I originally started Episode 4 with a flash-forward to the Dybbuk conversation between Cassandra and Samael. Then I thought about it during edits and cut it for length. The episode is already as long as the first episode and y’all are saints for making it this far.

Speaking of Samael, I gave them that name as an in-joke because there are so many Liliths out there, I wanted to increase the Samael-count. Also it sounds like a name an 18th century bureaucrat would choose to piss off their boss. But I get ahead of myself.

So I ended Episode three with Aaralyn’s decision to build Cassandra’s Blood Temple and it pained me – it PAINED me y’all – that I couldn’t finish the episode with Jotham’s traitorous reveal and staking. I didn’t think it would make a great opening for the next episode, particularly when that episode needed to do a lot of heavy lifting. An hour and forty-five minutes of heavy lifting it turns out. Nonetheless, like the bad ending to the Wisdom of Solomon, the scene was cut in twain and I hope you didn’t start with Episode 4 because you will be lost.

This episode features character growth for a lot of characters, and Aaralyn is not left behind. She’s obviously a monster considering what she did to Cassandra last episode, but as Samael says, she is the power structure under which the Camarilla work. I wanted to show how adaptable she is as a leader, and that even the worst of us is still capable in a number of ways. And you often have to work with your abuser. It fucking sucks, and the abuse is always there, but (as a major theme of Blood Doll), life goes on. All sorts of things happen and life goes on.

(Now to deal with the Dragon in the Room – pronouncing Camarilla as Kam-ah-rill-ah and not Kam-ah-ree-ah. I have no pony in this Umamusume race. I simply went with the pronunciation that Jacob Burgess used in Not a Drop to Drink and that Dee (who played Judith) also reiterated that I use. As I recall, Amber wasn’t thrilled with that pronunciation so we do have division in the ranks and all y’all on the Kam-ah-ree-ah side can be assured that I knew better and chose not to go down that path.)

Next up, Cassandra gets her first taste of power by arranging for the CamaRILLLLLLLLLa to meet with the Anarchs over the Blood Temple project. Aaralyn struts her stuff and comes across as reasonably convincing without being explicitly manipulative. I felt that was very important – she doesn’t bullshit the Anarchs the same reason that I don’t bullshit my audience. I’m old, y’all, and I don’t have time to pussy-foot around topics of contention.

Another aside – I don’t know if you noticed but there is no single antagonist in Season 1 of Blood Doll. There are just people – terrible people – but it’s still an ensemble cast and no one is any more evil than anyone else – including Cassandra. We’ll get there with her. I thought it was important to give everyone their own motivations and plot through-lines and not have everyone gather together at the end to defeat the Prime Antagonist in a rousing display of unity. That’s not how this world works. That’s not how *our* world works. We’re just people doing our own shit and often shit sucks but Life. Goes. On.

Anyhow, in the Camarilla/Anarch meeting, I emphasize a distinction between people who use hierarchical methods of organization vs. anarchic methods of organization. Samael comes to the Anarchs with a plan to show that they’re serious about making the Blood Temple and Siobhan throws it back in their face – no. Anarchists don’t show up with a pre-conceived plan. They sit down together as equals and hash it out from scratch. Showing up with a plan tilts the scales toward the assumptions provided in that pre-conception. (This is me begging all other authors to read modern anarchist literature or go down to Left Bank Books Collective and talk to people about how anarchists actually operate, I’m begging you.) In the few TTRPG campaigns of VtM I’ve seen, the Anarchs don’t work like anarchists and it bugs the ever-living FUCK out of me.

Next, we FINALLY get Samael’s background with William. As Baldrick to William’s Blackadder, until they turned the tables in the 1960s/1970s (I haven’t decided which yet). Samael is hurt by being excluded from the Blood Temple and it was important to show them invoking the Circle and opening up to Cassandra. The all-powerful vampire persona that Samael presents is a facade, and this scene concludes it, letting Cassandra completely in. The scene also features a bit of dialogue that I couldn’t believe I’d written:

BLOOD DOLL: (DRINKING THE GLASS SAMAEL POURED FOR HER) This is pretty strong.
SAMAEL: The night calls for it.

