drabble for archangelbeth - wanting a hell of an extension

[incandescens]

Title: Letter: wanting a hell of an extension
Requester: archangelbeth
Series: Black Butler / In Nomine
Requested Characters: A certain Black Butler, and the IN Demon Prince of your choosing! (Reverse if struck by inspiration.)
Due to http://incandescens.livejournal.com/977311.html

Seb, Seb, Sebby! Dude!

I’ve been checking up on your record over here, and what I see totally rocks! I’m seeing big-time, I’m seeing stardom, I’m seeing stars! You have the style, and you know how to use it. Dude, you are going to be making bigtime viewing figures once I get this set up. Hey, perhaps we can even get the Lil-Babe to name a whole new Distinction after you. That would be seriously cool.

I don’t suppose you could, you know, make it a bit more gory sometimes? Gore sells. It’d put your viewing numbers through the roof – not that they aren’t there already! We’ve even got penetration in the Serious Old Fart market. Kronos said just the other day that you were doing a hell of a job.

But got to go, I’ve got a series to headline – I’ve got my people waiting to tell me the second you’re free from your current contract. You’re going to be a star, baby. Count on it.

Nybbas
Demon Prince of the Media

Comments

[archangelbeth]

*giggles a lot*
I can just see poor "Sebby" going -_- and burning the thing before anyone can find it.

Thank you!

[incandescens]

Thank you!

(In retrospect, and in view of the most recent manga chapters, had I read them before writing this, it would probably have been a note from Saminga complaining about Sebastian killing zombies... why, yes, there are zombies in the most recent manga chapters. Lurching chomping zombies. :))

[archangelbeth]

*giggles muchly* Ah, well. Doing Saminga might've been a bit like doing txtspeek...

[incandescens]

SAMINGA : Se-bas-tian. What are you doing to my zombies? My pretty, pretty zombies?

http://www.mangareader.net/kuroshitsuji/54/19

[archangelbeth]

I do believe he's kicking them... Perhaps he and Sanji have similar issues about getting their hands dirty!

[incandescens]

Well, he may start off that way, but by the end of the sequence he's having to apologise to Ciel for getting blood on his white gloves...

(And that's one location Mira Grant hasn't put her zombies in yet for her series. On board a luxury liner...)

[archangelbeth]

Awwww, poor Sebastian, getting his white gloves all messy.

(I suspect luxury liners don't exist anymore, in the Feedverse! I mean, would you want to be trapped on a floating thing when someone has a heart-attack and starts biting the staff?)

[incandescens]

Good god, no. Long-distance rail travel must suffer from a similar problem, not to mention the difficulty of keeping the tracks clear.

(There is a Black Butler anime out, but I've been reluctant to get it because the storyline wanders from the manga, and the manga is just so good. I have a nasty feeling I'd devolve into "but that bit's wrong" territory, which never helps.)

[archangelbeth]

Long-distance rail might do better, actually -- they can do it with the small-group compartments, so you're with your group, and probably you're stuck with seatbelts and Must Remain Seated At All Times rules until a train attendant comes to escort you to the loo. All train cars could be locked between each other, so any outbreaks would ideally be confined to a compartment, or at most a car. Food served by attendants, with a half-panel that would require crouching down (and the food cart would be in the way); other half-panel would be glass-with-interlaced-bars, so the attendants could give a visual inspection of the compartment before breaching the seal at all.

So it could be pretty feasible indeed. And that's without the ever-present finger-poking!

Keeping the tracks clear, though, that could be an issue. Though cow-catchers are cow-catchers...

(Yeah, I know what you mean. I'll probably go look at it sometime, but I'll be all squinty, like as not.)

[incandescens]

Right. Now you describe it that way, I can see that working. And probably there are at least two active drivers all the time, with the system under dual-control, so that if one goes down or has a heart attack, the other can instantly take control.

Maybe there are constant checks (by air or road) of the track in advance of each station, to make sure there aren't any unexpected zombie mobs beyond the capacity of cow-catchers. :)

[archangelbeth]

They might also build fences, like in some of the highway scenes -- though it might depend on the situation.

I figure if Alaska trains had moose-catchers, they can probably handle zombies if they're not moving too too quickly...

Air-checks on highways and railroads, for zombies, seems very probable. "This is the Highway Traffic Check, reporting a crash and possible outbreak on South 20..."

[incandescens]

I can see fences, yes...

And another reason they'd need trains - moving goods around the country. Lorries can handle some of it, but lorries have their own problems with cross-country travel.

[archangelbeth]

Oh, good point. Freight trains are probably pretty important -- maybe less-so in the US, since I think Deadline mentions slightly nutty long-haul truck drivers, but in places that had better railway lines anyway... It'd probably be easier to fence the rail lines than to abandon them and try to function in US "we luv R cars" fashion.