Here you have them in all their glory, a pair of messed up brothers!

You're very hardworking because there's indeed a lot of lore, mostly about Praetorius, with some hints at a bigger universe here and there XD good job!

About Praetorius and scent: he would prefer his SO to wear their natural scent, no need to mask it. He understands the social impulse of wanting to smell more appealing or enticing to others, and gets why one would like to change the way they smell or present themselves a little from time to time. He does! But he's also a monster with a sensitive sense of smell, who inhabits a Castle where the rest of the people either stink like chores and servitude or purposefully stink themselves up with copious amounts of perfumes and other scents to become more appealing for the Court lifestyle. Scents can be deceiving and too much of anything would end up clogging his skull, so Praetorius doesn't really like perfumes. Natural scents are much more personal, difficult to mimic, and even intimate.

He does enjoy the smell of certain things, like crisp paper, fresh ink, or cold stone. They're mostly associates with good memories or moments of peace, so he tends to favor them. As many monsters trapped in a cave for centuries, he actively dislikes the smell of petrichor, which many humans favor. Even after Surfacing, he doesn't really get it, but he'd start missing it until he gets used to not being Underground, which would take him a lot longer than he'd like to admit.

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Regarding the human who broke the Barrier, since it's a swapfell type of AU, we can pinpoint Chara for that role, with Frisk being the first Fallen Child and sibling to late Prince Asriel.

As the story goes, Frisk perishes, Asriel dies with them, and monsters lose HOPE while imprisoned, until Queen Toriel comes up with the plan to harvest human SOULs and gather their power to break the Barrier, consequently causing her separation from Asgore.

I could go on a tangent about how the Barrier broke and what that implied for monsterkind and for the memory of Gaster after how his mistake condemned a whole species to remain trapped, but the truth is I don't have a solution for that just yet, so I'd ramble aimlessly.

The first thought monsters have after finding a human again is to take their SOUL, to start over collecting them all, no matter how much or how long it takes. And then, the Barrier is gone, the child thrives on with their new adopted dad, monsters gain their happy ending and the world broadens impossible.

The Court would be the easiest case. The Queen needed an heir, and who better than their liberator? The Crown acolytes are a sadistic bunch, ready to tear into each other, and for a while the crowd was divided - some wanted to resume the SOUL collecting, some others wanted to give the child a chance and see what would happen. If it hadn't been for Asgore's brief return to the Castle to ensure Chara would have been treated right, their SOUL would be in a container and their body disposed off as fast as a sneeze. As all things evolve, after Surfacing, everyone was suddenly on board with letting the child live on, be cherished and grow up as free as the rest of them, as if they hadn't been ready to dangle them over a pit of snakes as the smallest turn of the wind.

For Praetorius, they're a means towards redemption. He could never let go of the guilt of trapping monsters forever because of his Father's mistake. He didn't directly destroy the SOULs but all his life he felt responsible for it, aware that no matter how hard he worked to improve the Underground, he could never make up for the freedom monsters would never get. He keeps them in mind in a careful way, planning and scheming around them, as to not distort the tentative equilibrium their presence has gifted monsters. He's not very comfortable around them, regardless of how grateful he feels about them falling and not perishing on their way to the Castle.

Laudaris? He just went a little bit insane and rolled with it. His mind was never quite the same after his Father messed up the SOULs. The experiment changed everyone Underground, but Laudaris is particularly sensitive to SOUL, and he might have been over for a quick visit after he caught word in how his dad had been holed up in his lab for weeks. He was a witness to his horrible crime, which is why he was appointed to be the Judge in his trial - not only as a key witness but also as a test of loyalty from the Court. He never had the opportunity to Spare Gaster, he never could have. And again, the SOULs self imploding in the equivalent of existential fireworks did something to him.

Laudaris' HCs 💜

First • <<Prev ← Part 13 → Next>>

He's one tall monster. 6' 11" to be precise, and tends to walk around with a slouch because he likes the way the loose and tattered bits of his robe sway around, the coins sewn to the fabric clinking against each other.

He's the relaxed type of monster, easy-going and calm. No one remembers a time when Laudaris lost his shit. Those who witnessed it don't remember it, either.

Can and will shortcut around, it's his Thing. The Castle is too big, and everyone wants to rub elbows with him! Normally he's all about socializing but from time to time a guy requires a moment of quiet.

He has quite the mind, a bit obsessive, and a very steady SOUL. His ability to see SOULs and Stats without a Check means he's quite the successful Judge. Despite his aloofness and disinterest, he's well trusted and has a reputation for fairness. Anyone who arrives in his Room is definitely guilty, as the perp would have already gone through several filters to reach him, but Laudaris has a talent for delivering the right sentence. Most of the time, he's meant to decide the consequences of a crime, or a collection of them, rather than deciding whether someone deserves to be sentenced - the system is definitely rigged. Laudaris is fair, but he's also a believer in a punitive deliverance rather than a reformative one. He's a bit sadistic, and such tendencies had to find an outlet somewhere.

