I am a writer.

Notes for The Sheriff (SPOILERS)

The sheriff's name is Elijah. The family's name is Brooks. All of the sheriff's family are named after biblical figures.

The story takes place in the Wyoming wasteland.

The sheriff being deaf came from me playing Fallout 3 without sound.

Esther leaves the compound because she was impregnated by her own father. The sheriff unknowingly facilitates this incest rape by making her go to her father's room every night.

Notes for Sons and Daughters (SPOILERS)

All of my information on The Daughters of Hecate comes from the Fallout wikia. This includes the Goddess's plan to switch healthy tribal babies with sickly babies.

I decided to write about The Daughters because there is so little information on them, so I could really make them my own, and I think they're an interesting counterpoint to the Legion. I read that in Van Buren the original idea was to have the player control one of these factions based on which gender they chose.

Chapter 1 takes place chronologically between chapter 11 and chapter 12.

All three protagonists are black and two are women because there aren't enough black people in science fiction and there aren't enough women protagonists in general. I don't make a big deal about their skin color. Racially, they're tribals, which means they have very diverse genetics. The closest real-life example would probably be the Seminoles of Florida. But, if Ulysses registers as African-American in the GECK I guess so do Mortuus, Athena, and Julia.

I accidentally called my black male protagonist, Mortuus Anima, little more than an animal, which has terrible implications. I really feel terrible about it, even though (as demonstrated by The Sheriff) unrestrained psychopathic men who are no more reasoning than animals is just what I like to write. My reasoning was I wanted to play up the monstrous aspects of Mortuus in the beginning so I could subvert them later, when we see him from his sister's perspective. Mortuus Anima aka Aram Heart isn't fundamentally a bad guy, in a better time and place he'd be an athlete or a cook, but because of where and when he lives he's a killer and he's damn good at it. Even still, it's not a great choice of words and in editing I'll go back and change that up at a later date. People also responded to the early Dead Soul chapters more than anything else, so shame on you all. Y'alls racists. (j/k I love my readers, all six of you)

Mortuus actually really likes to cook. He does the cooking for his contubernia even though most Legionaries leave cooking to slaves.

I keep a timeline in my head for when events happen in this story. In my timeline the betrayal of the Twisted Hairs comes after the events of Van Buren, but then again so does Graham's canonical banishment from the Legion, so I feel alright messing with the timeline.

The title of the chapter Savages is ironic, because Julia and Mortuus both represent civilization in the wasteland, yet they do some pretty brutal, savage things.

Chapter 78, Masks, and Chapter 79, Mars, Bringer of War, take place during the First Battle of the Hoover Dam.

Brothers and Sisters is broken up into three parts to keep up my updates. When the story is finished I'll consolidate all the parts into one chapter divided into four sub-chapters.

Maybe it's stupid to say but the last sentence of Brothers and Sisters part 3 makes me tear up. It by far has been the hardest chapter to write.

There's a secret chapter between Night Shift and Following continuing from Everett's perspective, but I cut it because it doesn't add anything and is boring. Also Everett kind of sucks.

Nobody liked The New Tribe, and I can kind of see why. It's geeky and lame, and could totally be reduced to a single sentence without the story losing anything, but I kept it because the end draws some more parallels between Julia and Mortuus. And hey, it's just fanfiction.

When I started this story I knew right away that Athena was the most boring of my three protagonists. In an effort to keep her interesting to read and write I came up with her permanently wearing a broken slave collar. I'm pretty proud of how that worked out, I think it's pretty cool.

I really hope the whole Aram Heart/Mortuus Anima/Dead Soul, Julia Aram/Arama thing didn't trip people up.

I decided to keep the trigger warning at the start of Brothers and Sisters part 3 even though it gives away the events of that chapter because I'd rather not accidentally make someone read something that makes them uncomfortable than assume my readers can tell what's going to happen by the foreshadowing in the chapter itself. But you should totally be able to tell what's coming by the first sentence. I mean, it's the Legion for chrissakes.

