5/6/2023

Hello people in my phone!!!!

I know I said I was working on another Lumine thing but I got distracted so here's another one of my sister's OCs instead

Oh my god I'm actually relapsing into making animatics by hand huh....instead of. Yknow. Doing digital and editing because that's a thing I can do now.

Worst part is I have a few more of these planned 😁😁😁

Also new phone can properly upload images now???? Not sure what happened but I'm not complaining.

Okay so! 👏 Context.

Chamomile is a bastard-child-from-a-one-night-stand princess sent as a kid to live with the Shinobi Clan for her own safety. Everyone in the Shinobi Clan is a chameleon while Chamomile is...not that. (she's a Texas horned lizard/blue skink)

Espio as a child Did Not like Chamomile because she was very annoying and loud and bothered him all the time. And he made sure she knew that but Chamomile didn't care lmao.

Eventually Espio leaves the Shinobi Clan and joins the Chaotix, and a while later Chamomile is sent away from the clan becuase....reasons??? I don't know. But she gets sent away.

Let's talk a little about psycholgy. First, Chamomile was sent away by her biological mum to an isolated ninja clan that mainly focuses on training and discipline. While there, she inevitably was left out of some activities because she's not a chameleon, and a peer she kind of looked up to (Espio) constantly made sure she knew he disliked her.

Let it be known it never reached the point of physical bullying; Espio more or less tolerated her at best and treated her like a pest at worst. I guess it is social bullying in a sense, but. ????? I'm not really sure where the line is there.

Then later on she was ejected by the clan and kind of tossed into the world, and she kind of illegally immigrated to another country. Idk if that part's still canon but yeah.

What I'm saying is that Chamomile has never really felt accepted or at home anywhere, and she feels that people just tolerate her at best. Her childhood experiences kind of defined her low self-esteem and was reinforced as she continued into adulthood. It's her main source of insecurity, but she hides it behind a confident attitude.

Now. I know what you're thinking. "Wait a minute, doesn't this make any friendship, much less relationship, between Espio and Chamomile kind of toxic???"

To which I say: I have no clue.

The story goes that one of Chamomile's political enemies (because the people in her kingdom really don't like illegitimate children I guess) tracked her down and sent someone to kill her. She gets help from the local detective agency which Just So Happens to be the Chaotix.

So Espio and Chamomile meet again and Espio just wants to get this job over with and move on. Except while on the case, he learns more about Chamomile's struggles and starts treating her better and seeing past his childhood grudges while also feeling Super Guilty about how he treated her before.

Chamomile meanwhile, treats Espio more or less the same, but it's also a bit complicated for her. She knows now that Espio never really liked her so it's kind of awkward, and also doesn't know how to react when he starts changing his behavior toward her. For most of the story, she's kind of struggling between her childhood hope of friendship and insecurity.

Lots of things happen; Espio and Chamomile do fight a bit due to misunderstandings and past tension, but kind of sort of work through them; and the case is eventually solved and Chamomile gets the answers she's looking for. She goes back to her kingdom (keeping in touch with the Chaotix via letters), but after some years decides her kingdom really doesn't feel like home to her. She's not adjusting well to royal life and so she abdicates (there's a new heir at this point so Chamomile technically didn't leave the kingdom with its legs in the air).

At this point in the story Espio and Chamomile have both realized they've #CaughtFeelings for each other but haven't acted on them because of the sheer separation between them. But Chamomile comes back and they start dating after a while.

Which brings us to the ANIMATIC.

In a nutshell, Chamomile thinks she's not good enough for Espio/Espio doesn't really love her(?) while Espio thinks Chamomile deserves better than him, for all the reasons I've already mentioned. I'm 90% sure they work through these issues (they get married and have kids in the future) but I imagine it was pretty hard lmao

They start in a Not So Good place but do move past it, but I'm not sure if the way they started constitutes the Toxic Ship label yknow??? Bit of a gray area there.

Anyways. Another short clip I made.

From this song:

It gave me so many Chamomile vibes and yeah I know the issues presented aren't exactly the same but!!! It's close enough!!

Anyways. One more week of AP exams yayyyy 🎉🎉

Okay so. Final project for my creative writing class this year is 10 pages of anything we want to write. And me in my infinite genius decided to write out Fuuxandith's backstory!

But only the part with Crow in it because that's the most interesting part 😁😁 I've already written 8 pages and I'm just barely at the bit where Fuuxandith realizes he has magic lol

Also writing it made me expand on Crow lore a bit because before he was just a wholesome old guy who mentors Fuuxandith

But now he's a wholesome old guy who mentors Fuuxandith AND is beloved by the local community

+other lore I've never mentioned but I'll get to that eventually

You'll see whenever I get done with it 😁😁 I plan on posting it to my Creative Writing book and maybe making some art for it because some of the scenes are so cute tbh

Okay I need to study my ass off goodbye!!!!!!

(^ preview for next chapter (the Lumine stuff I mentioned before))

Okay bye for realsies <333 Love yous!!!!