knows because he's a supergenious hacker and dug up the knowledge on his own. And the thing is that both of them, knowing everything, can agree that the less a person knows about it all the better, because actually, it's all horrible, all the way down, and requires superhuman mental fortitude to to remain sane about it enough to continue doing what needs doing so humanity won't all be turned into mindless living batteries for spirits to power their discmans with. It's miserable.

By a series of. Circumstances. Bisley himself was placed in the extremely bad position of having the key of Kresnik and reaching his final chromatus without having any of the waymarkers to Canaan, which technically wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the fact that Chronos doesn't like to play fair and showed up to wreck his shit. Bisley very nearly lost EVERYTHING. He lost his wife, the key of Kresnik, and one of the few chances he might have had to complete his life's mission. He learned that day that if he used his power much more, he would become a divergence catalyst. He had survived, only to be given the impossible task of shepherding a new generation of chromatus bearers--including his, at the time, 5 year old son--to their dooms, or else risk all of mankind being enslaved and robbed of their free will. Worse, he couldn't even pretend that this world might just be a fractured dimension: Chronos' meddling confirmed that this was, in fact, the prime dimension.

Like Victor, Bisley could have used his power to save what was left of his family and insulate himself from the horrors of the trial. Like Julius, he could have absconded his duty and run away, perhaps to Reize Maxia which was still sequestered from Elympios at the time, and hid from the rest of the clan. But Bisley, instead, chose to continue. There was the underlying motivation of getting revenge on the spirits, sure, but his core belief was that he had to be the one to do it, to save whatever poor soul might have to come after him. He was already strong enough, he already had the knowledge, he even increased the chances of it working by creating the Kudlak to locate and keep track of the fractured dimensions. He would have to do terrible things to succeed, set aside his own humanity, and become the worst kind of person. He would destroy himself for the sake of not forcing those who came after him to do so.

Now, again, the major difference between Ludger and Bisley is that Bisley knew all along what he was doing. Ludger did a lot of horrible things that, if he had known, there's a chance he would have avoided at all costs. His ignorance was what allowed his conscience to remain clear for the most part, at least until the reality of those revelations eventually came to light. Bisley had to made a more conscious decision to take up the terrible tasks ahead of him, including the decision to keep Ludger in the dark for as long as possible, while he still believed Ludger was the key. Like Abraham, he led his Isaac to the altar, and did not tell him of the sacrifice to be made until the moment of truth. And then God was merciful, and the goat appeared, and Bisley learned that Elle was the true key.

This is really the part that makes me want to defend Bisley as a dad. Like, setting aside the extremely wacko stuff surrounding him becoming a father in the first place (seriously Cornelia WTF) the SECOND Bisley learned that Elle was the true key, he does whatever he can to keep Ludger out of it. Clears his debts. Gives him a wicked promotion. Julius, too, has the charges on him dropped. Suddenly, he has a way to get to Canaan, stop Chronos, and end the trial for good, and also save the lives of his two children. And the thing is he probably doesn't expect to survive. Like for YEARS he knew he would likely become a divergence catalyst as soon as he definitively utilized his chromatus. He could save humanity AND his children, whom he loved unconditionally.

And really, the biggest tell...is how incredibly LIVID he is when Ludger arrives in Canaan. He knows what Ludger would have had to do. And like. He didn't even have to use his full chromatus to defeat Chronos. He was probably walking on fucking air at that point, and then Ludger shows up. And he KNOWS how strong Ludger is. He KNOWS one of them will die if they fight. He was SO close. He straight up tells Ludger that he's thrown his own life away, not just Julius', and he is MAD.

Then of course, when all is said and done, and he knows he will turn into a divergence catalyst...he takes a step back, and remembers that he was already at terms with sacrificing everything. He already decided it's more important to save everyone. He sets aside his selfishness one last time, warns Ludger to stop using his chromatus, and ends his own life to prevent the trial from ending before Ludger has a chance to make his wish.

I could go over Victor, I suppose, but really I think it's a no brainer. His actions did help in the end, but the motivation was entirely selfish. He was in the same place, having lost the key, the trial, his family, and Elle, and although he rightfully felt cheated, he couldn't at least live the rest of his life knowing it wasn't his duty to do anything more. He didn't have to sacrifice anything else, but he put his peaceful life, his friends, his family, and his actual child on the altar on the off chance that he could get a do-over. Like, what a dick. Seriously just live your nice rich guy life next to the gorgeous lake with your kid what is your problem you asshole.

Anyway I never know how to end these things but I hope you had fun, happy new year

[kriegsveteranen-archive]

"alright, julius, i will keep that in mind. thank you for offering. please also feel free to only ever call me sylvain." he wasn't fond of his crest or the family relations but they did belong to him. so did his rumors, that he was nothing more than a skirt chaser and julius had probably heard of that as well. that would make things unnecessarily complicated, but even thought sylvain had stopped making out randomly, or even invite others on dates, it didn't mean what everyone knew about sylvain was just going to vanish just because he was properly behaving for a few months.

"oh, don't worry, i would never touch anything there. i have no real... interest getting involved in matters that involve teachers at this academy. i have enough problems of my own already." which didn't just include his relationship to his father, but also to his mother, to dimitri and everyone else. not rarely did he throw himself recklessly into a fight, wondering when his end would arrive. but such thoughts were often on the back burner because he wanted to protect his friend... sylvain only knew things were complicated, in every aspect of his life.

the only one not complicated was ludger, he was sweet and kind.

sylvain didn't even look around much, not interested in what they stored here. maybe it was alcohol? artifacts? didn't matter all that much to him and he was probably better of not knowing.

the red head sat down immediately across of the professor, happily eating more of those cream puffs that had been lovingly prepared by such a wholesome soul. sylvain missed ludger a little, hoping they would see each other again soon, but he needed to convince julius of that as well, right? would he be able to?

"i guess we're friends. i mean, that's what we are but what i would want us to be is probably closer to boyfriends. but... that takes into consideration that he wants that as well. if he doesn't, then i guess i'll go my own way. i would try to be a good friend though. i would still want to keep him safe, even if he isn't interested in me in such a romantic sort of way. i want to respect him and his choices, but stay at his side regardless... that is how i feel."

"My apologies, Sylvain. I often forget to take off my teacher filter," Julius laughs to himself. The teaching life, brief as he's adopted it, settled into his routine almost too well. He's even called Ludger 'Mr. Kresnik' in private a few times. "You can call me Julius as well. Just know in class, that's a Ludger-only feature."

Oh? He didn't need to make the sales pitch? That's a welcome first-- few people are brave enough to take a bite. "I'm glad you've come around to them without me singing their praises. Anyway, the faculty lounge should be empty, so we can talk there. All I ask is please resist the urge to touch anything personal items you see; we teachers are mysterious creatures who like our secrets."

With that warning, Julius leads Sylvain to a locked room just shy of the dining hall. Several items pack the shelves, though most notable is an ominous box off in a corner plastered in 'DO NOT DISTURB' signs. Julius checks it, though he angles the lid so Sylvain couldn't peek. If word about Professor Manuela hid expensive wines in here spread... students might get ideas. Should he get to know Sylvain sometime, he might pop open a bottle to split. Another day.

For now, Julius slides out a chair across from his usual spot so they're not having to twist their necks to look at each other. His bribe sits between them as he takes a cream puff for himself. Always gotta have one.

"To start, what would you say your relationship with Ludger is? I won't judge you for your answer, nor will I tell Ludger if you don't want him knowing, so do speak your mind."