#thank you Teawizard I do genuinely enjoy hearing your thoughts on the stuff I write (and never get tired of your comments)

[foggyfanfic]

Hi!

Can you answer ☔ from the WIP ask?)

Hello! Thanks for asking, that’s very sweet of you! Hearing from you always makes me smile. As usual, I have many words. I really thought I was going to be able to keep this within a paragraph. But I failed.

I have one I know I’ll never write because it has wandered far enough away from the source material that if I change two names it’s an original story. It started as a story where Bruno grows old, dies, goes to heaven, then gets resurrected by a necromancer for mysterious reasons; and originally the main thrust of the story was 1) exploring how the Encanto may have grown in the past few decades since the movie, plus how they'd handle how unavoidable the internet is becoming, and 2) Bruno gets to meet other LGBT/mentally ill people (and mentor those within his own family). But then it kinda spiraled out from there. That internet thing turned into the theme of isolationism vs globalism, and now there are more OC's than characters from Encanto, and it's not even in the same universe anymore. Even my self indulgent OC has ended up wandering miles away from being a self insert and is now an allegory for the benefits of globalism. (Where as the villain has become an allegory for the downsides of globalism).

Incidentally however, within that story one of the main OC’s was Camilo’s grand daughter, who could look into the past. And of course I had to come up with a wife and kids to give Camilo so the girl could have a father, and that spiraled into its own story that I’ll probably never write. (This is where the long part starts).

So! One day, when Camilo’s like 25 or something, he’s trying to figure out what to get Mirabel for her birthday. He comes up with the idea that he’ll turn into one of the girls from her embroidery club and find out if there’s any embroidery supplies she needs. He goes out into the market, finds Mirabel, hides behind the corner, and turns into one of the women from the club. He gets two steps out from where he was hiding, before a quiet girl he’s never really spoken to steps into his path, and says, “Oh good, there you are! I have got to tell you what Camilo did this morning.”

Camilo, of course, already knows what he did this morning, he helped one of the kids practice being goalie in anticipation for try outs. But he’s only human, so when somebody gives an intro like that, he of course needs to know what they’re gonna say next.

“You don’t mind, right?” she asks, before he can prompt her, “If you’re busy this can wait until Saturday.”

“No, no, not busy at all,” Camilo says, even as he watches Mirabel walk away past this girl’s shoulder.

And the woman (who thinks she's talking to her best friend) proceeds to tell him all about what he did that morning, only where as he saw it as just a fun way to help one of his neighbors, she saw it as the “sweetest, most wonderful thing”. He’s flattered of course, but very confused and a little surprised, he’s pretty sure he and this woman were in the same class growing up and she never seemed all that interested in him. In anything, really. She always seemed very flat, he would never (again) be so rude as to call somebody boring, but… well, she definitely never seemed so expressive or lively in group settings.

Then the woman really throws him for a loop when she says something wildly inappropriate. I haven’t nailed down exactly what, but think something from one of those “celebrity reads thirst tweets” videos. Something that’s hilarious and extremely horny. The sort of joke you would only make with your most trusted best friend and never ever want your crush to hear.

Camilo is so shocked he accidentally drops his disguise, even while he’s laughing at the joke she made (he had no idea this girl was so witty).

Her face goes from a conspiratorial grin to a look of absolute horror. He has just enough time to realize how this probably looks to her, before the horror gives way to humiliated rage, and she punches him. Knocks him flat on his back. (He had no idea this girl could punch so hard, or that he liked that in a woman).

She runs away, but not before Camilo sees the tears welling in her eyes. He heads to Tía Juli, gets a healing arepa, then goes back out to find the girl so he can explain himself. And reassure her that he thought her joke was hilarious, not that she was.

He isn’t able to pin her down and actually spends the next three weeks trying. In that time he learns things about her such as her name is Adelaide, she teaches young kids, volunteers every chance she gets, loves astronomy, and has apparently been stopping by Casita since the gifts came back to ask Tío Bruno for visions about space.

He begs Tío Bruno for help, but Bruno (pretends) he has no interest in helping Camilo. Truth is, Bruno picked up very quickly that Adelaide was actually using the visions as an excuse to drop by Casita and catch a glimpse of Camilo. When Camilo and Adelaide were teenagers he felt sorry for her, because she was clearly head over heels, but they seemed completely incompatible. But now, in their mid-twenties, she’s gaining confidence while Camilo is gaining maturity, and Bruno is becoming super invested in this potential relationship. So, after letting Camilo squirm just a little, Bruno agrees to help by saying he’ll convince her to talk to him, if he comes up with the best damn apology anybody has ever given.

Camilo eagerly agrees, and decides that the best apology he can think of is a new telescope, the only reason he knew she liked space was because she’d been trying to find a new lens for her current one but couldn’t afford one. He buys her the telescope, but looking at it, it doesn’t seem quite enough. So he throws in a bouquet of flowers, and also some chocolate, and also a moonlit picnic so she’d be able to use the telescope right away, of course. Bruno leads Adelaide to Camilo’s not-at-all-a-date-shut-up-Antonio, then has to immediately excuse himself to keep from giggling maniacally. Leaving the two young adults standing awkwardly by the picnic blanket. Camilo wordlessly holds up the bouquet, she wordlessly accepts, then they both sit down and just sort of stare at the food.

Eventually, they talk it out, Camilo explains himself, and admits he may have developed a bit of a crush on her when she punched him. Adelaide figures she’d already humiliated herself as mush as she can, so she apologizes for hitting him, and admits she’s been in love with had a crush on Camilo ever since they were six and he shared his lunch with her. Camilo has zero memory of this, but alright, this works. Let’s go! So they date, and fall in love, and live mostly happily ever after (her family causes problems, which is a major part of the granddaughter OC’s backstory, but this is already very long).