How I feel about this character:

Rick in Harvest Moon 64 and Rick in pretty much every game after that are very different from another.

HM64 Rick: This version of Rick is Ann and Gray’s cousin who owns a tool shop in town.  He creates inventions that often fail, and Ann from SNES is his grandmother.  Overall, I find him very sweet and a little absentminded, closing his shop when it… rains?  He’s very focused when he’s passionate about something, and I love those determined and clever sides to him.  He’s a very cool bro who will help you fix the broken music box, no matter how many you present to him.  I really love seeing Rick so passionate about his hobbies, and his dedication to his craft is really endearing.

Mineral Town Rick: Determination is something that Rick carried over from his previous incarnation.  With an absent father, a sickly mother, and a sister who hasn’t been trained properly on handling the farm, Rick has more than enough on his plate.  We get a deeper side of his family life in this version of Rick, but it is often overshadowed by his more unflattering traits, such as allowing his emotions to boil out of control and not thinking before he acts.  Much of his dialogue revolves around his dislike for Kai and his fears of his little sister being stolen away by him.  More on that later.  I still like this version of Rick, but I can’t bring myself to like him more than that independent inventor incarnation (more on that to come!).

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Rick x Farmer: I wish he was marriagable in HM64!  I want to see events where the farmer cheers him on for his inventions and they come up with ideas together.  I also like the idea of two fellow farmers marrying in Friends of Mineral Town, and I feel the main character would help him feel more secure that he’s doing the best that he can and has a support system.

Rick x Karen: I always thought that HM64 Rick’s rejected love was Karen, as she doesn’t even seem to notice he exists.  I kinda got that vibe that he felt she was out of his league, but they could be cute together if they got to talking.  I also love their pairing in Mineral Town - Karen and Rick bump heads a bit, but they treat one another as equals.  I’m a sucker for friends to lovers, and the fact that these two have been through thick and thin together is really heartwarming.

Rick x Elli: These two have the potential to be cute together in both games - especially in Mineral Town, where they can relate to one another as caregivers.  I think they both have very caring hearts, and Elli would be able to reel Rick in if he gets too hot-headed.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Rick/Gray: (Kind of a mashup of both games)  These two would talk shop and have a friendly rivalry with one another - Rick specializing in clockwork mechanisms and Gray more so in electronics.  I headcanon that Gray does a lot of the work for the maker machines.  I also feel like Gray would be blunt enough to express to Rick that he doesn’t have to do it all.

Rick/Ann: Childhood friends/cousins.  I love their familial bond in HM64, and I feel like their personalities would mesh well in Friends of Mineral Town.

Rick/Cliff: I feel like these two would have a lot to teach each other, given that Rick is suffering from abandonment issues and Cliff was the one who left his family behind and regrets it.  There’s a lot of potential for these two, and I might need to delve into it in my writing!

My unpopular opinion about this character

I think the reason why Mineral Town Rick flopped with so many fans was due to the writing.  He talks about Kai year round, and his overbearing presence around Popuri can make it look as if he is trying to control everyone in his life (and some might even get the impression he has a sister complex).  

Rick even expresses concern that his mother is participating in the Cooking Festival, even going so far as to say he tried to talk her out of it despite her obvious enthusiasm to compete.  Also note that Doctor attends the event specifically to make sure Lillia is alright.

So, I think it can be easy to see Rick as a bossy blowhard that has a tendency to lose his temper when things don’t go his way.  And I totally get that.  He is bossy.  He is selfish.  But he’s also had so many responsibilities handed to him from such a young age that he’s traumatized and the thought of losing any more family members causes him to react irrationally out of fear.

Rod left Lillia to find a cure for her illness, and it’s been years since he has been gone.  He’s missed watching his kids grow up.  He’s missed his lonely wife’s company for who knows how long.  Even Anna admits she regrets giving him the lead on the cure because it’s caused him to abandon his family (I also wonder if that’s a small part of why Anna dislikes flowers when you gift them to her, besides her resentment for Basil choosing work over quality time with her).  Rick was made “man of the house” and he takes that role very seriously, filling all of the manual labor aspects of running the family farm, taking on the the role of caretaker of his mother (yes, Popuri and Rick both make a medicine run for her in an event), and taking over as Popuri’s pseudo-guardian, as the only parent present is very ill.

Was he asked to do all of these things specifically?  Probably not.  I imagine Rod telling Rick to take care of his mom and sister and Rick taking it to the extreme.  Rick wants the farm to be successful.  He wants to financially support his family.  He wants his family to be safe and at his side.

In a way, he wants to show Rod that they can get by just fine without him.  I really sense a love/hate conflict for Rick’s feelings about his father.

