PAUL ATREIDES/IRULAN CORRINO
What if Princess Irulan was able to see the future? What if she had been betrothed to Paul Atreides before the events in Arrakis took place?
A re-imagining of Dune told from her point of view because our empress in-name-only deserves better.
> read latest chapter here
> read chapter one here
Chapter 6: She Partakes
"Let's ask the Princess first, Father—if she knew how to swim." He directed his attention to me again. "Do you? Had your precious Sisterhood ever taught you something as mundane as that?"
"Paul!" Lady Jessica inhaled sharply.
I met his gaze, the end of my lips tilting upward in a sardonic smile. "Why don't we ask your mother seeing as she is also part of my precious Sisterhood?"
"Don't—" He said in gritted teeth. "My mother is not like you."
if you ever doubt that your ao3 comments matter or mean something: i have been struggling with my writing for 6 months straight, crying myself to sleep afraid that i will never be able to write again, that the thing i love most in the world has left me, that my writing is just gone
this morning i got this comment:
and after i stopped blubbering over it, i picked up my writing notebook, and re-read all my fic research, and opened up my document again for the first time in weeks without being afraid of it
you have no idea how much writers treasure every single comment we get. you have no idea how big an impact you can have. sometimes, just sometimes, your one "insignificant" comment changes everything
unpopular opinion probably but I actually like that ao3 doesn’t let people take back their kudos.
unlike social media platforms (which ao3 is not) where people unlike stuff whenever they think or find out the original posters’ moral compass doesn’t perfectly align with their own’s or whatever, and “likes” can be taken back at any time, ao3 treats kudos as something sacred. once you give it, it’s the author’s to keep forever.
Best part is if someone deletes their account, the kudos remains, and it just gets swapped over to a guest kudos instead. The body is gone but the love remains.
I will not compare myself to others. Comparison is the mind killer. Comparison is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face the achievements of others. I will allow our differences to pass over me and through me. And with these comparisons gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
-Bury a friend: As far as Paul knew, you were dead, but your ‘ghost’ claims otherwise and you refuse to let him sleep.
-Sand in the Breeze: If Fear is the mind killer, Doubt is a slow acting poison that worms it's way into the hearts of the strongest men.
-Little cakes: You panic as your wedding date draws near and a trip to a famous sex planet doesn't help with these growing emotions. Thankfully, Paul is there to distract you.
Part two.
Part three.
-The Voice: Haunted by your dead lover's voice, you let it guide you halfway across the universe and find something something that rattles your core.
-Where the Water Flows: You believed in nothing but the sand under your feet and the blood in your veins. Paul thinks you're insane.
-Three times: The Three times you were just too much for Paul and the one time he acted on it and feared for his life.
-Bloodied hands: There are always greater hands at play when you dance with Kings and noblemen. The greater hands usually belong to women. (King!Paul x Queen!Reader)
Gilded Lily: You were born to die and unlike the others around you, you have accepted that truth long ago. But then, things change. Your father is killed, the Atreides are made royal and you are captured.
Part 2
-Beneath the Sun's Gaze: in the eyes of beings beyond, humans, are all the same in the end. So what did they care if one goes off course? (Isekai'd reader lol)
–In the Midst of Waves: Paul Atreides has a secret to tell you.
-The Death of A Star: Paul thought he could never love you but when a starts to die, it sucks everything in and in your death, your rebirth, he learns he can.
A Dark Dream: Paul has a nightmare.
Angel lips: Chani returns.
Drabbles:
–Paul having cute aggression.
-Home.
𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐒 𝐈:
-Parum serpens: A tough day at the council sends Leto into a sour mood.
Drabbles:
-In which he shaves.
𝐃𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐇𝐎:
Drabbles:
-A peek into another life.
Do NOT copy, translate or reproduce my work in any form or matter. Thank you :)
"A place for every man and every man in his place" or, the origins of the Faufreluches
(Note: just tried to post this on r/dune and it's in moderation hell, so guess I'm posting it on here too.)
FAUFRELUCHES: the rigid rule of class distinction enforced by the Imperium. "A place for every man and every man in his place".
Most of us are probably familiar with this entry from the appendices of Dune, where it defines the Corrino Imperium's system of the faufreluches. The faufreluches, as Paul's early chapters tell us, are the foundation of the Imperium, which Yueh hints that it "was not rigidly guarded on Arrakis". We don't get much of an understanding of how the system works, really, beyond the fact that Paul gives Mohiam a bow specifically for "when in doubt of another's station".
Class means everything in the Imperium, we just don't get to see much of it before Paul tips it all over.
Faufreluches itself almost certainly comes from the French "fanfreluche", which means (decorative) frills/embellishments. Which is a pretty nice summary of its role in the plot - it embellishes the society of the Imperium, but plays a purely decorative role in Dune's actual plot, for the most part. But where does the phrase come from?
This excellent comment by u/maximedhiver tracked it back through a multitude of appearances to 1830, where it appeared in a prison report. That's not actually the first appearance, albeit it's an earlier report by the same authors: the Second Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society in 1827. Same society, mind you, so this post is mostly elaborating further on the context around this phrase.
But that sounds like a super boring report, doesn't it? How on earth did it take off from there to become a cliche within the next ninety years? Well, turns out that the Prison Discipline Society was founded in 1825 by a Quaker, Reverend Louis Dwight. To quote an article on the founding of the Society:
Not the first such society [for prison reform], it soon, however, became the most active, most vocal, and most widely known of all American prison reform groups. Its annual report, were purchased by many state legislatures and read, as well, throughout Europe. Dwight, as the secretary and the only paid member of the Society, travelled extensively, visiting many prisons, interviewing wardens and keepers, and reporting his findings.
