As you can tell from this episode’s climax, everything is leading up to some big unlife-changing events.

But first… I had a chat with Andrew of The Glass Darkly audio drama over the weekend and I brought up that all my writing has two prime motivations:

• That I’m an absolute cunt
• That I write reactionary material out of spite

I’ve said before that Blood Doll is a postmodern deconstruction of Vampire: The Masquerade, but like Grant Morrison‘s writing, it kinda wants the thing it’s deconstructing to be better for it. I started the show with the techbro Kindred just to be a shit, but I worked up to Cassandra and Samael’s philosophical discussions so I could get at the meat of what it means to be a vampire in this world that is so very much like ours.

Now, Cassandra hasn’t had a moment to herself to be self-reflective this season, which is something I’m going to do more of in Season 3, I swear. She’s running from one crisis to the next. She’s finally back from her harrowing escape – and I’m going to try to cut back on harrowing escapes in the show in the future. One of my cast said she could kinda see through me (like in the Matrix) and the paintball scene didn’t excite her because she knew my tricks and I took that kinda personally. We start with Cassandra checking in on Simon, who absolutely had the right idea in GTFO of the situation. And in shutting the door on her. Rachel once called Cassandra “Lorea’s toxic ex” and she’s absolutely correct on that front. Cassandra is dangerous to be around but so are most of the other Kindred in the show so whatevs.

Next, Mara finally is tired of sitting around her apartment and wants some structure in her life, as we all do. I recall when I was unemployed (and I started writing Supervillainz) and the days got hazy in what I was supposed to do with them while looking for work. Mara especially needs some structure though, given that she was incarcerated and is remembering what life was like outside her prison.

Ruth finally makes contact and Cassandra rushes off to see her with a new face. I thought about Isabelle Dinoire, the woman with the first face transplant, when I was writing this. As a trans person, I already know how affirming it is to be in the body my brain is expecting, and I understand how disassociating it must be to have a face that isn’t yours. I think about facial feminization surgery (FFS) in the 1960s when a surgeon would give a similar face to multiple women. And I wanted to follow Cassandra’s reaction to that, which would be to just not look at herself until her face reverted. As we’re in an auditory medium, I didn’t have to show the audience what she looks like. A blind friend of mine once told me that she didn’t perceive faces as much as imagined everyone around her as sort of dark blobs, so I wanted to convey the same to you, our distinguished listeners.

I’m proud I thought up the Blazin’ Raisin’ Christ podcast (with twice the personality of etc. etc.) and my crew has agreed. Before we continue, I need to explain the Olympia Moontree and the Neon Tacomadome cocktails. In the capital of Washington state (Olympia) grows a moon tree. It’s a Douglas fir whose seeds were brought on the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission by astronaut Stuart Roosa into lunar orbit, and then subsequently planted back on Earth. Going to the moon and back doesn’t seem to have affected the tree at all but it’s a nice concept. As for the Tacomadome, it’s a dome in Tacoma that looks like a boob. What can I say.

Ruth and Cassandra make plans in the ladies’ room and good gods did I need a lot of reverb for this scene. Aurora did a great job as usual to indicate how scared she is. But the larger issue I needed to address was that I didn’t feel that Cassandra was in love with Ruth yet. Cassandra hasn’t had the time with Ruth, nor the emotional reliance on her, to really fall for her, while Ruth has. I wanted to explore how that would manifest in a rescue operation. Long ago, I did participate in a similar rescue of a woman away from her abusive husband and family. It sucked and was rough for everyone involved, including me, as I didn’t have anyone in my life at the time, so I definitely feel for both Cassandra and Ruth going through their own emotional journeys with this rescue.

And then, of course, Casssandra sees the head of the First Light and won’t let well enough alone. She’s angry and has been flaunting her power enough that she’s used to getting her way and… welp. Talking with him was incredibly dangerous and she only manages to squeak out from it. It’s a very scary situation but I felt that’s where she would take it. Cassandra doesn’t make the best decisions and that’s what makes her relatable to me. Also hats off to Sangria who absolutely nailed the vicious fundamentalist voice of the First Light.

Next scene, I’m a total shit again. I compare and contrast Mara’s invitation to the Anarchs with Spark’s prohibition from the Anarchs. Mara is a full Kindred and thus useful and trustworthy. But Spark is seen as a liability, a drag on community resources. A demigod among gods who isn’t picked first in gym class. And Josephine has every reason to call Lorea out on this. “What a very liberal position for an anarchist.” I wanted to show the effect that limited resources has on anarchist communities. When I was out doing mutual aid, we had maybe a tent or two to give out. And the tents would last maybe a few weeks before the cops tore them up. Anarchist communities in the United States are under a lot of pressure to provide basic needs that are reasonable for a much larger group to manage, but not like 10-20 people. It sucks, and there’s not much you can do about it, and it makes you mad and burns you out and folks who have to sleep rough have an awful time of it. Now, to be fair, Lorea has a lot more money than I do and could easily house Spark, but then she’d ask, how many Duskborn would she also need to house? And then things get very liberal and anyway, it’s all about who hoards resources and we all know who that is. (It’s billionaires.)

