#and when i was listening to dune and the plague dogs

[pups-2-dust]

Idk what brain malady this is but if I spend a whole day at work listening to one specific podcast or book my internal mental background noise just becomes jibberish in the same tone and cadence as the hosts/narrators

[imaginedisish]

Someone Great (Steve Harrington x Reader)

A/N: Hey guys! Here is my first Steve Harrington fic! I hope y'all like it. This is based on all of the “Steve talking about having kids with the reader” requests! It’s a bit angsty, and I’m just gonna say it now...SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SEASON 4 VOL 2!!! Please be careful LOL. So this one is based on Someone Great by LCD Soundsystem, but I also listened a lot to This is Me Trying by Taylor Swift while writing this. Anyway, here is some angst to fluff, enjoy y'all.

Summary: (SPOILERS AHEAD) As Steve’s best friend, you think you know everything about him. But you don’t know about his dream to have a Winnebago filled with Harringtons, and that you’re in it. 

Warnings: SPOILERS INCOMING FOR SEASON 4 VOLUME 2!!!!!!! Canon divergence! I literally ignore Nancy and completely replace her in the Winnebago scene LOL. Cursing, character deaths from season 4 volume 2 mentioned below the cut so beware! Canon mentions/depictions of violence and death in general, friends to lovers. Also, probably tons of grammatical errors. Takes place the day before that “two days later”...

Word Count: 2,048...kinda short for me.

The past week, or the past few years, rather, had been far from normal. Battling inter-dimensional monsters had become somehow…commonplace. But it never got easier, and neither did losing those around you. 

It was a day after you, Steve, Robin, and Nancy had narrowly escaped Vecna and the Upside Down. You knew things weren’t over yet, far from it. You knew this was just the beginning. The destruction of practically all of Hawkins, despite your attempts to destroy Vecna, was enough proof of that. 

Your ears were still ringing, your heart was still pounding against the walls of your chest, and your head was still spinning. Your mind went back and forth between Eddie and Max, refusing to quit, engraving fictional images of their limp bodies in the very foremost part of your memory. It had been impossible to shake. 

And you knew it always would be. 

All of this would be eternally impossible to simply shake off. This was the type of shit that would continue plaguing you with nightmares thirty years down the line once you’ve settled down with a family of your own. 

 In search of some semblance of peace, some inkling of hope that maybe this could all get better one day, you take your bike down to Lover’s Lake. 

 You find your way down to the dirty dunes of the beach, and you sit down on the cool damp sand. Your eyes focus on the water in front of you, reflecting the bright blue sky and the glimmering sun above. It feels unfair, how beautiful of a day it is. You wanted the world to stop, to comprehend what the fuck had just happened. You wanted to force the universe to grieve with you, even if it was just for a brief second. Eddie and Max deserved that. You knew they deserved more than just that, but it would suffice for now. 

 Instead, you sat alone on the beach of the lake. You remember summer days when your parents would take you and Steve down to the lake. Your parents had met Steve’s parents when they first moved to Hawkins, and the couples clicked instantly. Still, your parents noticed how absent Steve’s parents were, and they quickly began taking Steve on your family day trips. It was here, on the beach of Lover’s Lake, that you and Steve developed your life-long friendship. It was over a stupid little sandcastle that you and Steve had pinky-sworn to always help each other, no matter what. 

 After demo-dogs, evil time bending wizards, and a massive Mind Flayer, it was safe to say you had each held up your ends of the bargain.

 You would never admit it out loud, but you desperately wished he was here with you now. It felt selfish to need him. He was probably just as traumatized as you, after all. It doesn’t help that you’ve been pining over him for the past few years. You’ve watched him hop from girl to girl, to Nancy, and back to girl to girl again. But now, that seemed like the smallest of your problems. 

 You try to push your thoughts of Steve out of your head. You squeeze your eyes shut, as if you were hard resetting yourself. But all you can see is Steve in that stolen Winnebago, staring deeply into your eyes from the driver’s seat. 

 “You? A big family?” You questioned, dumbfounded at Steve’s confession. 

 “Oh yeah,” He smirks softly, briefly musing over his response before continuing. “I’m talking like a full brood of Harringtons…like five, six kids…”

 You cut him off, eyes wide with shock. “Six kids?” A smile tugs softly at your lips as he glances over at you. 

 “Yeah, six little nuggets. Three girls, three boys…” He trails off, eyes on the road again, the corners of his mouth turned up. 

 The thing was, you could see it. You could see each part of Steve’s dream as he explained it. You could see him, surrounded by six children tackling him down on the sands of some beach town in California. You could see him propping up one of his daughters onto his shoulders to get the perfect view of the Grand Canyon. You could see him pitching up a tent at Yellowstone all because the kids begged to sleep outside, to actually feel like they were camping. 

 But most of all, and possibly worst of all, you could see yourself there with him. And God, you desperately wanted to be there with him. 

 You turn towards Steve. His gaze was already set on you, as if he had asked you a question and was awaiting your answer. You search his eyes as your smile widens. 

 “That’s beautiful, Steve,” Your voice is barely above a whisper, as if your words had gotten stuck in your throat. “Really, it sounds like a dream,” You force the words out this time, loud enough so that he knows you really mean it.

 Because you did. 

 And you still do. 

 You could feel the tears welling in your eyes. All of this was becoming unbearable. You could feel yourself waking up from the shock of losing Eddie and practically losing Max. What are you even supposed to do in a situation like this? How are you supposed to go back to college in the fall? How are you even supposed to go home now? Nothing felt like home anymore, not after all this. 

 The only thing that felt like home was him. 

 Steve. 

 But that didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. He was still in love with Nancy, and if your friends weren’t dead yet, they were certainly still in danger. 

 A chill runs down your spine as the wind whips off the lake and across the sand. You shudder under the touch of the breeze. You shut your eyes, tears freeing themselves as they fall down your cheeks. You bring your legs tightly into your chest, your arms reaching around them to hold yourself in place. Your head falls against your knees, the tears becoming uncontrollable. Your sobs grow louder, the heaving of your chest growing quicker. 

 In the near distance, you can hear tires screeching against pavement, and a car engine suddenly turning off. You sniffle softly, ignoring the car. You didn’t care if someone saw you like this. You deserved to cry, to break down. What else were you supposed to do?

 What are the options?

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone.

 You could hear someone calling out a name, and as the voice becomes closer, the name the person is calling sounds a lot like yours. Suddenly, there’s a hand on your shoulder. The touch is familiar, warm, welcoming.

 Steve.

 You glance up, your face wet, your eyes bloodshot. The sight of you makes his heart stutter and clench painfully. He immediately falls to your side, wrapping you in his arms. 

 “Hey,” He whispers into your ear. “It’s me, I’ve got you now, it’s okay.” 

 You heave into his chest, your sobs echoing across the lake. 

 “It j-just keeps coming,” You stutter. “A-all of this, it’s n-never gonna stop, it’s never gonna…” You trail off, pressing your face farther into Steve’s chest. 

 And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

Till the day it stops

 You’re in Steve’s lap now. His hands rub softly against your back, his fingers drawing shapes against any exposed bits of skin. He shushes you, cradling you in his arms. 

 “We’re gonna be okay,” He reassures as one of his hands travels up to the nape of your neck, gently combing through your hair. “We’re gonna get out of this, I promise.”

