On the night that Mirabel didn't get her gift, she and Bruno disappear without warning and everyone assume that the latter had kidnapped the former. Ten years later, a small earthquake shakes the encanto and one of the mountains cracks open. Coming through that crack is Mirabel, who was raised in an orphanage protecting its children. Now back home with her family, Mirabel relearns how to live with her amazing family and discover the circumstances of how she was separated from them, as well as the possibility that the magic is dying.
Guiding Light is an Encanto fanfic by AuroraRose2081 that can be read on Archive of Our Own here
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This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
- This version of Mirabel wound up separated from her family for years and lived in an Orphanage of Fear for ten years, living in squalor under an abusive Evil Orphanage Lady. She will sometimes suffer from panic attacks based off of traumatic experiences and has blocked off how exactly she was separated from her family. Also, she didn't have glasses, so she had to learn how to live with extremely bad eyesight.
- On top of all of the underlying issues being a Madrigal brought them, the entire family had to live with not knowing what became of Mirabel (assuming that the Black Sheep of the family had kidnapped her), each of them feeling on some level for her disappearance. When she returns, over half of them tail her under the paranoid belief that she could disappear again.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Mirabel addresses the "rerouting the river" task that Luisa is given as this.Mirabel: You don't reroute a river. Nature is horrible. It does what it wants, whether you change it to be a certain way or not...don't uh, don’t tell Señora Pepa I said that...
Luisa: But if someone asked...?
Mirabel: Uh, figure out why, I guess? If it was for something silly like it being in their way, I'd build a bridge. If it was flooding their crops I'd build a flood wall. If the river couldn't reach their fields, I'd dig irrigation channels. - Big Sister Instinct: Getting her sister back after ten years missing have made Isabela more tender and protective of her in comparison to the original movie.
- She's the first to realize that the orphanage where she and the kids lived was a horrible place just out of noticing Mirabel stocking up food.
- She never stopped looking for her sister even after everyone else did, nevermind she had to sacrifice nights of sleep to do so.
- She's the first to stand up to Alma when her grandmother kicks Mirabel out of the house for leading Isabela astray from the perfect path she had laid for her.
- The Bus Came Back: The plot is about Mirabel returning to the Encanto ten years after she was (allegedly) kidnapped and left to fend for herself out in yonder.
- Calling the Old Woman Out: Mirabel is able to stand up against Alma much easier than in the movie since she doesn't have the same psychological dependency seeking her approval as the rest of the family, as well as having bad experiences with elderly women with authority.
- Child Hater: Downplayed with Dolores. She doesn't hate children, but knows and understands that they can be loud, something that's quite difficult for her to bear with her super hearing. One of the things that warmed her towards Elena is that she's the quietest toddler she's ever known.
- Disability Superpower: Downplayed. Mirabel spend ten years without glasses and had to learn how to function while half blind. She got so used to it that, even after getting her glasses back, she prefer to do needlework without them.
- Everyone Has Standards: When Alma goes off on the kids for almost going into Bruno's room — a taboo thing to do in Casita Madrigal — Mirabel is quick to stick up for them and is willing to take their punishment. Having been raised in an Orphanage of Fear, she thinks that she was going to beat them, something that appalls her family to no end.
- Evil Orphanage Lady: The Matrona at the orphanage that Mirabel grew up in was an abusive bitch that starved the kids and would beat them if they stepped out of line.
- For Want Of A Nail: The plot of the story involves Mirabel going missing at the same time as Bruno. She ends up living at an orphanage beyond the Encanto and doesn't come back until right before Antonio's gift ceremony. She also brings along a small group of orphan children who become honorary members of the family.
- History Repeats: Mirabel's return to the Encanto reflects her Abuela's experiences when the Encanto was originally created.
- The Insomniac: Mirabel struggles with a certain form of insomnia, often embroidering or doing chores to keep herself busy because of it.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: While in her first walk in town, one of Camilo's friends, Lorenzo, becomes quite flustered around Mirabel. Camilo promptly scares him away using Agustín's image. He goes as far as to tell Luisa about him for good measure.
- Near-Death Experience: The story opens with Mirabel nearly dying of blood-loss after just barely getting away from a group of horsemen out to either kill or kidnap them.
- Parental Substitute:
- Mirabel unwittingly became like a mother to the younger children at the orphanage, going hungry so that they could eat, doing their laundry, taking punishment for them and nearly sacrificing her life to the horsemen chasing them at the beginning of the story.
- Dolores ends up developing a close bond with the toddler Elena.
- Rugged Scar: Juan bemoans how Julieta's food heals all of his wounds because he won't get any cool scars out of their Near-Death Experience. Pablo retorts that he already has enough scars.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Dolores knows about Bruno in the walls, and everyday she cleans away the handfuls of salt he throws away. This time is even more significant because everyone in Encanto believes him to be Mirabel's kidnapper so she keeping his secret means there's more to Mirabel's disappearance.
- Stating the Simple Solution: When Luisa pours her heart out to Mirabel about the laborious tasks she partakes in every day (collecting donkeys and rerouting rivers being two examples), Mirabel states various solutions that would be much easier than simply relying on Luisa's Super-Strength (baiting the donkeys with food, fixing the flaws in the gate that let them escape in the first place and addressing the various reasons why a river needs rerouting). She also humors the idea that some problems aren't Luisa's to fix, it being much more efficient to teach others how to do certain tasks rather than dump all of their problems onto one person.Mirabel: My motto is this; work smarter, not harder.
- Trauma Button: Mirabel is still haunted by her failed gift ceremony despite not being able to consciously remember it. Antonio's ceremony sent her into a feverish Angst Coma.