Next, I didn’t expect Elijio to completely blow out in front of Samael but Elijio certainly was. My characters aren’t alters but they do tell me what they’d prefer to do rather than what I want them to do. I thought this would be a short, quiet scene in which Elijio politely says “No thank you” when asked if he wanted a date with altered Cassandra. No, he had Things To Say. I was frankly surprised by how much Elijio had to say about giving up Samael as a partner in spite of Samael clearly wanting things to be Like They Were. But they aren’t, and Samael has to accept what Elijio has – that Samael is dead and clearly prioritizes Cassandra’s needs. And it would be unfair if Samael chose to take over Cassandra’s body, and they would not be the one Elijio loved if they chose that. Rachel spent a good bit of time with Dillon, helping them with their voice acting to reach this incredible performance.

Of course, Samael is furious with this and hates being trapped within Cassandra. They say the worst thing I could think of them saying to Cassandra. “I don’t want you.” They’re just processing everything going through them, of course, and they realize later what an awful thing that is to say, but at the moment, it feels like the most applicable thing to communicate what they’re feeling.

At least Cassandra and Samael are back on better terms when Ruth needs her rescue. Once more, Ruth has to deal with the fact that she’s entirely reliant on her girlfriend for her safety and her girlfriend doesn’t even love her. But also, I need to explain the waffle wrap. Back in 2004, I was dating a guy who had this drive-through restaurant near him that sold waffles wrapped up like burritos with syrup and other things inside them. And for the life of me, I cannot find any trace of the restaurant on the web. But I know it existed, and so I add the waffle wrap to this scene because it felt like terrible diner food that would provide calories and conversation to Ruth who would otherwise have neither on this trip. I also felt that Cassandra should do a little topping on the trip to give Ruth some reassurance that she would be protected, in her very rough state.

But not for long. Ruth needs a character arc like everyone, so in the next sex scene, she gets to show off how well she can mess with Cassandra. She is a trained Kindred fighter after all and has the advantage over many other Kindred fighters in that she can battle Kindred without having to finally kill them. She can spar with Cassandra without fear of permanent repercussions. And so she does and Cassandra is completely taken off-guard. This scene was fun to do the SFX for, with the cracking and the falling and the bumping. I think everyone involved had a fun time with it, and Ruth shows off that she is no longer the little sub.

So Lorea agrees to take Ruth in, even though the split within the Anarchs is growing. Mara has found herself on the “Fuck ICE more” side. Lorea, though, isn’t about to give in, insulated by her cash and considering her priorities more aligned with the Fire Brigade’s. Things are not looking good for our heroes.

And it’s time for another session with the Blood Doll coven! And it goes… terribly! The coven is completely out of Cassandra and Ruth’s hands. Josephine has entirely commandeered it, and to be fair, she’s the only one who was actively working with the Blood Dolls on a near daily basis. Cassandra and Ruth sorta dropped the ball on not interviewing more Blood Dolls and Josephine has swept it up. Badly. Dangerously. She really should know better. Cassandra and Ruth make no bones about their objections with this situation, but they aren’t in control anymore, so they storm out after a bit of banter with the original Blood Doll trio.

Now, you don’t actually hear from any other Blood Dolls except the trio because, frankly, I’m trying to keep the number of voice acting parts down to a manageable level. It kinda got out of my hands this year but I’ll be better next season, and keep the show more focused on fewer individuals.

Welp, it’s come down to this. Elijio invites Cassandra and Samael back to his place, which surely is a massive red flag for those who are genre-savvy. After distracting them with a kiss, Elijio sets them up for capture from Rose and a new OC, do not steal, Lictor Helena. And where there’s Lictors, there’s Elders. I’ve been holding onto the reveal of Elder Enoch for some time and that time has finally come. Cassandra is in an dreadful state, having been staked and unstaked without food. And the Elder, a god among gods, has declared her death. I recall telling Rachel about this cliffhanger and she completely loved it so I knew this one would be good. When I asked our resident Deep Voiced Enby to perform Enoch, they said they had in mind Bill Nighy’s voice from the Underworld films. This turned out to be Too Camp and so I had them tune it down to merely Annoyed At Everything While Being So Immensely Powerful. And they killed it per usual.

As I said when I started, everything has been building up to the next episode! How will Cassandra survive? I mean, she has to. She’s the fucking narrator.