hi tumblr I am, as many people are, going fucking insane over the silly little vampire man. I was encouraged to post some thoughts I had about him so uh here you go!!
Pre-vampire Astarion had a different kind of style. Different color preferences, clothing, patterns, hair.
Game era Astarion got off the nautiloid like that - which means we can assume he got taken like that - which means we can assume that’s not a style he’s chosen himself but a visual identity he’s been forced into for 200 years that he hasn’t yet found the ability to change
Even when he kills Cazador. There’s not a Shadowheart-esque moment of changing his appearance to reflect his development even though his appearance can be tied even more to the trauma he’s trying to overcome than Shadowheart’s can
Because he’s spent so long not able to be his own person. Not allowed to find his own tastes. There isn’t some identity lurking beneath the facade, waiting to break forth. Cazador broke him down, hollowed him out, made sure there was nothing except what Cazador wanted him to be
So some time post-game.. it starts slowly. He changes his hairstyle first. His family (they are still alive, they’re elves, fight me about it) tries to lay out clothes for him that used to suit his tastes but he doesn’t feel right putting them on it. It’s not the same kind of performative that Cazador demanded from him, but it feels performative all the same. He goes shopping around, he strays from anything similar to what he would have worn during the Cazador era or during his lifetime. For a while it’s anything that catches his eye, trying out whatever he realizes he likes. Sometimes it ends up a little silly. But eventually he does settle into his preferences. Finally something uniquely him, who he’s become and what he’s decided to like.
The symbolic change of a character’s visual design, but it takes years, maybe even decades
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sometimes you will spend 30 minutes thinking about a character and you will expect to have something coherent to say by the end of that time but the best you can come up with is "they are sooooooo shaped they are so silly i love my blorbo"
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The dynamic in Rise between the rest of the team and Leo is. so fucking funny. Because like you've got these three extremely talented individuals who all seem like perfectly reasonable people at first glance, right, but then if you squint hard enough you realize they're actually all batshit insane (affectionate) and the clown boy standing behind them is secretly their common sense.
Clown boy will occasionally put himself and the others in danger to Prove Himself or Prove Someone Wrong (see Minotaur Maze and the movie) but like otherwise... i think people forget Leo's overwhelmingly the voice of reason in most situations?
Raph, Mikey, and Donnie are all incredibly powerful boys with very specific skill sets. They are also, as a direct result of this, the WORST decision-makers on god's green earth lmao. When presented with a problem, Raph will smash, Donnie will blow shit up, and Mikey will razzmatazz. They will all run straight toward death with the same oblivious enthusiasm of a dog about to run straight into a screen door. None of them realize this and all of them think they are Extremely Good At Problem-Solving.
And the guy cursed with the common sense to realize this is literally the LAST person anyone would expect.
When you look closely, the entirety of Rise is actually a chronicle of Leo trying to find new and creative ways to keep this team of superpowered fools alive while simultaneously white-knuckling his Cool Fun Guy persona so the others don't realize he's secretly the Boring Responsible One. Haha, you know what would be Cool and Fun, guys? Not going after the Spine Breaking Bandit lol. Getting home before the sun goes up lol. Evacuating that civilian lol. Not telling the guy dangling me off a roof "you won't, no balls" lol.
The sacred struggle of every iteration of Leonardo is thanklessly wrangling the most trigger-happy siblings in the world, and Rise Leo has not escaped it. He just does an occasional shenanigan to avoid detection and his brothers fall for it every time.
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I think Deku has a bit of a mean streak, actually. he’s no Bakugou—that’s for sure—but he’s not this innocent, sweet angel baby that the media has painted him out to be. but you only catch it when you least expect it, when you’re pushing his nerves, when the stakes to everything around him are high, when he’s tired of endless sleepless nights and just—snaps.
“Oh?” you go, grin unfurling like some grinch, chin resting on your hands as you leer at him from across his expansive desk. “You’re mean.” your words are teasing, a snarl that curls your mouth up. Deku stutters, eyes going wide, jaw snapping shut in surprise as he tries to think back on how rude he just sounded.
“No, I’m not—I mean, you wouldn’t stop and I just—there’s a lot on my plate right now—and you just—you keep on—I’m not—I’m not mean.” He’s sputtering, hands all over the place, the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose falling even lower with how he jabbers on and on. it’s endearing really, to see how he tries to upkeep his image of being so kind and understanding, even though his nostrils just flared at you. and his eyebrows turned down and he gritted at you, his hands were balled into fists, his words were so nasty, so ugly, so unbecoming for Deku.
you liked it. loved it even—vowed to get him like this every single fucking second that you could.
you pick and poke at him whenever you see him, teasing him and pulling at him. pushing him around even though the hero is so much stronger than you, so much bigger. and he lets you, tries to defend himself but—that’s not what you want. you want the ugliness, the snark, the mean.
he snaps, eventually, when you least expect it. grabs you up in black whip when you go to push him against the wall for the third time in only a minute, his eyes suddenly dark, the aura of the room suddenly charged.
“That’s what I was looking for.” you whisper to him, the grin spreading your face quickly dissipating in only seconds when you become the prey. when you become the one pushed up against the wall with teeth at your neck, a hand in your underwear, bullying your hole with too thick fingers.
“Why do you want me to act like this? Be so mean to you, huh?” he sounds so frustrated with himself, with you, growling and nipping and licking when you don’t answer quick enough. but your breath is caught in your lungs because finally—finally, did you get what you wanted. it just took a little bit of pushing, you suppose.
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