Name: Asriel (Grown Up AU)
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Birthday: February 15th
Height: 3'6" (Slightly Above Average)
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual
Significant Other: Lustre (Owned by Arthur)
Species: Pegasus
Cutie Mark: A fuchsia heart with a blue flame
Talent: Passion (eg. being able to put one’s heart into everything they do)
Occupation: Actor on Broadneigh and other theatres, sometimes travels with a crew
Current Residence: Manehattan, grew up in Ponyville; travels sporadically
Likes: Gardening, photography, animals, musicals, singing, music in general, his hair, flowers, candles, sweets, sleeping
Dislikes: Being touched, condescending attitudes, staying in one place too long, doing nothing, anything sour
Fears: Thunderstorms
Bio:
Growing up with his parents Frozen Soul and Sweater Weather, Asriel was a very good, patient colt growing up. He began helping Sweater Weather with his gardening at quite a young age, finding fun in making flower crowns and tending to the soil. It was quickly discovered, however, gardening wasn't going to be his talent no matter how passionate he felt about it. Once he started school, he joined the Cutie Mark Crusaders, which at this point was an after-school club group of fillies and colts, led by a filly named Given Up, an orphan with inspiring leadership skills. Asriel tried many things having to do with his hobbies, particularly photography, singing, and animal caretaking, but while he was passionate about all of those things, none of them inspired his cutie mark. Feeling down on himself, he stopped attending the club meetings.
Years passed, and Asriel began heading to the theatre after school since, most of the time, Sweater Weather was still there and usually had Frozen Soul there as well since the two were big in the theatre of Ponyville. He still hadn't gotten his cutie mark, and though he was older and should've felt better, he couldn't. He had fallen into a bit of a depression, having been the only one in his class to never have gotten a cutie mark. Despite that, he was proud to know his fathers were the head costume designer and a rather admirable actor respectively, though Frozen really only enjoyed participating in musicals. Sweater, being the costume designer, did his best to show his son how it all worked, but it remained clear that it wasn't something Asriel would be at all adept at. He was ready to give up when his other father, Frozen Soul, asked Asriel to come over and help him with his lines. He handed his son a script, let him hear the song number that came after a couple times, and just asked him to go with it. It was fitting that the musical was a father son based musical based off of a children's fairy tale, really. As they spoke lines back at each other, Asriel felt something inside him. For the first time since his failures in the Cutie Mark Crusaders, he felt accepted, as if he was supposed to be there. When the musical number hit, Asriel had gone to his own world, getting more into it than he had gotten into anything. As he hit his last note, the room lit up, and when things returned to normal, Asriel discovered his cutie mark, which represented his passion and dedication.
He began to participate in the theatre after that, replacing the snob that had played the son before him, and found himself enjoying acting in all types of plays, whether comedy or tragedy, musical or not. He got his big break when a director from Broadneigh approached him after a play, offering him an opportunity he couldn't refuse — the chance to make money as an actor on Broadneigh, even travelling around Equestria to perform. He said yes without hesitation, and while it was hard leaving his parents behind, they were incredibly happy to see him go no matter how bittersweet it was. They still go to see his plays sometimes, especially when they're in Ponyville. He then moved to a flat in Manehattan, and though he has no stable roommate, he does share his flat with a stallion named Lustre and their pet cat Mercury.
Lustre is a stallion Asriel met after one of his musicals. He had stayed after, not to compliment his performance, but to critique it. However, being the rather optimistic stallion Asriel now was, it didn't affect him much. This got Lustre worked up, and it became his goal to get the theatre actor to listen to him. He came to every show, and every time, stopped to critique it. But then he found himself enjoying it, and even more, enjoying the actor himself. Asriel came to learn that Lustre was also an actor, although he was an actor in movies, not theatre. The two had done the same story at one point, even, though the mediums were different of course. As they got to know each other, they began to crush, and as their crushes worsened, one was bound to ask the other out to dinner. And so it was. After a performance, Asriel interjected Lustre's usual rant with an offer — to go out to dinner, right then and there. He was a bit dumbstruck, mumbling something about that being his idea as well, which only served to make Asriel smile. The two indeed went out to dinner, and while Lustre didn't come home with him that night, or the next, or even the next few, one night, he did. They slept together, getting to know each other on a much deeper level than they ever had. It was that night Lustre was coaxed by a coy Asriel to ask him to be with him as his significant other, and from that point, Lustre began to stay with him when he wasn't acting and Asriel wasn't either, making the times they did spend together memorable, even loving. The sassy little movie star cracked smiles more often in a day with Asriel than he had his whole life, treating each other like royalty. It was a year and a half before one of them admitted to falling in love — neither had had the guts to say "I love you" before then.
Asriel as a pony is very enthusiastic, passionate, and driven. If he wants to get something done, he'll do it. His optimism can seem very forced at times, and while it does hide his underlying depression, a lot of it is genuine. He can't force himself to be passionate about something or someone, but when he is, you'll know. He tends to get really into doing something small and then dropping it; he once bought a very expensive camera and got really into photography, but then lost interest a couple weeks later. He was diagnosed with ADHD, but he doesn't really mind; he likes not doing the same thing for too long unless it's theatre, because as he says, theatre is always changing. He's on the road once a year for a play or musical that travels Equestria, usually through summer, which fits since summer months are usually packed for Lustre as well. All in all, Asriel is a thick, positivity incarnate shell with a sad, gooey centre he only shows to Lustre, his cat, and his parents.