Fanfic / Plus Five to Charisma

When Mirabel Madrigal failed to get a Gift on her 5th birthday, the arrival of her father's younger brother Ernesto gave her and her misfit uncle Bruno an opportunity; an opportunity to expand their horizons outside Encanto's borders. Ten years later, Mirabel and Bruno finally return to their village, but changed far beyond what any of their family can remember or imagine. And they're not afraid to bring that change back with them, much to Alma's consternation.

Plus Five to Charisma is an Encanto/Dungeons & Dragons Crossover fanfic, cowritten by Mr. Chaos and GarnettFox. It can be read on Fanfiction Dot Net here, or on Archive of Our Own here.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• A Birthday, Not a Break: Mirabel didn't celebrate her Quinceañera because the party had been called on another adventure request. When Julieta hears about that, she immediately goes to rectify it.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Bruno seems to have obtained one in the form of a dragon who can become a woman, who really enjoys talking about her looks.
  Bruno: If she ever comes by asking if I'm around... lie!
• Absurd Phobia: As Mirabel points out, the family's fear of Alma and the villagers is one as they are merely just normal people, while the Madrigals all have powers. Literally nothing could stop them from asserting themselves.
• Action Pet: Bruno's rats, who have stayed with him through his adventures and Monk training. They even wear their own Monk robes and strike fighting poses along with him.
• Adaptational Badass: 10 years of adventuring experience in a D&D world have given the originally Giftless Mirabel and the frail seer Bruno several levels in badass. Well specifically levels in Artificer and Monk respectively, but you get the idea. Mirabel even calls Bruno one of the strongest members of their party.
  • Implied example when it's revealed that Alma and Pedro were once part of an adventuring party as a Battle Master and War Mage respectively.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • After 10 years of the family misfits being out of sight and mind and no obvious challenge to her worldview, if Alma still holds any love and care for her family in her heart, it's currently buried deep under an obsession to maintain the perfect Madrigal family image and control every aspect of it, including pulling the wayward members into line.
  • Isabela; without her younger sister to focus on, Alma was able to spend almost all her time moulding her eldest granddaughter into the perfect heir, making her all the more haughty and perfection-obsessed and willing to side with her grandmother over her parents... and trying desperately not to break under the pressure.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Without Alma constantly disparaging her, Mirabel is much more confident in herself, having long since realized that she doesn't need a Gift to make a difference and finding her calling as an Artificer.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Without Mirabel around to draw Alma's attention, she was able to spend more time encouraging her other grandchildren to be useful to the town the way she wants, and the pressure has not been kind to them.
  • Isabela, groomed to be the golden child, has hardened into a full-on Alpha Bitch.
  • Camilo has become a Sad Clown who is told to be anyone except himself and is aching at the loss of his closest cousin, and is more willing to snark and complain about how Alma is mistreating everyone.
  • Dolores feels extremely guilty for eavesdropping on everyone, and hates that her brothers and cousins think she's merely The Stool Pigeon for their Abuela. When she thinks that she'd sooner cut her own ears off than hurt her family... her eyes look to her razor for a brief moment.
  • Luisa's struggles with her responsibilities have gotten even worse, barely able to even think of taking a break yet desperately wanting one.
• Adaptational Muscles: Bruno's Adaptational Badass credentials take the form of several levels in Monk, making him many times more muscular than his canon scrawny physique. He also grew his beard out.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Isabela reveals that she's gay in chapter 41.
• Adaptational Species Change:
  • Well, history of the species change. In D&D lore, the Warforged were created to be sentient soldiers during a war hundreds of years in the past of the current setting of 5E. As Nocci explains in Chapter 28, in this story, the Warforged were only created 50 years ago and were never meant to be sentient, instead becoming self-aware after an unnamed War Mage and Battle Master gave their lives to free them. Except only Pedro Madrigal, the War Mage died, and the Battle Master? None other than his wife, Alma.
  • In terms of an actual species change, Mariano is revealed to be a Tiefling in Chapter 46.
• An Aesop: Quite a few.
  • Trying to force someone into a role based on their natural talents or powers only hurts them in the long run. It's best to let people go out and discover their own path-The members of the family only truly come into their own once Mirabel, Bruno or other members of the party encourage them to do things beyond the labels their Gifts give them.
  • Trying to control everything around you will only result in you losing that same control-Alma's attempts to force Mirabel and Bruno to go back to the way things were only leads them to push back harder, inspiring the other family members to begin fighting back as well.
• Arc Words: "The more you try to grasp at the sand, the more it trickles through your fingers." Mirabel, Gahoole and Fibonacci have all at different times espoused the message that the more one tries to control their world, the more they lose their grip on it.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In chapter 42, when Alma is complaining about how Antonio's birthday is more about what he wants compared to him getting ready to get his Gift so he can serve the town, Bruno asks her if her parents made her serve her town at that age. Predictably, she can't answer.
• Armor-Piercing Response:
  • Eavesdropping on his parents arguing with his Abuela about holding a late birthday party for Mirabel, Antonio pipes up and says she can have his party. When Alma says that he'll get his Gift at his party, Antonio replies that he doesn't need a Gift, leaving Alma stunned.
  • Isabela had been rather miffed at having to distract her frumpy sister Mirabel through the town while a Surprise Party is organized back at Casita. When Mirabel arrives in a lovely dress, she says that she thought the party was for Isabela, sending a knife through her eldest sister's heart at the realisation that Mirabel dressed up not for herself, but for her sister.
  • Gahoole's rebuke to Alma for scolding Mirabel in front of them for being "rebellious" hits Alma right where it hurts: the Madrigal family image.
    Gahoole: Ernesto has told us so many things about his home. How lovely it is. How peaceful. But most of all how gracious the Madrigals are. But I suppose some things do not live up to claims…
  • After Alma attempts to convince everyone that Mirabel, who had just run into the house crying, doesn't matter, Dryft hits her even harder than Gahoole by bringing up Pedro's Heroic Sacrifice and pointing out how she's going against everything it stood for with six words.
    Dryft: He must be proud of you.
• Artificial Family Member: Chapter 52 reveals that Mirabel gave some of her creations (although we only see Sofia and Valeria) humanoid bodies. They all consider her their mother and she openly addresses them as her children.
• Artistic License – Biology: Played with. Ernesto is concerned that Agustín must be losing many hives worth of bees per year since they constantly sting him. When Agustín says that no, he doesn't, Ernesto has to explain that honeybees die after they sting, since it rips out a chunk of their body when this happens, but that clearly it doesn't happen when they sting Agustín. During the fight with Hollow Dragon Alma, Agustín picks up Pedro's staff and it's revealed that he has a supernatural bond with his bees through magic.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Dryft does this in the final battle, choosing to claim his birthright and becoming the God of the Sea, Healing, and War in order to save Gahoole and Antonio from the Hollow Dragon.
• Badass Crew: Ernesto's adventuring party, which Mirabel and Bruno join on their 10-year adventure. They've gone all over the world, meeting demigods and underworld dwellers, facing warlords, necromancers and monsters, befriending kings and queens, helping those in need and destroying evil. Their current roster, fully introduced in Chapters 23 - 25, comprises of:
  • Ernesto, Human Paladin, taken the Oath of the Watchers
  • Mirabel, Human Golemsmith Artificer
  • Bruno, Human Monk, practicing the Way of the Astral Self
  • Ulika, Orc Barbarian, following the Path of the Ancestral Guardian
  • Fibonacci, Warforged Druid of the Circle of Spores
  • Anton, Human Archfey Warlock
  • Gahoole, Owlkin Blood Hunter, from the Order of the Mutant
  • Saharah, Brass Dragonborn Bard, member of the College of Creation
  • Prince Dryft Coldwater, Aquatic Capricorn Cleric of the Tempest Domain
• Bathtub Bonding:
  • Chapter 19 has the male and female halves of the Madrigal family (excluding Alma) separately enjoying the underground bath in the Bureau.
