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Hanging by a thread

@nael-opale / nael-opale.tumblr.com

Nael 🔻 29 years old 🔻 she/her 🔻 Bi, French and Getting Better ✌️ (I don't currently post, but I still like to lurk here, heart posts, put them in my drafts so I can share them someday... I'll be back !)
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You've all heard of Batman and his Batcave...

Well it's time to dive into Bruno the Ratman and the Rat's Lair !

(it's literally the name of the score for that scene, I can't... They really went and said "Bruno is one of the rats. He is either a small human or a tall rat, your pick.")

So, where does the Dork Knight live ?

Welcome to his humble abode in between the walls ! It ain't no palace but here are some details I want us all to appreciate...

☛ Bruno caring for his rats

Well, firstly, they're roaming free everywhere in the room...including where they shouldn't ! It seems like they took a liking to all kinds of brushes and it has me concerned for Bruno's personal hygiene... One of them is also currently in the pan in the foreground and now I'm concerned about the lack of easy access to water.

Anyway ! Rats are super cool, at least according to Pixar's Our Friend The Rat, so it's okay. Bruno probably knows about Emile's stance on rat/human's friendship, because he's constantly holding and feeding his little friends.

But here's the thing that really got to me...

Look, he made his rats' a little maze ! And a slide above it so they can do parkour just like him and have fun !

Which leads us to...

☛ Bruno's creativity

A defining trait of Bruno's personality is his imagination and love for crafts. There are many things to observe here, but I will start with the one that makes the most sense with what we were just talking about : the rat frames.

Bruno grabbed some empty frames that you can see in this shot :

And what does he use them for ?

He frames the drawings he made of his rats' adventures, like some people would do with their family pictures...

The rats are his found family.

Bruno is also a hell of a home designer, if you love recycling at least !

  • He made his rat's telenovela theater out of a crate, you can still see the handles.
  • The barrel chair is a classic, but it's so cool.
  • The bottle and the bucket lamps are beautiful ! (hey, looks like he has spare clothes similar to the ones he is already wearing, including one extra...is it poncho or ruana, have we figured that out yet ? I'm unsure)
☛ Bruno's green thumb

No sun. Not much water. He still manages to keep plants healthy. One of them is growing in a boot and doing so well a sprout is coming out of a hole !

Most of my plants died in better conditions than that. This screams Bruno supremacy.

☛ Bonus : miscellaneous

A man of culture

Bruno managed to sneak books and music into his room and I love that it was one of his priorities to bring that in. Definitely the artsy type. (affectionate)

Other random details

  • On the right : he was making a house of cards. My poor boy tried his best, but ten years is a long time to stay inside, he probably was bored as hell...
  • On the left : these notes hanged on the wall next to the table...what is written there, I wonder. Ideas for his telenovelas, maybe ?

OKAY ! That's it, that's enough, we don't talk about Bruno's plate !

(unless we want to cry)

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Happy 2 year anniversary on the Hellsite to myself, I guess

Sources : skeleton / nightsky / color explosion Edit and filters on PhotoScapeX

#oh boy - what a couple of years it was#naelistic train of thought#I'm actually late : I arrived here on the 1st of April in the middle of the night and the middle of a pandemic.#trying to come back in the middle of the night is quite on brand for me#but hey - I can treat myself and have a nap on a snowy day to cope with everything today ! Amirite ?#(haha - as if I chose to do that ! ...it was nice tho.)#wtf is up with the weather anyway ? I was wearing a summer outfit last sunday...#I really wanted to edit something before I come back#*sigh* I could make a moodboard of my Tumblr experience and it would end up being quite intense#to sum up what happened recently (if anyone is interested) :#I turned 27 years old in February#I had the usual life crisis (but it was not on my birthday specifically which is new !)#as a result - I keep myself occupied by doing things I'm afraid I'm missing out on...#I started going out as often as I used to#I wasn't able to do that since 2019 and it made me feel good about myself#downside being I can't do everything I want to do and I resent that#I constantly feel overwhelmed#and guilty#like I'm letting everyone down#I'm doing my best to organize the chaos in my life and my emotions - bear with me#I keep changing hyperfixations too but feel free to come and talk about Encanto or David Dastmalchian or Kaamelott#these are the ones I had since I joined Tumblr but I have so much more#new one is Erasermic and I don't even watch nor read My Hero Academia...go figure 😏#take care - y'all ❤︎
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tuherrus

past, present and future

I feel like i’ve seen this image before. Is this a redraw of a painting of nymphs or something? I can’t put my finger on it but I recognize it and it’s driving me a little crazy XD

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nael-opale

I don't know if anyone answered you yet, Lil' Ghost, but it's inspired by a detail from Boticelli's Primavera : they're called "the Three Graces"

Your intuition was right @littleghostythings, well done !

