Application for Coraline Jones (Coraline, Neil Gaiman)

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

((OOC: I'm playing Coraline based on the book, which is why she has a PB (Ariel Gade) rather than movie icons. Nothing against movie!Coraline, I just haven't seen the film yet. If you're reading this later and want to play Wybie or the movieverse version of anyone, PM me and we'll work something out.

Also, spoilers for the whole book.))

It was a rainy, dull Saturday. Coraline had played with all her toys and grown bored with them all, and counted every yellow thing in the house, and was now amusing herself by lying across a chair with her head hanging backwards over the side, trying to make herself believe that she could walk on the ceiling. It wasn't until she started feeling dizzy and sat up again that she realised the room had changed.

She stood up, quickly, looking around the room. It didn't look familiar to her at all, which was a sort of relief. At least it wasn't trying to trick her into thinking she knew it. There was a door, but it wouldn't open, even when she pulled as hard as she could.

There was also a table in the middle of the room, with a piece of paper on it and an old-fashioned quill pen floating just above it. Coraline went over and examined it. Her father had a pen on his desk that floated like that. It worked by magnets.

Coraline didn't think this one did.

"Is anybody here?" she asked, and jumped a little as the pen wrote the words down. The paper was a sheet of questions, she saw now. Answering them seemed the obvious thing to do.

1. What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?

"Proper cheese. The kind that is yellow and goes on pizza or in omelettes. Not the runny or smelly or mouldy kind."

2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?

She frowned suspiciously at the paper. "Barney is probably a T rex," she said, after some thought, "which is a carnivorous dinosaur. If he tried to eat people or stamp on their houses the army would come to shoot him."

That didn't exactly answer the question (although it was something she'd wondered about), but it was a worrying sort of question to be asked. It seemed safer to pretend not to quite understand it.

3. What time is it where you are?

Coraline looked around the room again. There wasn't a clock anywhere.

"It was half past three at home."

4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.

"...urgh."

She skipped that one. She wasn't completely sure what it meant, but she knew enough to know these questions were probably not meant for her. At least she hoped it wasn't meant for her.

5. If you are pushing to be in:

A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.

That was another grown up question, but not as uncomfortable as the first one. Coraline had seen bars on television, normally while looking for something more interesting to watch. "The Old Well," she said, after a moment. It sounded right.

B. Gryffindor – Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.

'Mythologies', she was fairly sure, meant 'stories'. "In books it's always the one who is bravest, or cleverest, or most handsome. Or who passes a test. Being handsome and nothing else is boring, though. Harry should marry the one who is brave and clever, and then go on more adventures with them."

C. Ravenclaw – You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I’m constantly disposing of it.

"My mum and dad have lots of paperwork too," she said, slowly. That might not work, but it was worth a try. "They both do things with computers. If you let me go home I will ask them."

D. Hufflepuff – Prove you are not useless.

Now this one she could answer. Coraline stood up straight, taking a deep breath, and tried to sound as grown up as possible, to give anything listening the impression that she was not to be trifled with.

"I rescued my parents from the other mother, when she stole them away into her world. I found where she was hiding them, and I also found the souls of the children trapped behind her mirror and brought them away. And then I locked her up in her own world, and trapped her right hand down our old well when it came to get the key."

6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe. Do not threaten us rather than offering a bribe. A threat indicates you either don't really want to be here, or don't have enough sense to answer the question properly. The hat will automatically squib you, regardless of other votes, if you do.

"I don't have any money. Just some things." She emptied her pockets. Her mother had washed her jeans recently, so there wasn't very much in them. Only three blue and two yellow paperclips, a pine cone, and some interesting pebbles. One of the pebbles had a small hole in it, and she slipped that one back into her pocket, laying the rest on the table.

"I have read the hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. _Coraline Jones_
I have read the hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them. _Coraline Jones_.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. _Coraline Jones_.
One day, marmalade will rule the world. _Coraline Jones_"

Comments

[ra-tilt-chimera.livejournal.com]

Zel picked up the application for a moment and glanced from it to the small girl and back, as if he wasn't quite sure he was believing what he was reading.

Eventually, he asked, "Who is 'the other mother'?"

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

Coraline looked up at him with a serious expression, trying not to seem too alarmed. He had proper eyes, at least, not buttons, which was probably another good sign.

"She steals people," she explained. "She lures them into her world to play games with them, and take away their hearts and souls and sew her black buttons into their eyes."

