At Sonora, we allow characters to have a 'faceclaim.' This is an actor/celebrity who you choose to represent your character, so that others can know more easily what they look like.
If you sign up for an author account (available free through the home page) you are able to create profiles for you characters and upload a picture. Even if you don't do this, people can consult this list to know what your character looks like.
Please bear in mind that you characters are aged 11-18. You are permitted to change faceclaim once only, and it is preferable that you find someone who has been in the public eye during a suitable range of their life to have age appropriate pictures.
On the whole, we prefer minimal reuse of faceclaims. However, in order to ease the pressure on new authors, we will be releasing some claims that were used a very long time ago. Please consult the lists below to see whether a claim is currently in use, or has been used in the past.
There are lots of lists on IMDB etc of teen actors if you need to browse for ideas, and those of us who have been doing this a while can probably offer help and advice in chatzy if you don't know how to find someone suitable.
This is a list of current character claims and recent alumni. The claims of characters who do not complete all seven years will be released at the point at which they would have graduated. Those who graduated will be reserved for one full character cycle (7 years) or as long as their author requests.
Current students:
Seventh Years:
Brockert, Angelique - Anna Mae Routledge
Collindale, Kyte - Tristan Lake Leabu
Collindale, Raine - Lucy Boynton
DeBois, Natasha - Isabella Murad
Dempsey, Cameron - Jesse Spencer
Fintac, Daniel - Jake Johnson
Pierce, Benjamin - David Mezouz
Reed, Nevaeh - Coco Jones
Riker, Cassius - Ricky Ullman
Umland, Joseph - Dylan Sprouse
Valenti, Gabriel - Dylan Everett
Varth, Natalie - Theresa Palmer
Whittaker, Theresa - Kiernan Shipka
Sixth Years:
Brockert, Juniper - Caitlin EJ Meyer
Carey, Cecilia - Isabelle Allen
Dautin, Madeleine - Rosie Tupper
Ives, Zevalyn - Lizzy Greene
Evreux, Sebastien - Leonardo Decaprio
King, Cassandra - Miranda Kerr
Kirkly, Georgia - Ada Nicole Sanger
Scott, Finbar - Evan Peters
Sparks, Jozua - Hunter Wilichoski
Spencer, Joclyn - Aishwarya Rai
Spencer, Lily - Kate Maberly
Tate, Arianna - Daveigh Chase
Valenti, Arianna - Victoria Justice
Welsh, Farrah - Mackenzie Foy
Fifth Years:
Atwater, Natalie - Crystal Reed
Bly, Salali - Amber Midthunder
Brockert, Emerald - Sarah Bolger
Callahan, Victor - Anton Yelchin
Fintoc, Gwen - Annalise Basso
Graphorn, Magnus IV - Charles Vandervaart
Helms, Conrad
Layne, Amelia
Matherson, Sawyer - Graham Rogers
Mordue, Simon
McCarthy, Lina
McLeod, Kir - Levi Miller
Newell, Florence - Joey King
Pierce, Winston - Zach Mills
Powell, Luke - Peyton Meyer
Reid, Kit - Britt McKillip
Song, Isaac - Lee Hyun Woo
Tremaine, Ayla - Dove Cameron
Fourth Years: Aalto, Loren
Brockert, Ivy - Rowan Blanchard
James, Cleo - Annasophia Robb
Leifsson, Alessandra
Leifsson, Madison
Manger, Eden
Newell, Brett
Priory, Connor - Chandler Riggs
White, Jennifer
Third Years Brockert, Ruby - Kaitlyn Dever
Brockert, Vladimir - Gulliver McGrath
Callahan, Jehan - Troye Sivan
Delachene, Jasmine - Bailee Madison
Fitzgerald, Parker - Romeo Beckham
Harper, Gary
Montoir, Dorian - Samuel Patrick Chu
O'Malley, Peyton - Ashley Boettcher
Vorontsov, Tatiana - Lynne Frederick.
Second Years Adin, Masha
DiCaprio, Michael - Michael Angarano
Hemp, Leilani-Alana
Hexenmeister, Heinrich - Kenton Duty
Hubber, Marianne
Maitlin, Chrystopher
Mordue, Nathaniel
Mordue, Sylvia
Pierce, Caitlin - Mary Mouser
Tate, Beauregard - Ricardo Hoyos
Recent graduates:
Alumni These characters have not yet been graduated for a full cycle and are not yet available for reuse:
These claims were made but the characters were either formally withdrawn or never graduated. They are therefore open to reuse. The list is maintained as some authors prefer to use faces that have not been used at all.
Donovan, Gia - Tania Raymonde
Donovan, Jax - Tyler Hoechlin
Lucan, Caelia - Virginia Gardner
Pye, Barnaby - Jeremy Irvine
Kennedy, Laila - Danielle Campbell
Reinhardt, Arne - Tyler Hill
Claims that have been graduated for a full character cycle.