How does Rod contribute?  I think he sends a single letter (maybe two?) in the game, and we as the players never see him.  No flower, no cure - at least not in the Mineral Town games.  It’s stated in the DS Island games by Popuri that her father finally did come home and her mother got better, but think of all the pain that Rod put his family through.  I don’t believe he did it to be malicious, though, and I really don’t think he thought it was going to take as long as it did.  Regardless, his decision to leave the family behind while his wife was ill left devastating effects on everyone in the family.

Popuri’s desires to go out and see the world are seen by Rick as Kai (someone who doesn't get along with his own family) attempting to potentially take away the remainder of his family, as he doesn’t know how much time Lillia has left.  Even when Popuri admits that traveling with Kai is her idea, Rick is reluctant to believe her.  In a lot of ways, it feels like his father leaving home all over again.

Yes, Rick is quick to judge.  Yes, Rick is untrusting of his own sister, who doesn’t really contribute to the poultry farm.  Yes, Rick could take the time to teach her.  He’s flawed, and I think that’s okay.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

HM64 Rick:

More events in general and the chance to woo him!  Let me marry my cute inventor! <3  Also, let me buy more of his inventions!  I want to have mods to my shipping bin or something, or an auto milker that milks all animals at once.  It’s a shame Rick’s inventions are flops. :(

FoMT Rick:

There was sooo much potential for him.  There were so many missed opportunities for Rick to talk about the big issues.  To tell his mom and sister that he’s sad and angry - for the family to sit down and talk about how Rod’s absence has had such an effect on them.  I want more events that allow him to grow - to understand that he can’t do it all on his own, and for him to learn to accept help.  His marriage event with Karen implies that a bit, but I really wish it didn’t take that much for him to be able to trust others again.  I want to see that process of him changing over time.

Oftentimes, while Nezuko is greatly loved by fans for her cuteness and strength, her character writing and role in the story is grossly overlooked and under-appreciated - I see people constantly pass her off as poorly written and wasted potential. Personally, I think there’s far more to her character than most people perceive, if you just look even a little deeper - Nezuko is the centre of kny’s story, and in a way, I think much of demon slayer is Nezuko’s story told through Tanjiro’s perspective.

One of the most common themes of the series is identity, we see quite a few of the other characters struggle with their sense of self - Muichiro, Kanao, Mitsuri, Akaza - but Nezuko is by far the most prominent.

At its centre, kny is about Nezuko recovering not just her humanity, but her identity as well. In the beginning of the series, she suffers an incredibly traumatic loss and in the process of losing her humanity, her identity fractures.

We see pieces of her shattered identity within her demon forms - her youngest form is playful, cute and sweet, her regular form calm, caring and responsible but also deeply protective, and her demonic adult form is unpredictable, powerful, sometimes violent and rageful. While she’s most commonly seen in her regular being, I think her full demon form is deeply important. It's when we see her express her strongest emotions, hence why it is very hard for other people to control.

As the story goes on, we see these fragments begin to come together as she regains her humanity - there’s also an undertone of Nezuko finally coming to accept what happened to her. I think one of the reasons she is so removed from her identity is also her fear of accepting the loss she experienced - the times where we see her briefly remember her family's deaths are traumatic. She becomes uncontrollably angry, and feels her grief full force - but only for a few moments before she returns to a different form and has to reign what she is feeling back in.

When it comes to Nezuko’s character, the most important thing to her is her family. She is able to see every human as a member of her family, because it is her driving force behind not losing herself entirely. It’s in the final chapters of the series that she finally confronts and accepts this part of herself. When she fully returns to being human the first thing she thinks is “I am Nezuko Kamado. a demon killed my family.” - she recognises that the loss she experienced is a part of her, and was essential to regaining her humanity fully, no matter how painful it is to bear.

Nezuko also fits into another very common theme, we see a lot character’s different experiences with anger and how they respond to it - it is a deeply important emotional theme to the story. She is much like Tanjiro in this aspect, it’s deeply important to both of their characters that they should never be consumed by their anger - rather they control it, and it guides them when they need.

 And when it does leave their control, they are the ones to help pull each other back. Just like during the entertainment district arc, when Nezuko almost breaks her promise and gives into her demon self, Tanjiro is who holds her back and helps bring her back to herself.

During the final chapters, it’s Nezuko who does the same for him. It’s her voice that reaches him first - and reminds him of who he is, and what he’s worked towards the entire story.

They both revolve around each other, just as the story revolves around them. It’s not difficult to notice that they tend to have breakthroughs in power/capability at similar times. During the entertainment district arc they both find extreme power for the sake of protecting others, but push themselves too far for their own anger, and almost lose themselves for it. During swordsmith village, Tanjiro properly finds his feet with sun breathing - it’s no coincidence that the end of the arc remarks Nezuko’s discovered immunity to the sun.

It seems like people see what’s presented of her character in the early parts of the series (aka the barebones of her characterisation) and take that surface level as her character in its entirety - while i definitely agree that she’s not the best written character in the series, and she’s far from perfect, most people give her much less credit than she deserves.