Fanfic / The Moth and The Mariposa

On the day of Antonio's gift ceremony, Mirabel wakes from a mysterious dream holding a handful of sand. This sand grants her a connection to her long lost tío Bruno who then gives her a vision of the cracks in Casita in hopes of scaring her away from her destiny. But when she proves to be too tenacious, he opts to embrace the villain role everyone has put on him in order to keep her from immolating herself to keep the miracle alive.

The Moth and The Mariposa is an Encanto fanfic by EnvidiaEauVerte. It can be read on Archive of Our Own here.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Chapters 9-12 are dedicated to Bruno's history of emotional abuse from Alma. She is even capable of sacrificing her granddaugter in front of Mirabel's begging mother, her own daughter, just to get the miracle back.
• A Day in the Limelight: Dolores and, especially, Camilo get a chance to have a personal heart-to-heart with Mirabel like Antonio, Luisa and Isabela got in the movie.
• Anti-Villain: Bruno only chose to become the villain in Mirabel's story because his goals of keeping Mirabel from becoming the next sacrifice are opposed to hers and the family's. He was also labeled as a bad guy most of his life, so he already has the reputation.
• Arc Words:
  • "Your story is shaped by who you allow into the shapes of your heart."
  • "Truth is beheld, in the eye of the turning hourglass, truth is beheld."
• Armor-Piercing Question: Combinad with Ironic Echo to form the most brutal comeback ever. In "Chapter 16", Hernando shows to Mirabel the possible future of her becoming the new miracle fueling Casita. She considers her life is a proper payment, after all, if it is for such a good future, what's one life? But then Hernando shows her that, in this future, Bruno grows even more unhinged and isolated and in an attempt to get her back he immolates himself. Mirabel is horrified, but Hernando says it's a proper payment, after all, in such a good future, what is one life?
• Beneath the Mask: Camilo confesses that they suffer dysphoria and identity issues due to their gift, and that they see "Camilo" as more of another role they're meant to play - a "sweet little boy not allowed to grow up" for the sake of the family - than as their true self.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Alma's emotional abuse on the family is more explicit; from the obvious towards Bruno to the subtler towards the rest.
• Birds of a Feather: Mirabel and Bruno's similarities, both in the positive and negative, are brought forth in "Chapter 16". Both have serious self esteem issues sprouting from being part of a gifted family, both can't see their own self worth but are deeply empathetic, and both love their family.
• A Birthday, Not a Break:
  • Bruno touched his door before the ceremony and seemed to have botched his gift. Alma locked him in his barren room, didn't allow him to join the party and didn't give him any dinner.
  • Mirabel spent her quinceañera waiting for her gift to manifest, which of course didn't. That night she started to have the dreams about the emerald butterfly, kick-starting the search for her tío.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The sands of Bruno's room seem to have a level of sentience, understanding his mental needs enough to provide comfort and guidance about his magic. But when they deem him ready to start having visions, Bruno felt like he was mind raped.
  "He’d always trusted the desert, hidden in his room, to know how to best take care of him. [...] But being provided for wasn't the same as being cared for, and the cosmic force of nature—trapped within grains of sand—had only ever held Bruno to the same fundamental laws in which the entire universe was written: one's own agency."
  • Bruno and Mirabel are fated soulmates, and had been for what it's implied to be many lifetimes. Fate cares not that their current iterations are uncle and niece.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Bruno is associated with the Luna moth, which Dolores takes as an omen of life and death, but also a symbol of transformation.
• Calling the Old Woman Out: Downplayed. After 45 years of emotional abuse, Bruno doesn't reopen his wounds just to spite his mother (who won't even acknowledge them). Instead, he's full of apathy when she tells him that if he leaves, he's dead to her, and so coldly answers "I wish I was dead."
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Discussed. Bruno wonders what level of privacy one can really have when your house itself is sentient. Camilo agrees and says they actually has grown accustomed to Casita's disciplinary spanking to the point of liking it.
• Cassandra Truth: Dolores actually told people that she could hear Bruno in the walls after his leaving, but since nobody else could, they took it as the fight between him and Abuela affecting her so much her imagination was playing tricks on her.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The fic explores the darker side of the trope in the form of rumours, and how the magical realism of the Encanto actually turns them real in the form of Hernando.
• Crapsaccharine World: Should Mirabel reconcile with Abuela, like in the movie, she will rebuild the house and save the miracle, so a new generation of magical Madrigals will come forth. Too bad such bright future is set over hers and Bruno's death.
• Color Motif: If there's anything remotely green, you can bet it's related to Bruno.
