One Happy Family - PG-13 (Champagne Challenge #104)

[Moonlighter]

I really enjoyed this one and first I have to congratulate you on how well you wove the clues into this story -- I'd read two of them before I realized that they were even supposed to be in there! Very clever.

I'm not feeling much sympathy for Coraline here. You've simply laid out before us the machinations of her insane desperation to get Mick back to the point of claiming that Penni is not a good mother? And then she turns around and admits to offing a child for crying for his mother? Wow, talk about delusional. And she's also delusional for the fact that she believes all this will bring Mick back happy and smiling. Not hardly.

I do like Grace's picking up on the "Mick sweeping Beth into his arms" bit. Hmmm, just not how you planned it, is it Cora?

Nicely done! Brava!

[maggatha3]

Oh my, PNWgal, you played miracles with the challenge words..I had to read again and again to find them (well, not only for that ). And they seemed so difficult for me to fit in a story!!

What an interesting and so in canon take on Coraline. Such a difficult personality this woman has, finding Beth's mum cruel for punishing her about talking to strangers, yet herself killing that little boy was totally justified. Such tender feelings she has for Mick -occasionally- and so much cruelty she faces mortals with.

And I had to laugh too, where she was imagining Mick holding Beth in his arms...I was picturing him holding her tight after having killed Coraline ...and then again in Black Crystal!! :snicker:Obviously, Beth didn't give her as much trouble as a kid, but she fixed it when she grew up perfectly...Amazing how this short story brought their entire relationship to my mind!!

[allegrita]

No. Way!!! I never read this story?! Where have I been??

I love this view of Coraline and Beth before the kidnapping. Little Beth, pre-trauma, already has so many of the qualities that will both captivate and exasperate Mick in the future... she's fearless, curious to a fault, and not exactly careful about where she puts her feet. I love seeing her before she's captured - before she turns into that scared, cowering little thing Mick saw when he went to rescue her. What a wonderful scene in the garden, with Penni grumbling a little over the extra work that her little girl's "helping" will cause her, but allowing her to explore the world and learn about it. I like how you explain what happened to Beth's dad, too. Poor Penni... Beth is her whole life. That makes Coraline's thievery even worse.

Coraline in your story is a wonderful jumble of contradictions. She loves Mick, but she doesn't understand him, nor appreciate the things that we viewers love about him. She wants him to be some sort of perfect vampire fledgling/husband, totally focused on her, and what makes HER happy. She loves him enough to fight to get him back, but she doesn't really know him. And she's ruthless and heartless in the pursuit of her objective. Her little throwaway memory of the boy who cried too much and had to be dealt with was utterly chilling.

I'm so glad to see this story pop up so that I could appreciate it!

[cassysj]

I think it's amazing this was your first Coraline centric story and completely nailed it. What I didn't notice the first time I read is how perfectly the story fit into the time frame of the 1980's. There were so many tragic cases of child abduction in the 80's in the U.S.


When I was a little girl in the 1970's it was almost unheard of and if your mother could "see" you she wouldn't think twice if another woman talked to you even at Beth's age. A man would be a different story. Today it's usually parents at the ice cream truck with kids either on their front stoop or in the house.

Again I'd like to say on both Coraline and the time period.