Hi. I know this is random but I just finished rewatching Coraline with my lil siblings and got super reminiscent so have this lil au blurb idea I got:
Coraline goes missing. Nobody has seen the family in a week. They grow concerned and police get involved. They vanished. Their belongings are still where they belong, but the people fell from the face of the earth. It’s a mystery.
Wybie always gets goosebumps remembering it. His grandma says the curse got to them. They’re with her sister now.
Wybie hasn’t been able to forget the last time he saw Coraline. He thought she was being manic, insane, but her ramblings that he could only hardly remember-
Another mother?
A doll spy.
The small, locked crevice…
His curiosity was big, but his fear was bigger. People went missing in that house. He wouldn’t be caught dead there.
Or so he thought.
Years pass. He’s an older teen now. He’s still a loner weirdo to his peers, only having made fleeting friendships, but he’s aced engenireeing competitions. His grandma is so proud.
He’s given a fully paid scholarship to somewhere far away. He’s going to go soon.
The start of his last week home is sentimental. He can’t sleep. He feels like he’ll be missing out in time spent here.
He decides to take a walk instead.
His feet has led him everywhere but they always stopped at the edge of the garden. Overrun with weeds killing everything below.
And beyond it, the house.
Nobody ever moved in. The neighbors long left. It’s completely abandoned.
And it’s one of his last nights.
He grows a backbone. Once and for all. He’s leaving anyways, right? He won’t have to deal with crazy missing girls or supernatural mysteries anymore.
Not after this….
The door is locked but he knows how to sneak in. It wasn’t his first time contemplating how to get in. He had a plan.
Once through, he decides he’ll just walk through the rooms. They’re ghost-like.
Some furniture was sold, but others had stayed. The dining table, a dusty cushion.
A doll in Coraline’s bedroom.
She was just like he remembered. Positioned snuggly under the covers of her owner’s musty bed.
Who would do that?
He shivered and debated getting closer. He knew if he returned it now, his grandmother would be mad that he went inside. He should probably leave it be. But he noticed something black settled neatly on top of its chest.
He inched just a bit closer.
A key.
The oddly shaped key he remembered seeing the day Coraline left.
He needs to run. This is weird. This is haunting. He rushes down the stairs but trips on the long rug in the bottom.
He hit the ground hard. He stumbled, trying to get back up quickly. He stopped when he noticed a glow.
The room where it happened.
He shouldn’t go in… but…
That hit must’ve done something to his head.
He trembled as he slowly made his way to the living room. There on the side, like nothing had changed, was the door.
He heard a clang from behind.
He jumped and screamed. He didn’t see anyone. Looking down, he saw the culprit for the noise. The key. It followed him downstairs.
Everything was telling him this was a bad idea.
The place is haunted.
He’s seen horror movies.
His grandmother has lived through two disappearances already.
It would break her to have a third.
The responsible part of his brain told him it was better to leave now.
But he picked up the key instead.
He had to line it into the hole with shaky hands.
It opened.
And inside, he saw blue.
A tunnel unfolded for him, magical and beautiful.
His fear somewhat subsided. He squatted closer and considered going in. But something pricked at his brain.
“What did Coraline say about this place again?”
He could only recall certain details. He knew she mentioned what had made it dangerous but…
It slipped past his mind.
He decided to scoot a bit inside.
It didn’t feel dangerous…
It was
Fascinating.
He’d moved a bit more away. And now he was crawling.
He could see another door.
He was just curious.
He could take a peek, and return immediately.
He reached the other side and took a deep breath.
He squeezed his eyes shut as he pushed on the knob. It cracked as it swung forward a bit. He hesitantly began to open his eyes, but a noise made his blood run cold.
“Why so shy, Why-were-you-born?”
Her voice. The shock made him look and he came face to face with the girl through the crack.
She was older. Shorter hair. Same smirk.
Button eyes.
He screamed and tried to shut the door, but she put her foot to stop it.
“Are you going to run away again? I thought you’d grow braver by now. You opened the door, afterall.”
“It was a mistake!”
He was a coward. Mysteries weren’t his to solve.
So what was he doing getting so close to something spooky?
As if sensing his doubt, Coraline laughed.
“Come in. Please. I promise you’ll be safe. I just want you to see how I’ve been.”
She moved somewhat away to show what was behind her. It looked like the room he had left… but colorful. Lived in. Alive.
“…. what?”
“See? It’ll be okay; you know this place. It’s like your world, but better!”
She widened the gap by taking advantage of Wybie’s looser grip. He tried to fight it, but the awe of seeing the weird room cut his force.
Gadgets everywhere. Mechanical abominations ticking, alive and made into furniture. Incredible.
“I knew you’d like it.”
He didn’t want to respond. He was still afraid.
But he let her open the door in full. More than the room, his breath caught as he saw make an expression that was… vulnerable.
“Please, Wybie? It’s just for tonight. You don’t have to come back if you don’t like it.”
This wasn’t the Coraline he remembered. This was…. nicer.
She extended her hand, offering to help him.
He gripped his gloved hands.
“Only… one night. And it’ll be okay? I’ll go back?”
