Now I’m not saying all of these points support romantic coding alone, but I think when put together, we get something significant between Mirabel and Bruno. I would love to hear any possible additions or elaborations to this that I might be missing.

**use the numbered points as the TLDR**

1. Bruno estranged himself from his family to protect Mirabel.

There is a lot to be said about this move. On one hand, Bruno was motivated to do this because he had already developed a bad reputation amongst his family and the townsfolk that his prophecies were bad news and that he was somehow playing a role in them. It can probably be argued for this reason alone, he left to protect himself. But he was also protecting Mirabel because he knew that with this prophecy, she would be dragged down with him. When Mirabel meets/confronts him in Casita’s walls, Bruno says, “no one was supposed to see that prophecy.” Considering how superstitious/paranoid Bruno appears (to the point of probably meeting OCD criteria), I think it is a fair assumption that at some point, Bruno started internalizing that maybe just maybe he was part of the problem and was to blame for the outcomes of some of his prophecies. So, in addition to protecting Mirabel from his mother’s wrath, I think Bruno may also have been trying to protect her from some doomed fate he might have thought he brought upon her. I think his logic was, if no one else sees the prophecy, maybe it cannot come true. I got on a little tangent there, but ultimately, while I think Bruno had a couple motivators for leaving the family after making the prophecy about Mirabel, it seems the main motivator was to protect Mirabel. While not inherently romantic, it is definitely a decision with a lot of love behind it. 

2. They defend each other to the family matriarch.

In the final act of the film, both Mirabel and Bruno defend each other to Alma. While Mirabel is defending herself and her sisters against her abuela’s impossible standards, she also leaps to Bruno’s defense, stating that Alma always saw “the worst” in Bruno and that Bruno does in fact love the family.

Likewise, Bruno literally rides on a horse to Mirabel’s rescue to defend her against any wrath Alma may have against her. This is especially important when considering that Bruno previously expressed to Mirabel that he was afraid of facing Alma. In this scene, he shows he is willing to overcome this fear to once again protect Mirabel. He literally tells his mother, “I don’t care what you do to me.” I think the fact that he is riding on a horse just adds to the coding of a knight in shining armor rescuing his damsel in distress, even if Mirabel is perfectly capable of managing conflict.

3. Bruno comes across as younger than his age.

Bruno holds himself in a smaller posture. He appears shorter than his sisters. And frankly, he seems timid and unsure of himself. He often uses more informal language and catches himself and tries to use more formal language, and I think it’s to appear more mature than he feels he is. It doesn’t help that all of the Madrigal adults look much younger for their age, and he’s no exception. Now, I am going to refrain from going into why he may seem younger than his sisters (despite the graying hair). The point here is that Bruno acting and looking younger created a weird dissonance in my mind. On one hand, I knew he was Mirabel’s uncle and was the same age as her mother. On the other hand, his portrayed youth makes it a little easier to interpret their interactions as a little more romantic than familial. Because honestly, if the plot was just a little different and Bruno was just some seer that Mirabel was seeking out, then a lot of their interactions would read as very shippable to me. I’m sorry I cannot elaborate this more eloquently.

4. “After you save the miracle, come visit.” “After I save the miracle, I’m bringing you home.”

No elaboration for this. Just the way they look at each other during this exchange:

5. Bruno is canonically interested in incest romances.

Ok. I know this has been a central point of discourse between us and antis, but I want to look at this within the context of the narrative. Which is to say, Bruno talking about an aunt/nephew romance plot comes across as a foreshadow when considering the fact that 1) it can be assumed Bruno came up with this plot by himself and enjoys it, 2) Bruno started talking about this plot basically unprompted to his niece who he hasn’t seen in a decade, and 3) this was right after he had saved said niece from what he had assumed was death. I think having one of the characters in a shipcest pairing being canonically interested in incest already gives us a lot of shipcest fuel, but more than that, Bruno’s interest in incest and how it is introduced within the narrative very easily reads as a foreshadow in the first viewing of the movie.