 “But what if-,”

 Steve immediately cuts you off. “No what if’s,” His voice is firmer now. He pulls you away from him for just a second, as if to solidify his point. His eyes stare into yours. “You’re getting out of this, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure that happens.” 

 You swallow harshly, his words burning into your skin. You shake your head. “But you have to get out of here, too,” You insist. “You gotta get a nice girl and your six kids and that Winnebago,” You say, your voice shaking with every syllable. Even as kids, you always put Steve’s happiness before your own. If he had a shot at leaving all of this behind, you wanted him to take it. 

 Steve scoffs, looking off into the distance. “A nice girl?” He questions, his hands still firmly pressed against you, caressing you. 

 You nod as you struggle to keep yourself together, images of Steve starting a life with Nancy flashing through your mind. “Yeah,” You say, taking a deep breath. “Someone great, like Nancy.”

 Steve looks at you incredulously, and then looks back out to the lake, searching for the right thing to say. 

 “That thing, about the Winnebago and the kids,” He whispers, his eyes frantically taking in all your features. “I wasn’t imagining Nancy when I told you all that. I never have…” He trails off, his Adam’s Apple bobbing in his throat. 

 “I imagined you.” 

 Those were the words that you had always wanted to hear, the words that made the sky open up, the words that made the world melt away. 

 Steve’s grip moves down to your waist, his fingers pressing into the exposed skin between your t-shirt and your jeans. One hand remains in your hair, pulling your face closer to his. He’s just inches away from you now. You can feel his breath tickle your nose as he parts his lips. 

 “I’ve imagined being with you for as long as I could possibly remember,” He confesses, his forehead pressing against your own. “The kids, the Winnebago, the vacations, it all means nothing if I’m not doing it with you.” 

 His lips ghost over yours. You breathe softly against him. “Steve I-,”

 He cuts you off. “And I get it if you don’t feel the same. I get it if the six kids thing sounds crazy. I don’t want to ruin our friendship and I don’t want to scare you away. It’s just that-,”

 “Steve,” You cut him off this time, a smile making its way across your face. “I want that. I want you, and your brood of Harringtons,” You giggle at the last bit of your confession, your face lighting up for the first time in what feels like an eternity. 

 “Oh thank fucking God,” Steve mutters, somehow pulling you closer to him. 

 His lips press firmly against yours, capturing you, securing you, and simultaneously freeing you all at once. It feels like for just one second, not all is lost. It feels like there’s a future out there where you and Steve and the kids save Hawkins. It feels like there’s a future out there where all of these deaths and battles aren’t in vain, that they mean something. It feels like there’s a future where you and Steve make it, like there’s a future out there where your little Harringtons are fighting each other to be Steve’s first mate in the front seat of a Winnebago. 

 The kiss is languid and smooth. His body moves carefully against yours, as if he’s afraid you’ll turn to dust in front of him, as if you’ll crumble and he’ll have no way to put you back together. It’s clear, even in just this kiss, that he’s afraid that he’s going to lose you just as soon as he’s finally gotten you. 

 And you can’t help but feel the same. 

 When his lips finally part from your own, you can’t help but want more. It wasn’t enough. The cool breeze that comes off the lake whisks between the two of you, causing Steve to grip tighter onto you. 

 “We’re gonna get that future, I promise,” He whispers. 

 “Good,” You whisper back. “Because I’ve got some names in mind.” You grin widely. 

 “Oh yeah?” Steve grins even wider than you. “You gotta tell me then. Spill.”

 You knew it wouldn’t be like this forever. But for a moment, just a moment, things seemed perfect, safe.

 We're safe, for the moment

Saved for the moment…

[lovelessdagger]

Starlight - Prologue: Before

Pairing: Din Djarin x OC, Din Djarin x OFC

Rating: Mature

Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence

Warnings: Blood, Violence, Explicit Language, Trauma

Words: 2000

Summary: What's past is prologue.

There's a new trend since the fall of the Empire, everyone is rising from the dead.

She's haunted by memories of the Empire that abandoned her, he's plagued with thoughts of what if and doubts of the future. The stars align in a string of constellations which guide them to their fates, decided long before them. 

Tortured with echos of before, they're alone in an endless galaxy. But orphans have a funny way of finding each other, and the gods have a sick sense of humor.

Read on AO3 Here

Tatooine was the galaxy’s own personal hell, Mustafar at least had the pleasure of fauna. Demonic nightmarish fauna that was more than likely poisonous, but fauna nonetheless. Tatooine? Tatooine was a barren wasteland that had gone to the dogs, and even the dogs had decided they wanted no part in its misfortune. At least on Mustafar she could go inside and be relieved of the heat, at least Mustafar could be considered home. 

Or at least it used to be, before.

“Maker,” An assassin mutters, crossing over a sand dune. The red tracking fob in her gloved hand sounds, it’s light flashing a similar color. To her relief, she was close. The sooner to the target, the sooner she could leave and never set foot on sand again. 

She could count the total number of visits to Tatooine in her lifetime on one hand. The first she couldn’t have been more than fourteen, then again at an older age to meet with the Hutts. Nine years ago, her father had sent her on a reconnaissance mission to some abandoned moisture farm. It had been terribly boring, full of memories of family dinners and old beaten up droids.

The irony that that very mission essentially caused her to lose everything wasn’t lost on her.

Five years ago she sat in the very cantina she walks to, warned to run away. A mere twenty-one years old—give or take, her birthday after all was a random day chosen by her and the waking sun. There was no telling her true age, so with her knowledge of human anatomy and development, nine years ago she decided on being seventeen.

“Why seventeen?” He asks her. Entering hyperspace she sits behind him, tracing passing stars on the window.

“Because,” she begins matter-of-factly, “Seventeen is a completely insignificant year to be alive. Sixteen is old enough that I won’t be questioned for traveling alone, but still too young to be taken seriously. I’m not quite ready to be an adult yet, but next cycle I will be. So I am seventeen now, so that I may be prepared to be eighteen later.”

Eighteen hours later, the first Death Star exploded. 

The events which follow guide her on a fragile string of stars throughout the galaxy, the culmination of which lead her back to hell. Or Tatooine, as the New Republic liked to call it.

Maybe if she had listened things would have been different.

Or maybe they would be worse.

Either way she would be here. The designer of her cruel fate and dictator of her misery have decided this long ago. Forever would she be trapped in hell with her memories.

And everyone else’s.

Condemned to relive the worst of what humanity had to offer, over, and over, and over again. It wasn’t so bad anymore, it’s easy to get numb to that sort of thing when your entire life was filled with it. Still, out of all the places in the galaxy, why did it have to be Tatooine?

She could understand the appeal for those on the run. Away from the New Republic’s oversight, moisture farms as the only viable landmark, and everyone being too overworked to give a damn. Theoretically it should have been easy to hide, the only issue was every criminal in the Outer Rim had the same idea. Originality be damned.

A detached hood and mask shield her identity, not that she believed anything with a penchant of life would be anywhere near. All that surrounded her was sand, rocks, and sand. Still, she could never be overly cautious. Walking up to the cantina, her eyes roll. It was like they wanted to make her job difficult. She could only assume the bar would be crawling with other criminals. Defected imperials, thieves, murderers.

It could have been a family reunion.

Eyes fall on her entrance, the suns backlight her into a silhouette. She becomes the one cascade of darkness in the light of the desert. 

