Tag: Show Notes

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.

These show notes are difficult for me to write tonight because I’m re-experiencing a lot of grief and loss within my life. I’m over half a century old and there’s a lot I haven’t had the opportunity to experience. And it’s getting to me. It’s got to me. A lot. Some very integral parts of myself that I’ve had fewer chances to express than the number of fingers on my hand. Anyway, I’m very sad about this tonight, and I want to take this moment to say that grief, loss, personal pain, etc. does not a good piece of writing make. Van Gogh’s work was not enhanced by his depression. It directs what you want to say, but it doesn’t replace practice and craft. The concept of the tortured writer can go fuck itself. The art is separate from the drive.

The drive for this episode was the paintball maze scene, with a custom track from Avian Invasion. Cassandra and Samael vs. a squad of First Light. I like giving myself a little action scene as a treat – it’s a fun exercise in designing a space and then choreographing the movements within. It’s also how Writing Alicia torments Editing Alicia.

You know what, I don’t have a lot to say about this episode.

The intro interrogation scene was another attempt at giving Cassandra boundaries against Samael’s.

The sequence with Mara in Cassandra’s penthouse was a lot longer but we moved most of the conversation to the final scene in Episode 10. I’ve been hanging onto that Dhammapada quote since 2010 and I’m glad I finally had an opportunity to use it. Soleil absolutely killed the final line where Samael is very sad they can’t contribute to Cassandra’s life like Ruth can and WOW are we going to explore that later.

The Blood Doll-Josephine sequence was a lot of fun for everyone to record. Josephine is a lot of fun and I’m glad someone is giving her therapy. I’m still proud I thought up “scotch eggs out of tea eggs with the yolk still soft” as an example of cooking skill. This scene had Aurora actually shouting in the studio which was excellent.

In the first Blood Doll gathering scene, I imagined it happening at a workworking shop on Roosevelt in Northgate, even though I set it in Lynnwood. I just wanted to have it interrupted by cops. It could have been narration, I guess.

I had Rose scare Ruth for fun and to make Ruth wary of Rose in the future.

I brought back Amanda because I didn’t know who else would be leaking information to the Fire Brigade.

I wanted to give Simon’s actor more to do so I had Simon go off with Cassandra to Kitsap. We had already established he could read minds well in Season 1.

Mina’s Cafe is named for Mina the Hollower. I like the occasional game reference.

I’m glad Cassandra and Simon got to do more philosophical conversation. I always like those.

The diner scenes use so many tracks for ambiance, oh my gods.

I figured that the only way for Cassandra to get away from the First Light is to be arrested during brainstorming. It’s fine, I suppose.

The paintball sequence took a lot of work, and exhausted Rachel and Soleil to perform it twice. My cast was really into the track while Avian Invasion was working on it. I probably could have thrown in more original bits instead of just being a bug hunt.

Trauma. Yes. That’s what this ending is about. Poor Cassandra, running from the fire.

I’m tired and I’m not doing well. I’ll probably feel better next week. Thanks for supporting the show.

I fucking love this episode.

Today on a new segment we’re calling “Alicia goes back and reads her original outline for this episode,” apparently I wanted to start it with a court sequence that would be a follow-up to Rose’s branding. Cassandra would be made to declare herself Camarilla before Sophia and oppose the Fire Brigade with all her might. So yeah, glad I cut that. It would have been redundant.

I love this sequence in which Elijio gives her a VIP pass to Krafthaus and Cassandra tells him the fuck off. I felt this would be a strong scene in Cassandra trying to maintain her independence, which… well, this show is a tragedy after all. This scene also features the incredible line, “I’m not stubborn. I’m relentless.” Which I thought was going to be all over the trailer for this season but whatever. I also wanted to establish that the Samael/Elijio relationship is not forgotten, but is kinda on the sidelines currently.

Next, well, if the Camarilla are going to use the Cassandra/Samael wombo-combo, they might as well use them for tasks that Samael was good at, namely, extracting confessions. I wanted to bring Simon back, as I love Robert Lopez’s work. So I had Simon do a little assassination to help out Felix, knowing full well the consequences. To be fair, I wasn’t sure what Simon’s deal was at the end of Season 1, so this gave him some agency. And this gave Cassandra the opportunity to raise her objection to being part of an interrogation, at the cost of a conflict with Samael. Look, this was a part of Samael’s life that Cassandra wasn’t exactly exposed to so you can’t blame her. Well, you kinda can. She knew what she signed up for when she Kindredized. Samael knows how these interrogations go and is extremely upset at being silenced and yes, Cassandra will pay for this later. I like drama and conflict.

I also love the “yes, Ma’ams” Cassandra needs to give after Rose clocks her to the floor. Cassandra is so not a Mary Sue. It doesn’t matter how right she is or thinks she is. The world will not be kind to her.

Cassandra’s return to Krafthaus is supposed to be uncomfortable. I wanted to show why she wouldn’t want to eat there.

Next up, Josephine tells Cassandra about the Redbox. You used to see these things disused all over the city at every 7-11 but they’ve been since decommissioned and replaced with Amazon lockers. I felt they were iconic and deserved to be remembered. I actually had Josephine introduce them in Episode 10 originally, but I moved the introduction to Episode 11 with the numerous version 2 rewrites. Anyway, we finally have a bit of levity with Cassandra and Samael’s bit about naming Boxes of Many Colors around the city. But because I’m a hack, we interrupt their humor with Stephanie’s appearance. Look, sometimes if you have headmates, you’ll talk aloud. It’s normal. It’s only weird when normies hear you. And in this case, when people you died in front of also hear you. Whoops. I love Stephanie’s absolute “fuck you, I watched you die, what are you” reaction to seeing Cassandra again. I think Rachel went through two accents with Cassandra trying to hide herself before we settled on the one you hear in the final cut.

Well, the show is called “Blood Doll” and it’s about Blood Dolls, so it makes sense that Cassandra wants to start up a new project for Kindred to find Blood Dolls in. With Ruth’s help, of course. We start with a soft music D/s sequence, where Cassandra and Ruth sway together and I had to add cloth movement effects for every sway they make. It’s a personal fetish of mine to have the top clothed and the bottom (me!) unclothed and vulnerable. (Tops DM me, email in the RSS feed.) They establish their space and of course I’m going to throw an Edmund Burke quote in there. I’m not sorry. Finally, they stop dancing and discuss how to create a safe space for Blood Dolls.

This discussion was heavily revised during the version 2 rewrites, but its contents are pretty much the same, only streamlined. They are the result of extended conversations I had with Foxfire, Rachel, KC, and some other folks about what’s the best way to create this sort of space, what everyone’s responsibilities are in the space, and how to maintain silence when out of the space. It was important that people needed to be able to leave the Blood Doll life but still needed to be checked up on. Everyone that I spoke to agreed that it would be especially dangerous for someone to get mad at someone else in the Circle and lob in Drama Grenade in there, fucking up and endangering everyone so they could feel better briefly. I won’t mince words. The trans community and fetish scenes are rife with traumatized individuals crossing boundaries left and right with purity politics and fracturing subgroups and polycules. Asking someone to make a lifetime commitment to the Masquerade is fucking dangerous among marginalized communities. (Not that it’s any better in non-marginalized communities but we’re not inviting any of them into the Blood Doll life.)

KC was very particular that:

  • Friendships and relationships would be built out of this Blood Doll community
  • For any issues that arise between members, everyone needs an advocate (not someone you’re playing with).
  • Defendants should be able to appoint a contact who they can speak with.
  • Members need someone who is helping get them through the emotional aspect – believing in them and understanding where they fit in in the larger situation.
  • You don’t have an org to be someone’s entire social circle – need contact outside it & form lasting relationships within & without the org.