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It's been 2 months and one day since my first watch of Encanto.

It's almost been a month since my last post here.

I want to be back on Tumblr, I do....

I still love Encanto dearly, I rewatched it again with friends last week, which was at least my sixth viewing

(My personal record right here ! That being said, I never had a movie available in theaters AND on demand within a month of its first release, I am definitely obsessive enough to rewatch movies more than a healthy amount of times if I love them...what a blessing that was ❤︎)

So...why am I not here ?

Well, there are many reasons why I loved Encanto so much, but one of them is that, despite its magical theme, it is incredibly relatable.

Especially Mirabel trying to find her purpose and role within her family, Luisa taking upon herself to protect everyone and outdo herself and Bruno deciding to isolate because he is worried he won't be understood... To sum it up,

I feel like everything is overwhelming.

How do people make time for everything and everyone ?

How do you take care of others and yourself ?

How do you even relax when there is still so much that must be done ?

How do you tell apart what's really important and what is blown out of proportion ?

And here's the thing : as long as you don't know who you are and what you want, as long as you don't listen to yourself and express what needs to be said, you will be hurting and you may hurt others along the way...

Hey, I may not have answers to how I could ever achieve that, but Annapantsu's beautiful voice came at the right time to wake me up from my pre-birthday yearly existential crisis !

So I came here to share...everything.

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nael-opale

You know, when Mirabel finds Bruno, what I love is that beyond the fact that his social skills are very peculiar to start with and he spent ten years in isolation on top of that, well...

You have to remember that even if he saw her grow up from a distance, Bruno has not interacted with his niece since she was 5 years old !

I edited this little clip to talk about that :

  1. First we start with a clip of what Mirabel used to look like when she was 5 years old. Bruno probably kinda perceive her like that, at least at the start. She is his adorable little niece and he is a caring man. He's not immune.
  2. I put a clip of a worried Mirabel just after, for comparison. You can see she did not change that much. That's the moment that wrecks me... Protective instinct probably activates when she's here for Tío Bruno. He doesn't want her to get scared. His hand movement is just so gentle... I'll never recover.
  3. Bruno throwing salt at his niece is done out of superstition, that's for sure. But why sugar ? And why does it sound like a question ? I know he's a bit eccentric, but I think he's trying to tell her she's sweet. But what he says after really got to me... "Sana, Sana Colita de Rana" A post here (EDIT : I found the post ! I found it ! It was an anon ask with a cool headcanon, check it out) taught me that it is a Spanish saying that you can say/sing when someone gets hurt. It goes : "Sana, Sana Colita de Rana Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana" And it means : "Heal, heal, little tail of the frog. If you don't heal today, you'll heal tomorrow." From what I've gathered, it is specifically meant for children. Bruno is not facing her, he may be singing that to himself, he probably heard that a lot growing up, he is still very childlike (he is literally playing hopscotch)... But I don't think it's a coincidence that he said that out loud. Mirabel was emotionally hurt like...a lot ! He does want her to get better.
  4. The last one cracks me up : Bruno introducing Hernando to Mirabel and feeling compelled to clarify that it actually is him under the hood. To me, it's not only him being awkward and/or convinced his acting is very good. I think he was used to a kid who did not have the best concept of object permanence / was very naive... That tends to change A LOT between 5 and 15 years old 😂

Thanks to @vilmublue for uploading 8 minutes of Bruno Madrigal, I could not find the last two clips anywhere else

In conclusion :

Bruno is the best uncle, but frankly, he never had to interact with niblings older than 12 years old... I don't think he knows that much about teenagers. But it's okay. He quickly grasps how smart and emotionally intelligent Mirabel actually is. He does not treat her as a child to be condescending or anything... He is genuinely a bit lost, he has a lot of catching up to do. One thing's sure : he knew 5 year old Mirabel and he probably remembers what was comforting to her when she was small. I think he instinctively used that without even thinking about it...

I based my first analysis on my memories and that low-quality recording you can see in my edit in the previous post, I noticed the cracks on the ground during my rewatch in late December, I admit I forgot about them when I talked about "playing hopscotch" !

Thanks for that note @rose-of-wolves : I'm using it as an update in my observations about Bruno. He's definitely a superstitious person and that's what all his little rituals are all about : driving away bad luck, making sure everyone is safe.

I still think there is something child-like about his behavior, but I don't mean it in a demeaning way at all, nor do I think superstition is "only for children", what I mean is that I feel like Bruno kept some good traits usually found in children that a lot of adults tend to stifle and even lose over time...