  • Chapter 36 has all the second generation Madrigals and the Party (Except Mirabel) sharing the bath together and helping each other clean off and relax, before getting into the serious talk of Isabela's breakdown and what to do about Alma making everything more difficult than it needs to be.
• Battle Couple:
  • Ulika and Isabela fight side-by-side during the battle against Hollow Dragon Alma.
  • Pedro and Alma's first meeting at the festival was punctuated by an attack by a horde of bugbears and the two of them fighting them off. From then on, they would fight together as a War Mage and Battle Master, part of the same adventuring party.
• Big Brother Instinct: Little brother instinct in this case, but when some men begin demanding Pepa stop being happy so that it rains to keep the fields cool, Bruno wastes no time in laying down the law with them.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Between Ulika and Isabela in chapter 41.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: A twofold example. A long time ago, an adventuring party freed a land from tyrants and took over ruling and managing it, but over time, they slowly turned into tyrants themselves, forcing draconian laws and creating an obedient Warforged army to keep everyone safe, particularly the children of two of their number. Said two, Alma and Pedro, split with them and tried to flee, but they followed to claim their children. When Pedro gave his life to protect his family, his final Wish followed Alma's grief-stricken desires to create the valley, free the warforged and give them all souls, and make everyone in the Encanto forget everything. And with those memories buried, Alma raised her family, dedicated them to tirelessly protect her new home, until she herself was as harsh and controlling as the tyrants she once freed a land from and that her own party had become.
• Blessed with Suck: Dolores makes no secret over how much she hates her Gift, as not only did lead to Alma forcing her to become her personal spy, any loud noise will cause her extreme amounts of pain, even saying in chapter 45 that she's bled from her ears in the past.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Dryft... has a more unique perspective on the world. Very slow to anger, and a small bit of a benevolent Manchild (which makes sense in that for his race he’s younger than Mirabel). His reaction to his ascension to Godhood is "Eh, it was going to happen anyway," and then later runs off to play on the swings. He's capable of profound bits of wisdom mixed with overwhelming childish naivete.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Bruno and Mirabel prolonging their adventure was because Bruno had found a college that would help him understand and master his visions. When he returns, it turns out the method he uses is Monk meditation and training... that also taught him to turn his visions into Combat Clairvoyance. And gave him the Supernatural Martial Arts of the Way of the Astral Self.
• Brutal Honesty: When Alma starts disparaging her son and granddaughter, even while their party members bristle, the naive, socially-awkward Dryft simply calls her a mean grandmother to her face.
• Bullying a Dragon: While Pepa is out reconnecting with Bruno, some farmers track her down to insist that she continue making rain for them, and when Bruno speaks up, they turn their ire on him calling him the accursed "Bad Luck Bruno" again. They quickly regret it when Bruno just laughs in their faces and starts putting on his Game Face, Battle Aura, glowing eyes, extra arms and all.
  Bruno: I am Bad Luck Bruno. I curse people. Bring about horrible fates. That is correct? (Men nod) And you decided the best thing to do… was go up to Bad Luck Bruno… insult his beloved hermana… demand that she feel bad for being happy… because you were sweaty? Before I left I just made you a bit pudgy, hmmm? Now I have ten years of practice. I wonder… what else can I do?
• Call to Adventure: Ernesto gives one on Mirabel's fifth birthday, and Bruno finds himself encouraging him to take Mirabel on an adventure as her birthday gift (to get her out from under Alma's thumb), and then volunteers to come along for the ride.
• Calling the Old Woman Out:
  • Downplayed example; when Mirabel returns to Casita after 10 years, she has a very pointed question to the house about not even giving her a normal room when she didn't get her Gift. Casita quickly fixes that by turning Bruno's door into a Portal Door to their Bureau.
  • Chapter 17 has the full second generation of Madrigals confronting Alma about her stubbornness against giving Mirabel a belated quinceañera party (even though the nearest event is Antonio's ceremony, three weeks off), with some of them pushing back for the first time in ages. It's only when Felix proposes throwing a party and inviting everyone except Alma that the matriarch agrees to hold one.
  • Chapter 25 gives this opportunity to all of Mirabel's adventuring party (particularly Dryft and Gahoole) to call out Alma for mistreating her granddaughter.
  • The Madrigal children get their turn in Chapter 45, calling Alma for only seeing them as tools and not actual people who want to do different things.
• Canon Character All Along: The unknown War Mage and Battle Master who freed the Warforged 50 years prior to the story turn out to have been Pedro and Alma.
• Cassandra Truth: Ernesto was known for going out beyond the valley and coming back with stories and gifts, but the Madrigals just thought he was spinning tall tales because the outside world wasn't as glamorous as he thought it was and was making it up to fluff up his own ego, and put his gifts in storage. When Mirabel and Bruno went with him and they started telling the same tales in their letters home, they thought they were just humoring Ernesto. Only when they came back after ten years did they finally realize they were telling the truth.
• Children Are Innocent: Antonio to a tee. He’s completely oblivious to his grandmother's pressure, loves nothing more than re-reading Mirabel's letters, and the moment he steps out into the middle of a fight, both sides do all they can to keep him out of danger.
• Control Freak: Alma has become even worse without Mirabel around, as without the Giftless one around to challenge the status quo, she has the family working exactly the way she wants them to, and will not tolerate any other way. Once Mirabel and Bruno return, she fully expects them to fall into line and gets rather annoyed when they (especially Mirabel) don't.
• Covert Pervert: When Pepa is told how her Gift would have her worshipped anywhere else, she has an Imagine Spot where she is pampered and treated like a queen with a pleasure servant at her beck and call, and her husband playfully rolling with it.
• Curse Cut Short: After getting into a fight, Ulika nearly calls Isabela a little shit before Mirabel interrupts them.
• Death Glare: Dolores has shot a furious look towards her Abuela a few times whenever she disparages Mirabel. The first time is when she snubbed Mirabel on her belated Quinceañera by giving her a plain chain instead of the fancy pendants the other granddaughters got; the second time is when she blames the majority-non-human adventuring party for Mirabel becoming so rebellious.
• Declaration of Protection: The impetus of Ernesto becoming a Paladin is him, on his first adventure out of the valley, seeing an entire village razed to the ground, caught up in the machinations between gods. He then took the Oath of the Watchers and swore to defend mortals from being the playthings of higher beings.
• Delayed Reaction: Saharah is so frustrated at being unable to translate Alma's spellbook because she doesn't know what language it is that it takes her a moment to acknowledge Luisa reading it beside her.
• Description Cut: Chapter 15 is full of this; Alma prepares for the morning thinking about how each member of her family is already out dutifully and loyally serving the community and putting on the perfect image of the Madrigal name... while interspersed with scenes showing how they're either chafing under the pressure or slowly becoming wise to it.
• Disguised in Drag: Bruno had to do this on one of the party's adventures, because they had to sneak into a warlord's fortress disguised as a dance troupe and the warlord only trusted women with scruff.
• Divine Date: Anton's Archfey patron is also his husband. When Camilo candidly suggests that he can become a Warlock too by just seducing a goddess, Anton sharply rebukes him and makes clear that he got lucky; while his husband is benevolent enough, there are hundreds of worse gods out there and many of his husband's siblings and exes would love nothing more than to kill Anton where he stands.
