Spoilers: This show has always been about loss. One of the prime motivating factors I had for this show was losing my cat in February this year. And as an author, you typically go, “Hey, how do I make other people feel what I’m feeling now?”

The terrible thing about loss is that you have to go on. For years. As Cassandra says, it becomes the new normal. But so does the pain.

I have tinnitus. I have never known what it’s like to hear without a constant high pitched ringing. And that’s okay – I can hear fine otherwise. Obviously. I do edit these audio dramas which my actors assure me sound incredibly good. But the pain of loss is like that. It’s always there. And for Cassandra, it’s also mixed with the guilt of having caused that loss, in some way, no matter what reassurances Elijio gives.

So, welcome to the time skip episode, as popularized by your favorite manga. I had first considered skipping five years, and then three years, but when it came time to do the writing, I figured two years was the sweet spot for moving on but still having some remnants of hope. Cassandra has a full time job now, working both sides like Jean Marsh in Upstairs, Downstairs. Originally, I didn’t have the two slice-of-life scenes in the intro of Cassandra interacting with the Upstairs and Downstairs security, respectively. My editor Tony insisted that I add them so we can see what her life is like, before going into how she spends her off-hours. (Also, what was I supposed to do, not drop a Vampire Survivors reference in the show?)

Nichole was originally going to be a pro-domme but then the story necessitated that she and Cassandra be dating so Nichole changed into a girlfriend. I really appreciate that Kelsey was willing to do the role. I’d been wanting to get Kelsey in an audio drama since Brittle Tourniquet. But she was hesitant. The role of Nichole was enticing enough though, she said, and so we finally got her. Yay! Because she nailed the character.

When I was thinking about how Cassandra would be living her life, I always knew that she would want to continue Samael’s salons with someone. (Hell, I would like to have a scene like that someone – tops can HMU on my DMs.) And it’s amusing that we start on their discussion on the nature of evil but the episode quickly gets serious about it, so it’s more emotional and tragic when we see Nichole for the final time.

Also note that Nichole says, “I will nightdream all about it.” Because Kindred aren’t up during the day. So they can’t daydream. … I’ll see myself out.

Minor trivia – Nichole is from St. Louis because a friend of mine is also from there. As well, for the line: “You create the words, “God is great.” But then you have to consider the possibility of “God is not great.” And then it slips from your mind into the world.” I actually got this concept from another Mastodon person (who probably would not prefer to be linked to) who was putting together a conlang, and posted something similar to: “I wrote ‘[Name] is pretty’ but then I had to consider that you could also write ‘[Name] is not pretty.’ And that made me very sad.” I definitely feel for that critter.

So in the original primordial outline, Cassandra was dating Amanda too, but I thought, eh, that’s kinda a lot, and I wasn’t convinced of my acting chops being able to maintain chemistry with Rachel. Anyhow, we find out what Amanda’s been doing – working guard duty with the new sheriff. Someone has to since Brian took out so many of Judith’s gang.

Incidentally, I may not have been clear in the show, but Cassandra is still alive despite having killed Judith because it was politically convenient for the Ventrue to be able to put their own sheriff in charge. Now, everyone has their eyes on Cassandra in case she does that again. But the months after Judith’s murder were full of strife and Cassandra was not a priority at the time, especially since she was funding both war efforts.

Now, Cassandra and Amanda lament that Simon has disappeared. Where has he gone? Will you find out in Season 2? Spoilers, I have no idea yet. I just didn’t really have a good place for him in Episode 7 so I sorta dropped him for now. His arc was pretty much finalized in Episode 5 and I didn’t really have anything for him to do except worry the main characters about what may have happened to him.

Now, clever-eared folks may have been wondering all this time, “why haven’t there been any murders in Harbinger’s? Don’t Kindred lose control of their Beasts sometimes?” (A friend of mine literally told me recently that it took her out of the story a bit.) Well, here you go. Murders have been happening and Cassandra is just dealing with them. I adore Rachel’s performance where Cassandra describes “We had to puppet him out, arrange for his body to be shipped to a hotel, and set him up with his face in a pile of coke.” Cassandra has had to grow hard to survive as the Temple Warden. Poor girl. But hey, great opportunity for acting!

At last, we meet the new Prince Sophia, dumped by the Ventrue onto Seattle probably because of her availability. Sophia is an awful manager. She is perfect for her bosses because she knows how to present results to them and assign blame as needed. She is absolute hell to work for because she doesn’t have a fucking clue about working with people. Everything she knows about managing is probably from some 18th century manuscript on organizing buffers between yourself and the lower classes. Sophia calls Cassandra by her last name and is frustrated that Cassandra can’t solve Sophia’s money problems. Those aren’t Cassandra’s problems but Sophia is saddled with Harbinger’s and over the past year or so has lost sight of what it protects her against. Sophia never saw what Seattle was like without Harbinger’s. She’s also terrible at working with people because she doesn’t like them. Just her upper-crust friends. Bleh. Anyhow, Sophia is the power structure Cassandra is saddled with, and so she serves to the best of her ability.

Writing Cassandra standing before Sophia required a great deal of mental gymnastics, to be able to “yes, and” her as well as speaking as truthful as she can without criticizing her.

Anyhow, Harbinger’s is clearly screwed and on borrowed time. Could Cassandra save it? Probably not.

Also I fucking love Cassandra’s retort to Esther, “We all live with our choices. But mine are small. Yours are the choices of gods. And I am your result!” About the nicest “fuck you” she could give to Esther and still keep her life. Again, I was very surprised a line of that quality came out of me.

So Siobhan has left her warehouse job, not entirely by choice. The war burnt out Lorea and someone needed to pick up her slack. Burnout is real, especially in leftist circles. And often no one is available to do the missing work. And life goes on. Anyhow, we see how Cassandra has changed, having to be more of a Camarilla mouthpiece because she knows they will read her mind. Siobhan hasn’t changed though. She’s just back at her organizing work. Probably a lot changed after the war for her too. Getting back in Cassandra’s good graces wasn’t a priority.

Also, could Sophia be more blatant that she was planning to attack the Anarchs? Sheesh. What did she think was going to happen, Siobhan would just give Cassandra more security and have fewer bodies to protect Anarch territory? Oh please. More reasons why she’s awful.

And we come to Harbinger’s final night. At last, the Sabbat attack. We always knew they were going to attack. And here they are. Sabbat voice actor Maeve came to me expressly looking to play a hammy villain and I did not disappoint her. Nothing gold can stay. Nichole’s girlfriend gets fridged, but loss isn’t unique to Nichole. I wanted this scene quick to be done with it. I also wanted Cassandra to be able to blame herself for it – she could have shut down the feeding chamber early. She’s probably done it before. But she kept it open because Kindred needed feeding and what’s the worst that could happen?

What did I say about complacency? Especially after two years where she’s handled murders before.

Cassandra has held onto that contact information for the Naval Liaison for some time. And she never had a good reason to call it without something to offer. And now she finally has it.

I didn’t know who I was going to cast as the Naval Liaison. But so many of our voice actors have comedy voices that they do on the side. Trunk Slamchest’s Penelope was a joke elderly voice originally, until I perverted it into a dramatic role. Similarly, the Naval Liaison is Katherine Cross doing a suburban Karen voice. It’s a joke when you do it for friends. It’s drama when you do it for me. (That said, Just Another Twink did a whole range of cartoon voices for me that I couldn’t think of a single way to use. Sorry, dear.)

So Sophia is horrified by the loss of a slightly profitable club, and by Cassandra passing over one of her people (even if they were a Sabbat) to the military/Second Inquisition. At last, Cassandra finds the one bit of natural rights among Kindred – we don’t hand each other over to the humans. (Unless it becomes politically convenient to do so but that’s another story and certainly not in a human’s hands.) Writing Cassandra in this scene was particularly tricky because she is twisting everything Sophia says into a positive. She’s trying to keep her club. This fiasco is manageable. Really. It is. Uh huh. But it’s all she can do. “I am not allowed subterfuge in this court.” Because they can read her mind. And it’s grating on Cassandra that she is not allowed to participate in the backstabbing that makes the court – that Esther has perfected.

Exiled home, Cassandra uses Lorea as an escape excuse (an extremely flimsy one) and as a reason to catch up now that the club is probably a goner. Cassandra fills Lorea in with her plan to try to get access to the Kindred on the Kitsap base. Maybe Samael is still there. Or Silver. Who knows?

(I know and I’m not telling you. Just keep in mind that this is, in Rachel’s words, a romantic tragedy.)

Lorea does offer Cassandra an Embrace here. But Cassandra certainly wouldn’t be able to stay in Seattle. And she’s not good at hiding. She is tempted but her pragmatism wins out.

Finally, Cassandra descends into the Underworld. At Kitsap base, she is taken underground in a bunker and speaks with three captured Kindred, including the Laughing Sabbat. I used this scene as an excuse for Cassandra to embrace her own dark manipulative side. To show off how much she’s learned working with Kindred night in, night out. To show how desperate she is that the next Kindred she sees in the Underworld is Samael.

Rachel originally wanted to play the Laughing Sabbat scene by ridiculing the Sabbat (“The Dark Father destroys all. The Dark Father destroys all.” in a mocking tone). I had to insist, no. She’s trying to get in the Sabbat’s head. She’s making the Sabbat uneasy with her, being honest with the Sabbat and then setting them off-kilter until they make a mistake and reveal too much – “Elixir.”

Next is Cynthia, a poor Thin Blood who got picked up. I think I described her to Alyrian as a beach hippie? Her purpose is her connection to Zachery, who we last saw in Episode 4. (Yes, I set up a lot of things in advance.) She’s obviously a victim in all this and I wanted to show Cassandra’s sympathy for her. Unlike with the Sabbat, Cassandra’s honesty is kind, but still manipulative. Cynthia gives her name away in hope that something better will come from Cassandra down the line.

The last visit is with Silver, who is not doing well, but to whom Cassandra gives Lorea’s message of hope. All of these poor Kindred in detention. It really makes me mad.

Finally, the Naval Liaison reveals that she suspects Cassandra of being a Kindred herself, even though she’s seen her in the day. Cynthia can probably daywalk though. The Naval Liaison doesn’t know everything about Kindred, except that their sensitive noses react badly to a particular spray. We discussed Kindred’s smelling sensitivity in Episode 4 and I wanted to focus on scent as a sign of one being a Kindred. Even in Episode 1, Samael told Cassandra that Kindred can smell her wherever she goes. But it’s also a detriment when you can’t turn it off.

Anyway, Cassandra is pissed about being tested but at the same time, she doesn’t want to anger the Liaison. She wants back in.

After informing Lorea that her message got to Silver, Cassandra is picked up by Esther. Things are not going to go well and Cassandra is unrepentant. What would be the point of an apology anyway? As Cassandra says, “Which is worse? A lie in defiance? Or the truth in shame?” And Esther completely misses what Cassandra is saying. She just goes for the lie immediately. She doesn’t have a fucking clue.

Cassandra is very lucky that Sophia knows what vengeance Lorea and the Anarchs might wreak were they to hear that Sophia killed Cassandra. Sophia does have half a brain after all, so she frees Cassandra from servitude and banishes her. If you know me, this is a major theme in my writing. Back in the 90s, I was able to participate in the Boston fetish/BDSM scene but after transitioning, no one was interested in playing with me. So I was essentially cast out and it still hurts me to this day. I want my audience to feel it to, although in Cassandra’s case, it is a blessing in disguise. She no longer needs to be useful among the Kindred to survive. They trust her to keep their secrets as she knows intimately what will happen if she does not.

Trivia: originally Cassandra’s final words to the court were something like, “I need to pick up my car from the Anarchs” where it was parked. But obviously, that’s not a particular good final line. So I let that plot point slide.

Banishment from the Kindred’s world also means Samael’s rooms, so Cassandra says her parting words to Esther there. She’s going to have to start her life on her own.

The next scene with Nichole I believe is what sold the part to Kelsey. Nichole chooses not to Embrace her girlfriend. To do so wouldn’t just be unethical – it would risk losing her girlfriend if she didn’t want to be Embraced or if she found the concept of being a Kindred horrific. More reasons not to do so than to do it. Kelsey really knocks this scene out of the park. Bravo.

And Cassandra is back in the human world. With a huge pile of cash, of course. Sophia has to leave her something if she is to live and keep her trap shut. So after buying a new place to live (and presumably staying in a hotel until the paperwork goes through), Cassandra gets bored of being alone and returns to her touchstone, Stephanie. Like with Siobhan, Cassandra is not looking for forgiveness. She’s going to pay her dues. She starts volunteering at, what I imagine, is Southside Commons in Columbia City. And Stephanie recognizes that she’s putting in the work. They reconnect in a friendly way.

And then Cassandra runs into Zachery again. It makes sense – Cassandra has met all the Seattle Kindred, so non-zero chance she was going to run into one after her banishment. Zachery is sympathetic (although a little manic). He eagerly accepts a drink and Cassandra enjoys hers again. He seems mostly harmless. He wishes her the best from within the Kindred world to which she can’t belong.

And now a side note – this is bad practice but I do search for Blood Doll references on the Internet. And one of the things I find is posts from people talking shit about Blood Dolls. I won’t name names, but they’re all talking about how laugh-inducing it is for humans to get addicted to the Kiss. How sad and weak of them. We should pity them.

First off, fuck you with your fucking slut shaming, addiction-shaming bullshit. If people are having a good time together, fuck you, it’s none of your fucking business. Being a slut if you want to be is fantastic. Highly recommend. What fucking patriarchal asshole did you climb out of where you want to control people’s sexuality. And if you’re dropping addiction metaphors into this too, fuck you with a rusty crowbar on Sundays. You’re why politicians keep closing down harm reduction centers where people can use needles safely which have been proven to fucking work. Go jump in a volcano and stop listening to my fucking show. We don’t need your Puritanical self-righteous bullshit.

Whew. Okay, back to the show notes.

I wanted to show Cassandra getting used to being in the human world again, so I wrote about Stephanie taking her out for drinks. They’re warming up to each other again. Cassandra still likes her expensive whiskey (like me!) to show she’s not the same person who Stephanie originally fell in love with. And we get a “Kanpai” call back to Episode 1!

But who’s that at the bar? When I was working on the primordial outline, I imagined this scene – Peter and Rachel meeting up with Cassandra again! Catching up after everything that’s happened. Except Peter and Rachel aren’t the same either. They’re ghouls now. They’ll be in service to Esther for as long as they live. They’ll never be entirely their own people. Like I keep saying, this story is about loss and tragedy. I wanted to send them off in a sad state for the listener.

And then Cassandra is ready to leave her old life in the Kindred world behind. She sets out a candle for Samael, who she will love forever. And that’s that.

…

This was a hard scene to write and record. I discussed this with Slip and Rachel separately. I wanted to make Slip understand that this is an assault on Cassandra. Zachery isn’t thinking clearly. He’s maniced out, for whatever reason, he’s not thinking straight. He’s been thinking to himself since he met with Cassandra, this isn’t fair. She did so much good for so many Kindred. She deserves a chance to become Kindred herself. She deserves that chance and no one else will offer it to her.

Zachery is not listening to her at all.

This is a hard scene. Thank you for making it through it. I promise, Episode 8 will be worth your time and everything you went through to get here.

It

Will

Be

Worth

Everything.

So Lorea was originally supposed to die in this episode. Long long ago when I was in the Outline phase of this project, this episode was supposed to be a bloodbath in which I took out half the cast. But when I got to working out the plot beats for this episode, I thought it would be more interesting if she lived… or rather, I didn’t like Brian’s original plan for pulling in all the big name Kindred to harvest them for their blood. I thought it would be more interesting if his vengeance was personal against Aaralyn.

Okay, we start with a flashback to a salon with Samael to show off what Cassandra has lost. (Trivia: When I was working on the Outline, it was originally Elijio who got captured but I quickly reconsidered that as being a Burying Your Gays trope. It had to be Samael because it had to be someone who truly mattered to Cassandra.) The main question of this episode is, will Cassandra be able to save Samael? And the answer is, ultimately, no.

Well, that’s bound to make her a little mad.

Next we have a lovely little scene in which the metamours begin to address losing Samael. Cassandra has plunged off the deep end into grief. Elijio does not attempt to reassure her, only how to manage her grief. He’s been around a while and this isn’t new territory to him. I am proud of the Buddhist/Catholic banter, which is something I wanted to explore in the show more than, alas, is probably in there. Ah well, there’s always Season 2 in which I’ve planned to add an explicitly Buddhist character to challenge Cassandra’s very Western beliefs. Anyhow, this is more poly stuff. When something has happened to someone you’re close to, it’s happened to everyone in the polycule, and I wanted to show poly folks dealing with loss here.

This episode is all about tearing Cassandra’s heart to pieces so we continue the rending with Lorea denying Cassandra their one hostage. Cassandra has to be desperate for the rest of this episode to work so we set her up here to accept any help she can get.

And then there’s Siobhan. My direction to Rachel for this scene was “if you could kill Siobhan, you would.” Alas, Alyrian was only available to record on evenings when Rachel wasn’t available to all their scenes were recorded asynchronously (which is a miracle that the ending of Episode 4 worked as well as it did). But still, Siobhan’s disdain for Cassandra (“I got you help, WTF more did you want?”) comes across well. Anyhow, the main plot beat of this scene is that Cassandra gets the contact for the Naval Liaison. This will become important later.

Following this, Cassandra gets to express her frustration to Esther, who indicates the court has no plans to help out Samael. But Esther is not without sympathy – she is willing to call back Vanishing Girl (who I adore). I love it anytime Cait gets to perform – her Esther performance is truly on fire. Also, the bit in which Cassandra says, “Then teach me to vanish like she does” is a callback to when Samael was talking about actual humans who can do magic (a.k.a. mages). Teaching Cassandra to be a mage is not something remotely interesting to Esther.

And Brian’s back! As mentioned in Episode 3, I was thinking about bringing him back then and thank goodness I didn’t because his re-appearance here is much more surprising instead of him showing up like a bad penny. Anyhow, he continues to be an asshole and Cassandra nonetheless needs him and I love their dynamic. Brian is obviously manipulating her and she is so desperate for allies she could care less. Kudos to Michael for bringing on the smarm. In my other show, Victory Asterisk, he was going to play the sweetest little cream puff, but here, he got to really go full ham. Bravo.

Also I want to give a shoutout to my long-time actor and friend Julia Lunetta, who once again does the news announcer role. She’s been in every audio drama I’ve worked on (except Victory, I think) and it behooves me to mention her favorite show in which she starred, Second Shift podcast. Second Shift beat Mask of Inanna to the release by a year or so, and we were both up for a Parsec award (I won). It’s about a bunch of college kids isekai’d into a fantasy land and having to deal with magic and such, and their website describes it better than I can. Anyway, Julia, there’s your plug.

Well, reluctantly, Cassandra takes Brian home and ponders that she really should have staked him then. And in retrospect, things would have been a lot better if she had. Ah well. There’s so much we don’t know about the future.

Boy, Aaralyn is not happy to hear that Brian has disobeyed a direct order from her never to return. He must have a damned good reason, right? Right? On a technical note, I have Cassandra waiting in the hallway outside Aaralyn’s chambers while Esther goes in to tell her. And Esther comes back a lot faster than she would have in the actual situation. You don’t want to keep the listeners waiting to long – drama needs to happen – so I fudge time like this all the fucking time. Whenever I do leave a long pause it’s for a good reason, and this didn’t warrant a pause or anything.

After a short stop to pick up Brian and the phones, we have another SFX nightmare for me. Writing Alicia always has it out for Editing Alicia. That bitch has me so many complex scenes, I want to throttle her. That said, when it sounds terrific, it makes me very happy to hear the final result – after my brain can distance itself from the editing work. Usually a day or so. Listening to a scene on the same day as I cut it means that I remember what I was thinking when I decided to put that phrase there and that SFX there with that panning effect etc. Anyhow, my greatest regret in this scene is that I didn’t put the mic under Amber when she did her recording. I put it over her, which meant she wasn’t talking directly into it while she was sitting in the studio. So her recording doesn’t sound great. I’m sorry. We’d have to re-record it to fix it and I’m not putting Amber through that performance again. (Her performance is really, really great.) I did what I could with the audio – it sounds okay, I guess.

Anyhow, originally, Cassandra was going to do some “ignore all previous instructions” shit on the T2M, or at least convince it that Brian was a fictional character like Lestat from its training material. Both of these were dumb and I’m glad I settled on making Brian unrecognizable to the T2M. (Way to go Aaralyn!) Another bit of artifice in this scene is that the blood being ripped from the Kindred’s bodies goes on way too long – they don’t have that much blood in them, but we needed to have that SFX going in the background to indicate that the T2M wasn’t finished killing Aaralyn yet. This is just how things go when you’re making a fictional show. As I’ve probably said before, sound effects are all about being so natural that the listener doesn’t hear them. That is, that they seem natural and fade into the background, and the listener would notice if they weren’t there.

So Brian does his villain speech, fills his bucket, gets killed, etc. etc. And then Cassandra gets to completely fall apart from her trauma. Which Rachel loved to do. She’s endured all that murder and her response is not to not-process it, but to go full speed ahead into it. She goes ballistic. She talks to Brian’s corpse because it’s amusing to her and she finally doesn’t have to hold her feelings back. She also recognizes her one chance to pit computer against computer and heads off to the Anarchs.

By the way, I do try to keep in mind when a Kindred dusts and when they don’t… retroactively after I’ve recorded the dialogue, but still, I try. Brian wouldn’t dust because he’s so young. Aaralyn definitely dusts and I have that SFX in there. And I cut the line about the Anarchs wanting to check out her body. There. Discrepancy solved. At the Anarchs, Lorea makes the huge mistake of letting Cassandra in to see the TAM after Cassandra has made it clear how much she hates it. Bad call. But this show is all about bad calls and wonderful drama that ensues.

In the battle of the computers, a lot of the influence for this scene came from a friend of mine who I’ve been writing with for a couple years now. (I’m unsure which of their myriad names they want me to use so I’ll just call them Coyote++.) Coyote++ said that the scene should have some technical grounding. It shouldn’t be a wizard’s duel, so I have the TAM and T2M look for exploits in each other’s code and try to corrupt each other’s volumes until both are unusable. Also Coyote++ came up with the term “BLOODOS” (a.k.a. Blood Disk Operating System (DOS)) so credit where credit is due. Trunk Slamchest did a great job voicing both computers and I enjoyed overlaying their voices over each other as they continue their attacks.

Now, as my advice to future writers, if your character has come to a space, have multiple plot beats happen in that space. So Lorea discovers what’s happened to Mandy and informs Cassandra. I distinctly remember this scene when I was working on the outline – seeing Mandy dead, her face pointed upwards with mushrooms sprouting from her mouth. Judith wasn’t content with killing her – she wanted the Anarchs to know who got by their defenses to do it. She’s still sore from getting beaten up all those decades ago.

As well, one of the major themes of this episode is “Kindred don’t change.” And this scene gives Cassandra some space to lament this. “You fight and you fight and you fight and you kill. And what does it get you? You could live forever. You told MANDY she could live forever. What is the fucking point of any of you?” And the answers suck. We’re just too human for our own good, with all our fears and patterns.

Back at Camarilla HQ, things are bad. Dee delivers a fantastic “There is currently no Camarilla!” Esther is appointed interim-Prince. And everyone blames Cassandra… but not enough to immediately kill her. Judith makes it clear that that may come later. I love Cassandra’s little tête-à-tête with Judith. Despite Judith being the one with the real power, Cassandra still accosts her like an equal. And it is very clear that they hate each other now. Good set-up, Writing Me! Also I love that Judith expresses regret for having saved Cassandra but come on, she’d have never guessed Cassandra would be in the position she’s in now.

Next up is the Great Breakup with Lorea. Damn, Katherine delivered again. She’s furious at Cassandra or having broken her trust and destroyed her deterrent. So many people who want Cassandra dead make the mistake of letting her speak first. She’s going to kill Judith. I came to this decision late in the scripting process, that is, it’s not in the outline. When I was putting together the plot beats for Episode 6, that’s when I realized she would want to kill Judith. I checked the outline, didn’t see anything that absolutely required Judith to live, and well, that was that. And it’s good enough for Lorea to give Cassandra a stay of execution.

I also love Cassandra’s admission that “I want to be in Samael’s death grip. Allowed to live.” Being in that perpetual state of active submission and fear is fucking hot and now that’s gone. What’s left for her? She can’t leave the Kindred world. And we’ll explore more of that next episode.

Then Elijio comes back, poor Kindred. He gets a moment with Cassandra where they continue lamenting their loss of their loved one. I especially like the depth of his line, “The most horrid of deities. Those who dwell in the blackest of existences. Unnamed and scorned. Who, of all God’s creatures, know best how to laugh.” Because laughter is best and most genuine when pointed upwards. Also, I love Cassandra’s distinction between Elijio being Camarilla and being Samael’s. We all have to choose between our work and our loved ones at some point and there’s often consequences, but fuck those. We know what’s more important.

We take a quiet moment where Cassandra speaks with Vanishing Girl. I directed Cassandra to speak very casually, almost monotone, to show how burned out and eaten away inside she is. She both hopes and understands that she will receive no hope. She pledges her support to whoever is in charge. It doesn’t really matter to her now.

Next, Cassandra baits the trap, getting Amanda to deliver the summons to Judith instead of bringing it to Judith herself. Judith is always suspicious and no reason not to play into her fears.

And at last, Cassandra disposes of both the Army Kindred and Judith in one fell swoop. Dee had a fabulous time dying twice (for each take). Rachel also had a great time performing as Cassandra taunting her.

My, there are a lot of SFX in this scene.

As far as repercussions go, killing Judith wasn’t just for Cassandra’s own benefit. She was doing the Ventrue a favor, as you’ll see next episode. Thanks for listening.

Oh gods, this episode.

When I was outlining the show, when I got to this point, I originally thought about Elijio getting captured. But then I immediately thought that, no. That would be more burying the gays, doing it to the boyfriend. That would be against everything I’ve opposed in fiction. The listener doesn’t have the same attachment to him as they do to Samael.

So, fuck it. Samael got taken and disappeared by the government. Future episodes will address this, as horrific as it is.

We start the episode with some Cassandra/Samael/Elijio domesticity. Cassandra is still shaken from the previous night. Having to shout and confront someone as harsh as she did is brutal on neurodiverse people. She needs some time with her spreadsheets. We also see Samael and Eilijio hooking up again, which is fine by Cassandra. (“Oh no, the poly life!”) Look, showing a healthy poly relationship is important, especially in today’s political climate. Besides, too many vampire stories depend on jealousy and polygamy.

Anyway, we start on a happy scene because things are about to go terribly, terribly tragic.

Next up, we hear that Lorea has handled Siobhan. She’s handled it.

And then Cassandra goes to see Stephanie again, who asks Cassandra what the fuck went wrong on press night.

She’s handled it.

You have to trust that someone has handled a situation and you aren’t privy to why.

I wasn’t expecting Cassandra and Stephanie to break up again when I wrote this scene. It just sorta happened. I’m glad it did because it added some more needed drama but still, these poor women can’t catch a break.

Then we get to The First Labor of Cassandra – Amanda’s Boon. This was something I actually wrote up in the Blood Doll Anthology, which I will get around to releasing, I promise! It was about Amanda’s and Penelope’s multi-year feud, so of course, Amanda has Cassandra check in on Penelope. I’m always thinking about dementia. A few women in my family have had it (my great-grandmother (who I met briefly), my grandmother’s sister, and a distant cousin, Nancy Heath) and it’s not pleasant to speak with them coming in and out, misremembering things (like correctly gendering me). I also explored it in The Mask of Inanna with the Speed Bump, which I mentioned at the time was a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. Having Amanda force Cassandra to confront that it may happen to her – and does she really want to put Samael through that? It was an interesting supposition for Cassandra to think about.

My editor Tony originally wanted me to take it out and, I don’t know. I think it works. Maybe it’s a little long. Or the right length. Time and you, dear reader, will tell.

Also, if you aren’t familiar with the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), it’s a solemn affair. I attended some of the early ones in Boston arranged by Gwenners. My friends read poems at them. Utterly heartbreaking.

(Also, I’ve mentioned this before but Amanda is the third audio drama character I’ve based off of a dyke co-worker I had back in the 90s named Annette Turla. I fucking loved being around her. She passed in 2022, and her partner Jackie passed in 2023, and even though I never saw them much after 2000, I dearly miss them.)

Back to the story, Cassandra checks in on Siobhan to find her working at a warehouse to pay Cassandra back. This is how a lot of anarchists handle situations like this – working to earn back trust. Showing that you’re dedicated to repairing the relationship that you broke. Siobhan’s voice actor complimented me on how Siobhan was handling the situation which, as a (possibly lapsed?) anarchist, I really took to heart <3

Next, Lorea gives Cassandra The Phone. The Phone will be with us until the end of the show. It is Cassandra’s lifeline and will doom her soon. I had considered Lorea giving her The Phone earlier in the show but it made more sense that she receive it in the same episode in which it becomes relevant.

Next, for the Second Labor of Cassandra, Simon asks her to take him out for a night on the town – at least, Lake City. I chose Lake City in particular because I had a roommate who worked the overnight shift at the (now closed) Fred Meyer there, and whose co-workers would go out for drinks afterward at bars that would be open at like 6 AM. Anyhow, it was my delight to give Thomas Hale of Flash in the Pan podcast a minor role on the show when he was in Seattle. I let him choose the name of his character (Felix) and he did a magnificent job. I’ve been friends with Thomas since before he started the podcast with Alex and I host their show’s RSS feed (since the free version of WordPress won’t host it).

Back to the show, Simon has himself a little bender and probably drinks more drugs through Felix than a Kindred ought to safely, aaaaaaaaand he’s out. So Cassandra has to wrap him in blankets and get him home. It’s okay. Simon trusted that she’d have his back.

And yes, the whole Simon bit was an excuse for Simon to bust into Samael’s sitting room screaming, “I’m okay!” while Samael was helping themselves to Cassandra. It’s fucking great, I love doing that shit.

For those of you who know me, when Samael says, “Do you want marks hidden or where everyone can see them?”, this is a me thing. I like being bitten and marked up. My skin marks up incredibly easily. You can rake my flesh with your fingernails and see the traces. It’s incredibly hot. There, there’s your TMI for the day.

Next we finally have Judith and Aaralyn admitting that the Blood Temple was a good idea. (At least, it better have been, at its cost.) Cassandra gets paid for her work. At last. Always pay your Blood Dolls, Kindred. And then while I was writing it, I thought, well, Cassandra is now officially part of the court (and they said in earlier episodes that humans can’t be a part of the court! Ha! What do Kindred know?) and why wouldn’t Esther try to drag her down like she does with Samael? And Cassandra’s response just came to me. A hug! A big thank-you hug. Gods, I was like, Esther would never put up with that but just this once, for comedy.

So when I was originally thinking about Simon’s boon, my thought was that he would take Cassandra out to watch the moon rise over Tacoma. And then when I thought of a better bit for him to do for his boon, the idea of watching the moon rise still stuck with me. And so here we have the last time Cassandra and Samael were together, happy. In celebration. When The Phone rings. “And that was it.”

And now we move into the Assault on Precinct 13 part of the show. The US Armed Forces now know about the TAM (we’ll learn why later). And the Anarchs need to confront how much they want to lose to retain it.

So we get to the famous ambush scene that took me about two days to do the sound effect (SFX) for. We meet Hank, who will be more relevant in Season 2 of the show, and Silver, who will unfortunately be captured. Silver was a one-off character I wrote a piece for in the Blood Doll Anthology, but I didn’t have a slot for her in the show until now. For those of you wondering who the fuck Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith are, well, I just provided links for you. You’re welcome. Essentially, Hank and Silver are nerding out over classic Doctor Who.

Everything was fine until the government attacked.

This scene was a pain in the ass to do the SFX for, but I’m glad it came out as understandably as I wanted it to. There’s lots of gunfire and driving, but I want to give extra credit to all the actors who did the scene asynchronously (I think only Rachel and Katherine were the only two who recorded at the same time together) and absolutely exhausted themselves making the scene sound as intense as it was. Sangria (Arturo) especially was wiped out by the time we got to the end of this scene (twice! We record every scene twice, minimum). Bravo to them!

Anyhow, Cassandra brings up the choice to Arturo and then the others – why keep the TAM? Why not put bullets in it and save everyone? The tension is wracked when Cassandra says, “I could make them go away right now. Permanently.” And she doesn’t because Lorea asks nicely. But y’all know…. she should have. She really should have.

And then there’s Mandy. Named for the Panos Cosmatos movie, Mandy also got screwed over by the government in being made a Kindred without learning what they are. I think about her like queer kids who don’t know their history. Or who have no connection their culture. And are held away from it. Utterly tragic. And I knew that Lorea understood her and had to get through to her. And so I wrote a page-length monologue in which Lorea pours out her heart to this kid. I went through everything I’d learned from my various medical trainings about death by hypovolemic shock. (I got things wrong about Canada but I edited them out of the final cut.) And I hope y’all were as moved by it as I was.

When I was first asking famed internet celebrity Katherine Cross to be a part of the show, we met at a local coffee shop and I gave her this scene to do. (I had just written it a few days before.) And she did it well for a first-time read. Hopefully that was the hook I needed to get her on board.

The next sequence is Cassandra deliberately weakening herself so that she has to struggle more for the final scene. She’d have to go to the hospital. This gave the Anarchs more incentive to get passed the Army Kindred.

Cassandra makes a lot of mistakes. She can’t tell they’re mistakes at the time, but in retrospect, they should be obvious. I sympathize with her a lot. Anyway, before going downstairs to see Mandy, she makes a call to Siobhan to ask for help. She didn’t trust the Anarchs. All the pieces are in place for the final scene.

Yeah. Poor Samael and Elijio.

At least Elijio managed to escape.

Fuck.

This was rough to write. Even rougher to edit. What more do you want out of me?

When I wrote the ending at the hospital, I wanted Rachel to absolutely rip the listener’s heart out when she cried out, “WHAT?” I think it worked. I dunno.

I really appreciate the chance to write these show notes. It’s cathartic and gives me the chance to go over the emotional states I was in when I was writing and editing these. (I don’t really cry or anything when I’m directing? It’s more like I’m pushing the actors towards whatever I had planned for them and I don’t get emotionally wrapped up in the scene.) I’m glad this episode happened, even if the characters is it are not.

One of my actors mentioned that this was the episode where they felt truly invested in everything I’d been building up to in the show. I hope you feel the same.

Anyhow, the next episode is one of our best. Stay tuned.