Julia's colt navy revolver is Blondie's (Clint Eastwood's) revolver in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

In Brothers and Sisters, Julia is carrying two police pistols from Dead Money, a .45 auto pistol from Honest Hearts, and two silenced .22 pistols from New Vegas. The military pistol that the wastelanders use is the 10mm pistol. The sharpened stick is a pool cue. In 80 Julia is using an anti-material rifle (The real-world equivalent is named Hecate, curiously enough) and the hunting shotgun. Her anti-material rifle is custom, she calls it "The Lady."

I could only work it in in a single sentence, but Mortuus absolutely loves Sunset Sarsaparilla.

Mortuus is so big and Julia is so small largely because of diet. Mortuus was adopted into the Legion during his teenage years, which allowed him to eat more than Julia while they were both growing. Most tribals in the wasteland are on average a foot shorter than vault dwellers, New Caananites, or Legionaries.

The Crazy Horns from Athena's chapters are a tribe from Honest Hearts. In Honest Hearts it is said they are a New Canaanite-aligned tribe who were killed by the White Legs. Knowing this you can tell how Athena's relations with the tribe are going to go. I like how my story feeds into what is canon about the Crazy Horns. Obviously they had trouble repelling the White Legs because the youth of their tribe were all sickly transplants.

Writing the Twisted Hair tribal language was extra-super fun, although also really difficult. A lot of it is inspired by American slang, but there are also Spanish, French, and Navajo influences. I tried to make it sound natural, but I probably won't be writing in it much more.

Here's a small Twisted Hair to English dictionary: Michoo- term of endearment, comes from French for "My cabbage" Darcanno- love, specifically the love of a parent for a child. Comes from Spanish for "To Charm" Marra- love in a more general sense Two- you Ademise- to kill in a particularly brutal way or on a particularly large scale, comes from English "Atomize" and "demise" Vida- living, such as it is in the wasteland Asee- a particularly large rock, or boulder, comes from Navajo for "rock" Bee- within or inside, comes from Navajo for "in" Esperran- waiting, in a particularly sad way, comes from Spanish for "wait" and English "despair" Twisdedup- Sorry, sad, comes from Spanish and French for "Sad" and English "Twisted up"

Gehennas are, of course, an enemy from Van Buren located at Burham Springs. They're big tar monsters that are also on fire, which is why Julia expresses doubt that they could be technically considered living.

Julia can't lie to Hecate in their native language. She can't even obscure the truth.

Ogres are just giant spiders. Probably tarantulas, given the area. I dunno why I decided to call them ogres. I dunno why I do a lot of things.

I chose to have the Legion defeat the Twin Mothers without violence because my original plan was for there to be a battle and the Twin Mothers to use dual-beam laser rifles, but then I actually researched them and discovered they were super pacifists. However, I saw an opportunity to showcase a quieter strength of Caesar's Legion, namely their support system. The Twin Mothers' policy of withdrawing into their cliff village doesn't work against a threat that can back itself up with supplies and reinforcements. BTW, researching for this fanfiction is the most research I've ever done for anything I've ever written. I'm ashamed of how little effort I put into my other writings, but I WILL NEVER BE ASHAMED OF MY FANFICTION. :)

I deliberately tried to confuse Hecate the Goddess with Diana the Goddess in Bitter Drink, because of their connection. Hopefully by the end of the chapter readers realize they are two separate, uh, people.

Lotta references to Van Buren in Bitter Drink. 1. The Goddess disappearing from the Twin Mothers and then coming back is from Van Buren, where the Nursery is experiencing technical difficulties and the prisoner has to bring it back online. 2. Eldron, Helea, and Alaya are all from Van Buren, in the roles they would have been in the game. 3. The Scorpion's Bite is a raider tribe harassing the Twin Mothers in Van Buren.

There's some technology where you can broadcast something as quiet as a whisper directly into someone's ears, and that's what Diana uses in A Good Warrior to demoralize the Legion. It's a real technology, it's used for advertising. I read about it on Cracked, I swear.