These characters have been graduated for a full character cycle. Under certain circumstances, they may be reused, although it would be preferable for new and different claims to be found. Asterisked names are not open to reuse, by the authors’ requests. Others may be inquired about via the chairs’ email (attached to this post). Authors who want to continue to reserve their faceclaims can also contact the chairs.
This is the second year of our OOC awards. We're working hard to make them more prominent around the site in order to celebrate the achievements of our awesome community.
Last year was an epic year. It seems the plot really got people's imaginations fired up, as our posting levels were through the roof. We had so much fun seeing what you all did with your accidental magic and your forced incarceration. So, even if you didn't make the list below, please know that your efforts were enjoyed and appreciated.
Without further ado, here are our awards for SA30....
Most Posted Authors
In spite of the intrusive nature of RL with a busy work season, Gray actually upped their post total from last year with 133. Congratulations!
Nathan's author posts a lot. 135 times, to be precise. Nathan is good people.
And uh... posting 249 times was... um... Me. Some say hobby, some say way of life, some say addiction.
Most Posted Characters
'Professors rarely get posted outside of class.' But sometimes in class things are exploding. And then outside of class there are interesting pamphlets. And students coming to yell about unicorns of righteousness. It makes for a busy year. 34 posts' worth of business, in fact.
Shock result, Dorian hogged a massive 20% of my posting time with 49 posts. Honestly, surprised it wasn't more...
When your best friend turns out to be a half veela (and really doesn't take it well) and then you find out your sibling has magic and also everyone around you is making the universe wobble... turns out you end up with a lot to say. MASSIVE congratulations to Parker for being posted an epic 51 times.
Additionally, we would like to give kudos for the following impressive efforts....
Professor Nash is wordy. Who knew? Also, the topic of longest posts came up in chatzy and he took it as a challenge, producing this epic in response.
When two people need a partner for the prefect dance but no one wants to ask, this is the result. Also upholding the tradition of last year's longest thread in accidentally making someone think you're gay. Well done guys...
This year, we also threw it open to the population of Sonora to ask what their favourite moments had been. This year's authors' choice awards go to...
For the exact opposite of the problem listed above; when you try to make it patently clear that you are gay, and very much in love with someone, and they remain frustratingly clueless.
A game within a game. Wizards playing wizards. Not only a fun and hilarious concept which we had fun posting but also an interesting experiment, both in seeing how it would pan out being RPed Sonora-style on the boards, but also spilling over into us having actual games via a server and voicechat and stuff.
Congratulations to all our award winners, and thanks to every single one of our authors for making SA30 awesome.
Although many common questions can be found in our FAQ, we thought we'd just highlight some key points here on the OOC for our newbies.
As the feast and orientation are both up, it's a good time to point out that we have...
Fuzzy time: fuzzy time allows you to post in two places at once. So long as the threads are happening at different times from your character's perspective. E.g. you can be contributing to threads set on their first night and on Hallowe'en as the same time. This means people can post at orientation and the feast at the same time without it creating a problem.
Now that all boards are about to be opened, I thought I would give some more specific guidelines on good fuzzy time practice (aka Fuzzy Time Strikes Back aka With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility aka How Not to Break The Universe)
- Roughly follow the progression of time Just because a post *can* be set any time between now and Midterm doesn't mean it should be. It's probably a tad early to start working on your characters' Christmas gift exchanges with their pals.... Try to keep events posted in the beginning/middle/end part of the term as appropriate
- Wait if something big is going to happen If there is a thread that would majorly alter your character's mood for A Period Of Time (they're asking someone out, they're having a fight, they have an important Quidditch match) wait for it to be resolved before posting elsewhere, especially if the content of the second thread is likely to be affected by the outcome of the first.
- Don't criss-cross Let's say Cleo is talking to Mary in one thread, and Parker in another. I am posting both at once, but they are set at different times. In the thread with Mary, I reference something from the conversation with Parker. Later, I forget this, and reference something Mary said in the conversation with Parker. WHOOPS. I just broke time and created a mobius strip of conversation. This is bad. Don't do it.
Some steps to avoid criss-crossing are: - Keep threads in the order they were started in. Even though the RL date doesn't relate to the Sonora date, this is just a handy way to keep track - Mutually agree an event order with all involved - Go with clues from the posts. If someone references autumn and another says it's snowing, you know which came first
Elective Classes & Academic Support Sign-ups
by Nathan Xavier
Just so people know who is supposed to be in their optional classes, we have set up a google spreadsheet tracking who is taking one. Please make your mark for your Advanced and Intermediate students in the appropriate class columns. (Intermediates are on the second tab/sheet/thing.)
Anyone taking academic support (aimed at students who are struggling due to language barriers, poor literacy, lack of organizational skills, etc) can add their name to the third tab/sheet/thing.
As many of you know from chatzy, I'll be off for the remainder of this week. I might use some of my down time to post, or stop by to say 'hi' but will be a lot quieter than usual.