#it's not fair to cherami and it's not fair to me orz

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

is the VA thing a "All I hear is Makoto" situation or a "I recognize them from P5 and I have war flashbacks" situation?

It's a "All I hear is Makoto" situation (tho sadly it was prepped prior to Makoto...I'll explain in a bit). If it was "They are from P5 and I have war flashbacks" I don't really have those. I joked about Robbie the other day (it was more to inform fans who really like his voice that he voices novels as well), but it's not really the case for him. Despite me only......knowing his voice from Goro (I've listen to a few other roles he's been in, half the time I forget it's him tbh....which is good cause it doesn't pull me out aklfjsafj except for Mitsuki but he always felt like he'd have the same voice as Goro so I'm fine 8U), same goes for Xander. The only reason Japanese!Futaba gives me some war flashbacks, is cause of her damn voiceline trophy in the vanilla game......I'm sitting there listening to very specific lines before I move on.

(Below the cut is a self reflective dissertation on why I’m having a hard time with this VA 8U Also I know what you are thinking “Silly this is kinda stupid” yeah and I hate it and I want it to go away too but it’s not and I’m stuck...and I wanna vent)

What's odd is a heard a good few number of roles by Cherami before P5. I was actually gathering clips of her for my videos way back when (was probs going to make an Anne video, just cause 1) Anne was the only female character at the time, 2) I kept running into Cherami's voice). Tbh that was probably the downfall I had, since it got me really in tune with picking up her voice. But prior to that she voiced one of my fav characters! Komaru Naegi. Only issue I had at the time was for some reason her voice went from higher pitch, to suddenly lower pitch in the last chapter (except for the animated cutscene where it was high again)....and this is something that the Japanese dub did as well(???? I dunno that's just what I heard, but whyyy DR devs??? WHyyyyy???). That was a bit off topic, but moral is, the only issue I had at the time with her voice was the voice direction in DRUDG (aka it’s not her fault, I was upset with the director). 

Before I really heard what Japanese!Makoto's voice really sounded like, that I was hoping she'd be like Satsuki from KLK. But then I heard her voice.....and the second I really heard Japanese!Makoto in action my brain went "Oh, she sounds like that character no one likes from Psychopass" (fun fact, I'm not as hard on Mika as most of the fanbase seemed to be at the time, dunno how they feel about her now, I'm still sympathetic towards her). And when I started collecting the voice clips, and trying to listen to other voices during that time.... and I found they all really sounded almost the same (cadence wise, obvie the acting I could tell was diff from char to char a lot of the times, tho if they had the same personality they could feel the same but I was eh about it at the time, and thus my big issue with her voice started to grow but.....I def thought there was something about her that fit Mako).

Then P5 hit, and you know how deeply unsympathetic I am towards Makoto. And RIGHT then is where I realized something about the voice. It was whiney. I thought back to the two big voices I knew her from, Komaru and Mika, and both were whiney (both had roughly good reasons, more so Komaru than Mika). "But Silly! You said you were more kind to Mika than the rest of the fandom. Why are you calling her whiney?" Yeah well, here's the thing. Mika is brainwashed and gaslit by the dystopia she lives in (hence the whiney parts of her dumbass). She is an antagonist to Akane. She is conflict to the story. I don't think we are supposed to like her (at most pity her). As for if she gets off easy in the story, it's been to long to say (ironically all this is said about S2!Mika, before in S1 I was like "man I hope that Mika char joins the main team for S2! :D and then klajsfdl;jafsa S2 happened XU). But regardless, we aren't supposed to really 100% root for Mika, she plays the role she is written for (can't hate her for that). Complete opposite of Makoto in terms of how the writing is handled but I digress. 8U

Anyway, after Makoto I could escape how condescending Makoto sounded (and FYI I thinks she did FANTASTIC as Makoto, because Makoto sound so gd condescending in the text I think she nailed it, sadly I just now associate Cherami’s base voice with it DX.....”Silly you know Makoto’s not supposed to sound like tha-” Yeah well we know how I feel about the writing and how I think Atlus missed the mark so we’re gonna just move along from that now XU). So I started to associate it both with whiney-ness and condescending-ness. I started to actively avoid her voice (sans Mako, can't escape her atm, not that I was listening to Mako 24/7), a year later after I listened to the Boruto movie dub. I.....thought that Cherami would fit Sarada. What I didn't expect was how it would make me feel towards Sarada (whomst I liked in the jpn dub and in the prequel manga pages). I found her annoying, like I do with Makoto (tho ironically the first season of Boruto I found Sarada to act like a brat that would remind me of Makoto that was in the jpn dub, which isn’t going to help my mental image of Cherami’s voice any better so DX). So maybe I typed casted her....

And after that it was just a knee jerk anytime I heard the voice. The second I heard that cadence, all my negative connotations associated with it (aka Makoto), would flood the character on screen....to the point I don’t see the char. I just see an annoying voice. Well hear...you know what I mean.

Basically......I think I pavlov’d myself.....to that voice. It’s not Cherami’s fault (maybe a little........a lot of her younger girl voices sound the same, she’s got maybe 3 modes......maybe I’m just not used to the other newer actresses or maybe she’s just special for my brain atm). I tried uhhh “rehabilitating” the voice (aka, exposing myself to other roles), but it didn’t work out. So now I’m trying avoidance. Obviously not working since I clocked the woman on a breath *sobs* a breath! The character just inhaled and I was like “oh god that’s Cherami-GDI!” *sobs* I just want to turn my brain offffffffffff! orz

I’ll probs try to expose myself to the voice again.....just not right now.....I’m still recovering from the breath incident. 

Or maybe it’s not pavlov...maybe it’s OCD, I do have some OCD tendencies.....Regardless if it’s Pavlov, OCD, or type castng....wish me luck. I must undo a prison my brain has trapped me in~!