The Flag-Bearer is Ulysses, before he takes the name Ulysses. In Lonesome Road he tells the courier he was known as the Flag-Bearer in the Legion, because of Old Glory. The Malpais Legate is obviously Joshua Graham, and when you get Ulysses in the same room as Graham the pretension is so thick you can cut it with a knife. Everything they say has so much weight.

Graham is obviously not talking about Caesar when he talks about the lord. I wasn't sure how much of his religion he would retain as the Legate but it's definitely always a part of him. He certainly had to hide it because it's outside Caesar's narrative, but I feel like it would sneak through in subtle ways. He's quoting proverbs, specifically the part that helped inspire the seven deadly sins. He may be talking about Diana and her whispers, but he may also be talking about Mortuus and his mild treason in A Good Warrior.

I did some theme naming of the chapters. Mortuus Anima is A Good Warrior, A Simple Tool. Julia is Twisted Up, All the Ways.

The Nursery is destroyed, and it's pretty sad. The Legion found the best part of pre-war America still surviving and they burned it to cinders. Out with the old, in with the new. What was that about Fallout being a dead world without hope? Somebody said that was the intent.

The Sawneys and the Slither Kin are The White Glove Society and The Omertas, respectively, and they do indeed contain some of the glitz and glamor of old world Vegas, but it takes Mr. House to bring it out.

I wanted to tie the Daughters of Hecate into New Vegas more, so I came up with the idea that the Goddess sees the NCR and the Legion coming to conflict over Vegas and using Vegas' own long-running propaganda machine to draw Caesar into that confrontation. Ultimately I wasn't so happy with the chapter Viva Las Vegas because I don't think it got all that across, particularly just how much of a disturbing allure Vegas has for such a dark and sinister place. But then again I personally feel that point got lost in the actual game too, so I think Fallout: New Vegas should share the blame with me.

Also I'm unsatisfied with the chapter because I didn't take the time to have enough fun with it. It's Julia dressing up like Elvis and recreating the scene from Viva Las Vegas! It's goofy and weird! Definitely author appeal, but kind of hard to write out. Just search "Elvis Presley Viva Las Vegas" on youtube and mentally insert a tiny black woman in an Elvis wig instead of Elvis.

Also my dedication to the official timeline choked the development of chapter 30 a bit. As it turns out, Mr. House didn't reclaim Vegas or even name it New Vegas until 2274, only 3 years before the first battle of Hoover Dam. So it makes it a little bit more unlikely that the Goddess would be able to predict the conflict over New Vegas before there even is a New Vegas, but she is pretty awesome. After Julia kind of looked down on her in All The Ways it's good to reestablish that there's a reason Hecate is worshiped as a Goddess.

Someday I'll write "Young Julia's Adventures in Las Vegas." Will she escape the terrifying clutches of the evil Slither Kin!? Yes. Yes she will.

Atia is her slave name from the Legion. She continues to go by Atia because it's been so long she doesn't remember her original name. She's a sad character.

Atia got a new pair of glasses while she was in the maternity ward.

In chapter 33, Bled Dry, the Goddess is the reason the Crazy Horns are getting pushed around by other tribes. She's got a direct link to all the tribes, as established in Viva Las Vegas, and she manipulates them all like puppets. She's making it harder for the Crazy Horns for some reason that isn't knowable from the ground level, it's for some reason that requires a complete picture of the wasteland to understand.

Another thing in Bled Dry is just how completely fucking evil the Goddess is. I mean, Caesar is a monster, to be sure, but the Goddess' eugenics program is horrifying beyond belief. She's like Hitler mixed with Charles Manson. Even though ostensibly the Daughters are the good guys really there is no right or wrong, there's just the bid to survive and be successful.

Bufo is Bufotenin and 5-MeO-DMT. It's a psychoactive drug, dried venom harvested from Colorado River Toads, which are mutated and giant and in abundance in the area around Ouroboros. It's an entheogen, a drug used in religious ritual. The effects of smoking it are probably a lot like taking magic mushrooms, which is to say stuff starts to warp and you feel a general one-ness with reality. The Goddess smokes it constantly.