Foxfire brought up that to mitigate broken scenes, you need to give people the chance to cool the fuck off and not burn bridges in the immediate aftermath. You need to determine what kind of communication is safe at this point. For some people, certain communication is fine; for others, it will make things worse. You need to determine how not to make these conversations into conversation trees, that is, people actually listening to one another and addressing grievances directly.

I also heard the quote from someone I spoke with, “resilient communities require resilient individuals.” Truer words.

I had a lot of notes about this coven project and I whittled them down to what you hear in this scene between Cassandra and Ruth. Did I say more in version 1 for this scene? Absolutely, but it wasn’t all necessary to get the gist of the rules for this coven.

Also I’m very happy with Samael’s “Let that be the wages of your sin” semi-forgiveness of Ruth. Ruth will never achieve full forgiveness, of course, but there are worse wages of sin than love.

And then there’s the Fuck ICE scene. I wrote this scene in Tony’s writer’s workshop originally, and I thought it worked so well. Sarah did a fantastic idiot brownshirt voice. I needed to show that the Anarch’s schism didn’t have a “good” or “bad” side. It was just about priorities for a community being beset by enemies on all sides.

Cassandra and Samael go walking and Samael is finally able to voice their concerns about the Blood Doll coven. Which are reasonable enough. I needed Samael to get absolutely emotional with their fears about what Cassandra’s efforts might lead to, and Solei nailed the delivery as they always do. Samael was always indebted to the status quo and so I needed their arguments for the status quo to be believable. I needed to reiterate that Cassandra almost never is convinced of anything Samael says and, well, there will be consequences.

And then there’s the posters for Cassandra’s whereabouts that Stephanie put everywhere. Steph doesn’t realize that she’s set a target on her back. She’s alone and confused and wants answers for a terrifying mystery. Any other Kindred would have just killed her. Cassandra gives her the benefit of the doubt. She wants to be honest with Steph, and to terrify Steph into staying quiet forever, like her Blood Dolls potentially will. I went through a number of filters on Cassandra’s God Voice before I reached the one I used in the show. “Nothing gets easier. Even for a god.” Cassandra wants this to work so badly.

Ah, the party prep scene. I wanted to capture the “oh shit, we need to get going and also look incredible for the scene” vibes that come before you go out for a fetish party. I’m especially proud of Aurora’s take on the line, “(OVERWHELMED BY GOOD FEELINGS) Ummumuwalmumum.” She knew the sort of subby brain-melt sound I wanted. And I couldn’t help myself – on their way out, I wanted Mara to absolutely troll them. I love their exchange in the elevator. (And I love those elevator effects!)

Rachel told me the play party background ambiance was her favorite of all my ambiances. It took a lot of work. The slaps are my partner Rowan hitting her arm with every flogger I own. Some of the moans are also from Rowan and me, and if you’ve ever heard me orgasm at a party as some of the cast have, you’ll recognize that. A lot of the moans were purchased though. I did try to record people faux-moaning at an actual party once but the recording itself was awful and unusable so I scrapped it. So here we introduce our core three Blood Dolls; Melissa, Autumn, and Maple. I actually knew an Autumn in college and Maple was just one branch away. (Melissa was the name I’d thought worked back in 2025 when I was working on the Season 2 ideas.) Anyway, I think I was successful at making this a hot, hot cutting scene and I’d love to see this done live, except without the blood licking. Seriously, that shit is biohazard.

So now that we have Potential Blood Dolls, they’ll need protection. So it’s off to see Josephine. She’s wary but into it. And highly suspicious of Cassandra’s intentions. Josephine’s just fun to have in every episode though.

The final “Interview with the Blood Doll” scene was one of the earliest pieces I wrote for Season 2 in writing workshop. It’s pretty much the same as I originally wrote it, aside from a little editorial clean-up, but I had a good time with it. I wanted Melissa to be in a chair to show how the variety of folks who can be Blood Dolls. I needed a good sound effect for the chair, though, and when one of the more prominent audio drama editors on the Podcast Book Club Discord mentioned that she used a chair, I asked her to record a track of her moving in it and she did so. I had to clean up the track a bit but it worked well.

Now, what did the original outline have as the ending for this episode?

Oh.

OH.

“In an armored truck, CASSANDRA rides in the passenger side while AMANDA drives.

  • They hear a police siren coming. CASSANDRA: “Don’t pull over.”
  • While the truck drives, CASSANDRA opens the door and climbs out on the side of the truck.
  • JOSEPHINE’s fake police undercover vehicle hits the back of the truck.
  • CASSANDRA climbs on the back of the truck and pulls down her mask. She shakes her head at JO after JO recognizes her.
  • A second police siren goes off. JO: “What the hell?”
  • Naval Kindred hunters in police vehicles pull up alongside JO’s trucks. They fire nails and break the windows on JO’s vehicles.
  • CASSANDRA jumps onto JO’s car. “You were set up! They’re Kindred hunters!” JO: “Fuck!”
  • Naval Kindred hunters wreck one of JO’s cars.
  • CASSANDRA jump onto a Naval Kindred vehicle. They fire nails through her arm and chest, missing her heart.
  • CASSANDRA kills the driver through the windshield and forces their truck into a building. The Fire Brigade from the wrecked car fight and kill the stopped hunters.
  • The second Naval Kindred hunter vehicle drives away, escaping. CASSANDRA makes sure they see her face. The money truck escapes as well.
  • JOSEPHINE: “How did you know they were coming?”
  • CASSANDRA: “I have ears at Kitsap. I tried to warn you.”
  • JOSEPHINE: “I’ll respond quicker in the future.”
  • CASSANDRA: “I have something else I want to ask you.”
  • JOSEPHINE: “Later. We have to run. (BEAT) Thank you.”
  • CASSANDRA: “Stay dangerous.”
  • JOSEPHINE and the Fire Brigade drive away.
  • SAMAEL: “They actually bought it.”
  • CASSANDRA: “For now.””

What the fuck was I thinking?

I was talking with Solei after I had the idea for this heist at the end of Episode 11 and I remember they convinced me that it was a dumb idea. I needed to keep things simple.

So there you go. Outlines are weird things that you can mostly ignore when you’re working on the meat of the show.

See you next episode!

This is, in fact, the second version on Episode 10, mostly rewritten and rerecorded from scratch. The first version, which may find its way to the show’s Patreon someday (once I find time to start it), was more somber, more measured, and less exciting than the one posted on our podcast feed. To me, it brought about a great deal of stress, as anyone close to me can tell you.

For the rest of the cast, it was an incredible opportunity to come back to an episode with a season’s worth of practice and excitement under their belt. The recording sessions buzzed with energy as the actors dove into the rewritten or revised material, making it their own. It was refreshing and exhausted me in a way that this show never had before. Recording is only one part – having to re-edit a whole episode added an extra few weeks to the production schedule. But it all came together in the end, fortunately.

Episode 10 is about more introductions, before the plot fully gets rolling. We meet up with Elijio again as Cassandra is learning to fight with nothing but her body – no weapons, no powers aside from her enormous strength. Elijio is still grappling with the fact that his lover is back in writing but not in flesh. He’ll be dealing with that throughout the season.

The next scene in the forest with Cassandra and Ruth was an early concept of mine. I go out regularly on hikes and mushrooming so a D/s scene in the middle of the wood’s night made sense. I wrote a test bit of it in Tony’s writing class which took place on a mountainside before I moved it into the forest as the sheer amount of walking needed to get up a mountain would bore a listener and require a brief cut-away. Shortly after I finished the script, Foxfire and I went to Bridal Trails State Park in Kirkland and recorded a bunch of the foley ourselves. We got:

  • Walking on dirt
  • Walking on brush and bramble
  • Laying down a coat on brush
  • Moving around on a coat on brush, potentially sexually

And so forth. Yes, this was during the day and we had to be careful not to get airplane sounds in my H4N. There were also other visitors to the trails walking by and we had to stop and wait for them to pass. It was a lot of fun. We got some other foley bits too like Foxfire walking on a wooden bridge that sounded great, but I don’t know when we’ll be using those. Anyhow, now you know how we got those wonderfully crunchy sounds.

