thing7577

Lol so I haven't fully fleshed out what I want the family dynamic between EVERYBODY to be, that part is gonna be a bit of a struggle with the fact I'm throwing in like FOUR new people, but I do have a few dynamics down! Firstly and mainly, the relationships between Em, Donnie, and Leo.

- Donnie-

Donnie ends up being probably the one they become close with the quickest in the family. Which, you would think that wouldn't be the case, as Donnie doesn't exactly love big changes and is probably quite hesitant to trust new people-- however. Em is generally a very curious person who wants to know why everything is- Em absorbs new info like a sponge. They love making things, learning things, understanding things. And when they see Donnie's tech? They're blown away. Partly since they lived in a very rudimentary rustic town before, so this feels like magic, but basically, Em sees Donnie's tech in action and is immediately in awe and intensely curious. Donnie would never slip up a chance to brag and infodump, and to his suprise, Em actually listens quite intensely. Em can keep up with what he's explaining, has endless questions, and remembers what he talks about. And whereas most people would find Donnie comes off as having a bit of an ego, with all the bragging, it kind of just... flies over Em's head? They dont really notice, too absorbed in learning, and if they thought about it would probably be like, well, duh, he's right, he is a genious. They genuinely are amazed at his work and tell him so, because they're very earnest and much more in touch with their emotions than he is. Which scores more points because we all know his love language is words of affirmation.

Basically they end up going full nerd mode together, and bond surprisingly quickly, because Em is an endless questions machine and Donnie loves to Infodump.

- Leo -

Continuing ^^ -

This probably makes Leo a little jealous, partly because he wants to bond with Em but mostly because he's worried he's getting replaced.

Leo and Em's relationship/dynamic is a bit harder to place, I haven't really fully figured it out yet, but i imagine Leo definetly takes advantage of Em's naive-at-times-nature to drag them into whatever bullshit he's up to.

I think they would struggle at first to click, because Leo is a rather finicky person at first, at least to Em. He'd probably be tricky for them to understand and they'd overthink and worry about making a bad impression. Believe it or not, Em finds him actually really cool. At first anyway lol. And theyre a little intimidated and unsure.

However, I think at some point, Leo gets upset about something, related to Em taking Donnie's attention, and does his usual masking thing, but Em studies him closely enough that they're able to see through it, and tell he's upset, and nervously go after him to check if he's good.

Of course, he's all like, no way, nothings wrong!

And Em's like 🤨

But does or says something very sweet to him or gives him a present or something and that kind of helps to start melting that little bit of resentment he originally had.

They start spending more time together, and Leo finds out Em is actually a very sweet, great person, and he doesn't have to be into nerd shit to bond with them like Donnie is. They're into it, yeah, but they're also generally quite curious about a lot of things.

Eveeeenually, mostly through Em's acidental quality of being a fantastic listener, Leo finds that he can open up about his emotions easily with them, and admits some insecurities he wouldn't usually to his brothers, about being less than them. Em's very supportive and tells him he's doing great and allat. They open up in turn about their own insecurities, quite easily. Em is decently in touch with their emotions (though it can take a bit to process) and has no shame in talking about feelings, which does help out Leo a lot, in seeing it's okay to be vulnrable. Which, sure, Mikey drills into his brain often, but its just a good change to have someone from an outside perspective who doesn't have any preexisting expectations of who he's supposed to be.

- triplets combo -

Out of the three of them, Em is pretty much the only sane one. Em probably originally thinks Donnie is fairly grounded, and is a bit startled when he goes full mad scientist mode, and realizes they are the only sane middle child out of the three of them.

Thus after all of this, the three of them become decently close. Leo loves roping Em into his shenanigans, Donnie is tired of Leo's bullshit, em and Donnie nerd out a lot, but also Donnie is just as crazy as Leo sometimes and Em is left as the only normal person and voice of reason at times.