[ra-tilt-chimera.livejournal.com]

Zel realized abruptly that a man made out of stone was probably going to frighten a little girl. Even one who, from what he was hearing, had faced more than her share of monsters. He knelt down to try to talk to her a bit more closely.

"I... see. And you sealed her? Locked her away so she couldn't affect your world anymore?"

[omg-sunflora.livejournal.com]

"Oh my gosh! You're very brave!"

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

"Thank you," Coraline said, because she didn't want to say anything silly like 'you're a talking flower'. It wasn't as though she hadn't met stranger people. "Somebody needed to be."

[omg-sunflora.livejournal.com]

"I try to be sometimes, though it's tough to be brave by myself. I'm a LOT braver with friends."

[ringo-raver.livejournal.com]

"What kind of name is Coraline?"

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

This time she did jump, a little, even though she'd been trying very hard not to. The - whatever it was - was alarming, that was all, being so big and spiky.

She recovered, folding her arms and frowning up at it. "My name."

[beets-r-god.livejournal.com]

"Hello, small one." Dwight was trying to be kind. It didn't necessarily work. "Where did you get those paper clips?" He was always running out of paper clips.

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

"My name's Coraline," Coraline explained, patiently. "I found them. They were just lying around." Her parents tended not to notice small things on the floor.

[wrinklesintime.livejournal.com]

"...the Other Mother?" Meg asked. "That... actually sounds really scary."

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

Coraline nodded, emphatically. "She was. She wanted to keep me forever. Like a doll."

[fatedjune.livejournal.com]

"What is the 'other mother' and her world? How did you lock her in that world?" Rika is surprised to see this girl who also has been to another world, but it is worrisome if a person can be locked inside one world. Either this is something entirely different than what Rika does or the new student has a key that can block a god from entering her world.

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

"Her world is the world she made," Coraline explained, glad to see someone nearer her own age (well, she didn't know how old Sunflora was. Someone human, then.) "It was behind the door in our drawing room that was supposed to be bricked up. She made it to trap people, by making them think she had everything they wanted. Like a pitcher plant," she added, remembering something. "I saw those on tv once. They're full of water, and they lure flies in with nectar so they fall in and drown. That's what she was like." She shivered a little at the image. "And I locked her in with the key. There was only one key."

[rosecasson.livejournal.com]

'Proper cheese,' Rose acknowledges, 'Is also very nice in sandwiches.'

Well, us girls have to stick together.

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

Coraline smiled, both in relief to see another girl near her age and agreeing about the cheese. "I like it best when it's melted, though."

[thranduils-son.livejournal.com]

"I like your Gryffindor answer," Legolas told the applicant with a smile, peering down at her. It had put him in mind of a certain Dwarf he was rather fond of, and whom he'd found himself lately missing. "Adventures are always best shared, in my experience." Armed with an elegant longbow, quiver, and hunting knives, not to mention his attire and pointed ears, he did have the classic adventurer look to him.

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

"I just don't think the stories should always stop when they get married," Coraline explained. "It seems like no one ever does anything after that. Can I look at your bow?" she added, hopefully. It was very impressive. She'd never met anyone who looked quite so much like an adventurer before.

[elegantsamurai.livejournal.com]

"The other mother?" Yukimura asked. "You sound like a very clever child." He had a fondness for clever children. They tended to be engaging and wise beyond their years with their simple questions and answers, seeing to the heart of a matter where adults became fouled in details. "Will you tell me more of your adventures?"

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

"Okay," Coraline decided, after thinking about it. She was a little wary of being complimented by so many strangers, but this man didn't sound as if he was trying to flatter her into something. He sounded as if he meant it. "I told most of it on the paper. Which bits do you want to know about?"

[wh0-kill3d-m3.livejournal.com]

Laura picked up the pine cone and turned it around in her hands.

"Do you have woods, where you live? Forests?"

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

"We've got a garden," Coraline explained. "Bits of it are nearly a forest. It took me two weeks to explore everything."

[ugly-old-hat.livejournal.com]

"I don't need any pinecones," the Hat sniffed as it settled onto Coraline's head. "Do you have any talents you can lend to my organization?"

[braveexplorer.livejournal.com]

Coraline stayed very still. The feeling of the hat talking while it was on her head was strange and tickly, and she wasn't at all sure she wanted it there. "I'm good at finding things," she said. "And escaping. And Miss Forcible says you can tell the weather with pine cones. If they open up, it's going to be dry."

Gryffindor!

[ugly-old-hat.livejournal.com]

Your bribe has been accepted!

Welcome to Gryffindor!