So as originally written, the scene was more about giving Ruth a small fright and then Cassandra confessing that she just wanted to have fun with her. In the rewrite, Cassandra is trying to terrify Ruth and is succeeding. Ruth is utterly powerless and alone with Cassandra in the darkness and it’s okay if y’all write fanfiction about it because that’s what I’m doing too. I also wanted to use the rewrite to give Ruth more agency. Originally, Cassandra asked Ruth how freeing Mara was going but in the rewrite, Ruth volunteers that information. Rachel said that it’s her favorite sex scene this season, but more importantly, I think it shows both Cassandra and Ruth’s dedication to each other.

Next is Rose’s bootblack scene. The foley is me scrubbing my boots, yes, but just with a cloth. D was a late addition to the cast but she rocked it. I love how she always performs as if she has the biggest smile on her face. This scene didn’t change much between versions – it’s mostly for Rose to drop the upcoming investigation onto Cassandra.

The next Lorea and Cassandra scene was new because I moved Josephine’s junkyard scene from the climax of Episode 10 to the end of the first act. So it’s a little bridge and another opportunity for Katherine to act her heart out.

So originally, Josephine introduced herself to the Anarchs after a short highway chase sequence with Hank and Siobhan, which was fun but kinda dragged things out. I moved the junkyard scene here to give the episode more energy here. It’s also nice to see Josephine start out as a tremendous badass. Again, having a Thin Blood brand a Sheriff was an early concept for Season 2. I was thinking about having Josephine become Prince of Seattle at one point until I couldn’t figure out a believable way to pull that off. The scene also gives Cassandra an opportunity to save Rose’s ass and put some leverage on her. And damn, it was fun to sound design as well. The metal creaks are all hand-placed, etc. I absolutely adore Dee’s improv on the lines I had given her, like the preposterous line of Italian names she gives Josephine.

Now that Rose and Josephine are introduced, Mara gets her turn. All of Cassandra’s philosophical discussions in Season 1 were Western-based and I wanted to throw Cassandra a monkey wrench into the dark thoughts her unlife had led her to. Perhaps her very mindset isn’t particularly healthy! Every time Cassandra gets comfortable I need to mess with her life again, often in a positive manner. I conceptualized Mara as a Tzimisce fleshmancer because she needed to be profoundly self-actualized. She undid a lot of her training and was apt at teaching others how to do the same. Tony pointed me towards two Buddhist teachers whose names escape me (but I’m sure he’ll tell me who later and I’ll add them here) who provided insight into how Mara would treat her place in the world. Mara is perhaps the most confident Kindred in accepting her life and her place in the cosmos. She’s done the work in contemplating how her mind works as an undead killer and knows how and when to restrain or release it. She knows she’s on a journey and is in no rush to complete it.

Also, no secret that Mara was named for the Buddhist temptation demon but also for its incarnation in Doctor Who.

Originally, Mara was more traumatized by her re-introduction to life outside incarceration, and was kinder to Cassandra and Ruth. For the rewrite, we gave her some bite. She is not merely accepting what happens in her life now that it has been returned to her. Her sending Ruth away was new to the revision – originally she was looking to Ruth for reassuring but then we thought it would be more interesting if she immediately took control and did not accept her former jailer on the outside.

The rescue sequence with Josephine is pretty much the same between the versions. I cannot gush enough about Julia’s performance as Mara. This was her first voice acting role and she is calculating when she needs to be, and reassuring when she needs to be.

Originally, we had another boot blacking session with Rose but, given the chance to revisit the script, I skipped it and just had Rose show up in Cassandra’s penthouse. I also appreciated Rose getting a chance to drop on the audience that Mara was originally Sabbat. Mara doesn’t get a minute to herself, as she’s come to expect. She has an opportunity to espouse her philosophy to Rose and Samael, confusing them but she’s used to that.

The first half of the final scene is actually a conversation that Mara had with Cassandra in Episode 12, transposed here because it made more sense than it’s original location. She’s trying to answer Cassandra’s questions as she has done with a thousand other Kindred before her, while she gets dinner and prepares for the inevitable. I loved her twist in cheering up Cassandra with “Fate cannot exist if imperfection does. You’re welcome.” Cassandra does get rather gloomy at times and needs to remember these things. The scene is also improved immeasurably by the foley of Mara chopping up her prey and tossing the pieces in the dumpster. Julia wasn’t sure that she should be grunting in the studio as part of the scene but it sounded so terrific in the end.

The scene also slowly reveals how Cassandra and Mara differ in their own core beliefs with the understanding that they can be friends but must accept each other’s differences.

We end with an inevitable fight between Mara and Rose’s Enforcers. Rose cuts it short and gives Mara some rope in exchange for her promising the kill the Fire Brigade, putting Mara in an uncomfortable choice. We’ll see how she handles it in future episodes!

Overall I’m far happier with this revision of Episode 10. It rescues what was formerly a mediocre episode and the actors took off with it. It also taught me not to rush episodes in the future, and that after I’ve written a season, to give myself a month to go over the scripts again and make sure they have the needed tempo and drama needed for a season of Blood Doll. Live and learn, I guess.

[Editorial – I learned many things this season and one of which is that these show notes are as important to my cast as they are to me. They were really amazing this season, as you’ve heard, and I want to emphasize this in my show notes, which I will be doing from here. I have made minor corrections to these notes to reflect this. Thank you! -AEG]

This season had more pain in its creation which was caused by one thing – I took it to production too fast. The outline and the scripts didn’t have time to simmer. Season 1 had been rushed just as fast but while it turned out pure gold, the initial results of my Season 2 writing did not. I’ll go into this more in Episode 10’s show notes, but suffice it to say, when I heard the first cut of Episode 9, we went back and added some stuff, such as:

  • The Elixir Sabbat sequence in the first scene
  • An extension to Lorea’s real estate talk about Sparrow Apartments

And some other miscellaneous stuff, such as Aurora re-recording a bunch of her Episode 9 materials to show how far she’d come in her first ever audio drama performance. I had a lot of hopes for this season. I am after all a perfectionist with my work.

The cast and I had a lot of tension in this season – I felt that I had taken the scripts to production too early and they were invested in their performances and didn’t want to change too much. (We did change and re-record quite a bit, which turned out well for everyone.) I got severely stressed this season and thank you to my partners and lovers who put up with me during it.

What I’m trying to say is that we learned a lot and Season 3 will be better for it.

Now, where was I? Ah. I wrote Cassandra’s “Predator of Humans” speech late last year and that didn’t change much in its final iterator. Rachel liked it so I knew it was a good direction in which to start the show. I was inspired to begin the episode exactly where we left off from last season by Killing Eve‘s start of their Season 2. My initial draft of the first scene had more conversations like Amanda and such but Rachel correctly noted that this didn’t bring much to the scene so I made cuts. The Elixir Sabbat was added later when it seemed as if the beginning of the show was a slog and needed some action to pump it up.

Early in drafting the outline I knew that Cassandra would be reticent to talk about her kills. I thought it would be a good motif to continue throughout the season. Cassandra’s “fuck. Fuck!” scene on the hillside was also an early-developed scene that I was glad made it to the final production. I wanted to show her desperate not to become like every other Kindred and just go along with the drinking and killing etc.

