#saul ranasinghe

[pbjelly90art]

Picking back up with my floral Jeweler Richard fanart series, I've sketched Richard's mentor, Saul Ranasinghe, with some cardamom flowers from his favorite spiced tea blend. Cardamom can be used for spiritual purposes, medicinal purposes, as a symbol of love and prosperity and more, so they felt fitting for him, especially after what we learn about him in volume 9.

I'll update this post whenever I get around to doing flat colors for this portrait. Hoping to draw Hiromi and possibly Chieko next, Richard's two moms now that I've drawn his father figure. x3

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Hello yes we would love to hear abt your feelings

I just really love that Richard has him to rely on a whole, whole lot. Saul is just Peak Dad culture.

Richard doesn’t. Ask for help from people. Seigi helps him, but he doesn’t usually ask Seigi, and he also takes care of Seigi. That reciprocity is the sweetest thing in the universe and I will die for it, but.

There’s something special about Richard letting someone take care of him when he does nothing for Saul. And yeah, okay, he works for Saul, and Vince makes some comments about Saul not wanting to lose Richard because Richard is a brilliant, charismatic genius, but Vince is kind of a bitter asshole a lot of the time anyway. Richard likes his job, and he gets paid (seemingly very well) to do his job, and so that feels like Saul is just taking care of him again.

I think part of it is that Saul saw Richard really at his lowest and was the one to drag him out of the gutter and clean him off. So really, what does Richard have to lose by relying on him? But he asks Saul to come take care of the shop, and to protect Seigi, and to hire Seigi back for...no...reason...while Richard is in London, and Saul does all of these things for him. Richard is scared Seigi won’t like him once he learns of Richard’s past, so he asks Saul to tell him and then basically runs off to an appointment. And Saul takes care of it.

He gets these stupid whiny voicemails from Richard in volume nine and completely ignores them. But he also goes and finds Seigi and picks him and makes sure he’s fine, which is what Richard was worried about.

Saul takes care of Etranger when Richard runs off to London. He takes care of Etranger when Richard is in Sri Lanka with Seigi. And sure, it’s his shop, but it’s Richard’s home, Richard’s “castle.” The house Etra lives in in Sri Lanka is actually Saul’s and still has some of his stuff in it, so it’s not as if Saul just had a random extra house. When Richard said Seigi needed out of Japan for Seigi’s own good, Saul helped make the apprenticeship-internship up, made sure to pay Seigi plenty and give him a free place to stay.

Saul’s been taking care of Richard since he met him.

I don’t think he’d ever admit to this in a million years, but he does. He spoils the heck out of Richard, and Richard deserves to be spoiled. But also, someone who calls Richard out on his bullshit? Fantastic, ten stars. “He’s so pretentious.” Yes. Yes, he is, Saul, drag him.

He’s just very good at being exactly what Richard needs. I love Seigi’s complete adoration of everything Richard, but Saul is more than willing to point out his weak points (and since Saul is working on polishing his apprentice up, he needs to be able to do that). But he also knows what Richard is good at, and he makes sure Richard has the things he needs, even if sometimes what he needs is to be smacked on the head metaphorically.

Richard wants to keep Seigi safe and protected? Saul thinks Seigi will be helpful to Richard, let’s encourage him to go after Richard to London. Screw you, Richard, you’re self-destructing and Saul and Seigi won’t let you do that. He even tells Seigi that a certain jewel has been shining brighter than ever after meeting Seigi, and Seigi is too fking dumb to notice what it means. Richard’s going to go seduce some jackass to steal something back for Saul’s adopted daughter? Saul says no and goes and drags him almost literally by the scruff of his neck and throws him in the car to take him home.

I really like needy, petulant Richard acting like the child he never quite got to be. We see quite a bit of this in volume eight when he’s interacting with his mother, but Catherine is kind of a disaster and mostly needs to be taken care of herself by Richard. Catherine is not an especially functional mother, though she cares for Richard a whole lot.

So it’s nice to see someone who can actually be his caretaker.