  • He can be brutally honest and he doesn't lie well when he tries.
  • His unbridled imagination and natural creativity is inspiring and it helps him go through the worst things in life.
  • He is unapologetically himself, it doesn't matter who is around and if they think he is weird... Sure it still hurts him to be called "creepy" and to feel like the odd one out in his own family, but Bruno should not have to change to be accepted and I think it's great they all acknowledge that as soon as he comes back. I'm so glad he is shown being Jorge to make the spackle while rebuilding the house with the help of the townsfolk, I feel like they're all accepting him a lot more now !
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nael-opale

At the end, Alma tearfully states that Pedro sent Mirabel to her. I LOVE this line and was wondering if you could dissect it. Like, I see how both Pedro and Bruno are a lot like but do you see how Mirable is like Pedro?

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The more I think about this movie, the clearer it gets to me that the reason I love it so much is not only because it is about family, but mostly because it is about transmission.

When you actively try to bring a family together, especially when many generations interact like it is the case here, what to you have to do ?

Communicate. Share. Heal.

A lot of the healing in Encanto is done through words, but they also have the ability to create full-on musical numbers to showcase their emotions / memories. I think a part of it is real because y'know, magic and everything, but it's also a poetic visual way to show what everyone is feeling. Not only is it more entertaining and involving as an audience but it serves a real purpose in the story : what you can see when you truly listen to what everyone has to say. Words and songs matter, but small gestures do too...

I know I'm being cryptic and I'm not answering your question so far, I'm getting to it...

I made a post to highlight the visual parallels between Bruno and his father, noticing parallels is my jam, so here's another one I already mentioned in another post but want to elaborate on : the way they are holding each others hands as a comforting gesture... I like to think that it comes from Pedro and Alma's relationship and was unconsciously transmitted through the family.

See, Pedro and Alma used to hold each other's hands a lot. She does this with Bruno when he is nervous about his reunion with the family... I think this little affection display is not something new to them, she probably used it to comfort her children and show her love. So, without even thinking about it, Bruno used it to comfort his niece. And she, in turn, used it with her grandma.

See ? Transmission. And it's all coming from Pedro.

Transmission plays a huge role in Encanto : the transmission of the family trauma as well as the transmission of love.

We don't know much about Pedro's personality... We can tell from the Dos Oruguitas scene that he was caring, comforting, had a lot of humor and most importantly that he was deeply selfless and family-oriented. Many people in this family felt like they had to sacrifice themselves for everyone else, but Bruno and Mirabel are probably the ones who are the most like him. Hence their particular relationship with Alma...

Everyone in this family is avoiding open conflict. But not Mirabel. Mirabel is the first to stand up to her grandmother, not with agressive intentions, but by embracing her own vulnerability and defending others.

The stakes were different, but her grandfather walking hands up to people armed with machetes reminds me of that...

The courage to take a stand can move mountains. And that's exactly what Mirabel did.

That's why, like the songs hinted to, she is the miracle that Alma asked Pedro for.

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@mrsashketchum I may be a little late...but your permission to cry is granted and I'm actually going to cry along !

Rare picture of me drinking people tears while I'm crying myself

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Sometimes it's very hard to remember that Stephanie Beatriz is the voice of Mirabel. I'm so used to her sounding like this.

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nael-opale

Well...oddly enough...

Mirabel's character development in 3 songs :

No worries @blitzgamev : if you're like me and the only voice you used to know is the one Stephanie Beatriz has when she plays Rosa Diaz, it would be actually far more surprising if you could recognize her !

I think the moments where I hear hints that they're played by the same person are :

  • When Mirabel is climbing the stairs and she screams "Bruno, your room is the wOoOrst !" with a voice crack
  • When Mirabel meets Bruno and she asks "How long have you been...back here ?"

Her voice sounds lower and her energy is a little more Rosa-like here, but I think I wouldn't hear it if I didn't know it...

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nael-opale

Okay so I thought Bruno usually has brown eyes, glowing green when he is having visions, but look at him next to Julieta in the sunlight...

He actually has green eyes...all the time ?

Green...soft eyes...

I'm going to need a moment.

@elishevart I have the pleasure to tell you that you have a wonderful intuition : Jared Bush, one of Encanto's directors, confirmed that on Twitter back in early December

Some people said Bruno had "middle child's vibes", because stereotypes say they tend to be neglected. Maybe it is because he is the smallest triplet, but I was calling Bruno their "baby brother" in my head as soon as the movie ended. Something about his attitude made me think he was the youngest of the bunch... Well, they're triplets, so they're pretty much born together, but I like how they included hints about their birth order in their behavior / dynamic !

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lonnson
David Dastmalchian + orange

Rip to this gif set, it's once again not showing up in any of the tags 💯🙃

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nael-opale

Posts not showing in the tags is the most annoying thing...

Thanks for reblogging yourself so soon : I saw it, I'm gonna give it a boost because I love your GIF set ! Proud I recognized all of them including the ones I haven't watched yet...

  • MacGyver - Season 3, Episode 18 : Murdoc + Helman + Hit
  • The Belko Experiment
  • The Suicide Squad
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