• Divine Parentage: Dryft is apparently the youngest son of a pair of water gods and is journeying with the party to see the world before he joins his parents and sisters in godhood.
• Does Not Know Her Own Strength: While growing up, Luisa had broken a lot of crockery while trying to control her Super-Strength, and getting dirty looks from her family because of it. Thus, when Mirabel introduces her to the wonders of Unbreakable Glass, she immediately thinks back to some gifts that Tio Ernesto had given her.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: On a walk through the fields, Pepa is trying to indirectly ask if Bruno has slept with anyone on his adventures, but he's being so obtuse that she finally asks the question out loud... causing a Reaction Shot from Bruno, a nearby cow, and the farmer milking the cow.
• Double Take: On their first ride out of Encanto, Bruno is mentally going over the roughing it, the hostile villages, the griffins, and the bug bites he'll experience, before pausing and looking up to see the giant avian monster flying above them.
• Dysfunction Junction: It's made clear that the 10 years without Mirabel or Bruno has made all the familial issues in the Madrigal family quite a bit worse. Mirabel often comments that her family really needs therapy.
• Ear Ache: When Mirabel heard Camilo badmouthing Dolores as nothing but a snitch, she drags him by his ear to his sister to apologize.
  Camilo: How are you keeping hold?!
  Mirabel: You aren't the first shapeshifter I've dealt with! Now say it!
• The Engineer: As an Golemsmith, Mirabel has adopted this mindset to her life, and is always looking for the most practical solution and the smart way to work hard. She hates seeing problems left unsolved, is appalled that Luisa's daily chores are just busywork and immediately starts looking for more permanent solutions, and encourages Luisa to exercise her endurance instead of her magically-gifted strength.
• Entitled Bastard: A bunch of farmers, annoyed that Pepa is happily relaxing with her newly-returned brother and making sweaty warm wind instead of cool rains for their farms, track her down and start to berate her. Bruno doesn't take it well.
• Exact Words:
  • When Bruno makes his suggestion that Ernesto take Mirabel to see the world, Alma asks him if he had a vision. Bruno says that he did, and Alma immediately agrees with the plan, while Bruno is thankful that his mother didn't specifically ask when he had a vision, so he didn't have to lie to her face (he was referring to a vision from a few days ago).
  • Bruno later uses this to encourage Dolores not to give up on Mariano, pointing out that all he said that was that the man of her dreams would be betrothed to another. Never did he say that they would actually get married.
  • When Alma tells Isabela to come to Mariano so that he can be "with the one he loves", Mariano promptly walks over to Dolores, who he reveals to be the one he actually loves.
• Face of a Thug: Dryft is well aware of how scary he looks, considering that he comes from a family of war gods. Furthermore, his physical appearance (that of a goat-faced cloven-hoofed biped) resembles traditional depictions of El Diablo himself in Christian Lore. However, as Julieta discovers when they spend the day together, he’s a socially awkward goofball who loves to make people smile.
• Failed a Spot Check: Casita, Bureau, and Ulika all fail Perception Checks at the end of Chapter 23; the sapient houses are too busy talking to notice a sleepy Ulika wandering not to Bureau's kitchen for a snack, but instead to Casita's... and walking right into Camilo.
• Fake Memories: What Pedro's final Wish imposed over the Encanto; because part of Alma's desires was to forget all the adventure and danger that came before, it put a masquerade over the whole village, making everyone in it, tiefling, halfling and fairy alike, look like humans, while also making them think they'd always been human.
• Fantastic Racism: With about half their members being non-humans (Orc, Warforged, Owlkin, Dragonborn, and Capricorn), Mirabel's party is no stranger to unfriendly villages that would only allow the human members in. As such, they are unsurprised at Alma's intolerance towards them.
• Flashback Cut: A few occur throughout the story, such as when Bruno jokes that Mirabel spent the weeks leading up to their return doing nothing but plan how to improve their family, the story shows a scene two weeks back about Mirabel coming up with increasingly maniacal suggestions in front of a String Theory board, while Bruno quietly calls Gahoole and Dryft in to calm her down.
• Foil:
  • A Central Theme of the story is defining oneself by the power/role that you are given or the power/role you choose to attain on your own. The Madrigals were all given their magical Gifts from the Candle, and have shaped their whole lives and personalities around those Gifts. In contrast, the party members from outside the valley came into their Classes through their travels and experiences, walking their paths and learning their skills of their own choice (like Ernesto seeing a destroyed village and then taking his Paladin oath).
    • Mirabel was not given a Gift by the Candle and was written off by her grandmother because of it, but when given the opportunity to travel, she found her calling at a Dwarven smithy and eventually trained to become an Golemsmith. In other words, when denied a Gift, she went out and found her own.
    • Bruno initially left the valley to train up his magical Gift of foresight (for which he was shunned by the village), but instead of delving deeper into magic and becoming some kind of Mage, he instead honed his Gift through Monk training and meditation, maturing into a grounded, confident man in the process.
    • Luisa's Gift of Super-Strength had made her The Reliable One of her family, tasked to be unrelentingly helpful without leaving any time for herself. However, when Mirabel returned, she found herself enamored with the stories of the outside world, wondering if she can do more than just be strong, and after talking to Saharah, asks how she can become a Bard too.
  • The stern, uncompromising Alma and the caring Gahoole are both old ladies that exemplify the contrast of the Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand divide, with Alma browbeating her family into line with the weight of responsibility, and Gahoole offering support to her charges to help them heal and grow.
  • When it comes to telling someone not to do something, Alma never bothers to elaborate beyond "don't do this", treating her word as law. Mirabel, on the other hand, actually explains why someone shouldn't do something.
• Fighting Spirit: As a Monk of the Way of the Astral Self, Bruno excels at this. He usually uses it to give himself extra arms, as well as become a Looming Silhouette of Rage with a green Battle Aura and Glowing Eyes of Doom.
• Foreshadowing: There are many instances of this towards the big reveal.
  • Camilo mentions that a seamstress, who’s unusually short, wears shoes too small for her to hide her large feet. The woman turns out to be a halfling, AKA a hobbit, who are known for shortness and large, hairy feet.
  • The children of Alma are 50 years old... the same number of years ago that the Warforged were freed and became their own sentient race.
  • Mirabel's specialty is creating Enchanted Armor and is a Golemsmith... which is very similar to what the Warforged actually are, hinting at a connection between herself (or rather, her bloodline) and the Warforged.
  • While most likely a throwaway Shout-Out to Futurama, one of the first generation of Warforged was B.B. Rodriguez. Bender Bending Rodriguez, in the show, was created in a factory in Mexico, and his name points to a Latin American influence.
  • When Mirabel is singing about how wonderful and unique her family is, and gets to the part about Bruno, the village as one interrupts with "We don't talk about Bruno!" While this was the case in the original song, the relation between Bruno and his family in this universe is decidedly warmer- he didn't vanish without warning, he left voluntarily and his family knows where he is at all times. Alma is the one who feels betrayed by his leaving and not returning... which is a hint that her desires are what fuel the spell over the Encanto.
  • When Alma goes into her chest of her most treasured belongings, she notes some carvings on the chest that she doesn't know what they're for, but knows they're important. Mirabel had talked at several points about the importance of Magical Runes in her own work. How could Magical Runes be on Alma's chest, and why would Alma know they were important?
  • Inside the aforementioned chest is a Spellbook and a Wizard Staff. While Alma claims that Mirabel's party are the ones who planted them there initially, each member of the party is confused and denies this. These are revealed to belong to Pedro.