• Companion Cube: Thanks to his strained relationship with his mom and in order to not burden Julieta anymore, Bruno's sand became his primordial source of comfort, to the point that, when thinking about the nature of love, he can only think of love as his sand.
• Contemplate Our Navels:
  • Being written from Bruno's perspective, chapters 9-12 are the most introspective and deep, as he navigates trauma and learns more about his gift and the nature of the magic itself.
  • Chapters 15-21 take set in Bruno and Mirabel's shared dream sequence, so Bruno's scatterbrain, his philosophical worldview, and trauma are made visible thanks to dream logic.
• Dark Fic: The story depicts childhood trauma and abuse, incest and a dark underbelly to the Madrigal's miracle.
• Damsel in Distress: Bruno's quest is to save Mirabel, but it turns out he is the one who needs rescuing.
• Death Seeker: Bruno is willing to become the new miracle in Mirabel's place, thinking he has already lost his chance for a better future and a chance at love.
• Didn't See That Coming: Bruno finds himself stunned by the things Mirabel can do despite being a seer.
  Something like that…had never happened before.
• Escapism: It is never explicitly stated, but Bruno's room could be the magical realism's equivalent of escapism through disassociation. Because this is magical realism however, the world of his desert room actually manifests.
• Fantasy Keepsake: The handful of sand Mirabel wakes up holding after dreaming of the emerald butterfly.
• Foil: "Chapter 17" has two dream sequences that shows how Alma and Agustín's differing responses to grief and perspectives towards their children influence their parenting styles, one for the worse and the other for the better.
• Forbidden Love: In another reference to One Hundred Years, just as the union of José Arcadio and his cousin Úrsula was the original sin of the Buendía family, the Madrigal family's is the forbidden union of Alma Madrigal and Pedro, a member of an aboriginal tribe.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • In the possible future where Mirabel became the new miracle, Bruno isolated himself even more, his hair and beard grew unkempt and he became more rat like, all out of grief and guilt for failing to keep her from sacrificing herself.
  • In another possible future, Bruno extinguished the candle and it's implied he died. The family learns to live without magic and are healthier mentally, but they fell out of grace with the townsfolk so most of them left the Encanto, Julieta dies out of overexertion without her powers, and Mirabel and Agustín are the only ones left alongside who's implied to be Mirabel's son with Bruno. Still a better option than the first, but Mirabel is sure she can do better.
• Functional Magic:
  • The magic of the Madrigal's miracle seems to be fueled by the shedding of blood from a family member who loves the family enough to die. It happened with Pedro and it seems to be Mirabel's destiny.
  • The author has stated that Bruno's magic sand is different and more ancient than that of the miracle, and that's why he took longer to know what exactly his capabilities were.
  • There's a sense of Equivalent Exchange in the Madrigal's magic mostly thanks to Alma's transactional views on the miracle thanks to the trauma associated with it. The magic born out of Pedro's sacrifice is paid with the family's suffering.
• Gayngst: Isabela's issues not only are the pressure to be perfect and marrying someone she doesn't love, but also repressing her sexuality. After her outburst, she confesses to Mirabel that she's gay.
• The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: Thanks to his future seeing, Bruno has knowledge of 21st century pop culture and often includes them in his stream of consciousness rambles. For Christ's sake, his very first word in the story was "Metallica".
• Gorgeous Garment Generation: In Chapter 15, Hernando creates a beautiful, glowing dress for Mirabel out of magic sand.
• Happiness Is Mandatory: Mirabel realizes in horror that, unwittingly, she has been perpetuating Alma's perfect visage of her family and the Encanto by just telling people they ought to be happy instead of really helping them.
• Her Own Worst Enemy: Hernando’s continually asking Mirabel who she is, triggering negative self talk and thoughts of doubt and shame about her worth. This leads her to conclude that she is what is hurting the miracle. However as the chapter unfolds, each of her doubts that she cannot be like each member of her family are challenged as she realizes that she can be like all of them.
• Hidden Depths: Dolores reveals she's surprisingly knowledgeable of esoteric lore when talking about the moth symbology and the nature of dreams. Bruno even wonders if, instead of being la chismosa, Dolores is actually la bruja of the family.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Living so long with rats has left Bruno with the habit of saying "squeak" whenever he wants to say "fuck".
• Human Sacrifice: Bruno reveals to Mirabel the origin of the miracle, Pedro's sacrifice, and says that his blood was the price to pay for it. Bruno's desperation for Mirabel to not save the magic implies that the magic fading is result of it needing a new sacrifice, with Mirabel being the prospected one.