This was an internationally renowned society - it's like the 1820s equivalent of Amnesty International. But, by our standards, it certainly wasn't as benevolent. Dwight advocated for the Congregate System, which prevented prisoners from talking to each other during the day and isolated them at night, enforced through whipping and violence, and opposed the Separate System, which also called for isolating prisoners from each other, but with less physical punishment and "frequent visits from chaplains and other morally uplifting visitors from the community". Not great to our eyes, to put it mildly.
But this doesn't really explain what the point of that saying was, and why Herbert might've chosen to use it. So let's look at the original quote:
A place for every man , and every man in his place. A convict should have the same cell at night, the same place in the shops, and the same relative position in the column, while marching to and from the shops. Thus if there is any communication, except between those Who are near each other, it is interrupted and difficult. The practical effect of this rule will be understood by the following illustration. A convict from a Prison containing several hundred prisoners, where this rule is not observed, said he could ordinarily see and converse with any prisoner in the establishment in the course of a day.
On the contrary, where the rule is observed, old comrades have been in the same Prison, passed through the same yard daily, and worked month after month in different shops connected with it, without ever having an opportunity to speak to one another, and each without knowing that the other was there. It is not perceived how order could be produced, and evil communication prevented to this extent, without having a place for every man, and every man in his place. But sometimes it is necessary for men to leave their places: to guard, therefore, against the danger of having several gone, at the same time, to a place of common resort, it is beneficial to use. (pp. 36-7).
This, I think, is a perfect summary of why Herbert chose this phrase to summarise the Imperium's society. The faufreluches system enforces a stasis on the Imperium by preventing people of different classes from intermixing as much as possible. As Leto II would argue, without adversity, there can be no change, let alone improvement. The Imperium of the Corrinos, where everyone - bar those on Arrakis - are perfectly orderly, is doomed to fail.
It's incredibly subtle, but it must've been a fairly obvious reference for Herbert and men of his generation as to what the underlying conflict throughout the series would be - stagnation and separation vs progress and intermingling.
Imagine being like. A normal citizen on a random tiny exoplanet at the edge of the Known Universe only hearing about the events of Dune from like. vague news reports because it's so far from anything going on. Oh there's a new emperor? Ok I guess didn't know much about the first one to begin with. He's also the leader of that crazy cult on Arrakis?? Since when are there cults on Arrakis I thought it was just like. spice and nothing else?? Sure I guess. Oh we all um. need to accept him as leader or he'll destroy our entire planet. Ok I guess sure dude it doesn't make much of a difference to me!!! I am just trying to go to work! There are pilgrims flocking to Arrakis to meet this guy??? Can't you not access coordinates to Arrakis or something?? Hell no *I'm* not going I don't gaf about sand dunes or weird brutalist megastructures thanks very much. Ohhh turns out the culty emperor is also the son of the former Duke of Caladan...ok I *kind of* know what his deal was like, vaguely? Is there even land on Caladan or is it entirely water I can't remember. Wait hold on he's *not* emperor anymore? He just. decided to fuck off into the desert one day and never came back and now his sister (did not know he had a sister) is in charge. Okay. Their mom was Bene Gesserit? They're Bene Gesserit? Or can read minds or something idk. What even *are* the Bene Gesserit come to think of it?
Oh there's. There's yet another emperor guys. From Arrakis again for some fucking reason and this time it's. it's a giant worm ? That ate a person? Did it eat the old emperor? Or is it the old emperor? It's just a person who looks like a worm? I'm picturing like an earthworm guys I don't even know how to visualize this.
also i like how paul's statue doesn't look like him at all. the mystification mythologization and depersonalisation of paul atreides has already begun. deadest living god of all time lets goooo
What if Princess Irulan was able to see the future? What if she had been betrothed to Paul Atreides before the events in Arrakis took place?
A re-imagining of Dune told from her point of view because our empress in-name-only deserves better.
> read latest chapter here
> read chapter one here
Chapter 7: She Becomes
I woke up gasping while my hands were frantically clawing at my face and neck—the feeling of the abrasive texture of sand all over my body caused an all-consuming agony; it burned and smothered. Only when I felt a different kind of pain from the nail that scratched my neck, drawing blood, did I realize I was finally in the familiar surroundings of my room in Caladan. The morning light already sifting through the window curtains.
Not in a Council Room.
And not buried beneath layers of sand.
What if Princess Irulan was able to see the future? What if she had been betrothed to Paul Atreides before the events in Arrakis took place?
A re-imagining of Dune told from her point of view because our empress in-name-only deserves better.
> read latest chapter here
> read chapter one here
Chapter 7: She Becomes
I woke up gasping while my hands were frantically clawing at my face and neck—the feeling of the abrasive texture of sand all over my body caused an all-consuming agony; it burned and smothered. Only when I felt a different kind of pain from the nail that scratched my neck, drawing blood, did I realize I was finally in the familiar surroundings of my room in Caladan. The morning light already sifting through the window curtains.
Not in a Council Room.
And not buried beneath layers of sand.
That ‘comment on your a03 work’ email hits like a line of cocaine every time. unmatched dopamine increase. shoutout to everyone who leaves a comment on fics. you deserve the world