  • The spellbook is written in Portuguese, not some ancient eldritch fantasy language... and Alma taught each of her children and grandchildren how to read Portuguese.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: During their fight, Mirabel points out to Isabela that even if Alma is putting a ton of pressure on her and forcing her to marry someone she doesn't love, that does not give her any right to be such an asshole to her or anyone else.
• Gentle Giant: Dryft, the party's Cleric. He's a towering, monstrous-looking aquatic Capricorn, meaning he looks very much like the stereotypical depictions of the Devil, but is very soft-spoken and polite, and hates using his powers to hurt others - unless they’re hurting his friends, upon which he reminds everyone why one of his parents' domains is War.
• Gilded Cage: The family considers the valley to be one. While it’s a safe and beautiful place to live, they are basically slaves to the villager's demands and Alma refuses to let any of them leave. Isabela directly calls it this in chapter 41.
• Godzilla Threshold: When the Hollow Dragon nearly kills Antonio and Gahoole we get two of them
  • Dryft claims his birthright, ascending to become a War God. He later gains a God Form, this being a 30 foot giant made of stone and water
  • Isabella commands her gift to go to its full limit, merging herself with her plants to become a wooden titan.
• The Glomp: Once Luisa and Camilo realize that Mirabel has come home, they immediately give her one.
• Gossipy Hens: According to Isabela, the townsfolk have a bad habit of coming up with rumors about the Madrigal family, and she and Dolores have been stamping them out to protect the family's image. Which is why Isabela is not happy about Mirabel showing up and giving everyone something to gossip about.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It's heavily implied that the reason Isabela is so rude to Mirabel upon her and Bruno's return is because of all the freedom she got to have due to leaving the valley, which is confirmed during their fight in chapter 33.
• Grew a Spine: The Madrigals are all astonished when the shy, nervous Bruno returns as a confident, powerful man who stands up for his family and won't tolerate anyone speaking ill of Mirabel, not even his own mother. This soon starts to rub off on his sisters and their husbands.
• Half-Human Hybrid: After just one conversation, Bruno suspects Mariano to be a half-breed of some kind. Later, it's revealed he's actually a tiefling under Fake Memories (though whether he's fully or partially tiefling is unknown).
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Zigzagged. Because Luisa's Super-Strength is magical rather than from her body's muscles, her exercising by lifting weights does nothing to make her any stronger. However, Mirabel suggests that she exercise other parts of her body such as running for endurance, and after a long morning run, Luisa comes back exhausted but more alive than she's felt in a long while.
• Hate at First Sight: Pretty much as soon as she lays eyes on the Party, Alma decides that all of them are risks to the Encanto and that they are the reason Mirabel and Bruno are so rebellious. The feeling is mutual at least on Gahoole's part.
• Headbutting Heroes: Ernesto has some friction with Anton, another member of his party. Ernesto is an Oath of the Watchers Paladin who has sworn to defend humanity against the machinations of gods and higher beings, while Anton is an Archfey Warlock who gains his power from a particularly manipulative kind of higher being. Anton's snarky attitude means that he enjoys needling Ernesto any chance he gets.
• Heroic Lineage: The origin of the Madrigal's magic isn't the Miracle; it's the magic in Pedro's blood as a War Mage.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Casita uses the remnants of her connection to her old body to magically summon the spellbook Alma used in hopes that the family can reverse her transformation, despite the risk that she could be corrupted.
  • Subverted in Gahoole's case. She attempts to pull a Taking the Bullet to keep Antonio safe, but Dryft, upon seeing his surrogate grandma in trouble, chooses that moment to ascend to godhood and save her.
• Hidden Depths: Gahoole's narration gives this impression about two of the party members, the Orc Ulika and the Warforged Fibonacci.
  • Ulika acts tough and proud about her full-blooded Orc heritage, but Gahoole sees it as her protecting a heart full of love.
  • Nocci puts on a show of pride and robo-centric arrogance, but Gahoole has caught him fretting over social interactions and emotions, worried about giving a good impression for other Warforged.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Happens to Alma twice.
  • During Antonio's party, she attempts to show up the Party by announcing Isabela and Mariano's wedding. However, due to Mariano realizing he’s a better match with Dolores, Isabela coming out, and Alma all but outright saying that she only wanted the wedding for more Gifted children, she only succeeds in making the Party look better and herself worse.
  • Her attempt at forcing the Party to reveal their true selves with a magic spell only reveals harmless things like Anton dying his hair or how Isabela's hair looks naturally and validates Saharah's feminine identity before backfiring on her due to her not anchoring the spell properly, destroying Casita's physical form and melding her with it to create a Hollow Dragon.
• I Have Sisters: During chapter 36, Dryft reveals that his skill with washing hair has nothing to do with his water magic and is moreso due to the fact he has several sisters.
• Imagine Spot:
  • A few show up through the story, including one where the Madrigals are preparing to welcome Mirabel and Bruno back home, and while Alma is talking about re-acclimatizing Mirabel to civilization, Julieta is imagining her daughter as a literal Wild Child.
  • After Nocci tells her that her Gift could be used to feed an entire country if she trained enough, Pepa imagines herself being worshipped like a goddess, with her husband as a "pleasure slave." Though he seems into it.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Team Grandma Gahoole admits to herself that she's addicted to collecting little ones to care for, alongside her own chicks and grand-chicks. She's already taken Mirabel, Dryft and Saharah under her wing, and when she sees Antonio, she has to remind herself to not ask to buy him from his mother.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Ulika confirms Isabela has one, noting that when the girl was insulting her, Ulika could tell that those insults were actually what she called herself and she was projecting.
• Interspecies Relationship:
  • Anton's (Human) Archfey patron is also his husband, as revealed in chapter 30.
  • Chapter 41 begins the relationship between Isabela (Human) and Ulika (Orc).
  • With the reveal that Mariano is actually a tiefling, his relationship with Dolores becomes one of these
• I Reject Your Reality: In spite of all the good they are doing, Alma refuses to believe that the Party is doing anything other than ruining the family, to the point where she deludes herself into believing that Mirabel was replaced by a Fae Trickster.
• Innocently Insensitive: In chapter 38, when Alma sees Isabela crying, she wipes away her tears and then assures her that her wedding will not be the mess that (she believes) Antonio's party will be, and that the village deserves a nice wedding to make up for everything going on. Isabela, who had a mental breakdown over how she views herself as being trapped and a slave to the village and very much doesn't want to marry Mariano, runs off, leaving Alma confused on what she did wrong.
• Insult to Rocks: When fighting with Isabela in chapter 33, Mirabel claims that Alma treats the family like the donkeys that Lusia used to have to collect, then takes it back because at least the donkeys get a break.
• Irony:
  • As Bruno recalls in a Flashback Cut, the Amazonian Beauty Luisa was once a tiny newborn and it was Isabela that was gigantic as a baby.
  • A meta example, in chapter 40 Gahoole says she hates Homebrews (Homebrew being a D&D term for something that was created by a player or DM rather then from an offical sourcebook). Gahoole, Saharah and Nocci have Homebrew changes to their races (Warforged having a different history, Dragonborn having wings and Owlin being called Owlkin) while Dryft's species is based on a Homebrew Race for the My Little Pony D&D games. Mirabel also uses a Homebrew Artificer subclass (Golem Smith, most comparable to the Battle Smith), and Gahoole is a Blood Hunter, which is an entire Homebrew CLASS.
  • In the same chapter Anton expresses his distaste of Blood Magic. While in the same room as Gahoole. A Blood Hunter who regularly uses Blood curses to fight and whom he has worked alongside for many years.