Also I think at some point Saul is literally going to smack Richard and Seigi’s heads together and if they kiss by accident in the process, good.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Me whenever I remember Saul is basically a cult leader:

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Ranasinghe Jewelry sends out an Employee Satisfaction Survey:

Question: Do you feel your boss cares about you as a person?

Seigi: 11/10

Question: Do you love your boss?

Seigi: 11/10

Question: Do you think your boss supports your growth?

Seigi: 11/10

Saul: *throws survey in trash*

[seeingteacupsindragons]

It’s Richard’s birthday!

One of Richard’s (multiple) birthstones in Tanzanite. Tanzanite in Jeweler Richard usually symbolizes Seigi: Tanzanite means “Rebirth” and is the chapter in which Seigi begins a huge transformation. He suffers pretty serious trauma, has to get therapy, and when we see him next, it’s years later, he’s grown up, he has new skills, he’s graduated college, and he’s starting life over anew in a completely different country. And, he can be mistaken for Richard.

Wow.

But you know, Richard had a rebirth of his own. It’s in backstory, and the anime skips a lot of Richard’s backstory, but he does, well, have one. He, too, was deeply traumatized and ran off to Sri Lanka. So for his birthday, let’s talk a bit about how he was reborn from Richard Claremont to Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian.

The chapter with the bulk of Richard’s backstory is actually Zircon, which, among many other things, is known as a time capsule stone because it’s the oldest stone ever found on Earth, and it just. Does not destroy easily. It usually just grinds down to…smaller zircons. It’s ancient and it holds the memories of when it was formed and what it was formed of for…well, forever.

And where and when Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian was formed was in a house in Sri Lanka with a young girl who was dealing with her own trauma and healing and a grumpy Sri Lankan gem dealer who expected him to pull himself back together out of the stuff that was once Richard Claremont and the stuff that Richard could be. Saul wouldn’t let himself throw “Richard” away—where he came from still mattered. And Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian carries those memories and the person he allowed himself to become there for the rest of his life.

In Sri Lanka, he took care of someone. He found his career in gemstones—as an honest gem dealer. He learned he couldn’t run away from his past completely, but it also didn’t need to continue defining himself by it. He found a new purpose in life and instead of being a language tutor for a traumatized rich girl with a fiancée he proposed to for fear of losing a friend, he was a bright young gem dealer and international businessman who found beauty in life and helped make sure others saw it too.

Sure, he’s still made of the same stuff as he was before. But he was recreated in Sri Lanka, and he became a new man, with a new name, just as Seigi became a new man with a name that wasn’t part of his biological family, either.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

The Case Files of Jeweler Richard Meta Posts Masterlist

(Or, you know, a masterlist of the ones I wrote)

Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian’s Backstory is Very Queer

Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian’s Backstory is Very Queer: Aspec Amendment

JR: Applied Queer Theory

Choosing Partners

Seigi Projecting Queer Feelings onto Tanimoto

Museum Kiss And Canon

Jeff’s Queerness

Etra’s Relationship in the Epilogue (this one is old and some of my opinions have changed, but not all)

Richard, Deborah, and Dating

Richard and Tanzanite

Saul and Richard

Beauty, Religion, Worship

On Gem Polishing

Seigi’s First Name

Seigi-Sama

Last Names

Power Dynamics

Power Dynamics and Asking

Richard and Asking

Personal vs. Professional

Emotional Distance

Teaching

Conflict Between Richard and Seigi

Kissing

Physical Touch

Weddings

Is Richard Old Fashioned?

Etra’s Relationship

Seigi’s a Puppy

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Today is a day to have feelings about Saul Ranasinghe.

[pbjelly90art]

Saul flat colors! Based it mostly on his anime colors, with some adjustments.

Picking back up with my floral Jeweler Richard fanart series, I've sketched Richard's mentor, Saul Ranasinghe, with some cardamom flowers from his favorite spiced tea blend. Cardamom can be used for spiritual purposes, medicinal purposes, as a symbol of love and prosperity and more, so they felt fitting for him, especially after what we learn about him in volume 9.

I'll update this post whenever I get around to doing flat colors for this portrait. Hoping to draw Hiromi and possibly Chieko next, Richard's two moms now that I've drawn his father figure. x3