Do you make Imaginary Voice Casts for your Characters?

[Juliko]

I don't know if a topic like this is allowed. If it isn't, feel free to delete it. Have you ever thought about what you wanted your fan fic characters to sound like? Or have you heard a voice on a movie or video game and thought stuff like, "Oh! That's what I imagine A to sound like!" or "Aw man, B actress would be perfect for my C character!" or "If I could make my fic into a series, I'd pick X, Y, and Z as the voice cast!" Did you even come up with lists on which of your favorite voice actors/actresses or regular actors you'd cast as your characters? That's what this topic is all about! This will be the topic where you post or discuss your fan made voice casts for your fan fic characters! I thought I'd start this up for funsies, since I'm sure we've all done something like this at some point in our lives. You can even make imaginary voice casts for any language. English, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, any language you like!

For an example, here's a very brief list of imagine voice casts I made for some of the main cast in my Pokemon fan fic, Pokemon: A Marvelous Journey.

Fanmade English voice cast:
Julia Parisa: There's literally no competition on this one. If I had to cast anyone as Julia, it would be Debi Derryberry. Yes, I know, she's mostly known for young boy voices, like Jimmy Neutron or Zatch Bell. But if you can believe it, she is capable of doing a convincing female voice. Watch this movie here, where she plays a little blonde girl named Alois (pronounced Ah-Low-Ah). That's the voice I picture Julia having, and I thought it was just so perfect that I can't imagine any other voice for her!

Perrine Innocenti: Again, I couldn't imagine anyone but one person voicing her, and that's Kate Higgins. I know many people know her as Sakura from Naruto, which is well and good. I imagine her using her Sailor Mercury voice (Starts at 14:08) and using her Kolulu voice from Zatch Bell for when she's much younger.

Caiseal Brownstone: This one was a hard one. Many of my favorite actresses are able to do young boy voices. Mona Marshall, Brianne Siddall, Wendee Lee, but in my mind, I couldn't imagine any of them being right for Caiseal. Then I watched Voltron on Netflix and heard this adorable kid's voice. Yep, that was it. Bex Taylor-Klaus would be my ideal voice for Caiseal. She sounds the right amount of boyish and tough without trying too hard or straining herself.

Amara Parisa: Third time's the charm, and I only know one person who I feel would be awesome as Amara, and that would be the ever awesome spitfire known as Erica Mendez. The voice she uses for Ryuko would be great for her, and she's really good at doing snotty, bitchy girls.

Chanel Ramsey: At first I had a bit of a tough time imagine-casting her, but in the end, I decided on Stephanie Sheh. She's really good at doing shy, cutesy girls but can also do cheerful, bubbly girls as well. I figured, why not?

Lance: I know technically, Lance has a few official voice actors in all of his anime adaptations. Wayne Grayson (TV anime), Kirk Thornton (Origins), Ben Diskin (Generations), and so on. But again, Voltron helped me picture my ideal voice for Lance: Josh Keaton. The voice he uses for Shiro would be perfect for his more mature, sophisticated look that Heart Gold/Soul Silver and the Let's Go games give him. It was a done deal in my mind.

Harriet Latham: Like with Caiseal, I had so much trouble deciding on who would be a good voice for her. At first, I thought Brianna Knickerbocker would be good, since she has a nice, pleasant voice and a decent range. But then I played Tales of Symphonia and heard the absolute adorableness that is Heather Hogan-Watson's voice for Colette. Sorry Brianna, but Heather took your spot as Harriet in my mind. Her voice is just so smooth, pleasant, and nice to listen to, and she can sound high pitched without straining herself or going too shrill.

I might post more later. But what do your imagine your fan fic characters sounding like? Did you make your own fan-made voice casts? Post them here and discuss!

 

[BackSet]

I've done this before but I can't remember off my head.

I guess maybe Tom Feltonnfor Artemis...

 

[Nori]

I've done something similar with a character in a story I'm working on and couple characters in a recently finished story, though I pretty much have it as a sort of guideline to how the character's voice would sound.

The first instance was when I was listening to music, and I got a "Ooh, this is probably how Shizuru would sound when she's singing" moment (Shizuru being the character); I jotted it into my notes when I was able to. From there, whenever it was on my mind, I loosely poked around with voices for a couple other characters and took notes accordingly. All of this was done while I was still writing the story, by the way. I only did it with a small sample of characters since it wasn't deathly important to me to have a guideline for the full roster of characters (or at least the major characters).

For the story I'm working on, it was fairly similar to the first instance where the singer's voice sounded something like a character's (Momoka this time) voice would sound. I wouldn't be too surprised if something similar happens again with some of the other characters or if I decide to poke around to find some vocal guidelines for the other characters.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I do imagine voices from time to time, but I've always had a hard time doing that, or identifying voice actors, or anything of the sort. I sometimes have a difficult relationship with the spoken word. So, I certainly don't have a cast list right now! But this thread is making me pay more attention to voice so thanks for that and maybe I'll have something to show for it sometime in the future.

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

I'm not all that caught up on voice actors, but there is one that appears without fail:

ANY PIKACHU — Danny Devito

On a more serious note, I tend to "create" voices for characters as I read, based on their word choice/character tics/personality/etc. The more vividly I can imagine a character's voice correlates with how strong their characterization is. So if I find a fic I like, I'm able to shut off my brain and let my subconscious read the words, kinda. There's still a conscious part of my mind that's analyzing the fic, but it's doing from the perspective of a fan, not a critic. For instance, "why did the author kill off this character?" becomes "who killed this character?"

Oh, and research shows imaging voices can be done to different degrees by different people. The most authoritative source I know is the University of Exeter's The Mind's Eye project, but I'd personally recommend checking out Blake Ross describing what it's like to read with aphantasia:

"I do have the ‘milk voice’—that flat, inner monologue that has no texture or sound, which we use to tell ourselves: “Remember to pick up milk.” I can “doo doo doo” in my milk voice and tell myself I’m singing the theme song to Star Wars. However, most of my friends and family describe what they “hear” as music—not as vivid as the real thing, to be sure, and not as many instruments—but “music” nonetheless. I would never describe my experience as such; it’s just the flavorless narrator, struggling to beatbox. And I’ve never had a song 'stuck' in my head."

—Blake Ross, co-creator of Firefox, writes fan fiction​

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