I think about Episode 9 as the “dealing with everything set up in Episode 8 so we can get onto the new stuff” episode. That’s probably why it’s a little long – it’s all resolution and setup. I had a long list of plot points that needed addressing.

Samael’s request to tell Lorea that they love Cassandra was a callback to a line from Episode 4 in which Samael tells Lorea, “the second I tell you I love her, I have to kill you.” But now there’s nothing Lorea can do about that, so Samael intends to rub it in. (Soleil, Samael’s VA, has mentioned that Samael doesn’t have a lot of agency this season, which, granted, is the case. I had a lot of balls to juggle this season and I’m dedicated to juggling less next season. But wow, do I have some ideas for Samael’s agency next season.)

These show notes are a lot about a season I haven’t written yet, aren’t they. To be honest, I’m very burned out from this season and am looking forward to one that I’m more excited about, with the issues from this season resolved.

Hank was a one-shot mook in Season 1 and I wanted to expand on his role in Season 2. (Hank’s VA also said he liked Hank better than Ed Astra from Brittle Tourniquet, who he also played, because Hank was a more believable anarchist.) I wanted to start a Leftist Schism(TM) within the Anarchs and so he and Siobhan were to represent one side and Lorea the other. As a leftist anarchist, good gods I’ve seen some schisms in my day, and I wanted to reflect those in my show. And it seemed an interesting way to spread conflict within the show.

I introduced the concept of torpor early with Cassandra as it will come up later in the Season with other characters.

I’ve read the whole schtick in the VtM manuals about a diablerized Kindred taking over the body of the one who diablerized them, and so that gave me the excuse for having Samael “speak” through writing.

Cassandra’s first “hunt” is facilitated by Lorea and I wrote it as a comedy to undercut the horrific nature of it. It probably plays into the whole “lesbians as temptresses” narrative but I really don’t give a fuck. I needed to show how ill-prepared Cassandra and your average Kindred is to hunting prey and needs a tutor and Mermaid had a good time being the victim.

Sparrow Apartments, Cassandra’s new penthouse lair, is based on Munger Hall, an infamous 2023 project in which “94 percent of the students would not have had windows in their bedrooms. The building’s design was conceived by Charlie Munger, who based the design philosophy on the interior rooms of a cruise ship.” The idea of the Hall was that students would be fine experiencing only LED light and I thought, that would be perfect for Kindred too. As mentioned above, this scene was expanded to address why Lorea thought of Cassandra as a good candidate for this space.

Next we have the introduction of the Fire Brigade who will be far more important in future episodes. My original thought was to get a Thin Blood on the Prince’s throne but that seemed difficult to justify in-world so, well, you’ll see. I definitely wanted to show the Duskborn as not putting up with the Camarilla’s shit, and fire being the most effective weapon of terror. I also needed Cassandra to justify her diablerie as consensual and the only way to pull that off was to show Samael giving her information willingly. The warehouse scene is a fun little action sequence in a show that is all about fun little action sequences.

Finally we get a moment for Cassandra and Samael to relax and talk to each other about what might have been – what if Samael hadn’t been taken in Episode 5. Things might have changed between them. And Samael gets to open up about their trauma, which they need to do to heal. I love doing little trauma bonding scenes like this. Then, they have sex*. Originally, I wanted to have a mirror in the room so Samael would watch Cassandra enjoying herself but I eventually dropped that. I thought it would be fun to have Samael’s dexterity improved by their sexual prowess.

* Okay, elephant in the room. I keep having this discussion with other audio drama creators so let me reiterate why I have sex in Blood Doll. First and foremost I want to do HBO Prestige Drama (like The Sopranos, The Wire, and AMC’s Interview with the Vampire) only with trans/queer people. These are shows with sex but not shows explicitly about the sex that’s in them. Second, I am opposed to the No Kink At Pride type movements. LGBTIQQA2S communities have always found togetherness and identity in sex which is why society at large tries to ban our sexual visibility first and foremost without doing the same to cis straight sexual visibility. “Think of the children” is the cudgel that they use. And I see you in the chat about to type “but we need child and ace-friendly spaces too” and yes, I entirely agree with you, those spaces should exist and cis straight people are not the ones to build them. Third, Blood Doll is avant-garde. Nobody’s done the mix of sex, romance, and action adventure in the audio drama format before. You wouldn’t give Blood Doll’s content a second glance if it were in print but because it’s performed by actors, suddenly it’s the Coming of the Antichrist. Audio dramas with sexual content such as Deep Dream State and Yuki, Space Assassin are generally exiled to the SubscribeStar Mines, safely away from anyone who might find them objectionable. But sex is less than 1% of Blood Doll. It’s not the focus. And as far as I know, no other audio drama is trying this. So it’s frustrating that I have to continually be driven from opportunities to promote the show when gatekeepers say “does your show have sexual content in it?” Yes, of course it does, but that’s not the question being asked. The question is less “is your show objectionable to the crowd our community caters to?” and more “will it get us in trouble with the authorities who want us to please think of the children?” In these days where trans visibility is actively being beaten down and trans people are used as the kindling for the bonfires of the rise in fascism, I deny them the opportunity to say my show is safe. It is transgressive and I will not have it any other way, nor will my cast. Yes, it is transgressive for a very specific moment in history, but its activism is extremely necessary and I will fight tooth and nail to have it break into the modern discourse.

Now, where were we?

Oh! You’ll notice that the MP3 files for this Season of Blood Doll have chapter markers! I don’t know which podcast distributors actually care about them, but if you run the MP3 files through your average Apple or Android player you’ll be able to skip between chapters now. They were a pain in the ass to implement but they should be useful to you now.

The very brief scene with the Cassandra’s second victim, also Mermaid, was actually recorded outside with a Zoom H4N to make it sound more raw than you get in the studio. It’s short but I’m proud about how it came out.

Finally, Cassandra returns to Court, and I add a subtle reverb behind Sophia’s voice to give her more gravitas. The scene is very utilitarian but I got to use the term “devil-swiven” in it. To swive is a Middle English word for “fuck/copulate” which I learned while I was reading The Canterbury Tales in college. I always wanted an opportunity to use it.

We briefly introduce Rose the Sheriff here, who I wanted to do more with but ended up…. not. Wonderfully played by D Dargis, she was the third actor we cast for the role. The first couldn’t do Season 3 and the second, in her own words, didn’t have a dominant bone in her body. And Rose needed to be a good top so Rachel recommended D. Look, I cast through my various polycules and so does Rachel, lol.

Next, we have Cassandra’s death before Stephanie and I was talking up this scene all last year, when I was selling the cast on the Season 2 ideas I had. I wanted this to be a traumatic moment for Steph and I knew Becky, her VA, could sell it. Becky wasn’t sure the CPR counting would work but when I played it back for her, she absolutely got that it had. It was such a sad moment and deliberately manipulative by yours truly. I hope it worked for you.

So now we get the introduction of Ruth. Last season, I wanted to set her up so I had her appear in the Kitsap escape sequence in Episode 8. Aurora did an incredible job as co-lead for this season. Rachel ended up being the better director for her than I, and so Rachel is credited as the assistant director of Season 2 and officially the co-director of Season 3. Aurora blossomed under her direction, which was all the easier for me to hear on my second listen of Episode 9. She nailed it.

Anyhow, we have established a break between Samael, who wants Ruth dead for excellent revenge reasons, and Cassandra, who wants Ruth alive for more selfish reasons. More drama! I like the trope of Samael taking control of Cassandra when they are more emotionally driven and I planned for them to slam Ruth against the wall early in development. But I wanted Ruth to be trapped in a situation she couldn’t control, and that submitting to Cassandra is a form of control that she does have a choice about.

