so I finally watched Encanto. cue Madrigal feels bc what am I, if not on brand.
also please note, I’m a white, Slavic girl living in Central Europe so I probably didn’t get a lot of the Latinx subtext in the movie.
man, first of all, all of the Bruno feels.
Bruno must have had it so hard all his life. the only man in the family, he must have felt the pressure of supporting everyone. and the triplets presumably received their gifts at the same time and it must’ve been scary for each of them in different ways. Pepa obviously, because how do you ask a five-year-old to control their moods because a tantrum can cause a hurricane? Julieta is a different case because cooking is not an obvious gift, so maybe for a while she thought that her siblings got gifts but she didn’t?
and Bruno got future vision. at age 5. it must have been terrifying. no wonder he’s one bundle of anxiety.
I was wondering why Pepa and Julieta were rather late mothers, but now that I think of it, they must have been scared that their kids would get gifts as well. and these gifts would be just as scary.
Dolores and Isabela are both 21 which means Pepa and Julieta were both 29 when they had them. and man, while Isabella’s gift is innocent enough, Dolores’s is also kinda terrifying because imagine hearing all sorts of stuff at age 5. no wonder Julieta had her second child two years later (Luisa is 19) but Pepa waited 6 years (Camilo is 15) and then another 10 (Antonio is 5).
because Camilo’s gift is also kinda scary. Julieta’s daughters got off easy. Prow’s children? not so much.
and then Mirabel got no gift at all. and she saw it as a bad thing, as did Alma, but you can’t tell me the triplets weren’t secretly a little grateful. Pepa and Bruno at least.
Antonio’s gift is scary too, when you think about it. I bet he is gonna convince everyone to become vegan, isn’t he?
but back to Bruno.
Alma’s trauma response was the expectation of perfection from her family. but man, what expectations she must have had from Bruno, who could never replace her Pedro but who must have felt like he should. like he should be the man of the family. on top of his scary visions. I kinda think his invention of Hernando and Jorge was a little bit trying to find a version of himself that was good enough for everyone when he felt he wasn’t.
think about how everyone thinks Bruno was mischievous, when in reality he was a nervous goofball.
his disappearance… one doesn’t make such a decision hastily. I can’t imagine him hiding in the walls on a whim. I can see him finding the hidden room and hiding out there as a child… and then, after admirable doesn’t get a gift and he has his last vision, he goes to his safe place and just… never leaves. the family has another Madrigal man with a gift in Camilo.
for some reason I don’t think Bruno got along well with either of his sisters’ husbands. Felix and Agustin are clearly in love with their wives and happy to take on a more supportive role in the family whereas Bruno probably think he ought to be the patriarch… when he’s anything but. he must’ve felt lonely.
thinking about camilo’s va in encanto thinking he did so badly during his wdtab verse that disney was sure to recast him when in the end his part became arguably the most iconic part of the most famous disney song of all time
and how perhaps, we shouldnt be so hard on ourselves
we really do not see AT ALL how we come off to other ppl, we’re doing fine
I feel like this fandom is going backwards when people deny luisa is a feminine character. nobody is claiming she’s feminine because of things like crying and having emotions but she quite literally is shown wanting to be feminine in the bridge of surface pressure the part where she talks about what she desires. Also it’s a very conscious choice to make her feminine when you read the art book and see how they wanted to break the stereotype of masculine= muscles. The whole point is luisa wants to be seen as MORE than her gift. She never got to embrace her femininity the way the other madrigal girls did because she’s always working! Why are we trying to make it out to be a bad thing that luisa is feminine? there’s already so many female characters portrayed as masculine for having muscles and encanto is one of the only times they consciously wanted to break that. let luisa wear a twirly skirt and like glitter you cowards
the halo show is baffling because it would be so much better if they just didnt make the master chief the main character. like you can still have him on the posters or whatever, & have action scenes with him, but trying to follow the narrative of events leading up to Halo: CE while also having As Little Covenant Presence in the series as possible is so silly.
Just make an original spartan & team. silver team is fun but theyre desperately weighed down by the master chief in this show. I dont even mind the 'ahh heres an evil human covenant lady !!!' plot but the shows writing is very scattershot & its got more misses than hits