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lowtaperfeyd · 8 months ago

Note

Jessica and atreides!reader angst? (Mother and daughter angst then yn slowly turns into evil which jessica slowly realise the pattern was repeating)

Metamorphosis

Lady Jessica x Daughter!reader

(Not beta read, we die like Feyd-Rautha)

author's note: If you guys can't tell I really like writing angst. This is also the longest thing I've written so far :). Also trying a new formatting type.

warnings: mentions of death, mommy issues, mentions of blood, mentions of Paul after drinking the water of life

wc: 1145

Lady Jessica did her job halfway right. To ensure she completed her Bene Gesserit mission, gave birth to twins. A boy named Paul and a girl named (Y/N). While the loophole was clever, the Bene Gesserit could not use the daughter she had given birth to. They said she had tainted her womb while bearing a son.

Her father, the Duke Leto Atreides, was the only one who actually taught her important things. When she was little she would sit in a stool pulled up near her fathers desk and watch him go through paperwork and meeting notes. While he trained his son to become duke, he trained his daughter what to do in case something happened to Paul. He didn’t brush her off.

Lady Jessica focused most of her time on Paul. His training, his skills, and his talent. While (Y/N) was taught how to use the Bene Gesserit ways by other members and not her mother. While those tutors did their job well, and she was learning quite a lot, (Y/N) found that her brother, a male, was progressing much faster than her. She was proud of her brother. It wasn’t her brother’s fault, it was her mother’s.

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A younger (Y/N) and Paul sat on the damp grass on Caladan on a breezy afternoon. They watched the sun lower into the sky and begin to graze where the horizon met the sea. (Y/N) took small daisies from the ground and started to make a flower crown out of them.

“You know Paul, if you continue to improve at this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if you were better than our mother.” (Y/N) praised as she continued to pick and tie other flowers together.

“No, no, no,” her brother replied modestly, “what she is teaching me is all of what she knows. Sooner or later I’ll plateau.”

“You never know,” (Y/N) chuckled, cheekily, “Maybe one day she’ll go to you for advice.”

When (Y/N) finished the thin crown, she placed it onto Paul's head.

“There,” she said, “I now dubbed thy, Duke Paul Atreides of Caladan. Who will be an excellent and fair ruler.”

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The only thing that (Y/N) had against Paul, was that her ability to use the voice was much better than his. Paul sounded like a dying horse and (Y/N) could command hundreds of people with her voice. (Y/N) found incredible joy from this. But this fact scared Lady Jessica.

Lady Jessica was afraid of the power her daughter held. She knew of her hatred against her brother who took most of the time spent learning. Of course this all wouldn’t matter when the Duke died and they lived in the desert with the Fremen. Until Paul had a war forged in his name and (Y/N) had nothing but her brain.

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(Y/N) was standing in front of the giant pool of water, watching her reflection rippled and ebbed. As she stood there, she imagined a war that was fought in her name instead of Paul’s. Tons of water, from people who died while waiting for the ‘Lisan Al-Giab’ If this was my war, no one would die. She thought. After a couple of minutes a Fremen woman came by and poured the water of another warrior. If my mother and her witches hadn’t meddled, we wouldn’t have this mess. She stood there for hours, hours past when the sun went down, pondering her existence and her brother’s willingness to say he was the messiah.

“Are you going to keep looking at your reflection or are you coming to bed?” She heard her mother say.

“Does it matter if I stay up late? I’ve nothing to do on Arrakis.” (Y/N) responded, sounding completely uninterested in talking to her mother.

“It does matter, you need sleep in order to thrive.” Lady Jessica declared.

“Don’t try acting like you care now,” her daughter bit back, coldly, “don’t try acting like a caring mother. Go spread more rumors about Paul.” she sighed out.

“They aren’t rumors, (Y/N),” She retorted, “It’s what he’s going to do. You and everyone else here realizes who he is and his potential. You need to help Paul.”

(Y/N) bundled her hands into fists at her sides. Her knuckles popped at how hard she was squeezing them. Your son has changed far beyond what was expected. she thought, you barely recognize him anymore.

“Would me dying for your cause be sufficient?” (Y/N) uttered under her breath as she continued to look at her reflection, “Should I stand out there and be a martyr? The loving sister of the Kwisatz Haderach…”

Lady Jessica breathed in sharply and said nothing in return. She took her hands and put them over her stomach where her other child was.

(Y/N) turned around to look at her mother, “You agree don’t you?’ she assumed.

Still, the Lady said nothing and just looked at her daughter. She met her daughter's eyes. The blue within blue encased her small pupils and her skin looking paler and deeper set than when they had left Arrakis.