• It Can Think: The party swiftly realized that the Hollow Dragon Alma became isn't mindless when it begins to target Gahoole, who Alma noticeably disliked more than the rest.
• Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand: How Mirabel talks the monster that is Hollow Dragon Alma into submission - she removes her armor, holds up Abuelo Pedro's portrait, and dares Alma to burn her and destroy her granddaughter, her family, the very thing her husband sacrificed himself for, in the name of the family.
• Lampshade Hanging: Alma mentions that Pedro hated the tendency for rare and powerful magical artifacts to sit around doing nothing inside ancient ruins or tombs instead of being put to real work, which is a staple of Dungeons and Dragons.
• Language Barrier: While Alma reads from the spellbook in Spanish, the Party are frustrated when they get the book and realize that whatever language it's in, it's definitely not Spanish. They end up tossing the book from person to person trying to figure out what language it is with Draconic, Orkish and Mermish being confirmed too not be it. It's revealed to be Portuguese.
• Lazy Bum: Along with many of them also being highly entitled, the villagers are rather lazy, never bothering to find more effective ways of doing things as they have simply gotten used to the Madrigals doing it for them.
• The Legend of Chekhov: Fibonacci's tale of how the Warforged were freed from a slave army to become a full sentient race half a century ago has more importance to the plot than anyone realized: the Battle Master and War Mage who gave their lives to free them were Alma and Pedro. Though Alma actually survived.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Mirabel says this to one of Isabela's attempts to get her to just follow the family tune of accepting what the world wants of you.
  Mirabel: So… just to be clear… you think that the best thing for me to do is to just accept whatever the world gives me and demand nothing for myself and pretend I'm happy about that.
  Isabela: Exactly.
  (Beat, then Mirabel bursts out laughing)
• Let's You and Him Fight: Both times unfamiliar outsiders come to the valley, the Madrigals end up in a fight with them.
  • When two strangers teleport into the middle of Encanto in what amounts to a thunderclap, Luisa starts trying to fight them off until the older one scares her into stopping, and they reveal themselves as her returned sister and uncle.
  • Similarly, the first meeting with Mirabel and Bruno's adventuring party is the Orc Ulika accidentally wandering into Casita, scaring Camilo out of his wits, and his family rushing to his aid. This one is at least more justifiable, since Ulika was an intruder in their house.
• Logical Fallacies: Gahoole points out Alma's conflicting logic in being both upset that the party are potentially waking everyone up by making breakfast, and that the other Madrigals aren't already awake.
  Alma: Julieta, why are you allowing Mirabel and her-...friends to make so much noise and wake everyone up? ...And why are you so late getting up? Breakfast should have already been made. not left to our...guests.
  Gahoole: Can't have it both ways now, my dear. Are you mad at us waking everyone up or them for not being up already? You really must pick one.
• Logic Bomb: How Mirabel convinces Hollow Dragon Alma to stop attacking. Namely, she dares her to destroy her own family, the very thing her husband sacrificed himself for, in the name of family.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: While it doesn't play a huge part in the story, it's established that the D&D world outside the valley has more adventurous versions of other cartoon properties, which Mirabel and Bruno's adventuring party has encountered.
  • They party met up with the Arendelle royal sisters and helped them with an issue, and the sisters even joined them on a few adventures. Bruno performs Elsa's story as a puppet show for his family when he gets back.
  • Bruno trained under Master Shifu, and fought Tai Lung alongside Po.
  • The party once had to help King Eric and King Triton deal with a threat and Bruno slept with Princess Melody while pretending to be a pirate that kidnapped her (for the record, she was nearly 40 at that point). Also, Bruno swore off fried fish after that.
  • The party once met a Bard who journeyed to the land of the dead to find his great-great-abuelo, and also the large demigod Maui.
  • A version of Jackie Chan Adventures happened some time in the past of this world, and Saharah is the direct great-great-granddaughter of Shendu.
  • The party once met a man who had a curse that turned him into an ogre. When they asked how he controlled it, his answer was that he was always angry.
  • Chapter 51 reveals that, in the ten year Time Skip, not only have Elsa, Anna, Melody, and Miguel outright joined the party, but so has Barley Lightfoot and Mei Ling. In additionally, Chapter 53 reveals that the Party is at least friendly with Fa Mulan.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Party has two of these reactions during Chapter 45. The first when they see Alma with a Spellbook and the second when they realize that her not making a Tribute before casting her spell is turning her into a Hollow Dragon.
• Metaphorgotten: Felix loses himself in a metaphor about the flaws of just going with the flow.
  Felix: I like to go with the flow, the rhythm of life… but I forgot that sometimes the band doesn't know how to play and the guitarist is drunk and the woman on the piano is only there because she is sleeping with the lead singer and-
• Mood Whiplash: During Antonio's Gift ceremony, everything is going well, with both the family and the party enjoying themselves...then Alma arrives once Antonio gets his Gift.
• Moving the Goalposts: The adults all call Alma out on this when they want to give Mirabel a belated Quinceañera, pointing out that she'll keep claiming other events take precedence over a late birthday in order to keep Bruno and Mirabel from leaving (or worse, to deny showing Mirabel any love).
• Mundane Utility: Bruno mentions that if the party was short on cash, he'd make vision tablets of buildings with his Gift and then sell them as artwork.
• Musical Number Annoyance: In Chapter 20, Isabela isn't happy about Mirabel running and dancing through the town, until she finally shouts at her to stop when she tries to get her sister to join in.
  • Mirabel stops her mother right as she starts to sing "All of You", saying that the family's issues won't be solved by a simple musical number... it'll take time, effort, and a lot of therapy.
• My Beloved Smother: Alma still treats the grown-up members of her family like children, complete with giving them time outs, even if she doesn't call it that.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • When Mirabel calls Casita out on never giving her an actual room when she never got a gift, the house is clearly embarrassed and quickly fixes that by making Bruno's room a portal to the Bureau so that she can have a room.
  • Once she's set free from the Hollow Dragon curse, Alma is horrified with what she just tried to do to her own family.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Bruno's first exhibition of his new skills has him appearing just like Camilo described him in "We Don't Talk About Bruno", that is, a towering giant with glowing green eyes.
  • The scale that measures one's stats like Strength, Charisma and the like and any magical Enhancements to such is called the Gygax scale, as another D&D Homage to Gary Gygax.
  • Gahoole directly mentions Homebrews and expresses her distaste for them, a reference to Homebrew creations in D&D and how some players and DM's are split on if it's good, or if it's terrible for the game.
  • Ernesto name drops Fizban's Treasury of Dragons when explaining the Hollow Dragon to Felix, Fizban's Treasury being an in and out of Universe D&D Book all about Dragons.
• Never Accepted in His Hometown:
  • Inside the valley, Ernesto is only known as an eccentric traveler who makes up wild stories of an adventurous wilderness that can't possibly be as good as life in the valley. Outside, he’s a Paladin devoted to protecting mortals from the machinations of gods and higher beings.
  • Inside the valley, Mirabel is known as the Madrigal who never got a Gift and Bruno is a bad omen. Outside of it, they are both heroes, with Mirabel being an impressive Artificer while Bruno is a powerful Monk.
• Never Mess with Granny: Gahoole is an owlkin who is as old as Alma, and for the most part is the lovable, fluffy and caring Team Grandma. But in a fight, she will not hesitate to become an Ominous Owl with her powers of an Order of the Mutant Blood Hunter, and there are many people long dead who would hear her name and tremble with fear.
