anyway, first proper post is (of course) going to be of my new hyperfixation (encanto). [we aren’t going to talk about the fact that this has sat in my drafts since December]
this headcanon kinda stems from how bruno’s predictions about isabela are positive in the song “we don’t talk about bruno”; and, also, how isabela says that mirabel has done nothing but ruin her life.
i’ve seen a lot of posts to the effect of “if bruno picked favourites, it would be mirabel” and i do get those, but, also, bruno canonically left the night mirabel didn’t get her gift. mirabel and camilo were only 5ish/6ish. they didn’t really have the opportunity to have a relationship with bruno (i think this is demonstrated best by how camilo’s part in “we don’t talk about bruno” characterizes bruno as a Literal Boogeyman; and how the entire song is mirabel trying to find out anything she can about bruno). so that leaves luisa (7ish/8ish), dolores (10ish/11ish); and the other main focus of this headcanon, isabela (who was also around 10ish/11ish).
(i also definitely think that after bruno rejoins the family, mirabel is his favourite; but this is focused on the Before Times)
(putting the actual headcanon/meta behind the cut because this is already decently lond and i haven’t even started properly explaining)
TL;DR of the theory brain below: isabela and bruno were very close with each other, and at least part of isabela and mirabel’s strained relationship comes from isabela lowkey blaming mirabel for driving bruno out of the family.
okay, refresher for those of us who do not have the entire encanto script saved to their memory: isabela’s verse in “we don’t talk about bruno” is this:
he told me that the life of my dreams / would be promised and someday be mine / he told me that my power would grow like the grapes that thrive on the vine
(link to exact timestamp: here)
this tells us two things already - bruno very likely knew that isabela was unhappy with being the perfect, golden child; and that bruno most likely predicted isabela’s future more than once. i say that last part because every other character who says bruno predicted something for them only ever mentioned one. pepa and her rainy wedding; the lady with the fish; the guy with the gut; the priest-
-and dolores. dolores gets a separate paragraph because there’s only a few months between her and isabela. while dolores does sing more overall in the song than isabela, she only mentions one prediction bruno made about her future - that the one she loved would be out of reach. so i think the fact that isabela mentions two separate predictions, even though they are the same verse, points to the fact that isabela had bruno predict her future at least twice.
this implies that they were close enough with each other that bruno didn’t terribly mind viewing her future more than once; and that isabela trusted bruno enough to let him, even with his already-poor reputation. yes, it can be argued that abuela had bruno gaze into isabela’s future at least once if not twice; but for the sake of this headcanon i am, in fact, ignoring that.
i think this closeness comes from the first prediction isabel mentions in her verse - the one about the life of her dreams. i think, when bruno first gazed into her future, he saw what she would be at the time (the perfect, golden child we first meet in the film) and what she would eventually be (the isabela from her song “what else can i do”), and which one would be happy/frowning. putting it in the manifestation we see in the movie (specifically the one where mirabel participated, was not just the subject). i think the vision between the two of them would manifest as isabela walking through life, starting from when she first got her powers (when the expectations of perfection really started), getting progressively more hunched and miserable looking until just before she goes through some sort of unseen metamorphosis and comes out the other side looking wilder and less perfect but more happy.
so bruno knows something about isabela the rest of the family doesn’t - that she isn’t happy being the perfect child. and i think that bruno had a lot of experience with failing to meet expectations, and dealing with the fears that come with that. so after that vision, he knocks on isabela’s door that night and just... offers his room as somewhere isabela can just. be. provided she can make it up all the stairs, of course.
(please consider little isabela making an escalator of flowers because she knows her tío doesn’t like the stairs anymore than she does.)
(also just the two of them, lying side by side in the sand at the bottom because they can just afford to exist without expectation in those moments)
and this leads into why isabela hates mirabel so much. i think there would always be some form of conflict, even if bruno had stayed, because mirabel being giftless would put so much more pressure on isabela to be utterly perfect (which we do see in the movie). but to add to it, bruno left, and that left isabela without a safe space to just exist and be her. with no bruno, there was no one left who didn’t expect her to be completely perfect, 100% of the time.
and, in this headcanon, isabela blames mirabel. because bruno left the night mirabel didn’t get a gift, and that makes it her fault that isabela is now without her buffer when she gets tired of trying to be the golden child. this combined with the increased pressure put onto her to be perfect with her gift is what causes isabela to think that mirabel ruined her life - because for 11/12 year old isabela, she did.
