#dyememono

Thanks to the de-aged!Mitchell RP I'm about to get started on with dyememono, I've been looking at Mitchell's brothers from a new perspective -- how Mitchell saw them when he was age 10. And I've made a lot of new observations about the two of them and who they are, ones that I know little 10 year old Mitchell either can't say or wouldn't say.

So this is me, getting all those new thoughts out.

I've talked quite a bit about Mitchell's brothers before, but I've mostly focused on Josef Kadar -- the eldest brother. I've even written a couple of fics with him in it. He's the most confident and outgoing of the brothers -- after their (mortal) mother left, he had to be the one to step up to the plate and take care of his younger brothers. At the time, Mitchell was only a baby. This made Josef grow up quickly. Unfortunately, he really didn't have the temperament for that kind of responsibility, and he spent many of Mitchell's formative years complaining loudly and ganging up on Mitchell with Adam and picking on him as a way to vent his frustration and anger.

As he grew older, Josef began to see himself as the alpha-male of the house, as his father was nearly always working to support the four of them. Josef developed a strong us-vs-them mentality with his father, and instills that in his siblings as well. They start keeping secrets from their father, and the escalating tension between Josef and their father often escalated to shouting matches.

Of his two brothers, Mitchell feels more comfortable talking to Josef. Once Josef matured he became protective of Mitchell and Adam, and could be sympathetic to Mitchell's worries. He is also a man of action, and would always find a way to move forward with a plan, even if the situation was demigod-bizarre. However, Josef is a passionate person and he was terrifying when he was upset. Things would be broken, and Mitchell might get hurt.

The person Mitchell associated with safety was simultaneously the most dangerous in his family. As you can imagine, this didn't give Mitchell much actual security growing up. Instead, he had Adam Kadar, the ultimate escapist. 

Adam is the youngest-turned-middle child, and I haven't said much about him before. Only today did I realize that it was because he simply wasn't there. Even if he was in the same room, he'd be listening to music or playing on a gameboy or simply disassociating and tuning everyone out. But often, he wouldn't be in the same room. He'd get up and leave -- either to his room or a friend's house, and live in his own little bubble of reality until he deemed it safe to come out. Which was rare, because if he wasn't avoiding another Josef-Dad feud he would be running from his responsibility and living in general.

Both of the brothers blamed Mitchell for their mother leaving, but Adam took this to heart much more than Josef did. His 'youngest' title was taken from him, and he was much too young to see that his parents' marriage was falling apart even before the strange baby came along. This lead to a lot of teasing and picking on him -- it made him feel powerful and in control of something (which is something he feels he desperately lacks in his life). He was also the first one to notice Mitchell's empathy powers and experiment with them.

Adam's morals were always looser than what was socially acceptable, but he never really saw the problem with dragging his seven year old brother to hand out with his friends as they got high. They were getting away from the yelling, so anything was an improvement, right? He was also more fond of emotionally manipulating Mitchell to get what he wanted. Josef was already instilling a strong familial bond between the three of them, and Adam was easily able to twist those ideas to suit his own needs. (Mainly, making Mitchell use his powers to escape his own emotions and feelings of powerlessness.)

To Mitchell, Adam was the person that was able to pull him out of dangerous situations. And he could repay that kind of saving with making Adam's inner demons go quiet for a little while, right?

To be clear, both Josef and Adam abused Mitchell's empathy powers and used him for their own gain. It just so happens that Adam's use was more prominent. Both of their actions heavily influenced who Mitchell became, and how he interacts with others.

'cause drawing our OCs taking dorky selfies IS SOMETHING I CAN DO

Mitchell's 11/12 years old.

Josef's nose itched. He sniffed and swated at it, but the feeling persisted until he forced his eyes open. Mitchell was standing next to his bed, a pencil in his hand. (He had been poking Josef in the nose to wake him up again, no doubt.)

Josef looked at his alarm and groaned. "Mitch, it's 5 AM. Can't this wait?"

"It'sstillthere," his brother's words tumbled out of his mouth.

"What's still where?"

"The tattoo."