6. Bruno is starved for affection and love, while Mirabel is starved for respect.

I think this is what ultimately colors everything between these two as potentially romantic. Bruno has been isolated for ten years, so any positive regard and affection to him is going to be so meaningful. We can see it on his face when Mirabel is reassuring him that she doesn’t think he makes bad things happen and that he just got a bad rap. We can see it in countless other scenes of Bruno receiving affection from other characters in the movie. He is shocked and very clearly doesn’t know what to do with it:

Likewise, Mirabel rarely receives respect from the adults and even children of the family. Tía Pepe and Isabela tend to be annoyed with Mirabel at baseline. Abuela Alma at her kindest is still shutting down Mirabel and telling Mirabel she has very little value to offer the family. Meanwhile, her parents sometimes accidentally support Alma’s opinion of Mirabel in their reassurances that she has “nothing” to prove. From their first interaction, Bruno listens to Mirabel and talks to her like an equal, like an autonomous adult who matters. As the two work together, Bruno continues to demonstrate that he respects Mirabel. He doesn’t talk down to her, and he apologizes for raising his voice at her when she was spiraling about hugging Isabella to save the miracle and reemphasizes her autonomy (“it’s up to you”):

Ultimately, these two unconditionally offer each other what they are both craving—what they each never properly received from the rest of the family—and this is a trope often used in a romantic narrative. Not to mention, they can also relate to each other; they are both misfits and both feel incredibly displaced from the rest of the family. Add to the fact that the two treat each other more like equals and less like uncle/niece, and suddenly, the couple coding seems more evident.

7. The blocking and imagery choices.

Honestly, most of the ship vibes I saw came from a lot of the blocking/imagery choices the animators made, so I’m just going to have to include some screenshots of the most damning ones because I don’t know how to make gifs. They are as follows.

The concern/desperation in Bruno’s eyes when he saves Mirabel from falling:

All the hand holding during the prophecy scene:

This scene in which we see a lot of mirroring between the two, supporting the idea that they see each other as equals:

This scene in which her parents are singing, “and to watch our little girl grow.” Of all the things to pan to in order to demonstrate that Mirabel is growing up, they chose to show her interacting with Bruno. It’s an interesting choice to me:

And then, of course, the last minute or so of the movie where we get a lot of mirabruno eye contact and shared smiles:

And Casita literally brings them together into a pseudo-dance:

Then there is the family picture. The way Bruno is holding/touching Mirabel does not come across as a typical uncle/niece interaction. Look at them. Regardless of the nature of their relationship, there is a high level of physical intimacy shown here:

And of course, the end credits silhouette:

✨ Bruno's eyes turning that bright green color every time he reaches his climax ✨

i would want to write mirabel, so i’m looking for someone who would want to write bruno! also, i’m an adult so i would need the person i’m rping with to be an adult too

i just. have so much brainrot over them and i’d love to play out some stories.

maybe a situation where mirabel finds him before the cracks show up and she visits him every chance she gets? and all their little things interactions and mirabel falling in love with him and bruno having been in love with her and just. head over heels. or a situation where part of bruno’s last vision involved him kissing mirabel? OR BOTH? there’s so much.

Let’s talk about touch-starved Bruno versus grew-up-in-a-physically-affectionate-family Mirabel. Mirabel is just naturally more physically affectionate, so she’s always casually touching Bruno. Initially, it’s purely familial, but regardless, it always throws Bruno because he didn’t experience human touch for over a decade and before that, his family became a lot less affectionate towards him after he consistently told “bad” prophecies to the townsfolk and ruined weddings.

I think Mirabel picks up on the fact that Bruno is touch-starved and the effect touch has on Bruno, so she starts initiating touch more because she knows how important touch is to her and the other Madrigals. It breaks her heart knowing he was robbed of this love language all because he was sorely misunderstood.

It’s little things at first—maybe extended hugs when greeting each other and the touching of an arm during a conversation—but as she becomes more comfortable with him, she starts incorporating bigger gestures of touch. Like snuggling up to him while watching his rat telenovelas with the rest of the family. I think within the family, none of that seems out of the ordinary; they come across as a very touchy-feely family in the movie.

I think Mirabel and Bruno would probably be fine with this level of touch for a while too.

The descent from the familial realm and into the more romantic realm is so gradual and not intentional that it takes some time for either of them to realize what is going on.

The first line that is crossed is when Mirabel falls asleep against Bruno during a telenovela rerun. It’s late enough that everyone else has gone to bed and Bruno has a choice to make; wake up Mirabel or wait for her to wake up. Not wanting to disturb his sobrina, he opts for the latter option and ends up falling asleep himself. When they wake up, they laugh it off, and Mirabel insists that Bruno can wake her up if she does something like that in the future.

