If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?
i'm gonna answer this question in two different ways because fuck it, a.) if i, for whatever reason, couldn't write sandbox and had to hand it off to someone else, what would be the two guidelines that i would definitely tell them for writing crow, and b.) what are the most consistent qualities of crow since his conception
a.) the biggest two things that are important with crow are that he's a liar for the sake of others (1), and he gets more sympathetic as you learn more about him (2). these things go hand in hand.
(excuse how messy this is it's from a really old draft)
crow isn't likable initially because a lot of the characters we have around from the get go (nero, micha, misora) don't like crow, mostly because he's a chronic liar and he keeps things from people. as we learn more about crow, which only comes later in the story, we learn that he's got this self-sacrificing attitude and tries to carry everything on his shoulders, which is why he keeps things from people. it's important that the readers dont like crow initially because it's important to understand WHY nero et al don't like crow, instead of sharing his whole "he's actually helping!" hand, making everyone who hates him look like assholes.
b.) unlike micha, crow's been around for awhile. in the earliest draft as compared to now, the two qualities that remain the most consistent are as follows: he always has an intricate connection to nero, originally the two were rivals and in the current draft they are practically brothers, and he always has come off as kind of a dick