“Boys,” she greets, walking in. Her eyes scan the room, there couldn’t be more than ten men. She counts the passing of ten seconds before one approaches her. Within those seconds her mind remarks on the state of the bar, essentially unchanged. Same busted chairs, same creaking floors, same hideous decorations. 

“What’s someone like you doing here?” a man grunts, stalking up to her. The most she does to acknowledge him is an eye roll. He grabs her arm, holding her in place. “Does your daddy know you’re out here?” he asks, leaning down to her ear.

She mocks a laugh. “Does yours?”

The man spits at her boots. “Bitch,” he says, walking away from her. His spit slowly rolls off her toe, leaving a glimmering streak along the leather in its wake. She pulls her blaster out, pointing the gun behind her, she shoots the man in the back of the head. He drops, his body heavy with a thud. 

The cantina falls to silence. Nine bodies are now watching her. No one makes a move, even the bartender stops his clinking glasses. She’s almost inviting them to try her next.

“No?” She asks, holstering her gun. “Pity,” she mutters. 

She walks up to body number seven, he sits in the same spot she had all those years ago. She places her soiled boot on his seat, grabbing his attention. Motioning for him to stand, she barely makes eye contact.

 Her fingers run across the tables’ wood, rubbing over permanent stains and rotting cracks.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” he says. He always worried too much about her, “Whatever he’s planning, you won’t come out of it.”

“I’m not a little girl anymore,” she says. “I can take care of myself now.”

“I know. That’s what scares me. You’re not safe anymore,” he replies.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been safe.”

Seven stares at her incredulously, slurping his liquor.

“Come with me,” his voice echos around her. If she closes her eyes it’s like he’s still sitting in front of her. Pleading.

“I don’t like making messes inside, it’s bad manners,” she says, reaching for her blaster. “Get up.” 

“Am I supposed to be scared, girl?” Seven asks. He scans her appearance and truth be told she was no Rancor, certainly no Hutt. While her build was athletic, her height physically left her the smallest in the room.

“You owe a lot of credits—” Seven stands, “—That’s better.” She drops her foot. “Now—“

“Step aside,” a modulated voice speaks behind her. She catches a reflection of the intruder in the glass of the framed artwork above Seven’s head. A Mandalorian, covered in pure Beskar, stands a whole head above her. Of course a fucking Mandalorian would show up right now, this had to be his doing. Even in the grave he had to fuck with her.

“Mando,” Seven laughs, he wipes his sweaty palms on his trousers. “I was uh, I was just talking to the missus here,” he grabs the girls shoulder. “Say, now’s not really a good time so how about we—“ 

“I don’t have time for this,” the Mandalorian says. He drops a bounty puck on the table, in blue holograms Seven’s profile appears.

WANTED: EDI MOURI 

“Let’s go,” Mando says.

The girl shakes herself from Seven. “Listen Shiny, I was here first so move along.” The Mandalorian’s head tilts.

“Are you with the guild?” He asks.

She picks up the bounty puck, examining the emblem. “Not yours.”

Mando’s head turns to One’s fallen body on the ground, a growing pool of blood by his head. 

“Your work?”

“You could say that.”

Seven clears his throat. Whispers of bets trail within the crowd. “In fairness. She did find me first.”

The pair are incredulous in their stare. “You want to go with the assassin?” Mando asks, a slight twinge of amusement escapes past his modulator.

Seven’s face turns to ice, his deep emerald skin becoming a pastel like hue. “On second thought. I always loved the Mandalorian stories I heard as a kid, I’m a big fan. Let’s go big guy.” He takes a step towards Mando, the assassin pulls out her blaster, pointing it to his head. At the same moment Mando pulls out his own, pointing it to her.

“Drop it,” he says. “I need him alive.”

She cocks her head to the side, pressing her forehead against the barrel of the gun. “Do it,” she purrs. 

He’s motionless.

She grabs the Mandalorian’s wrist with one hand, striking the bend in his arm with the other. A blaster shot fires, Three falls to the ground with a hole in his head. 

Mando lifts her by her neck and slams her into the table where Seven sits. Her vision flashes white and she groans on impact. Her hands fumble across the wood in frantic search of anything to defend herself with.

“Wait for me, I’ll come for you in two days.”

She smashes Seven’s plate against the table, shattering it. With a jagged edge of porcelain she slashes the Mandalorian’s arm, staining the edge with his red blood. In his stumble back she rolls off the table.

Harsh stabs are swung to the openings between the pieces of armor, he easily blocks but her movements are quick in succession. He ignites the flamethrower on his arm and she flips out of range.

Six isn’t so lucky.

She lands on his table, he’s charred and slumped over. She grabs a baton resting against his chair, cringing at its touch. Jumping of the table she strikes his helmet. The tune of impact horrifically melodic. 

Brought to his knees, Mando grabs her leg sweeping her onto her back. The baton falls out of her grasp. They tumble on the ground, scathing for any advantage they could find on the other. She slaps a taser disk on his armor, the shocks malfunction the electronics.

The Mandalorian lays on the ground, emitting heavy gasps for air. Sounds of passing credits come from a back table. She straddles him, pulling out the knife kept in the welt of her sleeve. It’s metal presses against his capes fabric gathered around his neck.

A smile twinges under her mask. “Not bad,” she pants, leaning down over him.

The cantina doors automate open, in perfect eye-line, a green little creature. It waddles in, cooing with bright eyes at the patrons, greeting them all. It locks eyes with her, head tilted. The veil of her mask conceals her dropped jaw. 

The Mandalorian takes the chance of her distraction; flipping their bodies over, he straddles her waist, pinning her hands above her head. The assassin’s chest rises and falls heavy from under him. “I told you to wait outside,” he grunts. The green thing coos, waddling to the pair. It reaches out for her. “No,” he says next, raising a scolding finger to it. It whines, plopping on its rear. 

Past the visor, his eyes lock onto hers, he clears his throat. Suggestive positioning aside, he had claim to victory. Though, had it not been for the child he would have been a dead man, throat slit under her knife. 

He could still kill her, his blaster was in reach, so was her knife. 

He should kill her.

But he doesn’t.

“Hey Mandalorian,” she breathes. “Where’s your bounty?” Seven’s seat empty, table broken, shattered porcelain fallen on the floor.

“Fuck,” he swears. He stands, pocketing the knife she held. He picks up the creature, sparing her one last glance. “Stay out of my way,” he warns. Exiting the building she’s left on the floor. 

The surviving witnesses avoid her glare. There are holes in the flooring, broken furniture, blood stains splattered on every surface.

So much for not making a mess indoors.

She scoffs, picking herself up. Her muscles ache, bruises are forming under her clothing, her head pounds.

Carelessly, she shoots Five on her way out.

It’s a redemption of sorts.

Officially, Tatooine was worse than hell.