I was like, “this is fantastic, who wrote this?” And then I was like “oh shit.”

And then Cassandra goes into the discussion of the Dybbuk. (Thanks again to Esoterica for educating me on this particular concept.) It’s a question that must have plagued the minds of religious scholars – are there exceptions to every spiritual process under (Abrahamic) God? How does Gilgul handle the excessive accumulation of sin? I guess it just sloughs it off as Dybbuks which present their own problems in the world. Anyway, this discussion is more of the religious wankery wandering, presumption, and reinterpretation that I love to do. And hopefully contribute to the vampiric canon, if you’ll have me.

Next up is Jotham’s trial…. ha ha ha… ah ha ha ha… oh, you thought this trial was going to be fair? And not just something else to pad Aaralyn’s ego? Y’all probably saw this coming so I got it out of the way. (Side note, I originally had Jotham’s body remain after beheading, but during recording, Amber informed me that Jotham would have been dusted so I retroactively made him do so – and even found the foley to make it happen!) Also, Aaralyn is managing the transition to the Blood Temple as best as she can – by making it Judith’s problem. Poor Judith.

Speaking of Judith, I typically named a lot of characters in this show from prominent Bible names to give the show a more spiritually-epic air. And not just because my dad’s cousin is named Judy. Look, the Holy Bible only has so many names in it which are still in use.

When I’m working on a script, conversation bits will come to me and I’ll write them down in my notes. The section with Samael and Lorea were a couple of those, namely Samael literally dropping the book on Lorea, and telling Lorea that to second they admit to loving Cassandra, they have to kill Lorea. Because to the CamaRILLLa, giving up the pretense of distance with a loved one is dangerous. Suddenly Samael is opening up to getting hurt again, and their culture demands that kill rather than do that with an enemy.

Oh, and Lorea tells Cassandra about the Sabbat and here is where y’all Sabbat players, led by Amber, pierce my heart twixt my bosoms and demand that I treat them better. Folks… there’s going to be a Season 2 in which I might do that. However, this is not your season. Sorry. I need to show how the Sabbat are the bogeymen (not the antagonists) that the CamaRLLLa and Anarchs fear.

Next up, we finally get around to Samael’s Gender Shit. Samael is canonically non-binary and came out at a time before being enby had great words to describe it. How does an enby manage living without a supportive community for almost three hundred years? Not very well! Now, I planned for Samael being enby long before I cast Soleil, also an enby, in the role. It just happened to work out and I’m very pleased by the synchronicity. Anyhow I wanted to explore what happens when You’re Queer But Don’t Have A Great Way to Describe It and Samael is my vehicle. This also explains why Samael connects with Cassandra like they do – their Gender Shit. (Gender Shit for life <3.)

Next, Lorea introduces Cassandra to the Skunkworks. This place will become very important in future episodes. For now, it’s where everyone meets to discuss the Blood Temple’s creation. Poor Esther, having to take notes in the first meeting. But everyone need to take their turn to diffuse the labor! Soooooooooolidarity foreeeeeeeeeever! Soooooooolidarity foreeeeeeeeeever. I mean. Uh. No, that’s those other guys. Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao! Anyhow, I tried to make this scene interesting and by that I mean Tony cut like two pages off my original script and he was right to do so. Also I appreciate Siobhan’s voice actor barking enough for me that I could put together the Gangrel part of the scene. They were very confused when I first asked them to do so!

Next up was a scene which wasn’t in my original outline for the show, but one I thought was strongly needed. Judith gets more characterization so y’all can continue to lust over her. In particular, she gives Cassandra enough rope to hang herself and makes her point that she doesn’t want anyone hanging around the Blood Temple thinking it’ll protect them. It is Not. A. Sanctuary. Gods, I love Judith in this scene, where she has to deal with Cassandra as That Human That Unfortunately Isn’t Going Anywhere And Will Become The Power Structure With Which I Have To Operate. (I remember Vanishing Girl’s voice actor telling me it was amused by the concept of a human in the VtM world who, for political reasons, everyone is highly discouraged from killing.)