• Never My Fault: In a way, Alma is right that it's the Party's fault her family is standing up to her. However, if she hadn't been acting like a complete Control Freak and treating her family like slaves, there wouldn't be any reason for them to be standing up to her in the first place.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The Party inside of the valley. While their abilities are quite impressive, many of those skills would not be out of place in a higher-level adventuring D&D party. Inside the Valley, where no one has heard of half the things that the Party is capable of, they're a severe Outside-Context Problem who are capable of doing things that can match, or even exceed, the powers granted by the Miracle of the Madrigal family.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Gahoole plays Politeness Judo with Alma by phrasing her conflicting orders as the forgetfulness of old biddies that they both are, but even Julieta, who only met her yesterday, can tell that Gahoole isn't nearly that dotty in reality.
• Obliviously Evil: As shown in chapter 38, Alma doesn't mean any harm with how she treats her family and is in fact convinced she is doing the right thing. However, her delusions have led to nearly everyone in the family suffering from some type of mental problems or trauma, which she is, again, too blinded by grief and her delusions to see.
• Oblivious to Hatred: While Mirabel knows that Alma isn't too fond of her, she simply believes that it's because Alma is set in her ways and isn't used to the outside world, that's she'll mellow out and find a new normal. What she doesn't realize is that Alma outright considers her to be ruining the family and the only reason she doesn't outright banish her is because she wants to force Mirabel to act how she wants her too.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: It's established that Alma didn't like Ernesto's wild ways of leaving the town so often, enough that she almost didn't want Julieta to marry Agustín by proxy (what convinced her was the fact that Ernesto was out of the village too often to be a family embarrassment). Still, she cares enough about her image to at least give Ernesto a decent welcome when he pays a visit.
• Only One Finds It Fun: Played for Drama. Alma is the only person who sees no issue with the way the villagers use her family, simply seeing it as the way things are supposed to be. This has completely blinded her to how much her family is suffering because of it.
• Original Character:
  • Agustín's younger brother Ernesto obviously never existed in canon, nor have any of his party members aside from Mirabel and Bruno.
• Painful Transformation: Judging by the description of it, Alma's transformation into a Hollow Dragon was not pretty.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Alma is obviously not happy with how free-spirited and nonconforming Mirabel is when she returns to Encanto, and keeps talking about how she will eventually come around and be useful to the village as another dutiful Madrigal member. Mirabel responds by just being obliviously cheerful, paying a minimum respect to her Abuela and ignoring all the barbs, and just continuing to help the village in her own way. Or at least she acts oblivious; she later tells Camilo that she knows what her Abuela is trying to do, but hopes eventually she'll mellow out and find a new normal with everyone.
  • At Mirabel's belated Quinceañera, Abuela gives her a simple necklace with a cross and tells her that her family loves her. Isabela and Dolores are startled (and the latter angry) because at the Quinceañeras of all her other granddaughters, they all received detailed gold pendants and lots of advice about life and love. Mirabel doesn't seem to notice.
  • Alma eventually meets her match in party grandma Gahoole, who can play the patronizing matriarch game with a lot more Politeness Judo than Alma can manage.
• Politically Correct History: Zig-Zagged Trope. No one seems to have any problems with LGBTQ+ elements, such as Anton casually bringing up his husband while Uilka is heavily implied to be an open lesbian, in spite of the fic being implied to take place the same time that the movie does (implied to be somewhere between the late 19th century and The '50s). However, Isabela is afraid of coming out to her family, although it's unclear if it's just Alma having a problem with it or not. Chapter 43 confirms that it's only Alma having a problem with it. The rest of the family completely accepts Isabela.
• Politeness Judo:
  • This is how Gahoole responds to Alma's brand of Passive-Aggressive Kombat. When Alma protests at allowing each member of the intruding party to pair with a Madrigal for the day, Gahoole just picks her as the Madrigal to pair with.
    Alma: I do not think-
    Gahoole: There will be a problem with that? I quite agree. It is a grand idea. (leads a protesting Alma away) Now now… I get wanting to ensure everything goes well but sometimes we old gals need to let the young ones try their hand at leading. After all, what will they do when we are gone?
  • Saharah describes how the party got her to travel with them while she was in a mentally bad place as like them domesticating a stray cat. They just started exchanging pleasantries, making idle conversation, or just spending time with her, until two weeks later, Ernesto told her they were heading out and she was two miles down the road with them before she realized what happened.
• Poor Communication Kills: When Dryft informs Julieta about the curse he sensed, Gahoole enters the kitchen freaked out but sure that Dryft is just sensing the Encanto, which Dryft confirms he can sense that too, but the Encanto only effects Casita while the curse is over the entire valley. When pressed on why he never told the Party the valley was cursed, Dryft points out that pretty much every town, village and city they've ever gone to had a curse of some kind on it and that the others got frustrated with Dryft always pointing it out and told him to stop. Which Gahoole humbly admits that, yes, they did, and that this is her and the other's fault, not Dryft's.
• Positive Friend Influence: With Mirabel and Bruno returning to Encanto, they slowly start to break their family out of the ruts they've found themselves in and adopt healthier lifestyles.
  • Mirabel helps Luisa train smarter and reduce the amount of daily busywork, and when she hears how painful Dolores's super-hearing can get, she immediately whips up a noise-dampening accessory for her scarf.
  • Bruno offers to pass on some meditation techniques to Pepa, to better control her emotionally-charged weather powers.
• Power is Sexy: The normally-jovial Felix finally blows up at Alma at her obstinacy against giving Mirabel a party, and finally gets her to agree. When Alma leaves, Pepa jumps on her husband, kisses the living daylights out of him and promises a stormy night.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Dryft just before he claims his godhood in order to save Gahoole from Hollow Dragon Alma:
  Dryft: You...dare...mortal?
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In Chapter 43, when Alma attempts to deny Isabela is gay, she snaps back with "Yes. I. Am.".
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Mirabel and Bruno's adventuring partying consists of Ernesto, a straight laced Paladin, Anton, a bisexual, Archfey Warlock Gadfly who's patron is also his husband, Dryft, a Capricorn Cleric who's the son of two water gods and whose views on the world are both naive and profound at the same time, Ulika, a lesbian full blooded Orc who is very proud of her heritage, Gahoole, an Owlkin Old Master who doubles as the Team Mom, Fibonacci, a Warforged Druid who puts up a front that makes him appear more arrogant then he actually is and Saharah, a transgender Brass Dragonborn who was a former Death Seeker.
• Real After All: For many years, the Madrigals assumed that Ernesto's wild stories about the outside world were just him trying to spice up his letters, assuming the same when Mirabel and Bruno started sending back letters with similar stories. It isn't until the duo returns, ten years later, do the Madrigals realize that, yes, everything they were writing about happened and even then, it still takes a few members time to actually accept that it all happened.
• Red Baron: The Time Skip reveals that Isabela has picked up several in her travels with Ulika, such as the Orcs dubbing her the "Vine Weaver", the Halflings calling her the "Lady of Plenty" and the Dark Elves using "Queen Bounty".
• Robo Romance: A magical variant occurs between two Sapient Houses: Casita/Bureau (Mirabel and Bruno's party headquarters). When Bruno describes the Bureau as a "him", Casita starts waving her shutters in a way that reminds Felix of Pepa's eyelash-fluttering, and later when Mirabel teases Casita about looking her best for Bureau, her walls go pink.
• Sapient House: Just like Casita, the headquarters of Mirabel and Bruno's party, called the Bureau, is one. He can link to wherever his party members open a door, including in Casita, and when the two buildings come into contact, Casita develops a crush on him.