Once back at Sparrow Apartments (all the apartments in Seattle have stupid names like The Owl or The Enclave or The Rocket), Ruth goes off on another Alicia’s Patented Autistic Overshare. I wanted to have Cassandra look at the question of “what is a Kindred” from the spiritual/philosophical perspective and Ruth from the scientific. (Aurora also learned the hate the words “orthonasal olfaction” in her retakes.) I put a lot of thought and not as much research into this conversation with Cassandra, particularly the idea that gods exist but they don’t make scientific sense. Cassandra and Ruth love this conundrum of Kindred’s existence so much, they bond over it. Cassandra gushes over the idea that she’s a storybook monster (which she is) but then, well, I’m going to hit her over the head with Buddhism in the next episode so she can’t rely on that crutch as an excuse for her existence anymore.

Cassandra’s relationship with Ruth mirrors that of her early relationship with Samael, and so Cassandra sets her free (with the one condition). I intended for them to do more discussions about the nature of Kindredism but I kind blew my load on that first conversation to make it work and it was hard to develop more. From here on it’s more D/s games. Which I like a lot, and I hope you do too. They help Cassandra establish herself as a Commanding Top Vampire too.

And finally we have Cassandra and Elijio’s trial, which goes better than either probably expected. Samael knows their way around Court. I finally had an opportunity for Samael to call out the Court’s bullshit and lack of trying to help them. I do admit that Sophia folded a little easier than you would expect, but Samael is very good at bullying. And huzzah! Cassandra is authorized. For now. We also get a peek at Cassandra’s ex-girlfriend Nichole, who will show up a couple more times this season. She’s cool and I wanted to do more with her, but the Seasons are only so long and I feel like I overstuffed this one.

Anyhow, Episode 9 finishes its setup for the season and we’re finally ready to get the show on the road.

So next episode is where our production completely fell apart.

First off, blame Tony Amato for all of these anthology vignettes.

I’ve been attending Tony’s writer’s workshops since 2000, aside from a brief hiatus between 2013-2023. Each workshop has two prompt-based sessions – Tony provides a prompt to encourage you to write something based on whatever the prompt is about, or, as I do, completely ignore the prompt and write about something silly. For the past couple years, I’ve been using the writer’s workshops to explore the characters in my shows, or more recently, to explore scenes in future episodes of Blood Doll. I’ll figure out a setting for the character to be in before I start writing, and then I write to explore how the character would respond to that environment and what they end up doing.

I find out a lot about my characters in this way and often, bits of these vignettes end up back in the show. Amanda and Penelope’s spat was conceived in the vignette (Episode 3 in the Anthology), as was Aaralyn’s early days as a chemist/alchemist (Episode 5 in the Anthology). I highly recommend doing this for your own writing. (Also reading terrible books as inspiration.)

As a sneak peak behind the curtain, I actually began investigating the Blood Doll project with this piece, prior to planning anything else about the show, that included these paragraphs:

I am under no delusions about my life. Each day you allow me to return home is unexpected. I do think if I die, I will find solace and comfort in dying for you. To die for someone, a god one can talk with and be honest with, anyone can find peace there. Imagine a cop dying in the line of duty. Or a serviceperson in the Armed Forces. Who do they know for whom they would die? I plan to die for you someday. Do I want to? No. Will I work to the best of my abilities to prevent it from happening? That depends on whether you want me to die or not. I’m under no delusions about what life under you would be. I’m agnostic, but I think of Jacob in the Old Testament wrestling with the angel. I wrestle with you, to understand my place and abilities under you. And like Jacob, I start with knowing a god exists and I have a place under them.

They say the Torah is not in heaven, assuming that Abraham’s God is. I know nothing about Heaven. I know my own two feet are planted on this earthen ground. And your feet are planted near mine. I feel your holy call over me. There are scriptures to be written. There are hymns to be sung of my body, of sex, of blood, of corruption, of glory. There is so much we can do to define each other, to know our places, to celebrate the dance of death and flesh around us. Halleluia. Halleluia. Halleluia.

So I probably freaked the rest of the workshop the fuck off with that.

I only recorded fifteen of the vignettes, but trust me, there are [goes to count] thirty-four in total for Season 1. Not all of them are winners. There’s like three for Cassandra that do nothing for her characterization. Stephanie has two and neither of them are indicative of how she eventually came out. In them, you’ll learn that Vanishing Girl’s real name is Blaise and Silver lives in a run-down house in Rainier that only has electricity from a solar panel out back.

The fence and the front porch have partially collapsed, as the wood grew soft and cracks in the paint let in the rain. The windows, mostly cracked and a few broken, are sealed with Styrofoam and newspaper. The front yard regularly blows weed seeds onto every other yard in the neighborhood. The newer neighbors have complained to the city, who repeats that it’s their issue, not the city’s. So those neighbors stroll up to the still-solid Wall of a door, strewn with ancient locks, and bang on the knocker that threats to break off with every impact. Typically, no one answers. Maybe today, after dark, Silver will come and open the great entryway and the neighbor will see the mess inside; giant wood spools for tables, mattresses of varying grunge-levels everywhere, and books scattered with a few laptops on extension cords snaking out the back of the house.

Stuff like that. Nothing that really matters in the course of the show.

I got the idea to record these vignettes from the previous, uncompleted show Victory Asterisk, as I had written a ton of vignettes for the characters in that show. I thought it might be fun for the actors to read these bits of their characters, and the audience might enjoy hearing more about the world these people live in. I actually wrote a lot more of the Hermanubis Anthology, as I called it (the town in Victory Asterisk is called Hermanubis, or Hubris for short), than of the Blood Doll Anthology. I think it was easier to summon my Prairie Home Companion roots in stories about a small town in the middle of nowhere. Blood Doll is so much more show than backstory for me though. I worry about contradicting something about the Blood Doll characters that I’ve written somewhere else.

We actually did record quite a few of the Hermanubis Anthology vignettes, and I may release them someday, who knows. I’m not sure any of my actors are ready to go back to that project after the whirlwind of Blood Doll.

I suppose I should add some trivia about the Blood Doll Anthology vignettes in order to pad this post out more. Here it goes.

Samael (1) is one of the later vignettes I wrote, but I thought it was fun so I started off the Anthology with it. I read Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in high school too. I thought it would be amusing to see Samael at the gas station.

Cassandra is the only Cassandra vignette I wrote that actually deals with her as a character and not a person walking through a scene. The whole boat/fishing thing was from my childhood, when my dad would take me out fishing around Bassett’s Island in Pocasset. I liked it enough to be social time with him but not enough to do it myself. The whole “friends fall off from attending birthdays” was me too. Wheeeeeeeeee.

Amanda and Penelope are cartoon characters of old dykes in this vignette.

I have no idea where Lorea, as a character, came from. I was just thinking about having a competent, wealthy woman who was still blue-collar at heart, happy being among of a group of anarchists.

Aaralyn looks like someone I knew back in the 1990s fetish scene and I can’t fucking remember her name. Tall, cropped black hair, once talked about how she was “all sorts of randy.” Well, the Aaralyn version of her was more conceited, set to run an organized crime ring. Anyway, I watched enough BBC to be able to picture her in the late 1700s/early 1800s at a dinner party she had no desire to be at.

I didn’t originally want to record this vignette from Judith, but Dee was so excited by the fact that Judith was a Swiftie that she convinced me to. Dee also decided at the last minute to switch the narrative from third-person to first-person and she absolutely rocked it. The fact that Judith doesn’t like The Cars is from a story that another trans friend of mine told me, about being in a punk rock scene in the late 70s, seeing The Cars, and nopeing out. FYI – Judith’s name is meant to evoke the Biblical Ruth as well as be a reference to my cousin Aunt Judy.