Now, we get to the design of the Harbinger’s Blood Temple. (Why “Harbinger’s”? Fucked if I know. I just needed a placeholder for the Blood Temple name and “Harbinger’s” stuck.) Lorea guides us through the club to give the listener a sense of place, since I can’t exactly use anything visual in a strictly auditory medium. Originally I was going to only have one feeding chamber but when thinking about it for more than one second I realized they’d need a bunch. Also, the bouncers somehow have never pieced together what’s going on in the feeding chambers when the lights go out. Don’t think too hard about it. For the love of the gods, please don’t think too hard about it.

And then we get to Steph’s assault. In my original outline, Cassandra wasn’t going to spend so much time in Harbinger’s. The Anarchs were going to dump a beaten-up fash on the steps to Aaralyn’s mansion with the message that, if the CamaRILLLLLa were going to own Cap Hill, they should handle the shit there too. So Cassandra would go out with Q squad along with Steph. Steph would then criticize Cassandra for showing up again after their breakup and says basically everything she does later and I ended up cutting all that and just had Cassandra learn about Steph’s assault. (That original outline was so fucking cringe but I couldn’t have made this show without it as a potential future.) Anyhow, why did I make Steph get beat up? Say it with me. Character development. Cassandra needed something of her own to fight for outside the Kindred’s world, and also needed a way to reconnect with her old touchstone – to show off how far Cassandra has come since being the “uwu I’m so weak and reliant on Samael” woman she was before.

So Cassandra goes to Amanda and Simon to have them do something mysterious to revenge Steph. And this pays off Samael’s previously stated desire to help Cassandra grow. “Are you sure you want to revenge Steph?” “Bold of you to assume that, having vampires at my beck and call, I wouldn’t want to revenge Steph.”

And now everything the episode has been building to comes together – press night at Harbinger’s. Cassandra helps break up a Kindred fight in the basement because, like, a fight was going to happen just to test out Judith’s guards. And Cassandra gets to lay it out to the Kindred that she’s sick of their shit. She is not taking it anymore because she has been granted responsibility for making this fucking place work.

And then there’s Mr. Boswill. I met Patrick, his voice actor, at a garden party over the summer where I was force-fed fresh strawberries and blueberries from the garden. I heard Patrick talking to someone else about wanting to do some voice work post-retirement and wasn’t I the lucky bitch who happened to be sitting there nearby? I told him about the character, showed him the script, and I’m so grateful to him that he played this character as well as he did. Bravo, Patrick. Also, if you want to be cast in Season 2, I advise you to attend a party, invite me, and talk within earshot about wanting to be a voice actor and maybe, just maybe, I asked you for a demo reel.

I wrote the scene in which Mr. Boswill finds out… well, you know, his livelihood has been wrecked (by vampires) in my writer’s workshop and got a good reaction from folks when Cassandra drops, “Are all the cars in your lot okay?” I don’t typically like to write show scenes in workshop but this scene really needed to happen, as many scenes do.

And then the power goes out because, of course it does. I had always planned for the power to be cut on press night but I didn’t know who would cut it until I started plotting out the Episode, when it made sense for Siobhan to do it.

So.

Y’all.

Did you understand that Cassandra performs a literal exorcism on Siobhan? And it works? That she is so creeped out by Cassandra’s rendition of Psalm 91 that she freaks out and runs?

Anyhow.

When I was first proposing the role of Cassandra to Rachel, this scene was one of the big ones I gave her to read. And as I recall, she fucking loved it. When we recorded it in the studio, we did it twice, of course, and Rachel nearly blew out her voice on it by the time we were done. It was glorious. (Side note: I do not recommend that directors ask their actors to blow out their voices in recording. That’s bad. Shame on you if you’ve ever done that. Now, if the actor happens to do so on their own, it’s your job to do aftercare and take them out for ice cream afterwards.)

When I originally wanted to have Cassandra do an exorcism that worked, I told Dee about it. She didn’t understand me at all why it would have worked. So – true story – I went to her kitchen, squeezed a handful of blue Dawn dish soap on my hand, smeared it on my face like blood, put Psalm 91 on my phone, and slowly approached Dee while reading it increasingly loudly. She got the idea.