This of course, is not the last time this happens, and Bruno finds that he really enjoys the physical closeness and that his sobrina trusts him enough to fall asleep on him. Mirabel secretly likes it too, so she sometimes forces herself to stay up longer to chance falling asleep on her tío’s shoulder.

The line between familial and something more officially blurs on one such occasion in which, after falling asleep on Bruno, Mirabel wakes up from a nightmare relating to the trauma that came from the family dynamics they are all still healing from. Mirabel has these every so often and can cope with them on her own, but Bruno is right there, looking so concerned for her. So there she stays quietly crying into his shoulder, cuddling closer to him as he tries to soothe her, whispering and caressing her hair.

This inevitably leads to more cuddling outside of the family sofa because Mirabel liked it and doesn’t really think too much about the implications, and Bruno is really good at talking himself into why this is a totally suitable thing for him and his sobrina to do, especially since it only really happens when one of them is stressed out or upset. They’re just soothing each other. It still doesn’t explain why they both seem to know to do it when the rest of the family isn’t around, but hey, it’s just cuddling.

At this point, Casita is invested in these two mutual in-denial disasters, so maybe it helps them along with some other line crossings. Like maybe Mirabel’s decorating the house for an upcoming event, and Casita subtly destabilizes her while Bruno is passing by so he has to catch Mirabel to prevent her from falling.

Maybe at a party, Mirabel and Bruno are dancing together as family members might, and Casita moves some tiles around so that they fall into each other and it makes sense to just hold each other closer while Casita continues to “dance” along to the music around them.

Since Mirabel already loves to dance, I think this would lead to them dancing together in more casual settings. Oftentimes, it’s Mirabel teaching Bruno different dance styles because dance was something he never got into when he was younger, and let’s face it: music and dance is Mirabel’s real love language.

What if both Bruno and Mirabel were completely oblivious about their own feelings for each other and just did romantic stuff like watch the sunrise and snuggle into each other without thinking about it? The family get suspicious, but neither Bruno nor Mira see what they’re getting at and just pass it off as them just hanging out together like family/best friends do.

Anon, this is absolutely hilarious and you now have me convinced that this is something that could happen. On one hand we have life-long social pariah Bruno who just got out of his self-imposed 10-year isolation. On the other hand, we have Mirabel who has been so focused on everyone else in her family that she barely knows what she wants herself. Together, we get socially tone-deaf and innocently oblivious. The chaos they would accidentally ensue within the family is immeasurable.

Here is a list of things I think they would do, in combination with yours, in order of how increasingly uncomfortable the other Madrigals get (this got a little out of control):

They literally spend all their time together. I'm talking running errands, doing chores, and spending time on their hobbies together. Sometimes other Madrigals join—Antonio, Camilo, and Luisa most frequently—but the common denominator is always Mirabel and Bruno.

They always sit next to each other. Be it a meal time, family game night, or going to Mass. They are always sitting together. It's gotten to a point where if someone does manage to sit in between them, Bruno (although mostly unaware) is visibly anxious and can be seen engaging in one of his body-focused repetitive behaviors or some other self-soothing action. Dolores notices this, but doesn't connect the dots right away.

They go on long walks together, often leaving before dawn or not coming back until it is dark. When a cousin or sibling ask where they have been, they both just shrug and say, "watching the sun." Camilo and Isabela raise eyes at each other when Mirabel and Bruno start taking blankets on said walks "so we can have something nice to sit on when we watch the sun set/rise" but otherwise say nothing. Luisa and Dolores just want to give them the benefit of the doubt and stay out of it.

They seem to have a lot of inside jokes with each other. Probably from all that time they are spending together. Augustín and Félix want to join in the fun sometimes, but often it's Mirabel who shakes her head and explains that it requires months of backstory to understand why "red ink" is so funny to the two of them.

Speaking of inside jokes, they also just laugh way too long at each other's jokes. Bruno is clever and Mirabel is playful, but "come on," Camilo remarks, "neither of them are that funny."

They start holding hands in public, especially when they're walking around the town or in the hills. But it happens sometimes when they're sitting next to each other. To dissuade Isabela from confronting them about this new display of affection, Luisa awkwardly asks them one day, "so, uh, what's with the hand holding?" Mirabel and Bruno are, of course, a little surprised by this question, but they explain that once, during a festival, they got separated, so they started holding hands to stay together and it just stuck from that point on.