Samael (2) is the first piece I wrote about Samael when I was feeling their history out. Again, I’ve watched a lot of BBC.

Jotham was a piece I was particularly proud of. It really gives the full history of a man who’s been through a lot.

Rachel was invoked from kids I knew growing up on the edges of wealthy families, and the copious Cursed Zillow streams from Geop that I’ve seen over the years.

Naval Liaison was based on a former boss of mine, who also lived in a very demanding HOA.

Leviathan was a neat imagined history project.

Samael and Elijio came from me imagining the conflicted times they were experiencing, paying the price to their souls to be together. They had to steal moments between their terrible obligations, which is why their minds are always half-doing dirty work and half-being in love together. I wanted to convey this conflict within them, jumping backwards and forwards between scenes to explain their headstates throughout the centuries.

Lorea and Siobhan came from a discussion with someone else in my writer’s workshop, who told me that my anarchists didn’t feel like the anarchists they knew. I then wrote this piece and they changed their mind. I was proud of that. Not that I would know anything about anarchists or Georgetown bars.

Judith (2) was yet another instance of me making a silly story for Judith. Someday I may make a serious one for her. I dunno. Spoilers: I actually don’t like coffee. I never got the taste in my 20s.

I love William‘s story so much, even more so because I had no idea where I was going when I started writing it. I can’t believe my brain took me to such a good twist and ending. Tony was like, he couldn’t believe I let Joshua survive in that story.

That’s all for now. See you in Season 2! Josephine, Mara, and Justine say hi.

Fuck, there was so much pressure on me when I wrote this one. We had been recording since I finished Episode 5, I believe? I continued to write as we recorded – I remember Rachel and Dee were recording Episode 6 when literally Tony’s edits came in for the scene they were doing. I had to mark up their scripts with the edits because we didn’t have time to reprint them.

Anyhow, when I got to Episode 8, I had to bring all this show together. I had to deliver a satisfying ending. The outline had the ending I had been building up to, and mostly the one I used. The outline had some odd bits like Judith being there, and required a lot of logistics to make the final script flow well. The planning/script outline stage took some time, and I still don’t know whether the result nailed it like I’d hoped it would. I guess that’s on you to decide – Season 1 is done and out of my hands now, off in the court of public opinion and people seem to be liking it.

For all this show’s pretense of grand Seattle vampire drama, it’s ultimately a very intimate show, and the ending was always going to reflect that. This is the end of Cassandra’s journey, and also a new optimistic beginning. Everything has been building to her reunion with Samael. But her nativity is not the end – she must escape the base and face off against Leviathan, and only after these labors is she free. Her freedom must be earned. That is my contract with the listener.

We start with the bad news – for those who thought Cassandra would wake up Embraced, that was never going to happen. Even in the original outline where Cassandra went back to her original apartment (which she had been still paying rent on? Why? Past me, what were you thinking?), she was still going to be “saved” by Lorea and Siobhan. The Embrace was going to be botched as Zachery was high and with untreated bipolar or something. Cassandra was out for most of it. Anyhow, she’s dying, and like a 1980’s action hero, she has nothing to lose.

Poor Stephanie has to deal with a very pained and frustrated Cassandra who just wants her money to go to a good place. She really needs a day to think about whether to accept the cash, but Cassandra doesn’t have a day to give her so… things were said and money was taken. Becky did a fantastic job with Rachel. And we finally get the callback line:

STEPHANIE: (BEAT) I don’t have to sign it in blood, do I?
BLOOD DOLL: No. (BEAT) The lawyers hate that.

… with absolute seriousness and sadness. I did appreciate that I was able to take an ancient vampire joke and give it a tragic take.

Cassandra next plans with Lorea to infiltrate Kitsap for one last shot at finding Samael. She doesn’t expect it to work. But the hope is all she has left to go on. Lorea gives her a pair of GPS earrings which are still a little too James Bond for this episode but I wasn’t going to get Lorea to reveal her switch of invader later in the episode without them. Also I needed a way for Esther to find Cassandra, etc. etc.

Next, poor Amanda. Partially bullied, partially convinced to do Cassandra a favor. At least she was well-paid for her betrayal of the Camarilla. I’m still unhappy with my performance as Amanda but I have another season upcoming to figure out how I’m going to play her so… yeah… I have no idea how I’m going to distinguish her voice from my own a little more. Anyhow…

I love Rachel’s farewell letter to Elijio. It’s one of those 19th century Victorian tragic letters that fits in tone with the show. I can imagine Elijio tearing up on reading this (vampires cry blood, you know) and then thinking, wait, I’m in Seattle. I can see her again.

Once again, Cassandra returns to Kitsap with another offering in tow. This time it is Zachery’s body. Good luck figuring out anything about it, Navy, it’s a corpse.

On Cassandra’s second visit to the underworld, I imagined her absolutely sick of every Kindred’s shit. She’s furious at Thin Bloods for killing her and furious at the Sabbat for destroying her club. This is her opportunity to lash out. Cynthia and Laughing Sabbat don’t deserve this treatment. I was worried that I’d lose the audience here in which Cassandra is clearly the villain. I didn’t want the audience to be exactly on her side here. I wanted the audience to face that everyone in this scene is in a bad place and this is what happens when you have a lot of hurt people in a room together, with a complex power exchange. Cassandra’s lashing out doesn’t rescind any of her pain with Cynthia, but she does feel good about getting one over on the Sabbat. And Cynthia and the Sabbat are satisfied knowing that she will die soon. And that’s that.

Kitsap base doesn’t have that many Kindred imprisoned, or many Army Kindred left – that’ll be explained more in Season 2. Anyway, Cassandra’s final gambit pays off. The Naval Liaison takes her to Samael.

I thought a lot about this scene months before I started to write it. Actually putting it to paper was anticlimactic. I had put all this thought into it, revising the scene from a well-lit metal and glass hemisphere laboratory prison to a dark concrete cell, and when it came time to write it, I just wrote it. And cried while writing it, of course. And then looking back at what I’d written and it seemed too short. That’s not true, it was the perfect length for that scene. And yet after all the build-up that had happened, the scene itself didn’t seem long enough to pay off what had been built. But of course, it was. The scene is beautiful. In hindsight.

We start with Samael exorcising their own demons, reciting Psalm 91 over and over as they have for years, as a mantra to keep their sanity and to gain what power they can in their cell. (Soleil jokingly told me that was the only time they’d be caught reciting the Bible.) Soleil fucking nailed their line, “I will not harm that one” when Cassandra is having trouble getting inside. I love adding the lion growls to their performance in post for that extra edge.

Back in Episode 1, I had used a heavy reverb for the scenes in Lorea’s warehouse. Rachel told me that the reverb was excessive, so I backed off of it and used a lighter reverb in those scenes. I went back to that heavy reverb for Samael here. And I sent Rachel a sample and asked if it was okay if I used the heavy reverb again. She said that it was appropriate for a cell, and so yay. It works here. Always ask your crew for a second opinion of your editing work!

Finally, Samael reveals their human birth name, George Gataker, which I had intended to reveal earlier in the Blood Doll Anthology (being released next week). I just didn’t have the time and bandwidth to release the Anthology earlier, so this is when the audience learns it, for all the good that learning someone’s deadname does.

A close friend of mine has been telling me every time she feels that I’m stretching her credulity in the show, and I’m sure when I speak with her again, she’ll tell me the same about the Liaison going away and leaving Cassandra alone in a cell with Samael. Well, as reality has taught us, sometimes people in power do dumb things when they want to get an edge, and this is one of them. I just hope it wasn’t too unbelievable for her to leave. It was important that Cassandra and Samael get to see each other one last time.

