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Black Butler: Book Of Vampire - Episode 1

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"'His Butler, At Whitby'. In the sleepy port town of Whitby, the Russian vessel The Demeter reaches port in the fog, but all aboard are dead and a mysterious hound-like creature is prowling through the local countryside, slaughtering man and beast alike. The last thing its victims see are a set of horrible, red eyes..."

So, it may not be official but finally, the Dark Lord from Romania has been brought into the world of Kuroshitsuji. The idea pretty much sold itself, and I knew there would certainly be a degree of expectation when it came to pairing these giants of Gothic media. It had to be atmospheric, foreboding and it had to create a genuine sense of menace and be something that our leads had not faced before. Not that this is a major concern of mine, but ye of the more continuity conscious, I made this series able to fit in whatever continuity you follow: the lack of Snake means this is before 'Book of Circus' in the Manga, but the lack of Pluto means it's before 'Houndsworth' in the original anime, so take it as you please.

Now, talking more about B.O.V itself, I am a big fan of British audio drama company Big Finish, who mostly handle Doctor Who audio plays with the classic series Doctors, as well as other ranges like Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Gray. Visit their site here to look at their not inconsiderable catalogue:
www.bigfinish.com/
I've been following them for several years now, and I have grown to really enjoy the medium of audio for storytelling, encouraging your imagination to conjure up the world and setting while being told a story through terrific performances and sound work. I decided to finally have a go at at least the writing of such a project, as I wanted to expand my repertoire and I had already done traditional screenplays with my past BB projects, 'Trancy's Tale' and 'Blood Winter'. It was a challenge to have to use sound description, as well as dialogue, more extensively in lieu of the action lines a visual script affords me in order to create an environment while also trying to create atmosphere and a compelling plot.

Speaking of which, my intention was not to blindly follow Bram Stoker's original novel, nor to wildly deviate from it and do some kind of drastic re-imagining of the title character and lore. I wanted to find a happy medium: give fans Dracula as he would be in their minds, and yet still give my telling of the story its own spin and flavour. For this first part, I incorporated a lot of the Whitby portions of the book (the Demeter, the dead captain, his log, the mist, some of the characters) while making it more of a standalone mystery, whereas in the book it mostly serves just to get Dracula to England and remind us of his powers. I expanded on the use of the fog, as well as the total killings and making the 'creature' more of a presence in its own right rather than just running off the ship into the night.

And when it came to Dracula himself, I definitely wanted to give a sense of otherworldly menace, almost something akin to a force of nature and less a conventional monster that Sebastian ends up fighting. I emphasized some of his abilities that other versions pull back on, like the transformations, ability to affect the weather and most importantly, mind control. Those blood red eyes are such a powerful image from the book and something I would want to have the listener (or reader, in this case) invoke in their imagination. I wanted to bring out the more manipulative aspects of Dracula's character, and have him be someone who could pass right through Sebastian and get straight to Ciel without having to do anything physical or outwardly magical, making him feel like a more powerful threat than most villains in Kuro.

---- NEXT EPISODE -----
A spate of strange deaths plague London, with people found with puncture wounds on their necks and drained dry. Meanwhile, a mad woman screams of a coming 'rain', and a dashing foreign Count makes his debut in high society...
Next time on 'Book Of Vampire': His Butler and The Count.
'For You See, I am Simply One Hell Of A Butler'
-----------------------------
Episode 2: savagescribe.deviantart.com/ar…

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Minami-Kousaka's avatar
I would love to hear it as an Fan-Made Audio Drama with British Fans voicing such characters.