“Why aren’t you speaking?” Her daughter whispered, “Tell me what you think!”

“I think you as a martyr would do as much damage as if you were alive,” She voiced, “your death would be mourned. But, it would not change anything.”

The sudden use of the voice surprised and startled Lady Jessica, “You imbecile, you using the Voice on your own mother.”

“You didn’t seem to mind when Paul used it on your old reverend mother,” (Y/N) stated, “Paul and I did the same thing, use the Voice on a reverend mother.”

“You used it on your mother. Paul seized the moment so he could speak.”

“You were never a mother.” (Y/N) asserted, “you were a housemate, an incubator

at best.”

This stunned the reverend mother. She had never heard her daughter speak so unrighteously and sternly. It was almost like she had never really known her. The (Y/N) she knew, the sweet girl who collected wildflowers that had grown on the cliff sides, had died when they landed on Arrakis and was replaced by someone cold and quiet.

“I’ll help my brother.” (Y/N) expressed as she moved closer to her mother, “I’ll do as he says. No matter how much you go against it. It doesn’t matter if he asks me to burn temples or castles, or even destroy planets. As long as I don’t have to follow you.”

As she concluded her announcement, she turned to hastily walk out of the dark, humid cavern.

Leaving Lady Jessica on her own; to see what had become of her daughter who would burn down the world if given the chance and her son who slipped unnecessary blood in the name of war.

#dune #dune pt 2 #dune x reader #jessica atreides #lady jessica x reader #house atreides #lady jessica #daughter!reader

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ninjagoat · 8 months ago

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This is obviously correct (don't worry about not reading the book, this plot thread is new for the movie); but I think there's a problem with presentation that Villeneuve runs into that scuppered Herbert as well:

Being the Lisan Al-Giab is INSANELY FUCKING COOL.

We're on the journey with Paul, and why wouldn't we be? He drank the Water of Life, and lived! It's not a fairy story, he is LITERALLY the Voice of the Outer World! And he fights Harkonnens! The most obviously evil fucks ever committed to screen! He has visions! He rides giant sandworms! He gets revenge AND leads the Fremen to freedom AND stops Florence Pugh having to marry the weird murder-fetish guy by killing him!

It's a seductive story. The story doesn't work if it's *not* seductive - no matter how you present the outcome - because otherwise the Fremen look like chumps. Do you want to call Stilgar a chump? Of course not! He's our True Believer POV guy - as well as clearly being a fun uncle that'll slip you booze or other contraband your parents wouldn't approve of - and he's having a great time! Everything he ever believed is true, and he couldn't be happier; and given that he gets to follow some straight-up stone cold Dudes Rock orders like "Lead them to paradise," I can't blame him at all.

But - and this is where the men you've observed are falling down - who ISN'T having a great time? Which one person has to be Debbie-Fucking-Downer about the whole enterprise?

'We don't need a Messiah!' is a fine perspective to have when your oppressed people are sitting on cubic hectares of water waiting for one to come; keeping that perspective once the Messiah is actually here just seems like you've not kept up with current events.

By the time Paul makes his proposal of Irulan, Chani's been miserable for at least half an hour, despite taking an active leadership role in Paul's Cool-As-Fuck Plan To Kill Bad Guys With Giant Worms, to the point it's not entirely clear what it is she really wants; or more accurately, what outcomes she was hoping for? Whatever they were, Chani is clearly Not Supportive of His Goals, and picking the exact moment Paul arranges a political marriage to a princess - who, it should be noted, correctly acknowledges him to be her *entirely different* Messiah - as the moment to peace out does not do her any favours.

So long. It's been fun. Let's hope we can still be friends, yeah?

Villeneuve does a better job than Herbert at presenting the corruption of Paul and his war - the juxtaposition of Fremen collecting the bodies' water vs. burning bodies at the end was a nice piece of business - but for the story to work, there's a degree to which Chani has to just be flat out WRONG, and she's too smart not to know it, too; therefore, whether the men you've observed are aware of the logic or not, any principled objections she has about Paul's ascent to the throne must be a cover for objections far less principled.

Worthless bloody men, eh?

I've seen a lot of people (mostly men if that's a factor) focus on how Chani was heart broken by Paul choosing Irulan. Am I the only one that thinks she's mostly upset that he's lost himself, is embracing/using the prophecy and waging war? She definitely cries as she summons the worm and is quiet and alone but in the room she's angry and staunch and doesn't bow to him. Their conversation about him not wanting to lose himself or lose her before they left for the South felt very important. Maybe I'm misinterpreting but I definitely felt like it was more nuanced and deeper than her just being his love interest. I think Zendaya and Denis made some really cool and powerful changes to her character.

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