Chapter One: The Meeting

[elopez7228]

Force and Fury - a MadMax AU [Reylo] fanfic. ENGLISH VERSION Chapiter 3 : Starkiller

There was neither an incident nor an attack during the journey. Unkar had picked a team of four scavengers, who joined Rey as planned a couple of hours before dawn. They all came from Niima and Rey knew them well. The truck driver was Riley, a blond woman with a side of her head shaved. Next to her sat Jared, carrying an automatic rifle. His skin was a deep shade of black and his sight flawless. The roof of the truck was the position of Sun, a skinny girl with dark skin, fearing neither sand nor sunburn, operating a heavy machine gun. The fourth member of the expedition, a swift man called Foster, followed the truck on his motorbike. As for Rey, she drove far ahead, carrying Fluffy-Evil-Lord-Of-Death in the empty wagon. Rey remained woke, expecting a treason any moment. Was Sun going to aim and execute her from her position? Would Riley and Jared try to crush her little bike under their truck’s massive wheels? Was another team of henchmen going to pop from behind boulders and ambush them? What was Unkar’s plan of action this time?

The previous day, after Unkar’s attack, Rey made it home without new trouble, and everything was quiet for the rest of the day. But she couldn’t keep calm : why did Unkar put a reward on her head? She was aware of two new elements that could have led him to this sudden interest : the wreckage, and the dog. The location of the wreckage couldn’t justify killing her, quite the contrary actually ; it would benefit him much more if she stayed alive. This meant he was after the dog.

It was a beautiful dog and he’d make quite a barbecue, but that wasn’t enough yet to hire four murderers. As far as she knew, she was the only scout of her kind in Niima. Which meant this dog was worth her sacrifice… it made no sense.

She now drove the track towards the shipwreck and was actually starting to relax. If these four scavengers had been willing to kill her, they would have made attempts by now. She could focus on her surroundings… the desert was never empty, despite appearances!

Her headache was fortunately quite mild at the moment. She only felt the buzz due to the dog on her vehicle, and the truck a few hundred yards behind. Nothing worth her attention.

As the blue shade of the night stretched over the plain, they stopped and raised their camp.

According to Rey, the shipwreck was only a few hours away, but it was safer to take halt for the night. They know too well the dangers of nocturnal expeditions.

The vehicles were carefully checked : engines, oil, gas, tires. Guns were loaded and night guard was established. First round for Foster and Sun, then Rey alone, then Riley and Jared.

They didn’t ignite a fire, it would have been too obvious in the darkness. Rey pulled out a bowl and poured water for the dog, who drank loudly. Riley, biting on her protein stick, couldn’t take her eyes of him.-

- Where does that dog come from, Rey? She asked after a while.

Rey shrugged :

- I found him, lost in the desert, and I kept him, that’s all.

- Are you going to eat him? Sun asked.

Rey smiled, as if the question had been completely silly :

- No! No, I’ll keep it as pet.

- What’s his use, beside eating your rations and water supplies? You could make profits from him, organize fights and gambling… All it would take is some training.

- No, seriously, I’m not into gambling. I’d rather keep him this way.

Riley frowned :

- Someone is going to steal him. There’s good money to make, what a waste. You’ll get in trouble.

Rey stayed silent, looking at Fluffy-Evil-Lord-of-Death as he playfully trudled around, waving his tail. Riley and Sun were right : this dog was going to draw attention on her. It had already started. Her lifelong protector had turned against her and she doubted to ever feel safe again until she arranged the situation.

She sighed :

- I’m always in trouble. At least now I’m in trouble in good company.

She stood up and stretched her neck :

- I’m going to sleep. See you in a few hours.

After what, she whistled sharply and pat her lap with her flat hand ; the dog came to her on that call and she rubbed his head.

- Come on Evil Lord Of Death. Let’s go to bed.

Everyone proceeded on getting ready for the night to come. Rey snuggled in her blanket, next to her bike, keeping her staff and machete close. The dog sniffed around, seemed to chase his tail for a moment, then curled next to her.

She listened to the soft voices of Foster and Sun, to the familiar clicking of weapons being handled, as both of them took their positions for the first watch. Steady squeaks and muffled moans came from the truck as Riley and Jared were having sex. Nothing unsusual. Rey gave in to sleep.

A sharp pain drilled her temples and she woke up screaming, holding her skull between both hands. People. People everywhere.

They were under attack!

She jumped wide awake. It must have been close to midnight, as the moon was high in the sky. She saw accurately Sun loading the machine gun on the top of the truck. Foster banged on the side to wake up Riley and Jared. Fluffy Evil Lord Of Death bristled and bared his fangs. Rey climbed to the top of the truck to join Sun and and stared at the desert around them. She pointed a finger towards the approaching men.

_ Over there, in front of the sand dune, she said. There are two of them.

_ I can’t see shit, Sun hissed between her clenched teeth, hands stiffed on the gun. Let’s ignite the torch lights, we can’t fight in the dark.

_ No, Rey said. They don’t know I can see them ; they show too much confidence. We can overcome them without taking any risks.

She knew, on pure instinct, where the ennemis stood. They were at least four : two crawling forward, who obviously didn’t know they had been caught yet, and two more on the other side, riding a large motorbike. What tribe did they come from? They didn’t look like raiders.

The one on the motorbike roared engines and raced toward them. It was a wide bike, with a single wheel on front and two on the back. Sun swung the gun and shot blindly, in a deafening thunder and flashes of light that blinded Rey for a moment. As if it had been the sign everyone was waiting for, suddenly all the guns started firing, in every direction. So much for stealth! Rey, lying on her stomach, could see bullets shooting around her. She was useless up there ;she was much better fighter in close combat. She climbed swiflty down from the truck’s roof and stood straight in front of the motorbike, ready to overthrow the pilot from his vehicle. She sensed that the dog was nearby, but she had bigger worries at the moment. The bike raced to her. Rey jumped aside to dodge it, but the pilot sharply steered, in a two wheels drift that almost knocked it over. Caught off guard by this sudden turn, Rey didn’t react fast enough to dodge the metallic staff that stroke her. She collapsed on the sand, breathless, her vision blurring. She could hear around her the roar of raging combat ; she heard the screams of Sun, Riley, Jared and Foster among those of their attackers.

She stood up with a wince, looking for the dog. He was in the middle of the battle, and she called “Evil Lord of Death! Attack!”

But the dog ignored her as he happily waved his tail in front of the rider. Rey, still struggling to catch her breath, stood frozen in surprise for the second time in only a few minutes.

The man exclaimed : “BB8! It’s BB8!”

And Rey, stunned, only managed to mumble “BB what?” before crumpling to the ground, stricken in the back by an attacker she didn’t see.

Kylo Ren didn’t turn around as two tall figures came in the large room of walls made of raw concrete. He was contemplating the lake, and its dark and still waters. Slaves were busy on its shores, such as tiny ants.

- Tuanul village is no longer a concern, I personally made sure of that, Kylo Ren said in his mask.

A female voice, with a metallic hue due to her helmet, rose behind him :

- Did you find any Resistant?

Kylo Ren slowly turned around, to face his counterparts. Phasma was wearing an uneven armor, which she had been carefully grooming. Its chrome shades quite stood out in this palace of sand and rust. As for Hux, he was a shriveled yet sleek man, who took great care of his clothes when no one else could afford such luxury. He wore his red hair in a mohawk and nails in his ears. All three governed the First Order, under direct command of the Supreme Leader Snoke. Hux lead strategy, Phasma lead the armies and Kylo Ren led intelligence. Hunt and kill, military strikes and meaningful executions, that was all him. His name and his shadow stretched over the First Order as symbols of his power and his wrath.

- Our informants didn’t lie : Lor San Tekka was operating a well and a Resistance network. The well will be clogged today and the villagers should be on their way to the fortress, if you gave your orders as planned.

- I did. Phasma answered.