You notice I cut the reverb down once they are together to show the intimacy of the moment. As always, Rachel and Soleil recorded the scene twice. At the time, we had thought that the first take would be the one I would use, but when I was editing, no, I used parts of both takes to make this scene as devastating as it turned out to be. I’m especially proud of Samael’s moment when they chide Cassandra for her “Considering my alternatives” line. They reveal how proud they are to be Kindred. This is almost the climax of the show. Be fucking proud of who you are. And Cassandra must be very proud of herself before she can be saved, if becoming cursed as a Kindred counts as this. She must also leave behind her role as Blood Doll. She will not be able to enjoy The Kiss again. Kindred don’t change, but she will have to.

It was one of the earliest concepts I had for this show, Samael biting off their tongue to feed their blood to Cassandra, and then Cassandra finding the tongue on her foot. The idea came from the film Quills, starring Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade and Kate Winslet as a woman encouraging him to write. Near the end, de Sade’s tongue is cut off to prevent him from inciting the other prisoners in his jail to riot. It was also a horribly romantic way to sacrifice oneself, particularly as a vampire, but also a very simple way to sacrifice oneself, which fit the tone of the show and the scene. I try to write everything organically happening in the plot as much as I can.

If this scene were to be shot in video, Cassandra’s face would be covered in blood by her tears, quickly wiped away when the Liaison returns with the alarms going off. Once more, I thought about Cassandra dying through what I’d learned as a Wilderness First Responder, and as Lorea had already described the process, Cassandra only needed to give the Cliff Notes version. But what’s done is done. Now Cassandra is a Kindred and Samael is no more. The listener has learned what diablerie is, and now has seen that it can be self-inflicted.

The alarm and the Liaison tear the listener out of the scene, back into what’s happening in the base. Some group is attacking them and whoops! Cassandra has a very hungry Beast now, also performed to perfection by Soleil since I try to voice all Beasts by their sires. I was also very much looking forward to this scene since Cassandra would have to mask herself (autistically-speaking) as long as she possibly could. I added the spray to worry the listener constantly – will she get found out? I originally had no idea how she would pass the vampire-detection spray until I realized I hadn’t paid the bit of Samael’s tongue off yet. Two hanging threads solved each other and Samael’s body turns to dust.

I remember excitedly (autistically) telling everyone involved with the project, “And then Cassandra has to mask her way out!” In retrospect, this scene seems a little long for teasing out whether or not she will be discovered, or maybe it’s perfect. I don’t know. Anyway, the TAM established back in Episode 3 that after diablerizing a Kindred, the living Kindred inherits the mind of the diablerized Kindred as an alter. And so Samael reveals themselves, that they are with Cassandra from here on, as a part of her.

In the next scene in the truck – come on, I wasn’t going to let Cassandra mask her way off the base. Her Beast is too strong and it wouldn’t be any fun if there wasn’t a high stakes climax to the show! Rachel especially liked shouting “This is who I am!” and definitely did it more than twice. Anyhow, her first murder! And it doesn’t sate her thirst because she’s a Ventrue like Samael! And her curse demands she have a “refined palate” and can only drink from a subset of humans – they must have a preference and only feed on that preference. And boy howdy, do I have thoughts about this! Sarah, who played Vanishing Girl, knows more about VtM than I do, and insisted that this is because Ventrue are supposed to be nobility and so have very particular tastes. Of course, that’s some classist-ass bullshit because who do you know who hasn’t got particular tastes? Some people prefer McDonald’s over Burger King. Some people like M&Ms over gourmet chocolate. You eat what you’re used to, and rich people are actually more likely to eat from a wider amount of styles of cuisine than folks who need to prepare it themselves. You know who are picky eaters? Autistic people, and we’re everywhere in every socioeconomic strata.

Anyhow, the whole “Venture are picky eaters” thing comes off even worse in Paradox’s Fifth Edition Laws of the Night where their victim’s body types and lifestyles all help determine what a Ventrue can or can’t eat. To me, like many things in Vampire: The Masquerade, this feels like a holdover from the 1990s where cishet guys kept telling each other they had “types”, as in “I’m an ass man,” “I like blondes,” “I like them young,” etc etc you know where this is going. “Types” were bullshit back then and “types” are… well, people are allowed to have preferences. That’s fine. But limiting their preferences to “things cishets like” feels like cowardice. Earlier versions of these lore books said that “homosexuals” were a preference and vampires already have this whole preoccupation with attacking vulnerable communities and “people that 1990s Karens would rather not see on the street” and let’s not get into that here or this rant will go on longer than it already has.

So I made it simple – Cassandra’s bane is attraction. It’s not specific to waist measurements or what type of underwear you wear on Wednesdays. Just plain simple attraction.

I also appreciate that Soleil voices three characters in this one scene (Cassandra’s Beast, Samael, and the truck driver). Well fucking done.

And Lorea’s final lines in Season 1 are admitting that she got the Sabbat to invade the base. Originally I thought the Anarchs would be going in but then I thought, hey, you know what a good twist would be? Also it doesn’t make sense for the Anarchs to risk themselves like that.

Anyhow, Cassandra needs to eat before she has enough strength to escape. So she meets Ruth. And SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2 – Ruth is going to be an important character. And I was like, fuck, I need to cast someone as Ruth who will be around to record next season but who I haven’t already cast and I’m running out of polycule here! Aurora was a friend of a friend of a partner who had recently moved to Seattle and I was like, let’s see how she does! And she’s going to be great next season.

So Cassandra kills a bunch of soldiers as they fuck up her body with bullets. More SFX! Even more SFX! And then consent! As much consent as Ruth can possibly give at that moment.

Also apologies to Soleil for making Samael say “carotid” in their accent as many times as I did. It wasn’t easy to speak all those, and I have the recordings to prove it.

I wanted to show Cassandra getting into her role as a god as soon as possible. She understands the risks she’s facing in trying to escape capture, and also how weak she is. The bluff scene with the other soldiers was a good way for her to use her human cunning instead of just more SFX gore and snaps.

I really should have cut the scene where she hides from the drones inside the buildings but it’s fine and it shows her learning to use her Dominating power and get a truck key. So, I don’t know. It would have required a new shorter bridge scene and more studio time. I think I’m good.

And then we have a little action scene where Cassandra jumps a fence. Fun times. And then…

Well, it wouldn’t be fair if Cassandra didn’t have to face other Kindred during her escape, particularly ones she knows. Vanishing Girl is back, as is Esther! And Cassandra is freshly made and doesn’t have a clue about how to wield her power and her body. It’s not looking good for her! But yes, they’ve been tracking her on the base and as a vampire, she is unauthorized. She needs to die.

Thank goodness Elijio shows up. Rachel was telling me that Dillon seemed excited when she told them that Elijio has a big sweeps-into-action sequence. Yay!

So, regarding Cassandra’s chasing off Esther, I’ve thought a lot about drones. I wrote a whole show about them. So I figured they could use a little cameo here to help scare off Esther. Not much else was going to save Cassandra and her shattered, broken body.

Finally, she escapes into the water and makes it onto a boat, just like she planned.

So I grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I know boats. And the thing that terrified me going into this scene was whether or not I was going to get the foley to sound just right. I wanted Cassandra to escape on a Boston Whaler and those boats have a very particular sound. I also had to make sure that I used water sounds from lakes, not the ocean, because this scene takes place in Puget Sound, which does not have waves like the ocean. I was scared I would have to find a boat myself in dry dock and record the effects myself, which I preferred not to do because I was on a deadline to finish this episode. Fortunately, I was able to find sounds close enough to what I remember Boston Whalers sounding like, such that the final Jaws sequence with Leviathan sounds all right to me.