The Daughters of Hecate are organized in tiered system. At the top are Maenads, elite warriors and cyborg agents of the Goddess, occasionally taking outside commissions. Julia and her brood are Maenads. In the middle are Sibyls, administrators for the Goddess who compile reports and collate data for her, also they run the day-to-day infrastructure of Ouroboros. Atia is a Sibyl. On the bottom rung are Harpies, the Goddess' eyes and ears in the wasteland and her missionaries among the tribal communities. Athena is a Harpy.

The Harpies are named after the former head elder of the Twisted Hairs and Julia's grandfather Harpy. The Goddess did that deliberately, as a tribute to him. The name comes from design documents for Brotherhood of Steel 2, which thankfully was never released. I figure it's as good a name as any.

Nodriza de la Maii- Twisted Hair profanity. It's a mixture of Spanish, French, and Navajo. Literally translated it means "Nurse maid of the coyote." Figuratively translated it means "cunt."

Implant Y-3 is from Old World Blues. It's the implant that removes radiation from beverages, obviously. I've decided to extrapolate and say it filters water-borne toxins, too.

Vault 27 was a deliberately overcrowded vault. Before the war it was assigned double the sustainable amount of people. In my canonical Vault 27 the vault dwellers mostly worked it out without conflict, but developed a rigid system of banishment. Those banished are considered exemplary, and can return to the vault, but cannot sleep in the vault and have to pay for most services. Ruth was banished in her late teens and became a mercenary. Another result of the overcrowding is a lot of emphasis is put on living very frugally in Vault 27. Many tribes in the area are descended from banished vault dwellers. Vault 27 has generally good relations with Caesar's Legion, and often sell the Legion slaves.

Strophades is an island in Greek mythology where harpies lived.

Yvana and Jordan Dae are characters from Van Buren living at Ouroboros. In Van Buren the prisoner can take an optional quest to play matchmaker between them.

Sinnerman is a traditional American spiritual song. Les Baxter recorded a version in 1956 that is considered influential on all later recordings. In 1965 Nina Simone recorded a 10-minute version of the song for her album Pastel Blues. The song is about a sinner meeting his reckoning.

Belladonna is another term for deadly nightshade. It is also the name of a drug prepared from deadly nightshade.

Belladonna Fiasco's hat is based on Crocodile Dundee's hat.

I don't know why I put so much effort into this. Nobody cares, it doesn't really deserve to be cared about. Whatever.

In Broken Nose, as in all flashback chapters among the Twisted Hair tribe, everyone is speaking the Twisted Hair language. But for convenience it's written as English.

Julius has asthma. The medicine Julia gives Atia is an albuterol inhaler. Honestly it's probably irresponsible to treat the child under the table like Julia and Atia are doing, but it's important story-wise. Atia also probably has postpartum depression on top of her PTSD from the Legion, which she treats with recreational drugs, yay! Healthy buncha folks in this here story.

Scipio Venator's name is pronounced in the traditional Latin way, so it sounds like "Wenator." Yeah, that's right, they pronounced V's as W's. They do in the game, too, when they say "Ave". So when Caesar said Veni Vidi Vici, it actually sounded like "Weni Widi Wiki" because not everything the Romans did was dignified.

The Goddess also uses the traditional Latin pronunciation, as do all the Daughters, because even though they don't like the Legion they respect them in their own way. Plus some of the Daughters don't even know there's another way to pronounce some of the words and names.

I'd like to say titling the chapter Road to Ouroboros is a shout out to the Bing Crosby-Bob Hope movies, but I've honestly never seen a single one, so it might as well be a Family Guy shout out. Fucking Seth MacFarlane and his love of classic musicals.

A bit of humor and a shout out to Arrested Development in Heart and Soul Part II, the characters Ya-et-ehh and Bonjou's names mean 'hello' in Navajo and Creole, respectively. Obviously that wasn't their names originally, but the Legion neither cared nor understood and just called them whatever they said.

Bonjou speaks some Creole to Mortuus. He roughly says "Stay close, or you'll get eaten."