Okay, so this is the Cassandra at the height of her power. Let’s get around to that tragedy bit next time.

Let’s talk about the Transmigrated Artificial Masterintelligence (TAM).

I went through three iterations of the TAM’s intro scene until I hit on making them sound like a game show host. I imagine the TAM as a cartoon in VtM’s more grounded world, very Roger Rabbit-style. I wanted a mix of comedy and horror in the style of Sam Raimi here, where you never know what’s going to happen. And then I wanted to contrast that with TAM’s BEAST who was all terror, all the time. Cassandra, of course, logics her way to escape destruction, but is also inspired by the BEAST’s call for a Blood Temple, which will help with the whole “Kindred leaving bodies around” problem.

Trivia: I originally had a bit where TAM would talk about asking for Anne Rice’s Lestat to eat, in which it would be revealed that TAM can’t tell between real and fictional vampires because that distinction wasn’t made in its data set. I cut that because it was originally meant as a set up for [FUTURE SPOILERS] but I didn’t end up implementing [FUTURE SPOILERS] so I cut that, even though we had recorded it.

Well, now we get an official intro to the Anarchs. Yes, my VtM-loving cast has made me aware that the Anarchs precede anarchism as a political philosophy. I don’t care. I wanted to contrast anarchism with hierarchical methods of political organization. Also contrasting the more proletariat Anarchs with the “I am the bourgeoisie” Camarilla. And the final contrast was Lorea – what happens in an anarchist system when certain members have excessive financial independence with which they could easily spread their influence but choose not to.

I had no idea who I was going to cast Lorea with until I had cast Rachel as Cassandra. Rachel came over during one recording session and mentioned her partner Katherine Cross was interested in a role after hearing her practice the scripts. I met with Katherine in a cafe and brought over one of Lorea’s soliloquies from Episode 5 (if you’ve heard Episode 5, you know which one). She performed it great, and I cast her. I think she did a magnificent job and it’s a shame y’all had to wait to Episode 3 to properly hear her. I’m also proud that Katherine mentioned to me that if she was going to be in a VtM game, she would play a character a lot like Lorea.

I always intended Cassandra to span the Camarilla and the Anarchs, and this is the episode in which she starts to do so. At first, she’s being held prisoner because Lorea and the Anarchs need her as the trigger to their “nuclear solution” (the TAM), but once Lorea sees how invested Cassandra is in improving vampire’s lives, she remembers how Samael referred to Cassandra as a falcon that returns to one’s arm – only the arm in question is Lorea’s. And so Cassandra is officially set up to bounce between the factions – and of course to date Lorea because polyamory representation is important. Also, look, Cassandra is stuck in the Kindred world – what the fuck else is going to do besides fight to improve things?

And now we come to the Elephant in the Episode – now, I didn’t think of Aaralyn’s non-consensual ghouling of Cassandra as a r*pe scene originally but Amber and Rachel sure told me that it was. So, sorry y’all. I am fervently against writing r*pe for exploitative or titillating purposes. I literally can’t watch any media with r*pe in it. Now, Aaralyn’s ghouling was definitely non-con and played as horrific, but not sexually non-con. I really don’t have a good excuse for writing it except that I think the story needed it to raise the stakes for Vanishing Girl’s introduction and Cassandra’s reunion with Samael. And I think that the strength of the story justifies it. YMMV.

I thought it was a good idea for Cassandra to meet up with Rachel (character, not the actor) and Peter again, especially to hear Peter’s side of his relationship with Simon. And to have people she could express her despair with. Again Rachel (actor, not the character) did a fantastic job in this scene, and with her narration in which Cassandra is saved by someone knocking in the distance.

So I cried a lot when I wrote the reunion between Cassandra and Samael. Not much more to say there, really. At least it gave Samael the impetus to put Cassandra in charge of their club. Also from a production standpoint, I had to foley the fuck out of this scene to show the physicality of Cassandra being close to Samael. So many cloth movements.