Then they start getting more physically affectionate in front of the family. Mirabel likes to lean on Bruno shoulder or lay her head in his lap. Bruno strokes her arm or her hair. Camilo walks into the house one day to see them cuddling openly in the family room as they laugh and murmur quietly to each other. Camilo wants to pull them apart right then and there, but Dolores pulls him aside and tells him quietly that they've been doing this for months in private. Confronting them now would not change anything because when Dolores asked Mirabel about this back when she first noticed, Mirabel shrugged and said something to the effect of, "I'm just helping Tío Bruno make up for ten years of no human contact."

During the few times they are separated from each other, across the room, across the table, across the street, they make up the lack of physical proximity by staring at each other. Like a lot. And intensely. It doesn't even seem like either of them notice it. And then when they look at each other? It's so much worse than any look Mariano and Dolores share because at least they have the shame to not stare too long and to get a room.

They kiss each other on the forehead and cheeks way too often to be culturally appropriate. Julieta and Pepa are both certain that they have seen Mirabel give Bruno a peck on the lips when she is especially excited about something. And after going back and forth with each other trying to confirm that they both had in fact seen this on at least two different occasions, Julieta tries to start the conversation gently, "You and Tío Bruno seem very close, mi amor." Mirabel beams at her mother and begins chatting away about how nice it is to finally have a dear friend. Julieta isn't sure how to broach the topic after that, so she decides to save it for another day.

Of course, whenever any of Bruno's sisters or brothers-in-law bring up the topic to him, he is always scandalized and is quick to point out how physically close Pepa and Julieta were to their friends in their younger years. When that's not enough, Bruno reminds them that he isn't like any of them and the ten years of isolation changed him more than they can imagine. "What looks romantic to you is not romantic to everyone." Bruno insists upon this and sometimes alludes to how his visions of the distant future have also altered his views on physical affection.

The last straw for every Madrigal though, is during a town-wide talent show that Bruno, Camilo, and Mirabel have organized. During the show, Bruno publicly dedicates a poem recitation to Mirabel, and Mirabel publicly dedicates a ballad she wrote to Bruno. Both are incredibly longing in nature. And they're staring blatantly at each other again with such reverence and devotion while they are reciting or singing. And of course they kiss each other and hug after each of their performances.

It's even worse during the after-show party because apparently they dance together too. And they dance all the couples songs together, even the more flirtatious and sensual ones. And every Madrigal is in shock but tries to ignore it for the sake of saving face.

The next day, Alma calls for an intervention and demands to know what is going on between the two of them. Bruno and Mirabel are completely blindsided by this question (despite all past confrontations and interrogations), and very innocently and sincerely ask, "What do you mean?" Please note that they are, of course, sitting next to each other during this, gently stroking each other's hands.

The family each take turns listing off the physical acts of affection between Bruno and Mirabel that they all have been subject to over the last few years. Mirabel and Bruno both double down on the these-are-perfectly-normal-ways-for-a-close-uncle-and-niece-to-show-affection argument.

Alma, frustrated by the whole thing, but realizing these two are more stubborn than she is, finally sighs and says, "fine." Alma agrees to believe that these gestures mean nothing more that platonic and familial love if Bruno and Mirabel can promise to tone it down in public because they do not look like that from outsiders. Mirabel and Bruno reluctantly agree, and the family awkwardly parts for the day.

Later, when Mirabel and Bruno have time to be truly alone from the town and the family, they joke about what happened in the morning. Bruno says something jokingly like, "Hah, yes, Mirabel, I am secretly in love with you. That's why so many of my telenovelas are about forbidden love." Mirabel says something like, "Ay, could you imagine? And if we were secretly a couple, we wouldn't be stupid enough to be so obvious." But as their laughing slows, they look at each other, and

Uh oh.

Maybe the family was right.

Ah yes. The infamous prophecy scene. This is were we get a lot of (presumed) eye contact and (confirmed) hand holding. The hair tuck thing is something that I didn't noticed myself, but a couple people pointed it out. I remember hearing "the hair tuck" as a gesture is something a lot of people consider a sign that a girl/woman is attracted to someone. I don't know the validity of the claim, but I assume that belief came from somewhere.

To me, this gesture comes across as Mirabel feeling a little sheepish about drawing the parallels between her and Bruno as "family weirdos," as well as her suggestion that as family weirdos they should stick together. I can see how it can be read as something a little more complex, especially if Disney has used that gesture to demonstrate budding attraction before.

Either way, the scene is really cute:

Bonus Bruno's reaction: