Inundation means "to flood" or "to overwhelm."
SO BASICALLY, GET READY FOR A LONG POST ABOUT MY CHARACTER RICK STAIRWELL! 8D
I'm bored. Sorry. xD;
I was looking through my old pictures one day, and I noticed that Rick is one of my characters that changed a lot in personality. I decided to draw a picture of the "old Rick" and the current Rick to compare them side by side:
(A lot of the "old Rick" pictures were based off of the sketches I drew here.)
It's difficult to see the physical differences, but I think the expression and personality changes are fairly obvious...
Rick's old personality was actually pretty similar to Dare's... Except he was good at technological stuff... Oh, and that he was gay. He was basically this ordinary, outgoing dude who was pretty sociable and (apparentally) easy to talk to. He also fell in love with Dare just 'cause he felt like it. (?? xD) You can see his original character profile here.
The "Likes hanging out with people" and "easy to talk to" parts of his profile were pretty much deleted completely. Sure, Rick likes to hang out with people and people talk to him, but his current personality is really shy. The current Rick would probably never dothis. xD HE'S WAAAY TOO SHY. Oh my gosh, he'd die. xD; I know I didn't draw any flustered pictures of Rick in the picture above, but... he gets flustered around Dare pretty easily. xD;
For physical differences between the current Rick and the old Rick... I think the main difference is Rick's hair.
It got way.
Way.
Puffier.
I think I just draw hair puffy out of habit now... But yeah, his hair is more voluminous now. xD Idk.
Another thing about a change in Rick's hair is in how he parts his hair. The old Rick's hair is parted in the middle, while the current Rick's hair is parted to our right. I decided to make the change in this picture.
The reason for it is actually pretty stupid. xD I used to have a hard time drawing Rick b/c his hair would partly cover both of his eyes, so I decided to move the part over so it'd only partly cover one eye. xD;;; But whatever, I like it better this way. o3o
Rick's clothing style changed, too. He used to dress more boyish, but gradually moved to a more... effeminate style? xD His clothing style started changing at around this picture. This was also the time I promoted Rick from "tech dude" to Band Manager. This is a pretty big step for him, because otherwise he wouldn't really be a major character.
OH, HEY. There was a time when Rick was going through a REALLY GIRLY phase, where I'd draw him with eyelashes (or an eyelash) and wear more girly clothes and pose all girly-like... But I decided to scrap that and put bit more masculinity in him.
He's still pretty girly, though... Or so it seems. xD; He's just really shy...
(This was around the same time I was creating Tomato, so I guess all Rick's girly traits transferred to Tomato. xD)
Rick's personality started to get softer and idk... more gentle (?) by this picture. I also came up with the idea of giving him a necklace. xD As you can see, the necklace is different from the current one... He just wears a small chainlink necklace now.
I formally declaired (?) Rick's personality change in the footnotes of this picture, but it's still a little off-base from what he is now.
In early last year, I focused more on Rick's emotional insecurity, like in this picture. I had decided pretty early off that Rick would have a pretty upsetting and sad background story, but I hadn't really focused on it.
AND SINCE I DIDN'T TALK ABOUT IT MUCH IN HIS EXTENED PROFILE, I WILL TAKE THE TIME TO BLAB ABOUT RICK'S BACKGROUND STORY.
Rick is the oldest of a family of 5; he has a brother and 3 sisters. He lives with both of his parents (unlike a lot of my characters). When Rick was 10 (4th grade), he moved to Boston, Massachusetts. Dare was in Rick's 4th grade class. The way they met is kind of stupid, but I'll tell you anyways:
On the first day of school Dare's aunt brought Dare into the school, and before leaving, put a red hat on Dare. In the classroom, Dare noticed a blonde kid (Rick) sitting by himself. (Rick was sitting by himself b/c he just moved to the area and had no friends.) Dare, being the little outgoing kid he is, went over to Rick and talked to him. I don't know why, but after they talked a little, Dare said to Rick "Hey, do you want my hat?" Rick was like, "Huh?" and Dare was like, "I don't like wearing hats. You want it?" and Rick was like, "...Sure...?"
And so. Dare gave Rick his hat.
(IN CASE YOU DID CATCH THAT, THE HAT DARE GAVE RICK IS THE RED HAT RICK WEARS IN MOST OF MY PICTURES.)
After the first day of school, Dare's Aunt got mad at Dare for giving away the hat. She and Dare went over to the Stairwell's house, and they talked and stuff. So that's how Dare's Aunt met Rick and his family. And ever since, Dare and his aunt have been family friends to the Stairwells. (And they let Rick keep the hat. xD)
So yeah... sounds pretty happy right now. :I
Rick and Dare stayed really close friends all the way through elementary and middle school.