• Incest Subtext: The author has said that Mirabel and Bruno's canon interactions can be read with a romantic subtext, so they ran with it.
• Innocently Insensitive: In "Chapter 18", Mirabel realizes that, in a desperate way to feel useful to her family, she has been using her people skills to tell how people ought to feel instead of understanding why people don't feel how she believes they should and actually help them.
• In-Series Nickname: Felix uses the name "Oscar" when talking about Bruno after Alma forbade his name to ever be mentioned again when he left. This is a nod to his original pre-production name.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Chapters 15-21, also known as the "Brain Fever Dream Sequence" arc, revolve around Mirabel going through Bruno's mind space in order to get her vision. In the meantime, she gets to interact with Bruno's mental selves and help him through his issues a little bit, with a dose of possible future according with hers, Bruno's, and Hernando's perspectives of a "good ending", with big doses of Mind Screw thanks to dream logic.
• Love Hurts: Bruno considers love to be both a blessing and a curse, since it's a kind of magic paid in suffering and heartache but one that humans can't live without.
• Love Martyr:
  • Bruno spent 40 years trying to get his mother to see him as his own person instead of an effigy of Pedro, getting Mommy Issues as a result.
  • Bruno left to protect Mirabel of his feelings, despite his feelings.
  • In a literal sense: Mirabel's only desire before her ceremony was to make her family proud out of her love for it. The magic selected her as the future sacrifice.
• Love Transcends Spacetime: It's implied that in Chapters 16-18, whenever Mirabel interacts with little Brunito is more than just a fever dream of their shared experiences, but instead Mirabel actually interacting with a younger Bruno thanks to his Time Master magic taking her conciousness to his younger self's dreams.
• Mad Oracle: Bruno's power has made him grown unhinged and scatterbrained. Julieta herself says he saw way too much.
• Magic Mirror: Hernando first manifested to little Bruno as his reflection in a magic mirror, as revealed in Chapter 19.
• Magic Realism: The author takes the original movie's inspiration from One Hundred Years of Solitude and expands on it. Like in the book, magic is powered by belief and there's seems to be no limit to it.
• Malicious Misnaming: Alma calling Mirabel "Miracle" and "Pedro". It shows how much she sees her family as just extentions of Pedro's sacrifice, and tools to prolong it just to keep the last thing she has from him, instead as their own people.
• Manchild: In a tragic take, Bruno suffers from arrested development out of childhood trauma.
• Meaningful Name: Dolores is named after "Our Lady of Sorrows"; her name, gift and habit of frequenting the church (searching for a quiet place) let to people to make her the local Saint, whispering their grievances so she can light a candle on their behalf and intercede before God for them.
• Mindlink Mates: The handful of Bruno's sand that Mirabel caught created a Psychic Link between them, allowing them to hear each other's thoughts and for Bruno's sand visions to focus on Mirabel and her whereabouts. The author has stated that Mirabel actually holds a piece of his heart in sand form.
• Mundane Made Awesome: As a staple of magic realism. Living all her life in an isolated magical valley, and she herself possessing magical abilities, Julieta finds Agustín fascinating due to his mundane job in a fruit company allowed him to travel around.
• The Power of Love: As a dark subversion of classic Disney tropes, the power of love in this case means Bruno and Mirabel's love for each other helping them realize they deserve unconditional love, but also that they can learn to love themselves. All of them. Including their unperfect sides.
• Promoted to Parent: Julieta had to rise to the occasion and provide comfort and support for Bruno when their mother did not. Bruno admits she was more of a mother to him, but understood she was a child as well and slowly stopped relying on her.
• Rage Breaking Point: Isabela and Mirabel have their argument earlier, while in the middle of a street. But instead of sprouting a single tiny cactus, Isabela grows an entire wild jungle of carnivorous plants.
• Red String of Fate: Played for Drama. Bruno's power allowed him to find that he and Mirabel are soul bonded; he responded with horror and shame, and Mirabel realizes the inherent unfairness and lack of agency that it's having something as alien as fate decide your soulmate.
• Rite of Passage: Mirabel didn't celebrate her quinceañera, symbolically not crossing the threshold into adulthood. During the story, she expresses a frustration and desire to grow up. Chapter 15 can be read as her rite of passage: she gets a fancy dress, a waltz with an older male, and the responsibility of dealing with the consequences of her decisions.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • As the fic's name suggests, moth and butterfly imagery is abundant. While the Madrigal family is associated with butterflies, Bruno is instead associated with moths to signify how, despite coming from the same background, his history of abuse has transformed him into something different from his relatives.
