The Midjourney Stuff Just Reminds Of When We Were Trying To Find A New Platform To Host The Ao3 Donation

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

Gonna tell y’all what I can hear now that I got my hearing aids

Happy birthday to Callisto!🎉🎂

Villains Are Destined to Die, preview of Ep. 157!

The tedious affection score, these situations… ―Goodbye now.

"For the main character ."

things english speakers know, but don’t know we know.

I don’t think it’s meant to symbolize him seeing someone in the water, actually. Instead, I think it—and the ribbon—are meant to represent Richelieu’s faith in God, and how he believes himself to be the only priest free of sin.

(my brain didn’t want to word correctly so my apologies if this feels too stilted or disjointed, I just couldn’t seem to get my thoughts out correctly. If you need clarification just ask and I’ll happily answer)

Quick recap of the chapter for anyone who doesn’t have immediate access to it: Richelieu accidentally stumbles across some old passages underneath the Vatican, and starts exploring them. He discovers hidey-holes that allows him to spy on other priests and see just how corrupt they are. As he wanders, he believes God guided him to the tunnels and questions what God wants him to do about all this (which is where that panel occurs). He comes to the conclusion that he must cleanse the Church of corruption, and starts taking steps to do so (becoming Theobald’s teacher, turning Wolff into his right-hand man). Chapter ends with Richelieu and Theobald in present time, going into a room to talk after Theobald has returned from the gambling house.

While researching, I found a short passage in the Bible called “The Parable of the Pearl”:

Basically it means that if you aren’t willing to stake your entire future on getting into Heaven, then you were never worthy of it in the first place. Another popular interpretation is that material possessions can never measure up against the beauty and wonder of Heaven. Both interpretations line up pretty well with some of Richelieu’s thoughts in this chapter:

Pearls have always been extremely valuable, especially in ancient times, and are still often used as a symbol of wealth. I think that’s why Richelieu is shown as separate from the whole strand of pearls; he is the one “good” pearl connected to Heaven while all the other pearls (the priests) chase after their riches. Plus pearls symbolize purity, wisdom, and faith. And yet the strand of pearls looks like it’s stained with something (perhaps blood because the Church plotted Shuri’s murder and then started a Holy War?), which again I thought related back to “chasing after riches and immorality instead of wisdom.”

And Richelieu even goes on to state just how faithful his family has always been:

They don’t cling to material possessions but instead their faith. It took Richelieu longer to find that faith, but when he did, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to it.

Also, apparently when Eve cried as she was kicked out of the Garden of Eden, her tears fell into the ocean and became pearls. Holy figures falling from grace and being associated with pearls…you get the gist. And yes, I do find it a little odd that pearls are both associated with Heaven but also being kicked out of Paradise, but whatever.

The only really mention of ribbons I could find in the Bible was when God ordered the Israelites to wear blue ribbons as they left Egypt to show that they were people of God, but the color white is associated with purity and being free of sin. Ribbons/knots in general tend to symbolize loyalty and eternal bonds. Except the ribbon in the panel isn’t tied or bound to anything. Richelieu may be loyal to God and believe himself to be pure, but nothing he does for atonement can ever justify the sins he’s committed in God’s name. God is not with him after all he’s done.

Mystery Pearls

So there's this strange panel I want to draw your attention to. Specifically this scene in Ch. 106 where a teenage Richelieu has a symbolic flashback to the day he was "reborn."

Now the drowning memory isn't very strange on its own but the really weird thing was that he saw bloody(?) pearls and a white ribbon in the water with him. (and no, Richelieu was not wearing pearls in this scene, doesn't wear pearls in the original drowning scene, and they don't seem to be rosary beads) It only appears in this single panel but it's confusing me so much??

I was wondering if this was a reference to Shuri's death and her own revival, but I couldn't find any proof of her wearing pearls on that fateful day. Just who was it that he saw in the river?