Oh, I should probably mention the whole magic Gum Wall thing. I wanted to include as much Seattle Shit in this show that Paradox hadn’t added to their own Seattle VtM setting. So what’s more Seattle Shit than orcas and the Gum Wall? Besides it’s nice to add some creepy lore to some tourist trap thing like the Capitol Hill mystery soda machine, which I would have added to the show, had it not disappeared elsewhere. You’re lucky I didn’t animate the Seattle Lenin statue.

Okay, so Vanishing Girl makes her official appearance. I wanted to cast clans against type so I made Samael a Ventrue who doesn’t want to rule and Vanishing Girl a Toreador who doesn’t want to be seen. Also, yes, I am a huge XTC nerd and I named her after their Dukes of Stratosphear song. (Her actual name is Blaise as you’ll learn in the Anthology when I put it up.) So the Camarilla Ventrue have had it in their craw for a long time that Seattle is run by the Tremere. (What can I say? Money talks and tech makes money.) So with the eventual vote coming up (which, who knows it would actually change anything except make Aaralyn very angry), Vanishing Girl is sent to destabilize Aaralyn. And what’s Samael going to do, tell her no? That would make things very politically difficult and if there’s one thing Samael can’t stand is having things politically difficult for potentially hundreds of years.

And then Cassandra returns to Lorea, partially as a hostage and partially as a date. Look, relationships are complicated. I enjoy increasing their complication because, honestly, that’s what they’re like in the real world. “What have you done with the Lorea I know?” “I fucked her and you should try it sometime!”

(I think Samael and Lorea fucking would be a recipe for disaster. I should have written it.)

Finally, it’s Arturo’s time to shine. With a little precog, there’s no way that Vanishing Girl could get out without Arturo capturing her. When Sangria and I were working on Arturo’s voice, we went through a lot of iterations until we settled on “stoner.” Because that’s probably what Arturo does most of the time to take the edge off of his life.

Trivia – I originally had Brian come back to act as the moneypot to attract Johnathon. Fortunately, I thought better of it when it came time to write the episode.

And at last, Samael gets their wildest dreams realized by telling Aaralyn the fuck off. I loved writing their rant. At long last, Cassandra’s getting her dream of socialized blood feeding for Kindred, setting her up for some fantastic character development next episode!

All right – Episode 1 is setting up the pins (characters, plot) and Episode 2 is where we start knocking them down. Cassandra and Samael’s relationship changes from purely D/s to a classic romance, particularly with the introduction of The Magic Circle.

Most people are probably familiar with The Magic Circle from the Steam game, which is where the concept was popularized, including with me. It’s not only “game/roleplay space” but also “equality space” where people in various power dynamics can consensually release them while admitting they will return when the Circle is broken. This manifests culturally during the historical Feast of Fools where the orders of clergy would swap power roles. Anyhow, The Magic Circle is there for you and it’s very healthy to incorporate it into your and your partners’ lives.

Okay, the episode starts with the introduction of Stephanie, who is basically Cassandra’s touchstone, or connection to the mortal world while she’s off in the Kindred realm (let’s be serious, she’s basically in the lands of the Fae). I based Steph on a partner of mine, who I love very much, and who is sorta that for me too. We start by seeing Cassandra and Steph’s connection, before Cassandra gets pulled back into her grand adventure. We didn’t see that in the previous episode because I want to contain these arcs in the same episode. Let’s face it. Blood Doll episodes are long because they are contained. They include full arcs that are mostly resolved at the climax.

Next, we see the consequences of the Episode 1 ending. The purpose of this is party cohesion. I also did this with Episode 2 of The Mask of Inanna – I put the characters through some trauma so that they would recognize each other’s strengths and become closer. Cassandra is no longer solely Samael’s plaything. She has proven herself and is invested in the world, and others such as Amanda are invested in her too.

Finally, we hear from Aaralyn, the Tremere Prince of Seattle, because let’s face it, tech rules here. She takes very little shit and is one of the few people who can wrangle Esther to do her bidding. Your favorite Dommy Mommy. She also makes huge mistakes like Brian. So, y’know. Consolidated power sorta sucks. [Insert anarchist flag here.]

