Normaline

Normaline is the het ship between Coraline Jones and Norman Babcock from the Coraline and ParaNorman fandoms.

Canon
Coraline and Norman are both the protagonists of Laika movies. They are both 11 years old. They both live in America, though Coraline was British in the original book. They both encounter strange supernatural creatures, but nobody believes them when they tell their families and neighbors about them. In Coraline's case, the scorn she receives is mostly from her mother and doesn't go further than mild bemusement at her tall tales, while Norman has a very strained relationship with his father because of his ability to see ghosts. In both movies, they make friends with at least one neighbor kid who believes them, but while Norman befriended Neil relatively early into the movie, Coraline only got Wybie to believe her after the climax of her movie. In both cases, they are forced to fight a supernatural "family member" to save their own family (in Coraline's case) or town (in Norman's case), though Coraline's "other mother" is a fraud who is planning to eat her, while Norman's enemy is his vengeful ancestor.

Promos
Starting in the new 20's, some eight to eleven years after both movies were released, Laika often established a kind of friendship between Coraline and Norman through their promos. In July 2022, the animators used the puppets they created for their movies to illustrate the two of them going on a walk through a forest together. In December 2022, Norman is with the other Laika protagonists when decorating Coraline's house for Christmas. Many official promos often have Coraline and Norman stand very close to one another, though most likely because ParaNorman was the first movie of them to be released after Coraline. Even before that, Valentine's Day 2017, the official ParaNorman Twitter account tweeted a picture of Norman giving Coraline a rose.

Fanon
Normaline is one of the first, if not the first Laika crossover ships. Most of which comes from the fact that both movies happen to star protagonists of similar ages and happened to come out within 3 years of one another, meaning that Coraline was still fresh on everyone's mind when ParaNorman was released. Many credit the popularity of Normaline and Parapines for the formation of Mystery Kids, which further brought attention to the ship. What helps is that neither has an official love interest in their respective movie. However, Corbie fans don't seem to enjoy Normaline, especially since LAIKA enjoys teasing that couple as well sometimes.

Many have also thought the theming of Coraline having brown eyes and dyed-blue hair, with Norman having blue eyes and brown hair, which makes for a nice contrast when pairing them with each other. When it comes to depicting a first meeting between Coraline and Norman, many headcanon the Pink Palace as being somewhere near Blithe Hollow. Many like to think that Coraline would appreciate Norman's quiet nature, while Norman would see Coraline as someone who wouldn't mock him for his ability to see ghosts.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION