I was thinking of something while watching outlander.

As we know SJM loves outlander and you can find small pieces of it throughout her work. To me and many others Jamie is the most like Lucien and while watching season 3 finale it reminded me of something:

One of Elain’s visions:

“I can hear the sea, even at night even in my dreams. The crashing sea — and the screams of a bird made of fire.”

At the end of season 3 Jamie and Claire’s boat crashes and Claire is drowning and she’s thinking:

“I was dead. Everything around me was a blinding white. And there was a soft rushing sound like the wings of angels. I felt peaceful. And bodiless. Free of terror. Free of rage. Filled with a quiet happiness.”

Now, in an interview SJM mentioned how when she was thinking of ideas for Elain’s book she was gardening and tearing away at ivy and how the ivy would be “strangling” Elain at night because it doesn’t not want to let go. So this moment with Claire could parallel two moments; The cauldron experience for Elain, as she did not fight. Or if Elain ends up traveling with Lucien, Jurian and Vassa to Koschei and something similar occurs.

But Lucien isn’t a Bird of Fire?!

No he’s not; but his father is a bird of light, a light that countered that of Rhys’ darkness. Which brings me back to Claire’s speech; “everything around me was blinding white, soft rushing sound like wings of angels.”

It has been hinted at that Lucien does posses this magic: In Hybern, with Feyre in ACOWAR and in ACOSF with Cassian. His power being “Flame-Licked”

Which leads me to wonder if Elain is put in a similar position where her life is in danger again, will we see more of Lucien’s power? And this image is indeed Elucien because it mirrors the popular elucien image where the scared man is looking down at the female:

Still having Chani feelings, man. Because I think it is actually not that common to see a character (but especially a female character) whose main commitment in life is to a political struggle, and to have that be taken seriously by the narrative. Not painted as naive idealism or a trendy lifestyle choice or something the character eventually leaves behind for "real" commitments like marriage, career or children.

We don't see really anything of Chani's home life in the sietch, but it seems reasonable to infer that the fedaykin are what she's built her life around. The very first thing we learn about her, before we even know her name, is that she's a fighter. This is a core part of her identity.

She falls in love with Paul when he's willing to risk his life beside her as an equal, for a cause that she can't escape but he could walk away from if he chose. The question she asks him is not Do you love me? but Will you always be with me? Will you always be beside me in the struggle, fighting for the same things I am?

And as soon as the answer to that question is no, they're over. There is absolutely no possibility of love overriding that political betrayal, because her love for him is inextricable from coming to trust that he is committed to their liberation and not simply trying to use them. He said over and over again that he didn't want power, and as soon as he reaches out to claim it there is no way they can be together. The worst betrayal isn't watching him choose another woman, it's watching him declare himself emperor and send her own people off to slaughter others when he said he was fighting for their freedom.

So she leaves him, and we're never supposed to see it as anything but justified. There is simply no way she will turn her back on the most important thing in her life for him.

page 546 of dune by frank herbert

the fact that jessica sits on an atreides throne at the end of dune 2 makes me actually go feral

like the only time that would have happened before is if she and leto were married and she knows this and just think about that like that must drive her insane as much as it does me

Reverse Mother Mary Lady Jessica character of all time I fear. She’s an orphan made to be the armless mother-vessel to a mother-vessel, she defies her order for the first person she’s ever loved. She’s afraid of Paul’s visions, she walks him straight to them, she saves him from the desert, she takes the water because she can’t die and leave him alone (how forced was her hand?) but Leto is gone (Leto didn’t believe in revenge) so she stands on his grave and strangles the life out of their son. Here is her sword hand, long live the Messiah.

Something I really love in dune part 2, is the juxtaposition of chani's reaction during the war council scene and the ending scene.

In the war council scene everyone is on their knees but when Paul declares himself the mahdi and says he'll lead them to paradise, they all jump to their feet and shout lisan al gaib, chani however is the only one to stay on her knees, kept there by her disbelief and devastation along with her refusal to exalt him like everyone else.

Then you have the end scene where paul becomes Emperor which both compliments and contrasts with the council scene, here everyone was standing and they all sink to their knees, but this time chani stays on her feet, she's all anger and defiance, paul promised to be her equal and she'll never willingly bow to him.

just rewatched Dune Part 2 and noticed something, when Feyd Rautha enters the area for his birthday fight, and after he wins the fight, the people in the audience of the arena are chanting his name in a very rhythmic and quite frankly terrifying way - "Feyd Rau-tha! Feyd Rau-tha! Feyd Rau-tha!"

And after Paul kills Feyd Rautha, takes Irulan's hand in marriage, and declares war on the great houses, the Fremen people around Paul begin to chant - "Lisan al Gaib! Lisan al Gaib! Lisan al Gaib!"

They chant for Paul with the same rhythm and ferocity with which the Harkonnen audience chanted for Feyd Rautha earlier in the movie. If that doesn't show Paul's transformation and loss of humanity then idk what does

(also FeydPaul parallels in general yessssss I love every connection between these two fucked up boys, it's tragic that they barely even get ten minutes of screentime together)

For everyone who acts like Lucien is all soft and docile…need I remind you that in book one, when he thought Rhys was evil and might kill him with half a thought, he STILL talked back, called him a whore, SPAT at him, and threatened him with a sword. My man is so feisty.

Lucien glowed once as a child while he was with his big bro Eris and Eris knew from then exactly who his father was.

It was also the day that Eris decided Lucien could never be happy enough to glow again.

When Feyd-Rautha sneers that Chani is Paul's pet, he's doing the clichéed thing where the villain makes a thinly veiled rape threat towards the love interest, inspiring the hero to rally and defeat him.

But it hits home because Feyd-Rautha is not wrong. By declaring his intention to marry the emperor's daughter and become the new emperor, Paul has essentially reduced Chani to the position of a pet.

Really love that after Paul drinks the Water of Life, we never see into his visions again. We see the vision he has of Alia, and we see two brief flashes in the scene where he's talking to Jessica after he wakes up: an image of baby Jessica and a very brief flash of Paul's hand on the knife stabbing Feyd. That's it.

When he says, "I see possible futures, all at once. Our enemies are all around us, and in so many futures they prevail," it would be an obvious choice to show flashes of those futures. But we're just looking at a shot of his hand. We don't see what he's seeing in the visions for the whole rest of the movie. We only know what he tells us he sees.

whatever you do, don't think about 12 year old Sirius Black becoming very suspicious as to why his new friend disappears from school periodically and returns looking exhausted, sometimes with bruises and cuts riddling his body.

don't think about him getting worried when Remus lies, "Oh, it was a family thing".

don't think about him trying to do research on abusive households out of concern that perhaps his friend is living in dire circumstances.

and please don't imagine him coming to the realization that Remus isn't the one in an abusive household... he is.

Spicy Elucien Solstice Scenario

Elain gives Lucien two wrapped gifts at Feyre and Rhys's Solstice celebration. One of them seems to be completely empty, and when he removes the wrapping paper, he finds a box with a small envelope, the latter of which says, "Open discreetly" in her writing.

He shoots her a mischievous, questioning look from across the room while she nonchalantly sips her drink, and in the envelope, he finds a folded note with one simple line: that inside this package is what she's planning to wear later.

He cracks open the box to find the pearl earrings he'd gifted her in a previous year...and only them.

It takes him a minute to understand, but when it sets in, she gives him a subtle, coy smile and goes right back to talking with Feyre and her family.

Lucien temporarily has to leave the room and counts down the minutes until they can leave the rest of the night.

it's wild to me that people act as if chani's primary reason for leaving paul was bitterness about being a concubine like girl..... i promise that did not even register in her brain compared to the realization that paul had chosen to become her people's oppressor, to become her oppressor, to destroy the equality that was very foundation of their relationship. i promise her agency and her loyalty to her people, things which existed before paul and will exist after him, were more important to her than how "official" her relationship would be considered within a system she did not care about.

There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

—FROM “COLLECTED SAYINGS OF MUAD’DIB” BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN

Dune & Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert / Dune: Part One / Dune Part Two / Dune (1984) / A Thousand Suns, sponsored by BLACKMILK STUDIO

One aspect of the story of Dune that the movies don't make super clear is that, before Paul, the Fremen already had a central leader figure in Liet Kynes. In the book, Kynes has a generations-long plan to gather enough water to transform the environment of Dune (this is why the Fremen have those big pools, they never get super clear about that), then retake the planet for the Fremen and create paradise. Paul showing up and then leaning into the whole Lisan al-Gaib bit pretty much directly gets Kynes killed, creating a power vacuum into which he assumes himself with the aid of his previously-unheard-of levels of white privilege. While Kynes was an ecologist, however, Paul comes from a family of colonial military aristocrats. All Paul can offer the Fremen is all he understands: revenge. Bloody revenge for everything they've endured in centuries of oppression by the Imperium, temporarily in line with the revenge he craves for the Imperium's attempts to control him and his family, and spiritually in line with the resentment built up all across this socially stagnant feudal space empire.

Elucien headcannons of mine cause I can’t wait for the next book

(if it’s not your cup of tea, don’t drink it)

- Elain gets pretty vivid dreams cause of being a Seer so Lucien always comforts her and cuddles her while sleeping.

- Whenever Elain gets anxious she wants to hold Lucien’s hand since his hand is so warm

- Lucien will workout a lot more since Elain keeps feeding him all her baked food and who is he to deny? But it leads to even more smexy time when Elain sees him all sweaty and bulging muscles.

- Has pet cat that she adopted when she found it at the streets of the Day Court.

- Date night by flying Pegasus

-Lucien takes her travelling all of Prythian as his mating gift and Elain collects native flowers of each court and continent. Which she than displays in her room.

- Makes little trinkets for Elain to her baking easier in the kitchen.

- Constantly hugs Lucien back cause she drawn to his incredible warmth.

-Braids Lucien hair with flower that she picked from the garden.

-Would actually be the first person to see Eris as a good guy after spending so much time with Lucien’s Mother and repairs the bond between him and Lucien

-and maybe, just maybe becomes the High Lady of the Day Court 😚

That’s all. Can’t wait for their book❤️