I fucking love Esther and Cassandra’s scene while Esther is escorting her out. It establishes so much of their dynamic and Rachel and Kait did a fabulous job. We typically record emotionally charged scenes like this at the end of a recording session, as we did here, especially since it strained Rachel’s voice.

By the way, support Rachel on Patreon. Her photography is fantastic.

Back in Samael’s rooms, Amanda finally connects with Cassandra and we establish that Samael does not like pizza, which I was later informed was a Very Ventrue Thing To Do. Keeping her diet to what Samael permits becomes another touchstone for Cassandra. Another friend did tell me that the whole “won’t eat pizza” aspect of Cassandra didn’t work for them, so if it didn’t work for you, you have company. I thought it was important to Cassandra’s character. I dunno.

Then we get The Magic Circle’s introduction with Cassandra and Samael which was one of my favorite scenes to write. It changes their dynamic and lets them open up to each other safely, which they will need to do as the show continues.

Then we meet Jotham. Oh wow. Jotham. He’s a big stoic boy who has been through a lot. He also regards Samael as one of the oppressive class which is absolutely fair. Soleil just pulled out his voice after I described Jotham and it ended up working really well. Soleil has so many voices, it’s wonderful.

We finally hear Lorea and the Anarchs as something more than interstitials. I wanted to explore anarchist power dynamics with Lorea – someone with a ton of cash in an anarchist movement. (Yes, also I am aware that the VtM term “Anarchs” comes before anarchists, but movements change and adapt, y’all.)

After this, Cassandra gets her last day to wrap things up with the mortal world. Sucks to be her, I guess, but it gave me the opportunity to have a nice little scene with Judith, who I adore. Cassandra shouldn’t expect to be able to flit between worlds any more than anyone else in the Fae territory. I particularly was looking forward to the scene in which she breaks up with Steph – heartbreaking to write, of course, but it’s drama and all drama is good. I also wanted to establish that Cassandra refuses to outright lie to her, but won’t tell her the truth for her own protection.

“And then I became a kept woman. But it was okay. I knew my place.” I wrote this to show how caught Cassandra feels, and I directed Rachel to perform it as sad as possible…

In order to set up for the dance sequence! I was driving home from a partner’s house one night when I saw all of the city of Seattle spread out in front of me, lit up and gorgeous, and ELO’s Xanadu came on the radio – it was sublime. I knew I had to have a scene that could convey this feeling to the audience and so I figured I needed a dance sequence.

After asking some other big name furry dance musicians, Avian Invasion agreed to do 1) the intro, 2) the outro, and 3) the big dance number. Avian Invasion was recommended by a friend of mine although I’d seen him perform at various FetchNW club events that I’d been to. Originally I asked for a three minute rave dance track but Avian Invasion provided a five minute track, so I had to rewrite the scene to fill it up. I’m so glad they did though. The dance is a real highlight of the show. Due to how long it took to get the dance track and coordinate with the actors’ schedules, the dance sequence was almost one of the last scenes to be recorded. It was completely worth it though and I hope you agree.

Aaaaaaand then Cassandra gets taken hostage. She can’t get a break, but you know, danger and threats make for excellent drama, and who am I to deny any of you the most compelling drama I can muster?

Also, fuck Jotham. Tossing Cassandra around like that. Humans just can’t get a break in the VtM world, can they?

So, uh, I was neck deep in Victory Asterisk when the idea for this show hit me.

After I had completed Brittle Tourniquet, I needed another project. I had just seen Dune: Part Two and it hit me – an anarchist epic. This was later scaled down to a murder mystery set in an anarchist utopia. I was going to criticize the heck out of it. (Yes, I’m technically an anarchist myself, feel free to judge me.) I wrote the scripts for all seven episodes, got my editor Tony Amato (who also edited my Lambda Literary finalist novel Supervillainz) to finish edits, and started casting voice actors and recording scenes.

Then Season 3 of Loading Ready Run’s Not a Drop to Drink happened. Blame Jacob Burgess for Blood Doll.