CHILL CHILL OK OK I GOT'CHU none of you are legally allowed to be upset with me y'all asked for the list also it's under a read more because jesus fuck it's long
positively tired of the series trying to act like ve6eta got an semblance of a proper redemption arc when they just threw a woman at him and some kids and called it a day. they also keep flip flopping on him being "reformed" but still struggling to be allies with goku and being a better person (he's allowed to be an anti hero just stop acting like he's going to be anything but that)
the anime's art style feels incredibly plastic and stiff and i KNOW someone's going to come in an talk about the final arc but !!! that was ONLY the finale !!! 90% of the the art and animation in this series just feels sanitized yet everyone still looks distractingly disproportionate (that isn't to say DB's always had perfect proportions but it's far more obvious with super's extremely-polished style and coloring. also this isn't a dig at the animators cause i doubt they're given proper conditions to work and make something perfect)
every time there's an interesting concept super never goes through with it and overall it just feels very safe and pandering. like the goku black arc is a great example of setting up interesting ideas but not following through: trunks' entire timeline has been erased and instead of showing an actual distress or turmoil or realizing every single thing he's done up to that point was all for nothing, he just shrugs his shoulders and goes "alright. guess we're gonna go to a different timeline now where we just have to pretend like those people are the actual people we love and care about even though in reality they'll never be like the people we loved and lost and fought for nothing for"
frieza and roshi need to fuck off. In Seriousness super keeps bringing back "popular" characters for the most cracked reasons and it's undeniably because of their popularity even though they've already been exhausted of use in the series. roshi is ESPECIALLY the most irritating (and confusing- his peak was OG DB yet i have high doubts a lot of DB fans even watched/read OG DB so the choice to bring him back is so ?????) since he was retired for twenty fucking years and now the series wants me to believe as though he SUDDENLY just got a great boost of power to be good enough to take to a multi-universe tournament when he was too chicken shit to even face raditz at the start of the series (and thats not a dig at raditz, it's just pointing out that in the greater scheme raditz is nothing compared to the threats of super and therefore roshi's power boost is even more egregious to acknowledge because of that)
the absolute bastardization of goku's character in order to boost ve6eta's or just to make him look like a twit and appeal to western fans' interpretation of him. like who is this??? this isn't my man??? and it's not like the concept of goku becoming so power and fight hungry that he loses himself isn't an interesting concept but they never build an actual story AROUND that concept and it's just a product of terrible character direction
this circles back to roshi in a way and is always a part of a critique of the buu saga but the failure to upkeep the Pass On The Torch theme that OG DB had set up for the rest of the series. it's not even a team effort anymore it's literally JUST goku and ve6eta taking care of everything while the others MIGHT MAYBE SOMETIMES tag along to take care of extras and it's so frustrating seeing super underutilize its cast and its flexibility to expand on them as characters and people
the dunking on yamcha is new and it's annoying. contrary to popular belief DB and DBZ has always respected yamcha as an actual character and person, yet DBS only ever treats him like a pathetic walking punchline. it's dually upsetting to see the cast- yamcha's close friends and family- disrespect him too when we've seen in the past the likes of goku were willing to stand up for him and treat him as a respectable fighter and person. such characters aren't a bad thing in media but when you take a character with an actual personality, history, and dreams and shave all of that off for a joke it's horribly insulting to longtime fans and to the effort that took to build up that character (though let's face it, toriyama hasn't care for yamcha in years or any of his characters honestly. he flies by the seat of his pants: any and all of his "brilliance" is by pure accident)
despite all the aliens and otherworldly beings, the series hardly ever actually takes place on different planets and stays on earth. even when they do, it just feels like another arena to fight in: they might as well fight in one of the millions of deserts than on another planet. and fighting on earth only wouldn't be a problem if the series actually made earth feel like an actual place worth protecting and not like a backdrop. there's no world in super, it's just another arena with moments of peace. at the very least they could reintroduce supernatural elements like monsters and mythical beings if they're so intent on staying on earth. the only time they actually bothered to do something like this was during the goku black saga and if there were more moments like that to remind us that there are actual people living on this planet then that'd be great
goten and trunks are a mash up of issue 4 and 6 but they're just so underutilized. like they're hardly characters, they're just accessories to the setting and to goku and ve6eta. at the very least trunks has future trunks, but goten?? there's NOTHING for him: the most interesting thing about him is that he accessed super saiyan the easiest (which itself i already had issues with but whatever this isn't the post for that) yet he does fuck all. there aren't even moments where we get to see these two act like characters with thoughts beyond "let's be kids today", their only purpose honestly is just to fuse to make gotenks- and even HIM we hardly ever see