- And the Resistance Network, did you catch them? Said Hux with a nervous twitch of his shoulders.

Kylo Ren lowered his masked face to him and Hux flinched.

- The orange dog had been spotted near the village. He must have fallen off a vehicle and I expect him to try to gather with his owner, straight to the Resistance. I offered a fairly high reward to our barons for his head. Whoever sees him should catch it and inform us.

- And? Any news yet?

- Not yet. But it’s been less than 24 hours. Trust me : an orange dog can not pass unnoticed. We’ll hear about him soon.

- You better. Hux hissed between his teeth. The Resistance gets more allies everyday, and I don’t see you containing this plague.

Kylo moved a step forward. He was much taller than Hux. His voice was bitter.

- Are you questioning my strategy, Hux?

The red hair man flinched and slightly backed out as Kylo Ren leaned over him :

- All I’m saying is that I need results. These anarchists disturb our operations.

Phasma’s metallic voice cut short the argument, and both raised their heads to listen to her :

- Taxes will be perceived in two weeks time. You both know what that means. If Resistant is planning a coup, it will be then.

They knew what she meant : barons of the whole territory would send their ambassadors driving tank trunks to pay their taxes (whatever their village could produce : food, slaves, raw materials) and bring back water. There would be lots of hustle around the fort, temporary camps would rise, there would be people everywhere, and along with them would come parties, thefts, and fights. It was tradition to proceed to a few public executions, to make a statement and remind them who ruled this country. Snoke wouldn’t make an appearance, he never did. Yet Phasma, Hux and Ren should show off. Their main ally was the owner of the petrol fields and the refinery plant. It was a disabled man, whose legs were too weak to support his enormous stomach. He was a flabby mountain of wallowing flesh in his castle, another fortress at fair distance from Starkiller. Convoys of water and gas rode back and forth between both fortresses, and as these were the most valuable resources of this forsaken desert, the track between Starkiller and the palace of Jabba the Hutt, as he was called, was the Resistance favorite target.

Kylo Ren’s fists clenched to his sides as the simple thought of Resistance. His reputation and relevance within Starkiller would only stop being questioned when he’d crush this batch of vermins, lead by a woman whose sole name drove him mad : Leia Organa.

Because she was his mother, Hux, Phasma, Snoke, but also every single war trooper in starkiller questioned his loyalty. Because she was his mother, each failure was suspicious. Because she was his mother, he was fallible. And this idea infuriated him.

Phasma had work to do, she was to organize the troops for the tax ceremonies. The upcoming weeks would be exhausting. She gave a polite salute and left the room, closing the door behind her. Hux and Ren were now alone.

As soon as she left the room, Kylo Ren raised his hands to his helmet and took it off. He dropped it on the steel table that stood in the middle of the room and racked his fingers in his hair.

Hux didn’t make a move and stood straight, hands behind his back.

Kylo Ren’s voice rose, deep and strong as it wasn’t modified by the helmet anymore.

- I hate this season. The crowd. Those pathetic creatures…

- Now is not the time to fail, Ren, Hux said, raising an eyebrow.

Ren stared at him with furious eyes. The crowd gave him excruciating headaches that denied him sleep and made him even more nervous than usual.

Hux knew that and yet, he kept pushing.

- I won’t fail. Kylo answered, endorsing each word.

Hux came closer :

- You overestimate yourself, Hux said. You are obviously exhausted.

As he talked, he came even closer. They could almost touch each other and Ren felt his burning breath on his lips as Hux spoke. He was so close that the painful buzz in Ren’s skull because unbearable, even though he had managed to ignore it until now.

- Step back, Kylo Ren mumbled, almost begging.

- Does it hurt? Hux asked.

Ren didn’t grant him with an answer and turned his face away.  Hux’ finger gently touched his chin to make him look in his eyes. He whispered :

- Let me help you.

Ren felt Hux’ mouth take his, and he closed his eyes. His brain was buzzing louder than ever but the heat rising from his crotch diverted him. Hux’ hand layed on his genitals, over his black shirt. Kylo Ren felt himself grow hard and the buzz inside his skull seemed to correspondingly decrease. A tongue slid on his lips and he opened his mouth. Hux had his tongue pierced, a cold and hard bead that toyed inside his mouth and that he wanted to feel on his body. This thought aroused him. He flinched and took a step back to lean on the table behind him. The General’s left hand had seized the back of his head, as he deeply kissed him ; his right hand rubbed his penis, up and down, though his clothes. The headache and become a peripheral issue. His hardened penis almost hurt and with a swift move, he grabbed the general’s ass and squeezed him. He felt his hardness rub his own and a moan escaped his lips. This sound seemed to arouse Hux, who broke off their kiss and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Without breaking eye contact, he slid both hands on his torso, above the black shirt, and slowly kneeled in front of him. Ren bit his lips in perspective. He bit one finger of his glove and pulled it off with his teeth before dropping it on the floor, before racking his fingers in his lover’s red hair. Hux’ face was just facing his crotch, and his long fingers were operating Ren’s zipper and belt. After a short time that felt like an eternity to Ren, Armitage Hux’ hand grabbed his burning cock, as Kylo moaned again. Hux’ tongue slid along his shaft in slow up and down strokes, then without warning, he covered it with his mouth. Kylo tilt his head back. It felt amazing. His whole body was completely focused on the feeling of Hux’s mouth around his cock, and everything else vanished in a blur. Hux was going up and down on his shaft, sliding the bead of his tongue around the penis head, and Ren clenched his left hand on the table he was holding.

His right hand was gripping the General’s hair and moved along with him with jerky movements. Hux resisted his instructions and Ren felt pleasure in that struggle, his wrist against this neck, his cock against this mouth, and he felt a pressure rising from inside his crotch. Deeper, stronger. Suddenly Hux bit and Ren roared as he released his hand completely. His burning cock sprung from the general’s lips who gave him a dark gaze. Ren immediately grabbed his hair, with both hands, and sticked his lover’s face against his slick, hard cock.

- Finish the job. Ren said.

- I don’t take orders. Hux hissed between his clenched teeth.

- Then do it because you fucking want to. Ren creaked, releasing both hands.

- Fuck you, Hux said, but he took the penis back inside his mouth and resumed the movement.

With both hands, he grabbed Ren’s ass through the leather pants, and Ren spread his tights, holding himself the the table. The feeling was divine. The headache had vanished and his body felt so relaxed at this sole feeling that he could have come, yet the burning lips of Hux on his cock were irresistible. He moaned and finally came, bluntly, jerking semen in his lover’s mouth. Hux swallowed and stood up as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He seeked Kylo’s mouth and kissed him deeply, in a passionate exchange of semen and saliva.

Kylo was relaxed, eyes shut, and negligently zipped up his pants. Hux stopped him by grabbing his penis.

- We’re not done, Hux said.

Kylo tightened his fingers around Hux’ wrist until he released his cock and pushed him away.

- I am. Snoke is expecting me.

Hux tried to protest, but Kylo shoved him away with a shoulder punch, straightened his clothes and picked up his helmet. The General watched him walk away, powerless, and seized his own hard cock through his pants.

- Fuck you, Ren! He screamed, furious.

Kylo gave him a slight wave of his hand as an answer, without a look back.

Yet he stopped at the door and looked above his shoulder :

- See you tonight, General.

