So incredibly excited and honored to announce Luca Xavier as Coyote "Mica" for Pleasant Sparkle Academy.
I feel to really praise Luca's work and talk about the performance I need to give some backstory (bare with me). Coyote was a character I was so nervous about, not even from a casting perspective, but a writing perspective. I've always really loved Native American culture, and since the book is about as many different creatures and beings from mythology, folklore, ect. I wanted the Native Americans of the world to feel represented. There are plenty of students from Norse, Japanese, and Greek mythologies. But there's only one from Native mythology, and there are a couple of reasons for that. 1) that information is just not as readily out there in one place, even for Coyote, the wiki isn't even in a single page specifically for him, you have to look under the "trickster" page to really find any substantial information. And even then if you want more than just a very sort of broad glance you need to actually look specifically into Native legends through Native sites specifically. 2) I know Natives have been poorly represented by others and I didn't want to contribute to that by just half-hazardly adding things from their culture because I could utilize it. So Coyote ended up being the choice, I felt he narratively made the most sense given the stories about him. And he ended up being the perfect choice.
My reach isn't far let's just be honest. So while ideally yes I wanted to cast a Native, 1) representation matters even in your cast and 2) if I hadn't done the character justice they could tell me. But that being said again my reach is so small so I figured it wasn't likely to happen and I'd just have to commit to what I had written and roll the dice on him. I had an idea of who I could cast so I wasn't worried about casting him in general, it was more of "well I hope I did right by the community."
Which is where Luca comes in. Mylo Reid our student body president went ahead and promoted the project, which really got a lot of eyes on my little corner of the internet. And suddenly people were actually coming to me for once. One of them was Luca, I've been "vocal" about how I want to work with VAs who are genuinely interested in the project. People who it isn't just another notch in the belt, I'm all for just being a footnote on the resume trust me. But this project has been my dream and my baby I've been working on just the base route since 2018. And Luca really, showed how interested they were, they reached out in regards to the Chimp Gang, but said they were gladly open to anything. And while from their demo I wasn't sure about the chimps, I did have another character in mind. So they tried out for all of them, and while I didn't feel it for the chimps, the other character was like, "that could work..." but I like finding the perfect fit for everyone and that character is a ways from ready, it was just kind of like, "I'll let you know." Fast forward a little, I open a roles page because a couple of people had asked me about it. And again Luca showing that he was really interested reached out about Coyote and another role. And Luca told me, "I'm actually part Native so I really would like to give him a try." (Paraphrasing of course) And I wanting to give everyone a shot regardless was like, "well yeah of course!" So I sent him over the script, and he had very kind words. And you could just tell this was his character, I heard one line and I was like, "that's Coyote." And the thing is it was nothing like how I imagined when I wrote him. But what Luca did in just three lines was incredible, he felt so at home. And it was such a relief having him a part of the project because I knew if I had done something wrong he'd tell me. But it was the opposite and he had nothing, but kind words to say about the character, which was such a relief and so flattering, and frankly, I don't think I deserve his praise. But the thing I really took anyway from working with Luca, was just how important representation is. We say it's important all the time, but I think until you've really felt the impact you don't truly know how important it is. I can see Black Panther and acknowledge yes this is important. But it's different as a creator specifically when you know it is and really feel it. And when Luca expressed how happy this role made him and how important it was especially since Natives have been so poorly portrayed in media. That's when it really truly hit me. For me Coyote was just someone I really liked, really thought narratively was cool, and ultimately for me was someone who was really, really personal, and really represented my own emotional feelings about myself. But for Luca and maybe other Natives he's so much more on top of that, Luca relates to him in a way I never could have. And I am so grateful and honored to have him as a member of the cast and on this project. I know I sort of maybe needlessly rambled there, but I just felt like this was the best opportunity to talk about these things. And hopefully, better illustrate why Luca was the perfect choice for Coyote. Anyways I'm gonna end this announcement here, before I ramble anymore. Luca, welcome to Pleasant Sparkle Academy.