In one of the later Not a Drop to Drink episodes, Jacob takes the players through a gala ball where they have to navigate all kinds of social dilemmas and manipulations. But the thing that stuck out to me was a background detail he mentioned – humans called Blood Dolls wandering around the room for Kindred to feed on. I wanted to know about them. (I wanted to be them but that’s another story.)

I was thinking about what sort of perception they would have of the Kindred. From a newcomer’s perspective, these were gods. They could do god-like things. What the hell did their existence mean from a religious or philosophical perspective? And why were they so bad at being gods?

I immediately dumped all this on a lover of mine about a character I would like to play if I ever got into a VtM TTRPG. A Blood Doll with the attitude, “Why can’t you be better gods?“

(I have since been informed by every friend of mine who runs VtM TTRPGs that I am banned from their games because of my eternal unstoppable urge to dissect everything in a postmodern fashion. Blame Grant Morrison for that.)

Anyhow, this was in late December 2024. I was churning through Victory Asterisk when a major problem hit the recording cycle. Our main voice actor wasn’t available to record often enough to get through the massive amount of lines we needed. (Maybe if you haven’t noticed from my other works like The Mask of Inanna but I tend to write things epic-sized.) We had recorded about 1/3rd of the scripts while the idea for a Blood Doll show seized me. I started writing down ideas for it. I started doing research online for fundamental religious concepts that might work well to explain vampires. On a recommendation from one of my actors, I started watching episodes of Esoterica. I absolutely adored them and found that he had researched a lot of what I was looking for.

Bits of dialogue started to come to me. Characters began to emerge from the ether. I attended a VtM LARP with a friend where I tried out some of the concepts I’d researched on the participants. I’m sure I annoyed them quite a bit, although my friend said they were cool with this afterward.

In February, I worked daily on an outline for the Blood Doll show. I think it took a couple weeks to complete (17k words). I settled on eight episodes, which is pretty much the length of most Prestige Television seasons. I fought tooth and nail to chart out Cassandra’s voyage through the VtM world. I felt the urge to start writing Episode 1 before I’d finished the outline, but I’m very glad I waited until the outline was complete.

I wrote Episode 1 (18.5k words) in a week, y’all. This show fucking poured out of me. Subsequent episodes took about a week or two to get into draft state, so I could pass them off to Tony for edits and revisions. I started to consider casting the show. I think I was on Episode 4 or 5 when I asked one of my actors on Victory Asterisk, the amazing slam poet Rachel K. Zall, whether she’d be interested in the role of Cassandra. She was. Rachel and I had known each other back in Boston so performing in my show seemed a natural extension of our work back in Gendercrash (PDF).

Samael was harder to cast. I was considering asking Jacob Burgess if he wanted the role – I could hear him doing the voice. However, getting him to record synchronously with Rachel would be a challenge. I preferred all my actors to record in my private studio which wasn’t going to happen with Jacob.

So while winding down recording on Victory Asterisk, one of my voice actors, Soleil (who I had recast with Dee since Soleil had been perpetually busy), suddenly became available. I brought them into my studio to record a bit part. And while they were at my place, I figured, what the hell. I told them about the Blood Doll project and asked them to try out Samael’s lines.

Well, they fucking nailed them, and my problems were over.

A few days later, I went into the Victory Asterisk chat, gave them a cut of Episode 1 (with some scenes missing) and told them that I was going to set the project aside to work full time on Blood Doll. I was up to Blood Doll script Episode 5 when we started recording the show. I brought Rachel and Soleil over to my place to read the scripts together and their chemistry was incredible. I knew we had a winner on our hands.

Okay, I should actually get to some of the notes on Blood Doll, Episode 1 itself. Because I’m a writer and a bitch (the two are often synonymous), I wanted to start the show without Cassandra and then surprise the audience by switching over to her perspective. This was similar to how I started The Mask of Inanna halfway through one of the minisodes, and ended the episode playing the first half of the minisode to give the whole episode an uroboros effect. I like playing with perspective and expectations, what can I say.

I’ve been attending Tony Amato’s writer’s workshops on and off since the year of our Lord 2000 and I spent most of my time writing vignettes about each of the Blood Doll characters. So I had a chance to flesh them out before they showed up in the scripts. Not so with Cassandra – I played fast and loose with her. Her personality came out during the writing of Episode 1.