- I don’t take orders! Hux screamed on principle, but he already knew he’d be there, available for Kylo Ren, that very night.

Once again, Ren had been manipulating him from A to Z.

[mourningsickness]

Claire Vaye Watkins’s ‘Gold Fame Citrus’

Claire Vaye Watkins’s debut novel, Gold Fame Citrus (Quercus, 2015), opens on an arid Laurel Canyon, whipped by unrelenting ‘crazy-making’ Santa Ana winds. A dry place that has birthed a host ‘countercultural’ figures – from Joni Mitchell and Jim Morrison to Marilyn Manson –, for nearly two decades “passing through” Laurel Canyon was a compulsory pitstop on the road towards superstardom. It has been mythologised in various cultural iterations – most famously Graham Nash’s ‘Our House’, written about then-lover Joni Mitchell, whose own (better) 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon also drew obvious inspiration from the neighbourhood [1].

More troublingly, the Canyon was also the setting for the brutal murder of silent film actor, Ramon Novarro on 30th October 1968. His killers, brothers Robert and Tommy ‘Scott’ Ferguson, then aged just 22 and 17 respectively, entered his home under the pretext of soliciting their sexual services, believing a vast sum of money to be hidden somewhere in the house. Novarro, a Mexican Catholic, had been one of MGM’s leading Latino stars during the 1920s and a romantic idol, having starred opposite Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and Myrna Loy. His homosexuality remained a closely-kept secret throughout his career (Louis B. Mayer reportedly attempted to coerce him into a “lavender marriage”, which he refused), and was the cause of much internal struggle in an era when success was contingent on the presentation of normative sexuality. Then in his late 60s, Novarro had a history of arranging for prostitutes to visit his Canyon home for sex and companionship. The Fergusons obtained his number from a previous guest.

Over dinner, Novarro read the brothers’ palms; during their trial the pair proclaimed him to be a lousy fortune-teller. He was subjected to several hours of torture intended to extort the location of the money from him. Eventually, the pair left the house with 20 dollars retrieved from his bathrobe pocket, leaving Novarro to choke to death on his own blood [2]. These sinister events formed a counterpoint to the Manson Family murders of 1969, which took place roughly a year later, in Laurel Canyon’s northern counterpart – that “senseless-killing neighbourhood” Haight Ashbury [3]. Though the canyon’s entanglement with celebrity soured, it remains a popular residential location. Google informs me that, today, the area is still favoured by stars such as Moby and George Clooney. Both keep homes there.

I read Gold, Fame, Citrus not long after having read Joan Didion’s The White Album (Simon & Schuster, 1979) for the first time, which perhaps explains why I was suffering from a bout of “murder mind” [4]. One of its essays, ‘Holy Water’ takes as its focus the complex, sprawling networks of dams and aqueducts that keep Los Angeles county in water. In it, Didion (a Sacramento native) visits the Operations Control Center for the California State Water Project, one of numerous government agencies responsible for shifting the ‘trillion gallons’ of water that are pumped across the state each week. Here, she writes: ‘Some of us who live in arid parts of the world think about water with a reverence others might find excessive. The water I will draw tomorrow from my tap in Malibu is today crossing the Mojave Desert from the Colorado River, and I like to think about exactly where that water is. The water I will drink tonight in a restaurant in Hollywood is by now well down the Los Angeles Aqueduct from the Owens River, and I also like to think about exactly where that water is’ [5].

At the time of reading, I found this essay vaguely anticlimactic, following as it does the incendiary piece from which Didion’s book takes its title. As someone who lives in a damp English climate, her preoccupation with the bio-political regulation of water supply across the state of California felt alien to me. Coming from a place where water has always felt abundant, I couldn’t fathom the scale of these operations, nor could I place Didion’s strange anxiety. Despite the glut of climate fictions I’ve encountered, I found it hard to imagine what drought might actually look like. It felt implausible in London, a city where the gravest threat it had posed was the hosepipe ban of my childhood summers, or the ugly reservoir grazing the stretch of motorway on the way to my grandmother’s house. Reading Vaye Watkins’s climate dystopia – with its vision of a west coast drained even of groundwater – brought Didion’s essay, along with L.A,'s broader history of precarity, into stark focus.

Doubtless Watkins, herself raised in the Mojave Desert, has also read ‘Holy Water’. Drawing on the ‘Water Wars’ of the 1920s for her own novel’s casting of the near-future, she reveals a similar preoccupation with how California keeps itself liquid. The Water Wars began following the construction of a 233 mile aqueduct in 1913, which saw the Owens River forcibly diverted towards a reservoir in the San Fernando Valley [6]. Following the project’s completion, the aqueduct guzzled so much water that Owens Valley, known formerly as ‘The Switzerland of California’, was effectively transformed into a desert, stoking rebellion among local farmers and ranchers, who sabotaged part of the system in 1924, laying dynamite at the Alabama Gates [7]. This inheritance is made explicit in the book’s preface, which refers to the words spoken by pioneering engineer William Mulholland over his finished project: ‘There it is. Take it’.

Hollywood, for its own part, has already mined the Water Wars narrative. Roman Polanski’s 1974 noir classic Chinatown is loosely based on legal disputes that were still ongoing in 1970, following the LADWP’s construction of an aqueduct in Inyo County that stood in direct contravention of groundwater protections. Indeed, the film’s first victim, Hollis Mulwray, is purportedly based on Mulholland (if you listen closely, you may still be able to hear the producers riffing on those names). Ironically, the film is also tangentially connected to Watkins’s novel. Her father, Paul, was a member of Charlie Manson’s notorious ‘Family’, though he left shortly before the murder of Polanski’s pregnant wife Sharon Tate, later going on to testify in court.

                                                             *

When we first encounter Gold Fame Citrus’s two central protagonists, Luz and Ray, holed up in the former mansion of a Hollywood starlet, we are also encountering this history. Marginalised former residents of California – descended from the feckless grifters responsible for the ‘failed experiment’ of the state – are now known derogatorily as ‘Mojavs’ (GFC, 70). Signs on elementary schools read: ‘MOJAVS NOT WELCOME. NO WORK FOR MOJAVS. MOJAVS KEEP OUT’ (GFC, 23). Those who have chosen not to ‘evac’, remaining behind in Los Angeles, are plagued by a feeling of ‘sostalgia’, a term coined by Glenn Albrecht to describe the alienation and distress brought on by environmental change that lies outside inhabitants’ control [8]. The “good vibes” of LA have endured, if in mutated form. Venice Beach has become a hotspot for raves, but also for black-market trading – of blueberries, Ovaltine, all-cotton socks and other elusive commodities.

Luz and Ray’s days are for the most part consumed with trivial tasks that elide the quiet desperation of their circumstances. Even in this carnivalesque nightmare, traditional gender roles seem to prevail: Ray digs out the ‘shitting hole’ in their backyard; procures crates of stale ration cola; kills a prairie dog that winds up in the library; while Luz (a former model) naps and plays dress-up in the starlet’s abandoned closet. In an effort to shake up this mundanity, they attend a ‘raindance’ on Venice Beach where they encounter a small, pale-haired toddler whose ‘people’ radiate bad vibes. Between them, they make a snap decision to (benevolently) kidnap her, and return to the canyon. They call the ‘baby’ (infantilised because she remains curiously underdeveloped throughout) Ig, after one of the strange sounds she makes. Fearing retribution from Ig’s ‘people’ – a disparate band of punks, seemingly not including her parents – they head east on the advice of a former comrade, Lonnie, whose compound the couple have left on bad terms (Luz having fucked Lonnie, out of obliging boredom rather than actual desire).