Very good question, right into lore territory!

Laudaris (he finally has a name) is one of the Judges Underground, so naturally he retains such job Aboveground.

If it were for him, the lazy SOUL he is, he would have renounced, retired or truckled under some lame pretense to find anything else to do with his life. His position is not as demanding as Praetorius', so while heavily frowned upon, he would indeed have the chance to do so.

The problem with Laudaris is, he's useful. Not necessarily as a Judge, since the Crown has plenty of those, but as an agent for the people. Despite looking like a medieval depiction of Death incarnate, robe and clinking coins and all, he's incredibly personable.

He's likeable! He knows how to navigate the different layers of monster society, from the Court to the Dump, Merchants and Shopkeepers and Commoners, Ruindwellers and Snowpeople and Hotlanders, Corians and Waterfellas... He's the agent that links them all. He knows how to rub elbows with everyone, he's casual and unsuspicious, he's political... He shows up in Court with suggestions and offhanded comments and stupid little ideas, and suddenly citizens outside the Castle is a little less burdenes. Everyone knows him, the little brother that got abandoned, the one who had to Judge his own father, the guy who pops up at Muffet's Parlour for sweets and drinks, who mingles with Guard rejects at the Dump to look for cool shit...

Aboveground, Laudaris maintains such a role. Praetorius keeps monsters safe, and Laudaris makes them feel like they are. He connects with monsters, and comes back to the Crown with recon they can use to keep the masses happy.

During the first months after monsters left the Forest and joined human cities for good, Laudaris was as busy as anyone else, so he and Praetorius didn't really meet around much - their relationship was strained since the very beginning, and only got worse after the Doctor got Executed. They were strangers but not, and after that everything got tainted, both brothers gaining the feeling that only terrible things would happen every time they got together. It's a hard feeling to shake off.

Laudaris is much more emotionally intelligent than Praetorius, in a practical, day-to-day sense, so he's the one to approach his brother — Praetorius would be too much in his head about it, wondering the what-ifs and overthinking anything else, so it's him who has to do it.

It's... A process. They don't dislike each other, but they're indeed strangers who know more about the other thanks to Court rumors than through real conversation. Laudaris is the one who moves closer to Praetorius, same neighborhood and all, and is the one who pushes and pushes to meet up and chat and actually know each other outside of work. He's a huge help for Praetorius in terms of normalizing him to the surface and humans outside of his job, to trying new things and going outside, to getting accustomed to his own house even.

This is a very interesting question!

The Underground in this AU is a hopeless but very functional society, with a strong Royal sitting on the throne (Toriel, name pending) and a strict organization when it comes to political and security forces. It feels like a very structured, straightforward culture.

Praetorius was raised to be a soldier, as he showed aptitudes from a very young age - unlike his brother. He was taken to the Castle and subjected to an unforgiving training regime to polish him into the tool he is nowadays. He was strong-willed, sharp and intelligent, and he was quick to learn how brutality is the oil that keeps the cogs turning smoothly.

He is very good at what he does: he's organized, astute and painfully objective when it comes to making hard choices, and understands how maintaining the system, as cruel as it is, is the only thing that keeps the Underground collapsing on itself.

Regarding his job.... He lives in denial, as simplistic as that sounds. As the Commander-in-chief of the Guard, the duties he must fulfill are unavoidable, and even if his character permitted a less thorough approach to them, his own survival instincts wouldn't allow it - anything that goes wrong is a potential death sentence.

That lesson got burned in his mind when he was forced to execute his father for dooming the Underground by accidentally destroying the collected human SOULs.

So, Praetorius doesn't fail, he's been honed to work as an emotionless machine. This is an incredibly unhealthy way to live, and his mental health is in shambles, which is why rather than have any self awareness, he moves through life like a bulldozer.

He's unstoppable. He's unmerciful and implacable. He's incorruptible. He's absolute and inhuman.

He has been broken into the ultimate instrument of oppression.

Praetorius is very detached from his reality, while also painfully aware of it, and he does have moments of dissociation, when reality comes to him and hits him like a jackhammer, leaving him on the verge of falling down. He always pulls through, wiring his mind back towards his blank, soldier mask.

It wouldn't be until years after monsters Surface that he would realize how much of an empty vessel his training and life oppressed him to be. He doesn't have substance, he's nothing but a sword and a shield, a clock ticking with every passing second, a bat and a chain to keep the common people under the Crown's reign. His will and his freedom are nonexistent.

His role Underground was key for their society to work and flow and survive, as riots would have sentenced everyone. He never had room to grow as an individual, as a person with preferences and opinions, because he was never given choices - he was selected and pushed forward over and over until he reached perfection, in the coldest sense of the word.