(Also the final Blood Doll scripts don’t especially match the outline I had written, which is for the best. The Episode 1 script remained the closest to the Episode 1 outline, but the others went in their own directions. I’m glad I wrote the outline though as it gave me a lot of plot points that I could select from and use in the subsequent episodes.)

So we start Episode 1 with what Rachel calls the “odious” techbro vampires. They are the inciting incident for the show – creating the TAM and dragging Cassandra into the Kindred world. They are also the entry point for the audience, many of whom may not understand how vampires work in the World of Darkness. So Brian and Jeffrey spell out how everything happens. Rachel later convinced me that we needed something more than just the techbros to tell the audience that the show wasn’t going to be just about them. So I wrote the “Scene 0” with Cassandra and Samael together six months later to tell the audience, “no really, this show is about a love story, not techbros.”

I’m especially pleased by our Brian and Jeffrey voice actors who were playing against type compared to their Victory Asterisk characters. Brian’s voice actor was a sweetest little trans man in V*, and we had to rehearse to turn up his smarm and asshole settings.

In my writing, I like to push things to their logical conclusions, so I came up with the idea of Embracing an AI as an investigative tool into The Beast, and ghouling an orca because, Welcome to the Pacific Northwest. I had to start the show with a bang so I frontloaded both of these. (We’ll get to the Gum Wall in Episode 3.)

Cassandra’s subsequent imprisonment in Aaralyn’s chambers was another bit of tutorialization I wanted to use to teach the audience more about the World of Darkness. I like Rachel and Peter as making the best of a not-great kidnapping situation, and I thoroughly annoyed voice actor Rachel by naming a character that she was not playing Rachel in the Episode 1 script. I could have changed Script Rachel’s name but I didn’t see a huge reason to.

I did change Amanda’s name though. She was originally “Carolyn” but the Seattle Prince was named “Aaralyn.” One of them had to change and it would not be the Prince.

I’m very proud of the work that Rachel, Soleil, and I did on the sex scene. I needed to declare exactly how erotic I was intending on taking the show, even if I never intended to have another explicit sex scene again. I’m also a bitch so I needed to sell the eroticism of the sex scene to make the cut-away to the Anarch’s warehouse that much funnier. My actors said it was a highlight of the episode.

The sex scene also establishes that consent is everything. Samael asks “Is this all right?” Cassandra has the opportunity to say anything she wants, and oh gods, does she want it.

I like using the word “cavorting.” What can I say.

Yes, Samael is basically Jared Harris; specifically his role of Anderson Dawes from The Expanse. Soleil is a big Expanse fan and knew exactly the voice to do. I regularly joke with my cast that Blood Doll is my midlife crisis Daddy dom fanfic. What do you want from me, I’m technically human.

Finally, we get to the meat of the episode. Cassandra (with her name withheld, although Samael is fully aware of it, having read her driver’s license) and Samael discussing religious topics from over a month’s of my research. I had to make it hot. Judge me if you want. I’m especially proud of the “God’s own breath” bit. These scenes were actually the first ones we recorded. It was vital to nail down exactly how Cassandra and Samael would sound together. Everything else came from that.

The raid on the Anarch’s warehouse came from one of my earliest ideas for the show. Cassandra had to be a Blood Doll for other Kindred too, of her own free will. And I was thinking about what role my Blood Doll character might have in a TTRPG, which is, when shit goes down, the other players can take a sip off of her. So that needed to happen on the show. It gives her and Samael’s coterie a moment of awesomeness, and a reason why she gets kidnapped by the Anarchs and has to retell the whole Episode to them.

One of my actors, the one who dragged me to the VtM LARP, read the Episode 1 script and kept telling me “it’s too long.” They kept saying, “there are so many points at which you could stop.” I replied, yes, but there weren’t any points at which we could start a subsequent episode. Well, once they heard the whole Episode 1, I didn’t hear a peep out of them about cutting it, so here it is, in all its hour-and-forty-five-minutes glory. Hope you enjoyed. They’re only going to get wilder from here.