Very excited to announce Adam Carrizales as the gentle minotaur Ferdinand Bull! Adam came recommended to me as someone who can do a Spanish accent which for Ferdinand was really important. PSA is made up of students from all over the world and even from different times (in the case of some). As such some obviously don't have an American accent. Writing for Ferdinand was really interesting, because I knew a couple things when I started: He has to be Spanish, I want his name to pay homage to the children's book, and I want him to basically be a himbo. But the funny thing the voice I kept hearing when I wrote him was that of Colossus from the X-Men? And so I'd have to keep correcting my brain like, "no he's not Russian, not all strong bois are Russian." Like even visually in my mind all I had at the time was that of like a chibi sort of avatar? So needless to say for the most part I solely viewed Ferdinand as words, up until the end. Once I got the art back it was suddenly a lot easier to imagine that Spanish accent, and yet overall I still had no idea how he sounded in my head.
Then after a lot of Modern Family, and having to go back and edit the novel, Ferdinand finally started to come together and really feel tangible. I started working in Spanish into his dialogue, which in turn really finally made me think about, "who is Ferdinand Bull?" I had the basics, but that was really it. My point is I had no expectations for Ferdinand's voice, I really just put faith in Adam and his abilities. And what he provided was absolute perfection, when I heard his voice back as Ferdinand I was like, "yeah of course that's what he sounds like duh." Sometimes when you've written a character for so long you have this preconceived notion of how they should sound so there's like an adjustment period in your head. But because I never knew what he had sounded like since day one basically there was none of that to overcome. Adam just did his job and it was like, "oh yeah that's Ferdinand." Sometimes I'll play the voice beside the art like if I'm given sort of a sample and I can kind of gauge if I think it works. I didn't have that with this one, and I wouldn't have even needed it. Adam perfectly captures all of who Ferdinand is in his performance, how he paces his words, they way Ferdinand struggles to remember things. It's my words sure, but Adam's voice is what really brings the character to life for me. And I'm so happy he was interested in joining this really odd and fantastical cast. And I hope you all enjoy his performance as Ferdinand when the audiobook and visual novel release later down the line
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