After Surfacing, once the ruthlessness of his role decreases, he finds himself empty, with nothing to drive him, and that's when he finally gets a chance to destroy and rebuild himself into something worthy - whatever that criteria might follow.

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Regarding the mistake prompt, it wouldn't go about him making a mistake in a literal sense, for that would have cost him his life, but more towards the path of regrets.

When he was very young, he still had time to spend with his brother and father, not so much after he was taken away. Instead of doing so, every free moment he had he invested training, so their relationship was never something significant. Years after he moved to the Castle, his brother showed up, following a different type of training to become a Judge, but Praetorius again rejected chasing his brother to rebuild their relationship in favor of his own training. At the moment, it was the only logical choice he could make, for any time he wasted not preparing to be the best version of himself could be interpreted as lack of will to serve the Crown.

All his choices were made in the spirit of survival, and as such he cannot regret them.

But he does believe, if things would have been different, that he could have stopped his father and his experiments, which led him to destroying the human SOULs. He could have sought his brother after his father's mistake, and maybe convinced him to give him a lesser sentence. He could have refused to execute his father, and maybe run away, even if there was nowhere to go in a sealed cave.

He could have tried, pretending there was HOPE, that they could have a future beyond the claws of the Royals, and he would have died, along with his father. Maybe he would have sentenced his brother as well, just by approaching him with disloyal intentions.

Laudaris' HCs 💜

First • <<Prev ← Part 17 → Next>>

He thinks coleacanths are insanely cool. The first thing he does as he Surfaces, once he discovers they're weirdly popular, is to get a keychain of one. He has it hooked to a karabiner so he can hang his new little friend on his chains and beads, though he keeps the trinket often hidden from view.

Laudaris is very careful about the clothes he wears. He looks like the Grim Reaper on purpose - those who have read the more macabre tales Underground will react to it in ways he finds very funny, and Aboveground the effect is even funnier. To him, he's just a guy draped in the equivalent of obscenely long curtains! A lamppost badly wrapped! To humans? He's the split image of Death. It's so amusing.

While highly likeable, most people, human or monster, can tell there's something off about Laudaris. Some sort of twisted version of "all lights one but nobody's home", but there's Something home and some of the lights flicker on and off and others are oddly colored... People can never quite pinpoint what's so strange about him outside his episodes, but then again, Laudaris can't quite either.

Uses dog treats, not only for the relaxing effect they give him, but because if he puts them in his mouth and clicks his jaw shit the smoke will: a) flow all the way into his cranium and give him the real fuzz, and b) whatever smoke escapes through his face holes will make people freak out bad and that's fucking hilarious. He loves scaring his brother's new recruits in the shady areas of the Underground, when they haven't yet learnt where not to go or who not to cross! A healthy spook to keep overeager warrior wannabees never hurt anyone!

Laudaris' HCs 💜

First • <<Prev ← Part 15 → Next>

Enjoys trash food, particularly anything hard and crunchy to snack on. Greasy food is okay too, but he likes it a bit less because he's clumsy and fears it'd drip on his robes and soil his respectable Grimm-Reaper-meets-Judge-Judy looks. Again.

Actually very anal about the placement of the chains and dangling coins on his skull. He has a Look™ and he's proud of it! He looks so neat with them! It's hard work! Don't mess them up!

The staff he carries around is used both as a way to keep back up counts and beads around, in case he snags them with something, and to whack people who say dumb things to him. And to scare some guys with the slow click, click, click of it emerging from the dark if he thinks they're somewhere they shouldn't be.

A bit controlling on how monsters move Underground, what areas he likes to be more private, which should be avoided... He has, and will again if he must, invented tales and terror stories about one or two locations he considers shouldn't be visited by the general public, be it out of danger or out of possessiveness. Some things who lurk in the dark should remain... Unbothered.

You're a simp and you should be ashamed! I love you!! Bonk!!!

Getting close to him is quite easy, if we're talking about the initial approach. He's easygoing, social, and likes anything a grungy 15 yo would enjoy. You have hot Cheetos and an energy drink in a brightly-colored can? He's in for a chat!

Just because he's chill doesn't mean he's easy to befriend. He's open but he's the kind of guy to keep everyone at arms length - you meet him often, you talk with him about anything, and years later you'll realize you don't know anything about him. He thrives with super casual friendships, has flings here and there, knows his way around the block... But a deeper thing?

A connection?

You'll have to try so, so hard to earn that.

He's seen a lot of shit, and judged a lot of people for it - he's considered fair and creative, but being exposed to so much negativity has warped his vision of the world, and it's difficult for him to look at someone and not do a full read of what they could do, motivations, possibilities... He's not violent like Praetorius is, but he's mistrusting.