When they run out of gas, somewhere on a desert trail flanked by jagged salt-rock formations, Ray heads out to find help. Uttering the haunting last words “I’ll be right back”, he leaves Luz and Ig on the backseat of the oven-like car (GFC, 102). Here, the novel – along with the couple – splits. We follow Luz into the Amargosa Sea (a sprawling, hostile ocean of sand ‘blown off the Central Valley and the Great Plains) and leave Ray for dead (later it emerges he has been holed up in a subterranean prison complex, somewhere in what was formerly New Mexico) (GFC, 72). Though the Amargosa is reportedly lifeless, ‘a dead swath’, it is the source of their salvation (GFC, 72). Their rescuers form part of a lone, nomadic community, a gaggle of lost souls who have dedicated themselves to the dune sea and to their “prophet” leader, Levi. ‘Descended from a long line of dowsers’, Levi is apparently able to glean water from sand, though his methods of extraction are later revealed to be deeply suspect (GFC, 72). The cultish sway of his charisma is, clearly, reminiscent of Manson. In this aspect, Watkins’s novel reminded me of Emma Cline’s wildly successful debut The Girls (Chatto & Windus, 2016), which rehashes many of the same tropes. Like Manson, Levi himself proves to be the worst kind of mirage – an abusive narcissist preying on the vulnerability and soft-mindedness of others.

The encroaching desert, we are repeatedly told, ‘curates’ its inhabitants. Luz, already born a figurehead, has been “chosen". In another life the adult Luz was ‘Baby Dunn’. A propaganda initiative cooked up by the Bureau of Conservation, she was adopted as a symbol at birth, her life and its milestones chronicled by public media. She retains a baby book, stuffed full of newspaper clippings: “Governor Signs HSB 4579; Every Swimming Pool in California to Be Drained Before Baby Dunn Is Old Enough to Take Swimming Lessons”; “Berkeley Hydrologists: Without Evacs Baby Dunn Will Die of Thirst by 24” (GFC, 11). As the ‘fame’ of its title would suggest, the novel is preoccupied with the cult of celebrity, itself a form of self-destructiveness often wilfully sought out. The hardback cover resembles a peach melba, metallic pinks and white leaking over a desert-yellow background, invoking the pastel palettes favoured by Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in the early 2000s. (Tellingly, its lead endorsement is a quotation from Vanity Fair). Though Watkins depicts a canyon bereft of celebrity residents, this “trashy” aesthetic nonetheless gestures towards the car-crash lifestyle that often accompanies certain brands of live-fast-die-young fame.

Like the Laurel Canyon, the Amargosa also spits out new forms of life. If our own species has struggled to adjust, then animals in Watkins’s novel appear more amenable to life in the scorched world. Midway through the novel there is an interpolated bestiary, a compendium of the Dune Sea’s flora and fauna replete with illustrations: a bioluminescent bat, the Mojave ‘Ghost Crab’, a spiny land eel, a carnivorous turtle that has evolved to walk on long legs resembling stilts. The government have led the public to believe no life exists in this “wasteland” so that it can be “nuked” without qualm, Levi begs to differ. For Luz this revelation – that there are animals where they shouldn’t be – marks a source of hope. She carries the primer around with her, reading to Ig from it like a surreal bible – evidence of weird, wonderful life. Luz’s devotion recalls the novel’s opening and her unfulfilled ‘yearn[ing] for menagerie’:

Where were the wild things seeking refuge from the scorched hills? […] Instead: scorpions coming up through the drains, a pair of mummified frogs in the waterless fountain, a coyote carcass going wicker in the ravine. And sure, a scorpion had a certain wisdom, but she yearned for fauna more charismatic. “It’s thinking like that that got us into this,” Ray said, correct (GFC, 7).

Ray’s commentary is astute: few people would shed a tear at the prospect of a future without such a scuttling, ‘repellant’ creature as the scorpion. But the imagined loneliness of a world without them is palpable here. Notably, the book begins with a ‘little live thing’ bursting onto the scene – the wild prairie dog that Luz locks in the starlet’s library. Luz’s exhilaration during this episode intimates some room for optimism in the apocalypse. Perhaps a new vision of community, grounded in a quest to be ‘part’ of something outside oneself, or a broader desire for communion both across and within species. Yet, quickly, her excitement collapses into anxiety. Having welcomed the prairie dog, she begins to fear it might be rabid. Her willingness to have Ray dispatch with the animal suggests that Watkins’s characters are, in fact, less concerned with the conservation of ‘wild things’ than with safeguarding themselves [9].

Despite its commitment to a post-humanist landscape, Gold Fame Citrus seems ultimately to offer us a humanist vision of apocalypse. And while Watkins's book works beautifully as a novel of ideas, her characters often feel tediously out of step with their circumstances. The plot can feel faltering on occasion. As Emily St. John Mandel puts it in the New York Times: ‘The work suffers occasionally from a condition fairly common to apocalyptic novels, which might be described as the “now what?” problem’ [10]. So, too, does Watkins's prose which, though wonderful at times, is also overworked, or try-hard in places (can a dune, for example, really be ‘dreadful’ with moonlight?). These linguistic flourishes, as well as its formal playfulness, are perhaps part of its charm, adding to the broader disorientation of reading the world's end. While some of these digressions I found myself wanting to ‘get through’, others work to haunting effect. In one stand-alone section, the narrator describes a desert monument, constructed as a sinister hazard-warning for generations to come:

The Landscape of Thorns was erected atop Yucca Mountain to frighten our distant and curious descendants on a primal level. It is an assembly of multilingual stone message kiosks and concrete spikes jutting from the mountain, skewering the sky…. Our young people… made rubbings from the message kiosks there… The rubbings say, This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing of value is here. What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us (GFC, 220).

More terrifying still this is based on a real project, backed by the Trump administration [11] .The abject horror of such a prospect, however, is offset by the narcissism of protagonists who seem consistently absorbed with more pedestrian concerns. Critics have praised Watkins for the fact that her characters undergo no redemptive arc, that they end just as fucked up as at they were at the beginning. Certainly, she does not subscribe to a conformist restitution narrative; the end of the world is not a case for new beginnings here. In this sense, the novel marks a departure from the Roland Emmerich fantasy of the post-apocalyptic world “cleansed” and primed for rejuvenation, or the Spielberg disaster-logic of a bad patriarch becoming good [12]. Gratingly though, the same heteronormative, patriarchal dynamics one might expect of a less conceptually interesting text persist: the love triangle that dominates Book Two, alongside Luz’s guilt over her past sexual betrayal, make it feel almost soapy at times. She worries frequently too about her attractiveness, particularly her attractiveness to men – her 'fat Chicana ass', her thin top lip, her filthy hair. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking to hope that I would be hung up on loftier things in the apocalypse (certainly my browser history, with its tally of eBay visits and skincare vlogs, would suggest otherwise). But I’m unsure that bushy brows, or my boyfriend’s enjoyment of my emaciated breasts, is what would keep me awake at night in a future where my primary liquid intake consisted of bottles of expired cola.