• Scaled Up: The climax of the story is Alma having a spell backfire on her and transform herself and Casita into a Hollow Dragon, a beast fixated on destroying every threat to the Madrigal family name.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Zigzagged by Camilo. He’s chafing at being unable to be himself, but fears speaking out because he might get banished and forgotten by his family like Mirabel sort of was. But later on, he starts to make plans to somehow tag along with Mirabel when she leaves, as he can't be exiled if he leaves first.
• Sherlock Scan: Gahoole’s really good at these, being able to swiftly pick up every single one of the Madrigals' issues without even speaking to them.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Isabela’s fully expecting Mirabel to come to her belated birthday party in her overalls and messy hair, but when she appears, Bruno changes her outfit into the gorgeous dress commissioned by her mother, making her look absolutely stunning. It makes Isabela feel even worse that Mirabel had no idea the party was for her, claiming she thought it was for Isabela.
• Shout-Out:
  • The first exhibition of Bruno's new power is a reference to One-Punch Man, with him coming at Luisa as a 50-foot-tall Looming Silhouette of Rage, blazing with emerald energy and eyes glowing green, his fist ready to punch her out of existence and the word "MUERTE" roaring in her ears.
  • Mirabel calls her Golem creations her babies, just like Mei Hatsume (which horrifies Isabela for a moment).
  • One member of the party is an Owlkin named Gahoole.
  • While babysitting the town's kids, Anton conjures up a teddy bear for a little girl, one with purple fur and a scent of strawberries.
  • At one point, Mirabel mentions how some ogres are nice people so long as you don't mess with their swamp.
  • Dryft's sarcastic claim about how proud Pedro must be of Alma's behavior is confirmed by the authors to be a direct reference to the Justice League episode, "A Better World", where League Batman says something similar to his Lord counterpart regarding Thomas and Martha.
  • Nocci mentions that Warforged aren’t allowed to sing since their ancestor B.B. Rodriguez became a wanted felon.
  • During Antonio's party during chapter 43, Bruno performs the story of Tangled as a puppet show. During the same chapter, Saharah sings a ballad about a girl who could turn into a red panda.
  • Alma's transformation into a Hollow Dragon brings to mind both the Curse Dragon as well as Metal Sonic's transformation into Metal Madness.
  • Some of the people living in the Encanto following the Time Skip are a human woman and a male gargoyle named Elisa and Goliath respectively.
• Shipper on Deck: Once Bruno hears about Dolores's crush on Mariano, and pointing out that his prophecy about her love never specified that he'd be engaged to another forever, he tracks down Mariano and gets them both into a long discussion about poetry.
• Side Bet:
  • When Mirabel isn't intimidated by her reunion with her Abuela, instead just greeting her with a hug and a kiss before moving on, Bruno chuckles that he owes her three gold.
  • In Chapter 43, when Mariano reveals that he truly loves Dolores instead of Isabela, Camilo hands Bruno a coin.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • After Lusia explains what all of Ernesto's gifts for her really were, namely, Unbreakable Glass, Isabela cares more about the fact that the glass doesn't match the other plates they have more than the fact that means her sister will never break plates again or worry about that if she uses them.
  • In the middle of the battle with Hollow Dragon Alma, after Isabela has just used her powers to turn herself into a giant (nude) wooden golem, all Mirabel can focus on is that Isabela's new body has much bigger chichis than she originally had, and how it's giving Mirabel a complex. Much to Luisa's complaints.
• Slave Race: The Warforged before the War Mage and Battle Master's sacrifice gave them all souls. Fibonacci's exprence with his race's history leads him to make the comparison of the Madrigals in essence being Alma's slaves...And Pepa hates the fact she can't refute it and knows Nocci isn't making the comparison lightly.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Bruno has torn the sleeves off of all his robes and never wears any except in cold weather, because it's less restrictive in a fight. In reality, during a fight he fell into a rose bush and tore his sleeves on the way out, and was too embarrassed to tell anyone else what actually happened. He made the mistake of telling Mirabel and she never lets him live it down.
• Stop Worshipping Me: When Nocci finds out that Alma and Pedro were the First Sparks that gave the Warforged their sentience and life, he immediately bows to her and calls her another god in their midst. Alma quickly refutes that, saying she's just a mortal, who is, as the last day has clearly proven, very fallible and unworthy of praise.
• Song Parody: The fic does this for several of the Encanto songs.
  • Chapter 20 has Mirabel sing a variation of the "The Family Madrigal", except instead of singing about the family's magical Gifts, she sings about how they are more than their Gifts and their other likes and hobbies, like Pepa's ability to play instruments or Julieta's skill at bargain-shopping. Much to Isabela's confusion.
  • Chapter 37 has a parody of "We Don't Talk About Bruno", dubbed by commenters as "Let's Talk About Mirabel", sung by the Party to Isabela about all of Mirabel's heroic deeds and about how it isn't too late for her to repair their bond.
  • Chapter 39 has Luisa perform a revamped version of "Surface Pressure" at one of the village's restaurants with an open performance night with Saharah's help, singing about how scary it is to try something new, but it’s worth it if it's something you truly like.
  • Chapter 41 has a revamped version of "What Else Can I Do?", sung by Ulika to Isabela about life is so much better when lived unexpected and how she can break out of her rut by doing the same.
  • Chapter 49 tries to do this with "All of You", but Mirabel stamps her foot down and says that no, no song is going to help the fact that everyone in the Encanto now needs therapy (except Dryft).
  • Chapter 54 has a version of UPTOWN FUNK of all songs, titled "Windmere Funk", sung by Pepa as she helps some hobbits grow plants via her powers.
• Sole Survivor: Saharah is implied to be this. Gahoole makes mention that the Dragonborn has lost one party in the past (which is implied to be from destroying a Lich's Phylactery), and thinks that if the party hadn't found her, she might've been driven to suicide. Saharah later describes herself falling into a bottle during those dark times (confusing Luisa as to how she could fall into a bottle).
• Spared By Adaptation: While the physical building that is the Madrigal house is destroyed during the climax, Casita herself is able to escape to a room inside the Bureau.
• Spell My Name With An S: This fic spells Gahoole's race as "Owlkin", as opposed to Strixhaven's spelling of "Owlin".
• Stay in the Kitchen: One of Alma's many issues with Mirabel when she comes back is that she wears pants over a skirt or a dress and later ropes Luisa into a similar style of dress whenever they work out, clearly viewing pants as something for men only.
• Stealth Insult: When Alma arrives after Antonio gets his Gift, she greats the village by thanking them for their kindness and understanding. Everyone quickly picks up on the hidden insult.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • Isabela pretends she's happy with the lifestyle she leads, firmly believing that as long as the family and village are thriving, then that's all she needs. The Party, Gahoole and Ulika in particular, see right through her, noting that she's utterly miserable and needs help before she breaks.
  • Upon returning, Mirabel seems to brush off Alma and Isabela's barbs directed at her and her lifestyle, acting that they're just not used to change. However, it quickly becomes clear that she's affected more than she's letting on, finally breaking down after a fight with Isabela, wanting to know why Isabela and Alma hate her.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Prior to The Reveal, this is Alma's interactions with Mirabel. No matter what Mirabel does, she will always pick the absolute worst to see in her granddaughter, never giving her slack for a moment. Even when Bruno stands up to Alma far more obviously and consistently, and encourages his siblings to do the same, it's never "Bruno is also a problem," it's "Mirabel is corrupting my family."
• Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Saharah retains her female form after being hit by Alma's illusion dispelling spell. Dryft even says that she is who she was meant to be, and that there was no illusion for the spell to remove.
