What's a "Sona"? A Quick Guide!
Have you ever seen the word ‘sona’ floating around Unvale but you’ve got no clue what it means? This quick guide will help out! And stick around for the end, I’ve got lots of cool sonas to share!
Word Origins
First off, ‘sona’ is short for ‘persona’, which comes from Latin and originally referred to theatrical masks. In English, persona is a sort of social mask people take on in certain situations. Imagine a prism and the way light is refracted into colours; a persona usually isn’t a fake identity, it’s simply a fragment of our whole personalities. It’s normal for people to filter their personalities to adapt to different social situations, and it’s not ‘fake’ to do so (well, not unless you’re actively lying!).
You likely use different personas when you:
- Hang out with friends
- Spend time with family
- Speak to adults or those in authority
- Interact with people at work or school
The term ‘sona’ is just a shorter form of ‘persona’, and are essentially interchangeable. If you’re like me, you might prefer to use the word persona to describe… well, I’ll explain that bit next!
What is a Sona?
Since we know what a persona is now, we can guess what a sona is. A sona is a persona of an artist or creator. This can be an original character or a fandom character; for instance, people in the My Little Pony fandom create pony-sonas, pony, Pegasus or unicorn versions of themselves. If you see a word attached to sona, the first word is the description of the kind of sona, and can be attached to specific fandoms.
A person can have multiple sonas, and they don’t always have to be designed the same or similarly. For instance, a person can have a Ponysona and a human sona (a humansona if you will) at the same time, and they can show off two different aspects of their personality. This can be a grungy goth design and a pastel design, or a fancy dressed up design and a tired, sweater wearing design.
Some sonas can also function as their own OCs, which can be a bit confusing sometimes. But it’s always good to ask the creator if you need clarification! Some creators use specific characters that aren’t sonas to represent or speak for them as well.
That’s it! I promised it’d be quick, and it was. Now, into the juicy bit!
Community Shout-Outs and Examples
Starting with some cool Ponysonas, we have:
- Carnivora the stylish pegasus, by fleasledaz.
- Sauria, a colourful orange Pegasus, by… Sauria!
- Blossom Echo, by Echo, who also has another well-designed sona.
I love how each artist put their personality into their pony designs!
Here are some more personas from Unvale creators!
- Kor/Pie, the cosmic persona of ArtsiePie. I could be biased, but I love the colours!
- Valo, by Unvale OG Valo! I’m definitely biased, and Valo’s work is always incredible.
- irpersonw’s sona, irpersonw (gotta mix up the order now and then~). I love the bright green background in the thumbnail image.
- Zorrtumn’s Vtuber avatar and persona, Zorrtumn! They’ve got a super creepy-cool design.
- Yurii, by stxrryurii. Now, I’m not sure, but I think Yurii might be… a cat? Hm…
- Kyopurry’s Kyoseruu Kirisawa, a super cute mage!
- Sushi Cat, who belongs to theoriginsushicat. She hopes you like her, and I sure do!
- Last but not least, Foxdoodles’ Cal/Fox. I get it Cal, I wouldn’t want to be called ‘Calcium’ if that was my given name too.
Of course, I have to share the personas of my co-blogger WhimsicalWonders and myself, The Dreamkeeper and Solar Sunrise. You can see our personas in our article doodles. Which doodles from us are your favourite? Let us know!
One last thing! If you have any specific topics that you’d like to see an editorial about, suggest them here on this post.