#tbh role swaps au are the only forms in which i actually enjoy giving a nonbender character powers

[themountainsays]

This song makes me think about, like, a Bruno-Mirabel role swap AU in which Bruno had no gift and Mirabel can see the future.

In this case, Bruno never left the family, because he never had any terrible vision that led him to protect Mirabel through his disappearance. He's still scapegoated and ostracized, much like Mirabel in canon, but it's definitely less extreme than what he went through in the film. He can put up with it. Mostly. His general attitude towards it is "-_- okay mom". He's just sick and tired but doesn't want to fight so he holds his breath and bites his tongue until he can go back to his room. I think he'd either remodel the nursery into an adult man's room and the family builds a new nursery (maybe inside of Julieta or Pepa's rooms?), or he'd leave it to Isabela when she's born and manages to build a new room somewhere in Casita, maybe within the walls? And everyone knows where it is and how to reach it, in fact it's probably easier to get to than his rat lair in the film, but you couldn't pay Pepa or Alma to visit, which is great in Bruno's book, because being visited is precisely what he does not want.

Anyway, he's generally overshadowed by his sisters and kinda drifts into the background as the invisible Madrigal, and it bothered him when he was young but later in life, he decided he was happy with the lack of attention. At least nobody could hate him but himself hahahahahahahah

Anyway, niblings are born and he loves all of them. He acts as a secondary guardian and spends most of his time looking after a pack of feral kids. At least they think he's cool. He gets along with Dolores particularly well, maybe because they both feel a bit overshadowed but eventually come to prefer it that way, as to avoid the pressure and punishment that comes with being on the spotlight - they're thinking about Pepa and Isabela, specifically. They're both hopeless romantics so they're always coming up with outrageous and extravagant love stories together. He used to get along with Isabela quite well - he let her braid his hair and put makeup on him because he's just that much of a chad. But she grew super distant as she entered her teens and by the time she's 22 she barely speaks to him and completely ignores him in public. He guesses she's embarrassed of him. You know, even though he was the only cool adult that let her play in the mud and have fun when she was little, but whatever. He... wishes he could get along with Luisa, but Luisa... jeez she's always working, like literally all she ever does is work and sleep. They're cordial with each other but ever since she turned 5 they barely exchanged a word anymore. At least he earned Camilo's admiration after years of trial and error because Camilo found him scary when he was little (something Bruno was blamed for, obviously). Fun fact: because of Bruno's giftlessness, and because they'd gone through three granddaughters already, the Madrigal women theorized that the gifts were a female thing, and that probably would have made Bruno feel a little bit better, but he wasn't at all disappointed when Camilo got his door and gift, because it clearly made him happy and it meant he wouldn't grow up like he did, which was a big fear of Bruno's. In the end, Camilo's power was awesome - totally the power Bruno wishes he'd had, considering his love for acting (and hiding). They actually bond over acting a lot. If there's ever a traveling circus or theater company passing by, they'll both go together and talk nonstop about whatever play is trendy today over dinner (much to Alma's dismay). By the time Antonio gets his gift, Bruno isn't worried at all. No, but in the family's fear surrounding Camilo and his potential giftlessness, they totally forgot about Mirabel, who had her ceremony only a few months later, and they all assumed things would be fine, because she's a girl and everyone visibly relaxed when Camilo got his door, but it was... bad.

As soon as she touched the doorknob, she was met with a vision of the open eyes of her older self carved on the wood. Her expression was that of severity. And then, she had a vision.

Maybe it was triggered by seeing her future self on the door, I don't know, but whatever she saw, it was terrible. It plagued her dreams and stole away her sleep for weeks, to the point she didn't want to climb the steps up to her new room at all, prefering to sleep with her parents for months before they convinced her to give her new room a chance. She was clearly scared, but she tried because everyone else would be more scared if she didn't (but she convinced her sisters to sneak in at night and have sleepovers with her almost every single day). What worried her the most was angering Abuela - and maybe it had to do with her vision, which she barely remembers anymore, or maybe it's a future feeling reaching her across time now, but an irrational fear of Alma has lodged itself deep into her heart. She has the feeling that her Abuela will be mad if she didn't sleep in her room - alone, if possible. In fact, she'll be mad if she refuses to use her new powers entirely, so she tries and tries and tries no matter how scared she is.