Coraline looked solemn for a second. Then she smiled.
“I promise you, Wybie. You’ll go back safe. You’ll be ok.”
He still had difficulty reading people but… she felt so genuine.
His shaky hands grasped hers.
He was pulled in.
~
Ok so let me explain a bit of the au. This is a universe where Coraline still had a spat with Other Mother, but instead of being eaten, Other Mother was so impressed by her ingenuity that she decided to… condition her. Coraline became her somewhat pupil. She resisted for a while, but eventually, she had to break. She’s learned to play along with Mother. She’d accepted her life. Then came Wybie. Other Mother decided this was a great opportunity to put her to the test. Lets see how good Coraline is at softening victims.
If she passes the test, she’ll be granted more freedom. She might even be able to go back outside.
All she has to do is keep Wybie in. Mother’s gone too long without food. Coraline has to prove her worth.
“Practical in-camera effects for Missing Link required 3D-printing 106,000 unique facial replacements, creating a 36-pound elephant puppet, and building 110 sets for 65 unique locations. Find out how the filmmakers helped surpass the achievements of our previous films!”
“Missing Link is LAIKA’s first film to create custom 3D-printed faces for every character in every shot. This guaranteed a wider range of expressions. Over 106,000 faces were printed for the film.”
“Today marks the 11th anniversary since Coraline premiered. A lot has changed since then, but it’s nice to see some things are still the same… in the Other World!”
LAIKA has revealed its next animated feature film is Wildwood, based on the bestselling novel written by The Decemberists lead singer & songwriter Colin Meloy and illustrated by artist Carson Ellis.
Synopsis: Beyond Portland’s city limits lies Wildwood. You’re not supposed to go there. You’re not even supposed to know it exists. But Prue McKeel is about to enter this enchanted wonderland. Her baby brother Mac has been taken by a murder of crows into the forest’s depths, and she – along with her hapless classmate Curtis – is going to get him back. Prue might think she’s too old for fairytales, but she’s just found herself at the center of one. One filled with strange talking animals, roguish bandits and powerful figures with the darkest intentions.
REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S FIRST FILM SOLELY PRODUCED BY THEIR STUDIO HAD TWO FEMALE CHARACTERS AS THEIR ANTAGONIST AND PROTAGONIST WHO, BY SOME FORM OF DEVIL MAGIC, HAVE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FACES
REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S SECOND FILM NOT ONLY CONSISTED OF A CAST WITH FOUR CENTRAL FEMALE CHARACTERS BUT INCLUDED AN ENTIRE TOWN OF DIVERSE CITIZENS OF VARYING RACE, GENDER, AND AGE. LIKE A NORMAL TOWN HAS.
REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S THIRD FILM FEATURED SAME SEX COUPLES IN THEIR TEASER TRAILER
REMINDER THAT THIS IS ALL STOP-MOTION SO EVERY CHARACTER WAS DESIGNED, MODELED, SCULPTED, RIGGED, AND EVEN HAD TINY CLOTHES SEWED FOR THEM.
also reminder that they make chump change compared to disney who whines and cries that in all their years of experience they can’t handle the prospect of animating a girl with a face different than the rest and that it’s “too hard” because only females can express such a wide range of emotions that it makes them difficult to animate
if a studio with 20-30 years of experience can manage this then SURELY an established studio with NEAR 100 YEARS of experience can maybe, just maybe, include a female that ISN’T a part of their formula
LAIKA !
Also paranormal had a canonically gay guy in it just saying
I feel the 16ft tall skeleton from Kubo certainly deserves a mention
Laika are goddamn ARTISTS and MASTERS OF THEIR CRAFT. Look at the animation on Kubo and tell me it doesn’t feel more like CGI than stop motion sometimes because it’s so smooth.
I love them so much.
Wait wait wait… Kubo was STOP MOTION?!?!?
Yup.
I mean obviously all of Laika’s movies have had some effects added afterwards, because there’s some things you really just can’t DO in stop motion (like falling snow, for example), but all of their films have been stop motion.
I don’t know how to embed videos successfully, but there are some REALLY cool behind-the-scenes stuff for Kubo that you can probably find if you look on youtube. :)
It was also on the halloween of last year that I first started playing the game, so wanted to do something special to celebrate- I joined two of my favorite franchises (Don’t Starve and Coraline) into one, and had a lot of fun working on it- I hope you guys like it too <3
Im reposting this cause I need someone to reassure me again
someone on TV tropes WMG page said kubo is a dirty kid and a psychopath and sexists they said he did something to his mom and that he wasn’t sad about his village or that his mom was killed YES HE WAS SAD HE LOVED HIS MOM HE WAS HEARTBROKEN WHEN SHE DIED BOTH TIMES AND HE REALLY DID LOVE MONKEY TOO AND HE IS NOT DIRTY OR A PSYCHOPATH AND HE IS NOT SEXIST TELL ME THAT THIS IDIOT IS WRONG TELL ME HOW THEY ARE WRONG THEY REALLY HATE KUBO DON’T THEY I Mean Kubo is 12 he is a kid