In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Watkins expressed her irritation with the ‘traditional’ genre of dystopian fiction, suggesting that all too often:

It’s just one note. It’s just: it’s dire. We’re plod, plod, plodding along, one foot in front of the other, and the ash is grey – and it’s just the same emotional key struck again and again and again. And I wondered: how come nobody’s ever having sex in the apocalypse? Or telling jokes? [13]

I’m all for having sex in the apocalypse. But surely sex in the apocalypse (and in a world where infertility is rife) ought to be darker, messier and decidedly queerer than this? Instead, the queerest it gets is when Luz submits to an unconvincing tantric partnership with two other women – something she does mostly unwillingly – in an effort to impress the gruff, messianic figure with whom she has fallen “in love”. [14] Perhaps I was expecting something closer to the monstrous, playful sexuality that abides in the work of Angela Carter or Leonora Carrington. At the very least, I hoped that abusive men (or, indeed, ‘benevolent’ men who infantilise women with terms of endearment like ‘baby girl’) might have become extinct. Instead, women still bear the scars of men’s desire – one character in particular, Dallas, does so visibly. Far from anarchic or carnivalesque, sex in Watkins’s apocalypse doesn’t look like all that much fun.

Perhaps one cause of the enduring “brokenness” of its characters, Gold Fame Citrus subscribes to a brand of narrative determinism that dooms us to repeat our mistakes, whether personal or ecological. This transpires most strongly in the novel’s sustained focus on motherhood, together with Ray and Luz's struggle to preserve the figure of the quasi-nuclear family. In this way, the novel appears to harbour a myth of reproductive futurism, wherein survivalism is actually about fighting for our children, not ourselves. [15] It takes the discovery of a child to break through the inertia of Laurel Canyon; notably, it is only once this dream has collapsed, itself becoming unsustainable, that the novel (along with Luz and Ray’s journey) can end. In turn, like Luz before her, Ig is co-opted by a new Manson-esque “family” as a PR object – destined to become the shining face of the campaign to save the Amargosa Sea. In a future plagued by sterility a child is, by its very nature, given over to symbolism. Perhaps this reproductive cliché is unavoidable in dystopian fiction. In his book Liquid Love, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues that in our anxious, unsettled times even children have become ‘objects of emotional consumption’, commodities over which we deliberate long and hard before deciding whether or not to ‘invest’ [16]. The act of family-making thus entails a kind of risk assessment; as it transpires, the cost of such attachment proves too great for Luz to bear.

Like love or desire, natural disaster exposes our ineluctable vulnerability to external forces, whether the material impacts nature, or the whims of other. This fact was showcased only recently. Just a few months ago in January 2018, wildfires raged across California’s forests, decimating over 281,900 acres and forcing some 230,000 to evacuate their homes. The chronic drought afflicting the state seems to indicate that, more likely than not, this will only become a broader pattern of events in the future. The fires have also been shown to have long-term negative health impacts particularly for pregnant women, children, the elderly and those of lower socioeconomic status – all of whom have a greater propensity towards asthma, and other respiratory diseases. For humans then, the dystopia Watkins envisions seems already on the cusp of unfolding. And yet, despite the dryness, the desert also teems with life. Ojai Valley, California, originally settled by the Chumash tribe, lies a couple of hours away from L.A. An uncommonly fertile region, wildflowers, olives, apricots, oranges, almonds, as well as “pixie” tangerines all thrive there [17]. Though touched by the fires, this April the valley will witness a rare botanical event: “fire followers”, a particular kind of seed that is activated by exposure to flames [18]. Where most plants can take years to grow after burning, these are germinated only ‘when stimulated by intense heat’: ‘“[Flowers like] cacomite and mariposa lily have co-evolved with fire for millions of years. They’re impossible to start from seed — you literally have to set it on fire, or put it in proximity to smoke, to activate the seed”’. [19] In this parched landscape, it may be the task of the nonhuman to flourish.

Footnotes

[1] See Lisa Cholodenko’s 2002 film, Laurel Canyon.

[2] Less well-known are the 1981 ‘Four on the Floor Murders’, in which three members and one associate of the “Wonderland Gang” drug-ring died a few doors down from the home of then-California Governor, Jerry Brown.

[3] Joan Didion, The White Album (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), p. 15.

[4] See Maggie Nelson, The Red Parts (London: Vintage, 2016).

[5] Didion, p. 59.

[6] See Wikipedia for a fascinating (and more thorough) exposition of these events: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars>

[7] A second diversion in 1941 re-routed water away from outlying farmlands and away from the Mono Lake, forcing its ecosystem (integral to sustaining the patterns of migratory birds) into a state of total depletion.

[8] Glenn Albrecht et. al, ‘Sostalgia: the distress caused by environmental change’, Australasian Psychiatry, 15 (2007), 95–98 (p. 95).

[9] Later, the trustworthiness of the bestiary and its “neo-fauna” are called into question by the fact of Levi's duplicity and psychosis. Though it is inferred that it was probably a fabrication, this remains unresolved at the novel's close.

[10] Emily St. John Mandel, ‘“Gold Fame Citrus”, by Claire Vaye Watkins’, New York Times, 2 October 2015 <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/gold-fame-citrus-by-claire-vaye-watkins.html> [Accessed 27 March 2018].

[11] For more on the Yucca Mountain revival see: <http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-stranded-nuclear-waste-20170702-htmlstory.html> and <https://knpr.org/knpr/2018-03/yucca-mountain-legislative-action-budget-request-expected-soon>

[12] See Slavoj Zizek, ‘The Family Myth of Ideology', in In Defence of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2008), p. 55.

[13] Alex Clark, ‘Claire Vaye Watkins: "How come nobody’s ever having sex in the apocalypse?"’, The Guardian, 31 January 2016 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/31/claire-vaye-watkins-gold-fame-citrus> [Accessed 25 March 2018].

[14] Levi’s own interest in female pleasure is apparently so lacking that we are – in an offhand detail – he has never once performed oral sex during the length of his affair with Luz.

[15] See Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).

[16] See Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003).

[17] Alex Schechter, '"Fire followers" to bloom in California after deadly wildfires', 27 March 2018 <https://www.aol.com/article/weather/2018/03/27/fire-followers-to-bloom-in-california-after-deadly-wildfires/23396358/> [Accessed 5 April 2018].

[18] Schechter, '"Fire followers"'.

[19] Schechter, '"Fire followers"'.

Bibliography

Albrecht, Glenn et. al, ‘Sostalgia: the distress caused by environmental change’, Australasian Psychiatry, 15 (2007), 95–98.

Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003)

Clark, Alex, ‘Claire Vaye Watkins: "How come nobody’s ever having sex in the apocalypse?"’, The Guardian, 31 January 2016 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/31/claire-vaye-watkins-gold-fame-citrus>

Didion, Joan, The White Album (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

Schechter, Alex, '"Fire followers" to bloom in California after deadly wildfires', 27 March 2018 <https://www.aol.com/article/weather/2018/03/27/fire-followers-to-bloom-in-california-after-deadly-wildfires/23396358/>.

St. John Mandel, Emily, ‘"Gold Fame Citrus", by Claire Vaye Watkins’, New York Times, 2 October 2015 <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/gold-fame-citrus-by-claire-vaye-watkins.html>.

Vaye Watkins, Claire, Gold Fame Citrus (London: Quercus, 2015).

Zizek, Slavoj, In Defence of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2008).