I needed one last battle for Cassandra, just as she thought she had escaped. You know those scenes where you think the killer is dead and then they… anyway I had always planned for this fight sequence to happen. I even had a lot of the details down in the outline, including Leviathan flipping the boat and Cassandra having to climb on the hull. Yet again this was a complex scene to foley but I was expecting it and I especially liked how the “swimming underwear” portions sounded. I like this Old Man and the Sea battle against the natural world that Cassandra must endure before she earns her freedom. And she earns it by doing a thing no other Kindred has ever done – survive an encounter with Leviathan.

And then we have our ending, which bookends with Milton’s Paradise Lost quote again, that we started the show with. The end echoes the beginning and Cassandra has her whole new life ahead of her.

Unlife.

You know what the fuck I mean.

See you in Season 2.

…

Now, this show is nothing without the wonderful people who comprise the Not Ready for Opsec Players, and I want to give thanks to all of them.

To Katherine Cross, seduced by her wife’s reading of the scripts enough to join the cast, your diabolical spirit brought Lorea to life in ways I never anticipated, especially in your crowning soliloquy in Episode 5. You brought strength to the strongest character and warmth to Rachel’s performance.

To Michael A. Wolfe, I know that Brian was the furthest from Berry that I could take a character, and you rose to the challenge and delivered the most slimiest and techbro of performances. I will never stop hearing “kidding!” in your voice.

To Trunk Slamchest, we’ve been working together for a while, through Brittle Tourniquet and such, and your vocal range sends my jaw to the floor every time. I can’t imagine anyone else doing intros and especially TAM’s sleazy game show host voice. Terrify me more, please.

To Dee Arbacauskas, what the fuck am I going to say to you here that I haven’t told you in person? Your delivery is astonishing every time, you are the ultimate scream queen, and your Judith had my editor Tony begging for more of you. I cannot wait to have your voice invigorate the show again next season as Josephine.

To Cait Motter, your Esther had me and everyone else who heard the show swooning. You absolute glorious ham. You’re amazing and charismatic as fuck. I’m so glad to have you on the cast again, traumatizing the listeners in a different way this time.

To Alyrian Sigil, I wasn’t sure we could pull Siobhan off and you made me believe. Your range from Rachel to Cynthia blew my mind. I should just follow you around with an H4N because you lead such an amazing life and I’m privileged that you came and shared some of that with us here on the show.

Ed Astra knows what he did.

To Just Another Twink, you did fantastic for your first audio work, and I see only greatness coming for you in the future. You showed Peter’s growth from a little bitch into a tragic hero. Definitely going to bring you back for the next season if you’ll come.

To Dillon, I’m glad that Rachel and I broke your monotone into a fabulous emotional range, giving Elijio a seductive, nurturing and caring voice to cut through Cassandra’s defenses. I can hear your smirk in your delivery – well done.

To Ellu, this show may have felt like a lark to you, but it hits me stone hard in the gut every time, and your Simon was an instrumental part of it. Thank you thank you for coming to my studio and saying these stupid words into a mic and turning them into a believable, if silly, character.

To Sangria, you were amazing as always. I’m sorry I didn’t give you as much vocal range as I did on Brittle Tourniquet because you have such incredible talent. You gave me the best Arturo I could hope for. I’ll see what else I can do for you next season.

To Amber Ashe, fuck you, you’re incredible, keep telling me how I keep fucking up VtM lore. Your Aaralyn was spotless, on point, and you understood the assignment. I so want to do that TTRPG with you.

To Becky Haston, Stephanie was written for you, and then you went and took Stephanie, made her your own and gave her right back to me. I can’t think of a better performer for her than you. Well fucking done. You’re amazing as always and you fucking nailed it.

To Julia Lunetta, we’ve worked together for so long, I can’t imagine doing a show without you, even if you can’t come to my studio. You’re fresh, solid, and I’ve always been jealous of your voice. You are an entertainer through and through. Please keep doing that, even in these silly bit parts.

To Sarah Frost, your impish voice and incredible sense of humor shine through all your performances, from Annette to Vanishing Girl. You’re just divine and I hope we have you again next season.

To Maeve O., fucking hell, girl. You did two voices on my show and each of them slap. You did the fucking Cassandra’s Choice scene with Judith, with only me and you in the studio, and people talk about that as being one of the highlights of Episode 4. Well fucking done.

To Slip, fuuuuuuck, you did some of the hardest scenes, including the cliffhanger of Episode 7 as Zachery. And you delivered. Thank you thank you for everything you gave.

To Patrick Colvin, I cannot thank you enough for playing such a despicable character and playing him well. It was your first gig and you got there. You truly got there. You helped tie the end of Episode 4 together with your fantastic Mr. Boswill. Holy hell, well done!

To Myra Vixen, you were in one of the most intense scenes as Mandy and you did so much with so little variation in the dialogue. The listeners could feel you shaking from full defensive mode to opening up toe Lorea. You delivered. Thank you.

To Thomas Hale, thank you for putting up with my bullshit. You truly rocked. Felix was great. Also everybody should listen to Flash in the Pan, the podcast about early 2000s Flash animation. You’ll be glad you did.

To Kelsey Astra, yaaaaaay thank you for being on my show! Your Nichole was a lovely wisecrack-spreading vampire woman and you broke hearts in that last scene. You sold that character and I will be forever grateful.

To KC, you were tight as Sophia. Aw, damn, you were gooooood. Keep that smarm up. Thanks for showing up in my studio and we’ll do it again next time, please?

To Aurora Basile, we’ll have more for you to say next time. A lot more. Trust me, and Rachel will probably agree with me on this – you will be sick of recording by the time we’re done. Thank you so much for popping your head in this season. You were definitely cute getting bitten.

To my editor, Tony Amato, we’ve been working together years before even Supervillainz. You have steered me in directions I might have otherwise been afraid to go. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for everything you’ve given me and I hope I’ve given enough back.

To my artist, Charles Schneeflock Snow, everybody loves everything you’ve done and those stickers you designed fucking rock too. The whole cast thinks the Blood Doll drawing is incredible and, no joke, one person on a Discord said they’d listen to Blood Doll because of your art. Thank you again.

And now the two biggest thank yous I could possibly give.

Soleil, you made Samael happen. You know what this means. You broke hearts. You made people love Samael. You made Cassandra love Samael. And you made me love Samael more than I thought I possibly ever could. You made this show happen. I remember when you called me after I sent you the final reunion scene, crying because of the words I had you say. Well, I was crying too, because of your delivery. And Jotham – sweet sweet badass Jotham – you brought him to life too. Fuck, hon. You made this happen. Thank you thank you thank you. I want you to know what an incredible fucking performer you are. I couldn’t write this stuff without having someone who could make it sound natural and you do that almost effortlessly. Well, well, well fucking done. I want so much for you. I want other casting directors to hear you and hear what I hear from you. I want you to charm the fucking world because you’re so good at it.

And finally, Rachel. Rachel, this is your show. The amount of time and dedication and rehearsal you’ve put into Cassandra is just incredible. I am beyond words trying to think about how to thank you. You took Cassandra through a god damned plethora of emotional experiences, from assault to ecstasy to telling off a room full of bloodthirsty vampires. From submission to dominance, you took Cassandra further than I possibly could have with any other actor. You always half-joke about being the star but really, truly, you are the star. You fucking made this show. The listener could always count on you to set the emotional tone of every scene. I could always count on you to elevate my ridiculous vampire story to a sweeping epic about a trans woman’s big break into power – and her descent back down the mountain. How dare you be this good, Rachel. How fucking dare you.

-Alicia E. Goranson, Writer, Editor, Director, Producer for the Not Ready for Opsec Players

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.