  • People with green eyes have better insight and perceptiveness. Bruno, with the greenest of eyes, knows practically everything. Pepa and Camilo are secretly more aware than they give away. And Bruno forged Mirabel's glasses from his own green seer stone, gifting her with sight.
  • Door and window imagery, liminality and boundaries, and their relation to the Madrigal's gifts.
  • "Chapter 17" uses water as a symbol for love.
  • Magic is a symbol for trauma.
• Sadistic Choice: Bruno could either stay and share his vision about his (by then 5-year-old) niece being his soulmate, earning his mother's further scorn and severing the delicate bonds with his sisters (especially Julieta), or leave to protect Mirabel from himself and the sure shunning that would surround them both, despite loving his family so much. Hernando lampshades it was a "chose your poison" situation.
• Seers: Bruno not only can see into the future but also into the past.
• Security Blanket: Bruno's ruana.
• Sexier Alter Ego: Hernando is more confident, better groomed and has a visible roughish swagger in comparison to Bruno. Since he represents Bruno's repressed self-love, Hernando looks and behaves the way he wishes he himself could.
• Shadow Archetype: While Hernando was a persona in the movie, in this story he began as a Split Personality that Bruno created in order to handle the magic of the sand without fear. Over time, Hernando became Bruno's shadow, powered by the sand's eldritch magic to the point of having a conscious of his own, becoming also an avatar of his magic. As in the Jungian concept, Hernando also holds everything that Bruno has repressed and doesn't acknowledge as his own, but for someone as broken as Bruno, it means his confidence, self-love, hope for a different life for himself and his feelings for Mirabel.
• Shapeshifters Do It for a Change: On chapter 13, Camilo admits to Mirabel that they had used their gift to "take women to bed" and "let themselves be taken by men".
• Shout-Out:
  • References to One Hundred Years of Solitude are aplenty.
    • In Chapter 12 Macondo is name dropped as one of the places Agustín's fruit company goes and he says he bought books on magic from Melquiades himself.
  • Some of Bruno's rats are named after the main characters of the book.
    • Mirabel and Bruno's hypothetical son is called Aureliano, in reference to Aureliano Babilonia and his case of incest with his aunt.
  • As a seer with knowledge of future Pop culture, Bruno uses plenty of Disney songs and references during the first eight chapters.
• Silent Scapegoat: Bruno is willing to become the villain everyone believes him to be, and be put down in a villain's end, so that her mother and the town can get back the precious miracle they based their entire life around.
• Soul Jar: The candle, and to a lesser extent Casita, holds Pedro's soul.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: In "Chapter 18", Bruno tells Mirabel the story of two godly lovers that became humans but one of them died. Mnynas used their magic to help them reincarnate and find each other again, becoming butterflies and moths in the process. It's implied Bruno and Mirabel are these two lovers; their star-crossed love continuing in their blood relation and their huge age gap.
• Stalker without a Crush: Feeling more comfortable observing than participating, Bruno took on using his precognition to see into people's lives as a sort of reality show, even calling it a sort of television.
• Superpower Lottery: Bruno has gotten quite the set of abilities in the story. Not only can he see the future, but he actually has a certain level of control over the outcome of his visions thanks to the power of suggestion turning them self fulfilling. His sand can open portal doors, allow him to access other people's dreams, and even connect his consciousness to wherever his sand is.
• Torches and Pitchforks: "Chapter 20" has a possible future where the entire townspeople turns into a violent mob when the miracle burns out. Mirabel is horrified that such violence, that she always believed to be outside her pacific Encanto, was actually just festering inside and it just needed a reason to come out. The reason? The people hunting Bruno, or rather Hernando, believing him to be the cause of the dead miracle.
• Troubled Abuser: Alma's emotional abuse towards Bruno is more explicit, but the story (while not excusing her) doesn't shy away from how much she's trapped in the past and trauma of having lost her husband. "Chapter 20" reveals that she even has gone blind to signify how she's unwilling to acknowledge the harm she has caused.
• True Companions: Bruno's mischief of rats has become his family of choice, and they've pretty much adopted him and declared him a honorary rat.
• Tulpa: Esmeralda Paramo suggests that Bruno’s story is that of an egregore. This suggests that Hernando is a living dream of sorts.
• Villain Song: Hernando reclaims "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from the rumors that have been spreading through the Encanto by encouraging the rumors to spread, giving him even more power over them.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Camilo's gift is turned up to eleven, because he's not limited to people but can also shapeshift into animals.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: In contrast to Bruno's emotional neglect causing him arrested development, Mirabel instead was forced to emotionally mature too fast. The author has said it helps balance their dynamic.

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