Rick Saguaro

Ricardo Saguaro (Rick for short) is a desert raider from Bonemaw. He lives in a small district named Nopal, which is inhabited by other Plant Drimare and desert raiders. 
Rick has followed in the family business of raiding, which mostly involves stealing from rich and corrupt travelers and selling their belongings. However, in a past raid, he found himself singled out and was captured by Angus who intended to deliver him to the law officers of that town. But Rick was released by Angus' brother Dante who he later secretly became romantically involved with.
However, with Dante's status as a rockstar, despite remaining in the shadows, Rick became overwhelmed by the attention and removed himself to focus back on his family which he had abandoned in pursuit of his relationship. Despite this, he still has feelings for Dante, which he absolutely refuses to admit to. 
==Appearance==
Rick is 173cm tall and of average weight. He's a Cactus Drimare and his skin is green and appears to have vertical striped markings with small spikes all over, his hair is long and in a shade of blackish blue, often appearing quite messy. Being a type of Flower Drimare, he has two dark green cactus growing on his head, each with a single closed red flower bud. He also has sharp claws and sharp ochre coloured fangs that stick out.
Much like other Flower Drimare, Rick also has two lashers that grow from his back, these are dark green with flexible with thorns covering their entirety, with the exception of the tip which is red.
Rick's most distinct feature is his red bandana which covers his mouth, the bandana is also adorned with golden markings resembling fangs. He also wears a brown hat, a cream coloured poncho, a brown sleeveless shirt, brown fingerless gloves, white pants and brown boots.
==Personality==
Rick is a quiet and seemingly grumpy bandit who is often seen just keeping to himself. He prefers to focus on his work and has a hard time making new friends due to not being as talkative as his peers.
He's a lone wolf at heart, preferring to be by himself and only ever joining larger groups if he absolutely has to, often having a hard time keeping up with his more energetic peers. He's fairly humble but also doesn't think too highly of himself to begin with. At times, this causes him to fall into self-deprecating moods without realizing it.
Even outside of his work, Rick doesn't like to have any attention drawn to himself, often becoming anxious or flustered when he feels like he's getting put on the spot. He's very shy and gets embarrassed easily, which he often tries to hide under his serious and grumpy self.
Truth be told, this demeanour is nothing more than a persona he puts up. Rick is quite passionate and emotional, but due to circumstances in his life, he began to shut himself off in order to distance himself and preventing others from regarding him as weak.
Because of this, he has a hard time expressing his feelings, despite feeling really intense emotions, he often finds himself stuck with a serious expression for just about anything.
Being the eldest of all his siblings, Rick has taken the role of a caretaker for his family and especially his younger siblings, with him being particularly close with his sister Catiana.
However, due to his orientation, he's also become very secretive over his feelings, being raised with more traditional family beliefs caused him to feel very ashamed of himself, resulting in him also isolating himself from his family who often inquire about his lack of a female romantic partner.
In this isolation, Rick has taken to repressing his feelings and just drinking his thoughts away just so he wouldn't have to deal with his family. Despite this, he still cares a lot about them and tries his best to keep his true feelings a secret.
He often appears very strict and contained, only being capable of opening up to his ex-partner Dante who he still has romantic feelings for. He's still very emotional and has a tendency to become distressed and clingy when he's drunk, but he often pushes Dante and other potential partners away due to still clinging to the feeling of shame due to the pressure his family puts on him.
He's very much a hopeless romantic, often desiring to have a partner and a family of his own and wanting to make his relatives proud, but due to fearing their disapproval, he often ends up sabotaging himself and his relationships, being unable to let go of his self-loathing.
When he's comfortable with himself, Rick still keeps a shy demeanour, although appearing very contained, he still wants to have fun and let loose. But when he does let go, he often finds himself getting carried away and later becoming embarrassed over losing his composure.
This is especially evident in his relationship with Dante who often enables Rick's self-indulgent behaviour. 
Due to being a Cactus Drimare, he also has a hard time interacting with other non-plant Drimare, and despite the species' reputation of being prickly and hard to approach, Rick still very much craves companionship from others.
With all this, he is still polite and even mild-mannered at times and despite his issues, he still cares a lot about those closest to him.
==Abilities==
Despite his raiding occupation, Rick's approach tends to be a lot more focused on being discreet rather than the loudness and chaos of his fellow raiders. He gets the job done without making as much of a fuss about it.
He's really good at being extremely quiet and sneaking up on people or places without making as much as a sound.
Rick also has a pistol that he only uses in emergencies, having a preference for a more traditional knife. The Flower Drimare can also use their lashers and claws to attack, and being a Cactus makes this all the more effective.
==Relationships==
===Dante===
bluhhh outdated, ignore
They still like each other, but Rick is too stubborn to accept it and doesn't want to get back together, preferring to focus on his work. Dante isn't too good at being the "awkward ex" and just treats him as he always did, and Rick can't help but still feel a bit weak to his knees.
===Angus===
Dante's older brother, their introduction wasn't the most pleasant, consisting of Angus tackling him to the ground and yelling at him to tell him where the raiders were hiding.
Despite escaping that situation and later becoming romantically involved with Angus's brother, Rick still holds a grudge against the skeleton rancher, who continuously chooses to antagonize him.
Rick isn't one to engage in petty squabble, but Angus is his one exception, often resulting in Dante trying to separate them to prevent them from fighting.
To his knowledge, as far as Rick knows, Angus is unaware of his romantic involvement with Dante, though it's not like he needs any more reasons to want to avoid him. If they were to meet again, Rick would just try his best to ignore him.
===Sadie===
I love the idea of Dante introducing them and them getting along just to piss off Angus. She's nice and Rick sees no reason not to be polite.
===Catiana===
His younger sister. They get along well enough, but if Catiana finds out he's gay, she's going to tell mom.
He's still protective of her and often has to go help her stay out of trouble, even if it's often a thankless job.
===Olivia===
Strange cowboy witch. They never spoke but just like many others, he has heard the stories and rumours and is very much afraid of her, hoping he won't ever have to come across her path.
==Backstory/Lore==
His family were raiders and he joined them ever since he was very young. He met Dante somewhere along the way and fell in love with him, and as he became scared of his family finding out about this and shunning him, he decided to run off with him.
They started playing together, but Rick became overwhelmed by the attention they got, as well as feeling guilty for abandoning his family, the stress making him really unhappy. Dante too encouraged him to go back and be true to himself, to which Rick eventually did, breaking up their relationship in the process.
His family was relieved to have him back, and although the rumours of his past relationship earned him some side eyes, he was just glad to be back home.
Note to self - This boring and just resorts to a status quo where nothing changes. Make it more interesting
==Trivia==
*The name "Rick" is meant to be a reference to the word "Prick"
**It also came to be because Rick's placeholder name was "Prickle Rick" and like all the dumb placeholder names I've given my characters, it stuck before I got to look for something better.
*His design was initially inspired on a fanmade High Noon skin concept for Ivern from League of Legends, as well as Cactus Gunman from the Gregory Horror Show.
==Navigation==
Category:Characters
Category:Drimare
Category:Plant Drimare
Category:Cactus Drimare
Category:Bonemaw
Category:LGBT+ Characters
Category:2020 Characters