Talk:Jade Rona/@comment-32355386-20181108164353

Hello! It’s Charlie, aka Morrikrye from Deviantart. How I typically do reviews is by taking it each section at a time, then giving an overall impression of the character. If I find a section lacking, I do make sure to add questions to the review that I think could help flesh it out.

Something to keep in mind, is that I do not give out suggestions fully expecting you to take them. Ideally, I would want you to explain why you have it like that. If it makes sense after a second run through, then it likely is not bad, it just needs a better explanation on the sheet.

While I do not like to repeat myself, because I know that it makes it boring and frustrating to read each of the reviews, because of the format of the site I likely will. This is the first one I am posting and will just be going down the list.

If you can hide comments, feel free to. None of my reviews are short (this one was 4 pages on a word doc).

 Beginning 

Starting off, the quote is an interesting one. It does give a bit of indication to Jade’s personality. If you could, I would see if you could like the Tales of JADF with the name of it in the quote. If it’s a matter of not knowing the HTML, you can find it here: http://www.echoecho.com/htmltext03.htm

Example would be here.

Of course, I am not familiar with the Wiki set up, so it might not work. If it does though, it’s a little way to make your fic more accessible and it seems sleek, like you know what your doing.

All RWBY characters have an influence, one that can inform the rest of the character design. Used properly, one can play into or subvert expectations based upon the character inspiration. What is Jades?

Next up is the “Vital Stats” None of it is odd, I just wanted to note that the “.5” in the age is a bit unnecessary. Most people would assume that someone is not exactly 17 when they read that. Unless her being halfway to 18 is part of the gag, where she is so excited to be “all grown up” that she is adamant that you never call her just 17.

The same type of thing for the weight. Approximates are fine but putting in a concrete number would be better. Looking it up, a healthy weight for a woman at 6 feet 9 inches is between 185 and 226 lbs. If you want her to be muscular, you could go on the higher end of that or possibly a little above because of muscle weight.

 Appearance 

I personally love character design, so I always go a little ham on the character design and appearance. So that way you know where my bias lies.

The appearance is okay for a starting point, but it is missing some element of flair to it. If her body is entirely covered in the scales, does it make her look even bigger than she really is? Are they dry most of the time? Do any of them have cracks to them?

Her clothing is very underwhelming. Rwby has very modern designs with some aspect of it turned up to eleven. While Sun has very “basic” clothing, it still shows quite a bit of his fun personality with the popped collar and his disregard for “normal” (aka non Vacuian) standards by keeping his shirt open. At all times.

This can even be done with her current clothing. Are the sweatpants patterned? Do they have worn spots from where she stretches them out the most? Do they have pockets? Si the t-shirt neat, or is it crumpled?

Honestly, I would look at Yang’s Volume 4 design for a comparison. Even in just a tank top and pants, there is still some details that help sell the look and make it look like a depression version of a “proper RWBY” design.

If you are going for a low effort, but practical design, why not look at cargo pants? Cargo pants can be used just as effectively as sweatpants, give a more interesting silhouette, and would have pockets to store Dust. A belt should not be overlooked, and work belts can add an interesting aspect to the character. (I am also just fiercely against sweatpants as an everyday look. Have some pride Jade, it won’t hurt.)

Something I would consider is also changing the sneakers into work boots. They are equally “low cost” but would make her look more “of the earth” and accent in her design the more strength-based aspect to her than sneakers. “Gym Shoes” makes an athlete, work boots make a tank.

You already had the comment on adding another colour, but I would say that beige would be a good fit. It’s not so attention grabbing that it distracts from the crocodile colouring but does help to lower the green factor.

 Personality 

Next up is personality. And there is unfortunately not a lot to work with. It’s not a bad base, but there should be much more detail to it. This is the core of the character, the thing that would endear her to audiences and to the people around her.

And it would be affecting every other aspect of her character.

If she is quite around people, why would she wear yellow and green? One a vibrant colour the other a colour humans literally evolved to notice. Over at “Hunters4Hire” on deviantart, they have a template that has some good suggestions for writing up a personality.

“Personality is what most defines your character, and how accurately others play with you. Personality influences every aspect of our lives; how why wear our hair, what we choose for lunch, how we walk and talk and who we hang out with. These characters are no less.

It helps if you start with a single defining trait- I recommend a flaw because it offers an instant character arc in overcoming it, and that simple trait can be reinforced throughout his bio giving him a strong personality. A good bio is like a contingency plan where no matter what the situation, a random stranger can refer to this section and guess accurately how they react. If they can, then you've done a good job describing your OC!

Once you have your trait you can then write his bio with four chunky paragraphs about a different part of their life. Try and write three or four sentences per paragraph. You can have any four topic paragraphs, but I think these help cover a lot of ground.”

 Found on this template here.

 Blank writer’s template here.

Now this is not the only way to go about writing a character personality. Another method is to write down all their neutral, positive, and negative traits, and try to figure out how they interact with one another. From there, try to figure out how that causes her to interact with everything else.

This is a good way to get a good grasp on your character’s personality withing a “short” amount of time.

However, the last note on the personality is that not everything needs to be revealed on the character sheet. You are actively writing a series around the characters, so a certain amount of withheld information is required. Give us enough to feel like we know the character, but that we could be surprised by an action of Jade’s but not have it feel out of character.

 Skills 

(I will be talking about Combat after Jade’s weapon)

Her social skills confuse me a bit. She is noted to have a tough exterior and is quite around other people. Combined with her impressive height and mass, it seems a bit odd that one would consider her approachable.

This is especially evident with her stats. While I am not saying that every story about a faunus needs to address the supposed racism towards them, (supposed because of RT’s own inability to show it not because it wouldn’t make sense {though it doesn’t}), people have been “outcasts” for less than being a giant and being covered in scales.

If you could explain it more, perhaps it wouldn’t seem as out of place.

 Combat 

 Semblance 

The semblance is not shown, but you mention in the Vital Info panel that it is an infrared sight. And my question is why?

Why would Jade develop a semblance that has her finding people? Why would she choose a weapon that has no ranged capabilities when she has a semblance that would allow her to see them before they see her? Or why would she not develop some sort of stealth based fighting system to take the most advantage of it?

 Weapons 

I am unfortunately not the best with weapons and weapon ideas, so I do apologize that I cannot help with the technical aspect of it. Instead I can focus on the character aspect of it.

Jades weapon is an interesting idea, but I find it raises questions. Though it could just be me.

The biggest question is why would she weaponize her mouth? You note it yourself that it creates a major drawback (no ranged component) and fighting with it could potentially put her more at risk. So what would make her use it?

Some questions that I had given to me by a DA user of NoobWarfare606 are ones that I have been using for every character since I have gotten them:

“Considering how much weapons have effected real people who weren't really allowed or able to choose their own weapons, why is it that your character chose their's?

How did your character's weapons and fight-style effect your character?

How did your weapon's change with your character? In what way is your character's weapons related to or reference your character's influences or the story your character takes part of?”

These have been helpful in creating a more cohesive feeling character and have also given me ideas on how best to equip and have my characters fight.

 Combat Style and Synergy 

Because of this disparity between personality, weapon, and semblance, it is hard to rate the actual combat section. You are basically calling her the tank, but what about her points towards her being one? How does her weapon enable this combat style? How does her semblance factor into this?

There is no synergy to her combat.

The rest of the categories do need to be filed out, so I unfortunately cannot comment on this.

I hope to hear from you soon!