In 8th grade, Rick started to wonder about his sexual orientation. This is because it's around this age, kids start destinguishing between gay, straight, bi, etc... That's also when guys start being all like, "THAT'S SO GAY." and "OMG ARE YOU GAY? YOU <mean word for gay>." Rick started to wonder if it was weird that he hung out with Dare so much... Rick's also been classified as kind of a "wuss" all through grade school.
In 9th grade, Rick noticed he looked at guys (particularly Dare) differently, and realized he liked guys. (On a side note, this is also the time Dare started dying his hair and dressing in "emo" clothing. Dare's actually a complex dude, and I'm not entirely sure why he started dressing like that... he either likes the style, or he's trying to see how big of an impression a person's outward appearence leaves on others. I think it's pretty obvious that Dare doesn't act like a stereotypical "emo" dude. He hates stereotypes and is trying to show people that just because someone looks a certain way or dresses in a certain style doesn't mean they have to act a certain way.)
BUT ANYWAYS, Rick was initially in denial. He tried to reason with himself, saying things like "I don't like Dare, we're just close friends. That's all." Although, it was pretty obvious to him that he liked Dare more than just as a a friend.
Rick didn't tell anyone he was gay at first, and he was so worried about someone finding out that he couldn't concentrate on his school work and locked himself up in his room a lot. And he cried a lot in his room because he didn't know what was wrong with him. Rick thought he was "different" and weird and such...
Dare, being a good friend, noticed Rick was pretty down. He confronted Rick and asked him what was wrong. Rick said to him "I think I'm gay," which surprised Dare. Up till now, Dare was your average dude who didn't particularly like gays, but he didn't really hate them either. He was pretty indifferent, but always felt awkward around them. Naturally, he was a little freaked out that his best friend liked guys, and felt nervous around him. So Dare avoided Rick for a little while so he could get his mind straight.
When Dare was avoiding Rick, Rick thought Dare didn't want to be his friend anymore and felt really alone. He told his parents he was gay the same day he told Dare, and luckily, his parents were kind and supported him. They were worried about him often, because he was feeling so depressed. Rick kept himself locked in his room often, thinking and crying and stuff, and started skipping dinner because he didn't want to face his family. So he started losing weight and became frail...
Someone also heard Rick talking to Dare, and overheard him saying he was gay. So word got around the school that Rick was gay. In my school, that's not really a big deal.... so I was a little bit confused on how to portray this part of the story. I guess in Rick's school, there were some homophobes there who started harassing him.
Because Rick and Dare used to hang out so much, people started to refer to Dare as Rick's "boyfriend". (In a mean way. Like, "HEY, WHERE'S YOUR BOYFRIEND? <insert obnoxious mean guy laughter>" The bullying got so bad that one day a bunch of guys (popular kids, I guess? Probably juniors... Rick's a freshman at the time, remember) started being all mean and verbally harassing Rick and calling him mean names and stuff. Rick felt really small... he was on the verge of crying.
BUT THEN.
DARE COMES TO THE RESCUE! He defends Rick. Yeah. Dare also loses it at one point, and punches the "leader" of the group. (I've hinted at this before in one of my world posts...) He totally blows up on the guy, yelling things like "you don't know <s-h word> about him, shut the <h word> up, you <b-a word>."
And then a teacher comes in and breaks the fight up. Dare and the other kid get sent to the principal's office. (At different times, weirdly enough. xD)
Rick comes with Dare to the principal's office, and while their waiting for the principal, they talk things over. Dare says he's really sorry for avoiding Rick, he was just confused and didn't know what to say. But he thought it over and concluded that "gay or not, you're [Rick] my best friend. You were before I knew you were gay, and you are now. You're Rick, you always were." (Weird dialouge...)
Anyways, the principal lets Dare off the hook b/c he's had such a good record before this fight. (Dare is extremely grateful.)
Dare and Rick become best friends again, and Dare decideds that he shouldn't care so much about a person's sexual orientation. (He sees it as a simple feature, like whether someone has blue eyes or brown eyes, is tan or is pale. Gay or straight. Or bi. Simple.)
And Rick is happy again! 8D
But he still feels depressed and confused often because he likes Dare, but he can't build up the confidence to tell him. He also knows Dare will reject him because Dare's not gay.
And that's Rick's background story... xD; NOW YOU KNOW WHY IT'S NOT IN HIS PROFILE...
(It's because it's so long. xD)
I'd love to draw Rick's background story... I just don't know how to fit it into RB:SI. Maybe I'll draw it in a separate comic? :/
Anways, I think that's enough about Rick for today. As you saw earier, (WAY EARLIER...) there's a lot of differences in Rick's personality in my pictures and such. If you're looking for an accurate portrayal of his personality (for some strange reason), you can read his extended profile.
AND IF YOU READ THIS FAR,
I HONESTLY
HONESTLY
RESPECT YOU.
Reading this much takes serious skill. xD
THANKS FOR READING IF YOU DID!!!!!
