I'll start my rambling with one that has been with me the longest (asides from animation and drawing).

Emperor's New Groove

A lot of people enjoy this movie but it often pains me that they care about it as much as they care about any other meme and of course no one seems to have Kuzco as their favorite which is also a bit sad.
To me this movie is so much more, it's silly but it's also weirdly deep if you look at it from the right angle!

I'll talk more about the "hidden lore and traits" of this movie later, but first I want to talk a bit about the BTS, the designs and the animation style.
Firstly, this is another thing I see mentioned again and again, "the original idea was so good", "it's so sad what they did to this movie"... personally I enjoy what they had going on for Kingdom of the Sun a lot, Yzma singing and with a lot more focus on her? Kuzco actually having friends? Villain song? Damn yeah for sure I love all of that, but... if it wasn't for the fact that they changed 90% of the movie... my favorite movie wouldn't exist!
I get all of you KotS fans and if they ever do a live action of this movie I hope they incorporate details of the original version, but ENG will always have a special place in my heart.

Now with both the designs and animation style, honestly I love how stylized everything looks, so expresive! So unique! You could tell what movie it is by only looking at the backgrounds and the shapes in the characters... I've always loved stuff that looks unique. They also incorporated the primary analogous colors on Kuzco's design which always makes for a good design in my opinion, and there's so much purple going on with everything Yzma related (yes, I'm a little biased with her because it's my favorite color). I don't know how much of this movie inspired my own style, the only thing I know that my artstyle shares a lot of traits with this movie (square fingers, entremely long eyelashes and exaggeranted expressions).
Also I love how they don't differentiate the square fingers between men and women! As en enby person that has ALWAYS bothered me, you could do everyone with the same type of fingers or mixed them up a little bit...

Ok enough of that, now to what I'm most excited to talk about! What I see that is so special in this movie? Well... I have to admit, I'm weak to dumb, silly and mean characters, so Kuzco, Yzma and Kronk make this movie so fun to watch over and over, I don't think there's other Disney movie that makes me laugh so much and it's so quotable as this one!

I would like to find more people that have Kuzco as a favorite... It's pretty hard to find merch of him and it's usually on his llama version, not his human one :( (they could've also done his other animal forms), I know Kronk's the favorite one... that's why the second movie was about him (which I love), but I wish there was more content with Kuzco in general.
Yes, the game, some random Disney's Adventures comics and the TV Show exist, but the game I can't play (cause I'm broke) and the tv show has always bothered me even from when I was younger. I re-watched it a few months ago and it was quite good, but I had to ignore how much I didn't like that Kuzco was even worst than in the movie when he supposedly learn how to be a bit better, how Malina was introduced as a love interest when TO ME is clear that Kuzco is not interested in that at all in the movies, Kuzco having a difference VA and the animation being really cheap. Yeah, ignoring all that I enjoyed watching the silly show but... nothing really feels like the same movie.

Why I find Kuzco to be such an interesting and endearing character? Asides from the fact that he's unapologetically himself and charismatic (something that I struggle to be since forever), people seem to forget that he's nasty because he's an orphan who was raised (implied) by Yzma, he's nasty because she's nasty. He also seems to always ALWAYS pretend he's chill and in control, for example when he was telling Pacha he wasn't going to change his mind about bulding Kuzcotopia, he acted like he knew how much power he holded as the Emperor, like his word was final and that's it... but as soon as he walked away, he showed his true feelings, he was desperate to be back to the only place he knew.
Also, each time he "paused" the movie, interrupting a scene with someone else... to me that reads as someone who's actualy really insecure. I can only assume Yzma manipulated and played with his mind for years!

He also dances really well!

Through most of the movie Kuzco is still pretty nasty but he opens his heart to others little by little, Pacha, Chicha, Chica, Yupi and Tipo welcomed him into their family to the point that Chicha made him his own poncho (probably his first well thought out gift).
BTW, most of the movie takes place on his own birthday! What a day, he got transformed into a llama (and multiple other animals), the closest thing to a guardian was trying to kill him, he travelled with someone that made him realize he was an asshole, he had to eat food he hated, people thought he was dead and they didn't care and he felt he was more alone that ever...
Let me say that one last thing again, he felt like he has no one and nowhere to go, he resigned his life as Emperor and as a human, no one cared enough to help him and if spotted by Yzma, he would get killed if he was on his own...

I'm glad he learned to be better by the end of the movie, I'm glad he got to experience a bit of the real world before it was to late for him to change! He even chose to save Pacha when the human potion was also at risk of falling.

Some interesting extra details I want to mention, Chicha was the first pregnant woman to be featured in an animated Disney film, during the dinner scene when Kuzco was first transformed into a llama his fur looks dark brown instead of black... that's it for now lol.

Now we're on headcanon territory BUT I strongly believe that Kuzco isn't straight and that he's neurodivergent.To me the fact that he rejected all his suitresses by different reasons even tho they looked almost exactly the same and they didn't even speak with him reads as "I don't care about any of them, I simply don't want to date women" lol, regarding neurodivergency,