The thing with Mirabel, which sets her apart from Bruno, is that she's very brave when it comes to the ugly and scary side of things. Yes, facing your family's trauma and fears and horrors can be difficult and painful, but she's still the first to identify and point out problems, even when it's unconvenient for some people. So, maybe she was scared as a little child, but after years of training and strengthening her bravery, she can look at death itself in the eye without wavering. Oh, Luisa suffers from panic attacks and is having a breakdown? Isabela has lost her entire personality and all semblance of autonomy out of fear? WELL, SHE'S SURE GONNA MAKE THAT EVERYONE'S PROBLEM. Oh, who cares if it's scary? Newflash! She knows how all of her loved ones are going to die. Do you think she has time to be scared? Nope! She saw as a child that her sister would be engaged to someone she doesn't love, she knows her cousin is going to suffer the loss of her one true love, she knows her other sister is going to break down under the pressure one day, she knows the house is gonna fucking shatter if they don't do something about it... but it's a Cassandra kind of situation. She can foresee the fall of Troy all she wants, but she's been cursed by the gods and no one will take her seriously. The thing is that people often assume Mirabel is being malicious and trying to start shit out of resentment? Which isn't true, but I wouldn't blame them for thinking that at times, because here's the other thing:

As everyone sees it, the future is fixed. What Mirabel sees WILL happen and there is no escape. That often makes people pessimistic about their prophecies. But Mirabel is just too darn hopeful and idealistic and she's SO CONVINCED that the future can be altered if you only do the right things and try enough. This is part of her "all problems can be fixed" mentality, which means she never fucking abandons ship even when an iceberg got lodged into its side. And, because no one shares this belief, they don't go along with her attempts when she tells them the true outcome of her vision, so she tends to... ommit certain information. That way, even if the other person doesn't want to try and fix their situation, at least she can try, or she can convince them to try something they wouldn't have if they knew the truth. Which inevitably makes people angry when things fail and it's revealed that she lied.

So, there's a layer of intentionality there, because she's causing the troubles herself, despite her good intentions, which differs from Bruno's canon situation as the problem were his visions. Which are a huge problem for Mirabel here too, don't get me wrong! But it makes people much more angry when they would have probably cut canon!Bruno some slack at her age. It's not just an "unhelpful gift" that "causes bad things to happen" - her behavior is irresponsible and unethical, and she tries so so hard to prove herself and show them that, no, she can do it this time, she can prevent the bad thing, she doesn't cause bad things to happen and... yeah, it never really works out for her.

The upside here is that she has a better relationship with her sisters, because she's been looking out for them for much longer.

And Bruno... well, he's been so good at fading into the background and Mirabel has been so good at making people mad at her, that they sorta forgot about him. He doesn't spend much time around the family anyway. Mirabel is just a much, much better scapegoat.

I don't know if Mirabel and Bruno are particularly close or particularly distant. It's possible that, initially, Alma blamed some of Mira's problems on Bruno and told him to keep his distance and idk focus on babysitting Camilo and Antonio while she and Julieta handled Mirabel. So Mirabel didn't really grow up with the world's chaddest godfather. Alternatively, being ostracized and scapegoated, Mirabel could have spent a lot of time hiding with Bruno, who understood her super well and was one of the only people to show her unconditional love and support.

This song is about a man who is in love with his neighbor, a single mother with three magical kids. The man loves those kids as if they were his own. One of them, the girl, dances with ghosts in her sleep, and the man knows how dangerous the world is, so he promises to protect this girl during her sleepwalking sessions. He doesn't try to stop her or convince her mother to lock her inside, instead, he asks her to tie a bell around her ankle so she'll wake him up and he can go watch over her. I really like that dynamic and I think it's perfect for a role-swap AU: one day, Bruno witnesses Mirabel's most horrifying prophecy to date, and he promises to protect her.

#encanto spoilers #and this shall be tagged as #godfather bruno #bc i hc he's Mirabel and Dolores' godfather #and he's great at his job #i mean i suppose so lol idk what godparents do bc mine abandoned me lololol #Bruno Madrigal #Mirabel Madrigal #don't tag as ship pls thank u #Mmm #Dead Waltz (role swap) AU #yup that's how i'm tagging it #hopefully it won't be confusing at all #tbh role swaps au are the only forms in which i actually enjoy giving a nonbender character powers #but that's cos i love role swap aus ok?? i love them sm ajsnsndnfn #so many possibilities to explore so much versatility so much to do with them #Spotify