The Devines are named for Andy Devine Ave which is named for actor Andy Devine, who was born in Kingman. The Route 66 museum is also in Kingman.

The extra support that Atia provided for Aurelius of Phoenix assured his victory, and he was so successful that he pleased Caesar enough to give him Atia.

The reservation that Mortuus' ghouls come from is from Van Buren. It's an old Navajo reservation turned into a ghoul community where they are trying to breed ghouls, and in Van Buren they have some success. They are also acquiring nuclear materials for a missile launcher.

Desert stalkers are from Van Buren, they're mutated giant antlions.

Mortuus Anima had his ancestral machete, a totemic object which tied him to the past, specifically the past full of violence and brutality. It was symbolic of that past he could not let go.

In Dark Mother, they're traveling to the Nursery, where Dark Mother was taught eugenics and given the name Hecate by Diana. The dramatic irony is that, even if Julia hadn't killed Hecate they never would've made it because, as detailed in A Simple Tool Diana is dead and the Nursery was destroyed.

Hecate had her dreadlocks, the hairstyle of her former tribe which tied her to the past. They were symbolic of the past she could not let go.

Hope Arama made sense. It is about Julia, naturally, but when she was fifteen years old. I don't refer to her by name within the chapter because, of course, she didn't have a name when she was with the Twisted Hairs.

In Vargas, Hoover Dam, and Pills all the Desert Rangers except Really and Ghost Woman are from Wasteland and Wasteland 2, which sorta turns this fanfic into a crossover, except not really. I've never played either Wasteland so the characters are based on what I could scrounge up from the internet and I don't know if they're accurate to the way their depicted in their specific games. For some reason, Vargas makes me think of Edward James Olmos so I wrote him as "Edward James Olmos as Snake Vargas." Also I made up his first name.

Ghost Woman is based on Isabel Reubens from Love and Rockets. In Wasteland 2 Hopey and Maggie from Love and Rockets are non-playable characters.

Marti Picture and the 5 Pictures' #1 hit was You Got a Glowing Smile, Baby. A band comprised of six brothers they were born in a vault in Texas, where they gained some success among the other people trapped in the vault with them. After escaping to make a name for themselves, tragedy struck when middle brother Danny was killed and eaten by cannibals. They kept the name, though, out of respect to Danny and also because it was already printed on all their clothes and on the drum. After touring the Texas wasteland, they headed north seeking fame and fortune, but were instead murdered in the ruins of Las Vegas by the Slither Kin. They managed to press one record, Marti Picture and the 5 Pictures Are At It Again! which continues to be played in their home vault to this day.

"Plutarch's Lives" comprises the 12th volume of the "Harvard Classics" and I know that because I have them. I just threw them into the story 'cause they are next to me every time I write. Plutarch wrote a series of biographies, including Caesar, not so much to create a historical record, but to promote values he saw as attractive. He hoped to portray famous Romans as pillars of virtue in hopes that people would imitate them. Subsequently, Julia fell for his propaganda, with disastrous results.

Angela Deth, Hell Razor, Snake Vargas, and Thrasher are the starting team in the first Wasteland. Although, Angela Deth didn't grow up with the Rangers in Wasteland.

The Twisted Hairs practice female genital mutilation. When a girl has her first period they cut off her clitoris. I dunno why I dance around it in Serket, the Scorpion Goddess. Part of an old, stupid plan I had, where I was gonna imply that Julia got raped but then be like, nuh-uh, she's actually the only girl in her tribe what hasn't been sexually abused and shame on you for thinking she was, that's your own weird bias a-huhr-a-huhr-a-huhr. Anyway, Julia wasn't subject to sexual abuse I just implied she was and it's your OWN FUCKED-UP ASSUMPTION SHE WAS A-HUR A-HUR-HUR. Maybe when I finish this I'll go back and edit it to be more explicit but for now you'll have to read these notes to know for sure that the Twisted Hairs practice FGM.