• Talking the Monster to Death: How Mirabel beats Hollow Dragon Alma - she simply points out that Alma attacking her own family is the exact opposite of what Pedro sacrificed himself for.
• Tears of Joy: Mirabel starts happily crying when Dolores and Mariano confirm their feelings for each other and Isabela and Ulika reveal their relationship.
• There Are No Therapists:
  • The Family Madrigal needs some serious group therapy for their unresolved issues surrounding value, trauma and parental neglect, but during the 10 year timeskip, nobody got any. Of course, then Mirabel and Bruno came in as life coaches and began the long process of healing.
  • After the battle with Hollow Dragon Alma, Mirabel flat out refuses to do the traditional "Sing a song and forget all this happened," thing and states that everyone in the family and party now needs therapy (except Dryft, who cheers and runs to play on the swings), and that she's going to go with Ernesto to the nearest major city to bring back many many therapists and mind healers for all the people who are suddenly realizing that they aren't human as well as their family.
• This Explains So Much: Gahoole, upon meeting (and disliking) Alma for the first time, realizes why Bruno never really talked about her.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • When Casita hears Camilo's terrified scream, she immediately wakes the family and then asks Bureau to wake Mirabel and Bruno... only for him to inform her that one of his family is missing and now inside her. And with both parties rushing to the aid of their lost member, Casita can only think of one thing:
    Ah poo.
  • And then later, when Alma wakes up to the ruckus and finally sees the party for the first time:
    Alma: Well. It appears we have MUCH to discuss about the company you keep, Mirabel.
    Saharah: …well, this is going to be fun.
    Dryft: Doesn't sound fun.
• Time Skip: Chapter 50 begins with one, revealing that ten years have passed.
• Title Drop: Done when Mirabel shows her mother the Bracelet of the Queen of Cons which gives her +5 to Charisma, and uses it to haggle with an obstinate seamstress.
• Took a Level in Badass: The battle against Hollow Dragon Alma applies this to several of the Madrigals.
  • Isabela's florakinesis grows to the point of turning herself into a wooden giantess.
  • Pepa starts flying on her winds and catching and throwing her lightning.
  • Luisa dons a set of Mirabel's magical armor.
  • Agustín is the most surprising - he takes up Pedro's old mage staff, connects with his hive of bees to magically empower them, and effectively turns into a Swarmkeeper Ranger.
• Transforming Mecha: Mirabel's trademark as a Golemsmith is creating Golem partners that serve as both Mechanical Animal Robot Buddies and components of her armor. Her breastplate transforms into Sofia the toucan, her pauldron becomes Martin the hermit crab, her greaves become Carmen and Pablo the armadillos, and her magnum opus is Valeria the jaguar, who can transform into a portable forge.
  • Her gift to Luisa is a mechanical bull that turns into a full suit of armor, complete with battle-axe.
• True Companions: Mirabel and Bruno's adventuring party is definitely this, becoming a close-knit family with how much they fight alongside each other. Alma doesn't endear herself to any of them, and the moment she starts disparaging Mirabel, all of them get their hackles up, leading Gahoole to quickly take control before any of them commit murder.
• Ungrateful Bastard: When a half-dead Dragonborn (Saharah) staggers into the church where the party is, Dryft immediately sets about healing her and gets shoulder-thrown across the room for his troubles. No-one holds it against her since it's clear that she's had a very rough day.
  Dryft: ...She gives strange thank-you hugs.
• Warrior Prince: Dryft. He's a Capricorn prince and just as good a fighter as the other members of the party.
• Waxing Lyrical: When trying to drive home her point that people need ways to take a break every now and then to the local seamstress, Mirabel pulls out lyrics from "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: As Fibonacci tells in Chapter 28, the origin story of the Warforged involved an adventuring party that freed and protected lands that were once conquered by a dark mage, only to slowly become tyrants themselves out of paranoia (specifically, paranoia over the harm for Alma and Pedro's future children), imposing laws and building an obedient Warforged army to keep control over a fearful populace. This lasted until the defection and sacrifice of two of the party's number (the parents of the very children they wanted to protect) led to the Warforged all gaining souls, whereupon they too overthrew their masters and swore to only protect, not govern or enforce. The reason he tells this story to Pepa is because the more rain she provides, the more the village grows reliant on her, until she could choose which crops to grow, refuse to allow the growth of an "unhealthy" crop, or even decide to only grow a limited amount of food if the village gets too big... and when Pepa says she'd never do that, Fibonacci replies that the tyrants once thought the same.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 36 sees the adults, after seeing Isabela's breakdown along with learning about how Alma is treating Mirabel, to finally take a stand against her.
  • Chapter 40 tops this as the Party realizes that the curse they are looking for is not only older than the Encanto, but that the family might be even more magical than they think.
  • Chapter 44 Alma is revealed to have a Mage's Staff and a Spellbook in her chest, which has Runes on it. Not only that, the fact she mentions Necromancers, Blood Mages, and Fae Tricksters in her mental interlude shows she knows more about the outside world than she let on.
  • Chapter 45 then tops that by having everyone call Alma out when her attempt at using an illusion removal spell doesn't grant the results she wants, right before said spell backfires on her due to not paying the proper Tribute and turns her and Casita into a Hollow Dragon.
  • And chapter 49 is the most important Wham of all: Alma reveals that she and Pedro were adventurers in the outside world. He was a War Mage and she was a Battle Master. She and he joined a party... and upon learning that Alma was pregnant, they jumped off the Slippery Slope and became warlords themselves. Their party were the ones that created the Warforged, and Pedro's sacrifice was what freed the Warforged and created the Encanto. None of the triplets' powers were from the Miracle, it was from Pedro's magic in their bloodlines. The reason that everyone in town couldn't remember that they were non-humans, and that no one knew anything about the outside, is that Alma repressed everything so hard the magic of the Encanto enforced it, turning everyone into humans and making it so no one could remember the fantastical Dungeons and Dragons elements outside.
• Wham Line: Chapter 32 is mostly a funny Slice of Life chapter between Julieta and Dryft until the near end of the chapter, where the Capricorn says something that changes everything.
  Dryft: Also I can sense someone has placed a curse on the valley.
  • Isabela says one in Chapter 41 when Ulika asks her why she doesn't want to marry Mariano:
  Isabela: He's...he's...a he.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: As a commenter points out in chapter 10, Alma's method of being intimidating is too harshly scold someone, which usually works against her family, who is been under her thumb all their lives. However, Mirabel, who has been fighting various monsters since she was a little girl, isn't scared of her because she's battled far worse than an old woman. Thus, Alma keeps hitting a brick wall in trying to get Mirabel to act how she wants because she can't come up with another method to get intimidate her granddaughter.
• "Where? Where?": When Pepa first lays eyes on Prince Dryft, a horned, goat-faced Capricorn, she calls him El Diablo in horror. Dryft looks around puzzled before realizing she was talking about him.
• Work Hard, Play Hard: Chapter 16 has Mirabel espouse this mindset in regards to her embroidery hobby, as an answer to the seamstress who says she’s wasting her time. She uses her embroidery as an outlet to relax and to not burn herself out, and talks about how her party fights through an adventure with all their might, and then spends the next few days camping under the stars or throwing a party because they wanted one. Julieta has to hold back tears at her youngest daughter deconstructing her family's entire lifestyle and acknowledges that she too wants a break.
• Wrench Wench: This is Mirabel's aesthetic as an Artificer, inspired by Audrey Ramirez. She wears overalls, goggles and a head-bandana, carries around a hammer, and has hand-made all of her Golem companions.
• You Never Asked: Dryft's response to Anton asking him why he never dried anyone off with his magic before.