hello this is kinda a mix of au and headcanon anyways. my fun little thought bubble is flame and mane are bio brothers and wemmbu's a changeling who was adopted by their parents. mane's the oldest, flame's 2-3 years younger than mane, and wemmbu's 1-2 years younger than flame.
when they were all younger, mane and wemmbu were pretty close, with mane taking wemmbu's side when he and flame would get in arguments. as they got older, mane and flame grew a lot closer and kinda drifted from the family.
little wemmbu thing: when he was younger, he had a tail and horns similar to flame's, but as they all grew up and became more distant, wemmbu was like "ehhhh don't really want the tail anymore".
this makes all of the events of uu between the 3 of them so much more tragic, what with the whole. massive fight between mane and flame during the war against the princezam empire, the entire "lost cause" scene, the shit between mane and flame during the mafia arc, the constant "i Will kill you" between wemmbu and flame, and. it makes the entire wemmbu faked death arc so much more agonising from flame pov.
like. your younger brother, who you've never been on the best terms with, but still care abt bc that's your brother, has just hurt you REALLY bad. like, brink of death hurt. and then, as soon as you've recovered, everyone starts telling you he's dead. people you know, people you don't know, everyone. but you know him. he doesn't just die, he has to be alive. you never leave the stage of denial, and everyone around you pities you for how adamant you are in him being alive. but your searching leads to dead end after dead end. so, subconsciously, you're starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, it might be true. but you refuse to give up. you go to someone who had previously figured out the identity of someone who supposedly died. and you get your answer. you find him again. your denial was right all along. but the fear doesn't subside. AND THEN. RIGHT AFTER YOU FIND HIM. the next time you see him, your brother —someone you've argued with and beat up and fought alongside time and time again, someone who, despite everything, you still care about— he's a prisoner, set for execution. would that be fucked up or no