Three fuckin' years and seventy two chapters. I had a lot planned out from the beginning but I never wrote any of it down. I wonder what I've lost? There's been a lot of partying in those three years. If I'm not done before another three years go by I'm going to kill myself.

Pay me a dollar and I'll let you read the real first couple paragraphs of Julia describing all the guards running a train on her.

I ruuuuushed Hecate out so I could publish on the three-year anniversary of Sons and Daughters which means I have a whole fuckton of problems with it! Although it turned out pretty good, I think. I didn't use the exact transcription of Hecate and Diana's first meeting, although it starts and ends the same. In some respects what's in the design document is better than what I wrote, but I only decided that after I'd already written it, and I didn't have time to rewrite the entire scene to be more faithful. Also I could've detailed Athena's life more, but I was really short on time by then. Anyway, I like to think I captured the basic essence of Diana, maybe exaggerated her a little bit. I think she's pretty egomaniacal after being a god for so many years, but also she's possibly the biggest force for good in the whole wasteland, which I find hilarious. Makes A Simple Tool way more depressing, though.

Hecate is the last of a multi-chapter flashback that began (sort of) with Dark Mother. See what I did there? Eh? Eh?

Eh? ;)

I have a confession to make. Mostly, I just use the thesaurus to be more specific with words, like using "expose" (reveal the true and typically objectionable nature of someone or something) instead of "reveal" (To make previously unknown or secret information known to others) because the truth being revealed is objectionable, but sometimes I'll look something up and a synonym will have a little (literary) tag next to it and I always end up picking that word, sometimes even re-writing the sentence or even paragraph so it fits better. Thus, you end up with words like "perfervid" (intense and impassioned) when I was originally just trying to find a more church-y "enthusiastic". I'm very sorry, everyone. I have no intention of stopping.

I'm hoping adding some punch to the summary gets me more readers. For posterity, here's the original summary: "Sons and Daughters tells the story of the rise of Caesar's Legion from three divergent viewpoints; Julia the bloodthirsty mercenary, Athena the tribal shaman, and Dead Soul, a vicious legionary. Based on stuff from New Vegas and Van Buren, the cancelled Fallout 3. Feedback always appreciated!"

Bitches' Parade, a parade by, for, and of Bitches.

"Comments on the Moro Massacre", by Samuel Clemens, from 1906, about America's imperialist war against the native peoples of the Philippines. Not a proud part of American history, and I think it's pretty under-reported in the real world, without the help of a fictionally-empowered HUAC. The essay's online if you want to read it, I recommend it.

The mercenary that Anders plays poker with in Masks is the same woman from A Pack of Wolves who abandoned Warlord Tarsuus. The caravaneer he plays poker with is Rose of Sharon Cassidy. The Colonel is Cassandra Moore.

The first suite of Gustav Holt's The Planets is Mars, Bringer of War.

All of the names of soldiers who die in Mars, Bringer of War come straight from the Boulder City memorial in Fallout: New Vegas.

White Sands National Park is a real place that you can visit at your earliest convenience. White Sands Missile Range is also a real place, but I think they're less inclined to give out tours. I think the Trinity plaque is only accessible at certain times of the year, when they aren't firing missiles. If a nuke really were dropped on White Sands, it wouldn't turn into glowing crystals. That's fantasy. Although the sand is made of gypsum and gypsum is related to selenite, I'm pretty sure that much heat and that much force would probably result in a vast field of burnt plaster roughly the size and consistency of packing peanuts. It turns out that when you heat gypsum past 500 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly) it turns into what scientists call "burnt plaster" or "plaster of paris that's fucking burnt, man". "Fuck man". So that's super depressing and everything I write is depressing enough.

Nizh’dilt’é means "two people" in Navajo. Ròu Zhī means "meat" in Chinese.

Butterfly's impact on the story could be summed up in a single sentence, where she dies, but that made me sad. Everyone has a life.

Centurion Otho from The 47th Tribe is absolutely the same Otho who served as a speculator in Mortuus Anima's old contubernia. He was promoted out as a way to punish Mortuus Anima and traded on some of the success of the Dead Souls to rise through the ranks.