Wow, been a long time since I've done one of these. Let's see if I still know what I'm doing eh? I am happy to finally announce we have a voice actor for Lysandra Wilhelm and it is none other than Bay Doxey! This has been such a long time coming it feels like.
Off the bat we need to establish that next to Alice Carroll, Lysandra was probably the single most auditioned for character. I think what made Lysandra challenging compared to some of the other roles was that most everyone was in the ball park for a general sound for her voice, but then also most people didn't have any sort of real connection to the character. So it wasn't like I could lean on anyone's particular reasoning for as to why they auditioned for her because most fell into the category of "she's cool". Which- completely valid. Then there were others with more of a personal connection to her, but just wasn't really what I was looking for vocally, so then you have that dance to play. Of do I cast someone who can maybe understand her struggles more or someone who gave the better performance? I think the challenge for most of the VAs who auditioned was the juxtaposition of Lysandra's art and her personality. A lot of people seemed to lean into a sort of- apathetic tone, while others played off the more stand-offish vibe. It's also hard, because you're giving people only 3 lines so it's just difficult with a character like Lysandra who has to cover this wide range and you only have this single snapshot of her to help inspire those performances. What really won me over with Bay was that the moment I heard her performance I was like, "that's what I imagined she sounded like in my head." Bare in mind I don't typically latch onto those ideas, but I think when someone just really nails that internal voice you have for a character you can't ignore it. And Bay just seemed to really want it, like- really felt passionate about the character. And then when I started getting lines back it just kind of felt like a no brainer, she was able to play those moments where Lysandra feels really embarrassed or awkward so naturally. And keep in mind it's been months since I've read over her events or really anything to do with her and even still my brain was able to tell me, "yes these all sound authentic to the character." I think too I kind of had wanted to work with Bay anyways since I had seen her demo like- a while ago and was like, "wow she's really good, I definitely could find a role for her." But then I just naturally kind of forget and life moves on and now here we are. So it's kind of like this would always have been the outcome. There's not too much I can say other than that she exudes passion for this character which is all you can really hope for as a writer is for your actor to care as much about these people you've imagined as you do. Bay felt like she treated the role as something as important as a role in an anime, like it's just nice and those are the people that keep you going. Heck, I'd argue if it wasn't for her passion I wouldn't have been able to dig deep enough to claw back my own passion for the project in the face of just wanting to scrap the whole thing. And maybe that's what made Bay the perfect choice it had almost nothing to do with her performance (which yes is fantastic) but everything to do with her passion. Because it's people that keep you going motivate you when you're just sort of done. At least that's how it's always been for me. And seeing someone else care about something authentically when you cannot that's- that's sometimes all you need, that's kind of more important than anything. This stuff is hard voice acting, game development, art! It's hard. You're bearing your soul, pouring money, and time into it while also juggling responsibilities, it takes a toll sometimes you just don't realize till the meter hits 0. But Bay's performance and again passion for the role is the reason I even started considering getting back on the horse. So that. That's the reason. Because yeah I could have hired someone else, maybe someone with a bit more of a personal understanding of Lysandra, maybe someone with more accolades or whatever, but how many of those people would have been so remarkably excited about a role for a thing with no promise of doing anything in terms of recognition? I'd argue none. Genuinely. In this present moment it was only Bay who could have done that.
So I hope you all look forward to hearing her performance come August when the beta demo and Kickstarter launches, because while the demo won't be completed her wonderful performance will definitely still be there! So without further adieu Bay Doxey, welcome to Pleasant Sparkle Academy!
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