CRYSTALS OPAQUE AND CHOPS OF PORK: ANOMALIES OF UNEXPECTED AND UNACCEPTABLE AGENCY

By Quillon42

"Certainly we shall proceed to the monastery of the Visitor, my brainless servant and I…"

"That's it; fuck this shit."

Almost drolly was the latter statement uttered by he who was apparently the last of a line of strong trackers of creatures of the night, Trevor abruptly lifting himself out of his seat next to his longtime traveling companion and setting off for the door.

At this Sypha could just stutter and look blankly at the soulless anonymous Judge while marshaling the most professional of offers, concerning the quest of purification within this salvation-trammeled town, from her seasoned yet snarky tongue.

An instant after following the malevolent magistrate's gaze out the window toward the retreating form of the other wanderer, Sypha knew what really had to be done here.

"Trevv…

"Trevor!"

She shouted at his retreating back while huffing after him, the object of her pursuit not even turning to voice his concern as he sauntered.

"I've had it with your constant shitting on me, Sypha, even if it's in jest. For me to do this to you would be like…Reverse Chauvinism, or something."

"Trevor," repeated Sypha, as she thought a moment to spark a nearby bramble to get her lover's attention—then relented, realizing that making a burning bush would be too impermissibly Biblical in the eyes of the real god of this world…

"I can't do this alone…

"I mean, I can, given that the real god has given me the elemental abilities of ten deities

combined, but I want you to…"

"And I want you to go the hell away, alright? I'm going back to my beer. Fermentation beats fornication every time."

Sypha stopped and sighed long.

"Look; I am sorry, okay?"

Trevor halted tentatively at her words.

She summoned all the sincerity she could. "I didn't mean to push you away like this."

"You've been a real thorn in my whip, Sypha; you shame the name of Speakers, actually, given that you've been talking an awful lot of crap about me here."

"Hon…"

Gliding along an ice slide here now was Sypha, like some Baroque incarnation of Bobby Drake. She slid to a stop in front of her man.

"I've just…I've gone through a lot in the last several weeks. We both have."

She paused, took in the extensively jaded look from her paranormal paramour.

"Man…I know I can…'Speak' a bit out of turn. For that, again, I apologize. Really."

Trevor measured the maiden long, then exhaled in an even longer and more deliberate sigh.

"If you and I are going to be 'Teh Investigatuhrs' as you so desire…you've got to be a bit nicer to me and all. You know? Otherwise, find some other whipping, morningstarring, last-of-the-chosen-clan to take my place."

Reflecting back at the man were the Siriu and Sinoe of Sypha's eyes, those irises indeed as deeply azure as the Romanian lakes this author just pretentiously Wikipediaed and named.

Again Trevor: "And enough with the Lennon-McCartney shit. I say we just call ourselves Bell and Bell…the aliases would help regarding ominous monks and other common horrors we encounter."

He then took out a blocky-looking flask and doused his legendary flail with the same, igniting the item and brandishing it out into the open air with a couple of swatches.

"Trevvy," as Sypha said sometime during Season Two and as this author had Sypha say at the end of his first Coitalmania story (thus proving definitively that the real god of this world, Ellignoramus, had read the work of this author in 2015 before beginning to pen his Netflixing foolishness in 2017), "why don't we go on back and make the most of the evening at the Linden Inn-Den?"

"I've got some urgent woodworking here to do first," said the diligent Belmont as he snapped his sacrosanct coiling against some etched symbols of sulfur. "Families can't even so much as go and pray Christian grace without being immolated around here; Fuckin' A."

(THENCE MANY SCORES OF MILES AWAY)

"Anvil Man."

A smoothing of the rumpled pantaloons.

"Anvil Man."

A straightening of the tattered vest.

"ANVIL MAN."

A tightening of the telltale bandana.

"ANVIL MAN."

A clutching of the trusty dagger.

"ANVIL MAN."

A caressing of the awesome axe.

All of the above gestures for goodwill and luck, and all of the repeated utterances into a communicative mirror to usher in a forgemaster fraught with the task of this world's actual deity setting so many "fucking rude" ruffians against him, most of whom were of course male and Caucasian.

Once the above summoning was completed, the summoner in question hauled his lanky ass off his comfortable position upon the ceiling of his lair.

He then lighted up a candle or ten to behold indeed the intrepid Isaac, who in turn alighted through the shimmering shifting-glassed portal.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Now the latter man began to lift his signature knife warily in the direction of the one opposite him.

"Easy, friend." By now the aforementioned axe and dagger were secreted well away in the summoning man's sanctum. As such, he addressed Isaac with open, welcoming, and empty hands.

"I can understand your being alarmed, most especially given how the actual god of this land has beset you with almost nothing but adversity coming almost entirely from people who possess my flavor of flesh. It conditions a person in your continual predicament to distrust those who are constantly opposing you and trying to put an end to your life.

"Given the situations you're incessantly put in, you're basically like Candyman 1476 or whatever the hell year this is; hence the reason that I was able to call upon you through my own 'Sir' mirror, just by stating the appellation of your profession fivefold, as the legend does go. But believe me when I tell you, there is nothing here to threaten or endanger you."

"Then why have you brought me here?" Understandably irate was this most magnificent and steadfast of Marty Stus (who could be counted as such a Stu among the ranks with Batman, Wolverine, Timothy Olyphant from the show Justified, and many such white heroes, so everybody effing relax here). His destiny was his own, and he had a critical mission to complete spanning the breadth of Europe as is.

"Buddy, I want to bestow upon you a talisman which you'll find especially indispensable in achieving your ends. It will at the same time bring you a significant measure of peace here on out."

Diligently the small man wound a mechanism to set gears in motion for the imposing tower of a timepiece in which he lived. "But I'm getting ahead of myself; please allow me an introduction.

"Name's Danasty. You can call me Grant."

Isaac blinked with some distant sort of recognition regarding the name.

"I've heard of…Greta…Danesti…"

"No, no, not Pitchfork Peasant!" At this Grant spit on the floor with disgust. "This friggin' god has to take everything away from me…it's like, 'Herp, I'm'a menace you with this giant farm utensil and then do the obligatory 'Wahmen Wallop' on what looks like one of the Warwolves from Marvel Comics's Excalibur…just like the Wahmen Wallop that St. Germain's love, the nameless voiceless walking plot device, so performs just before a slob who is predictably, inevitably white grabs her ass!'"

This was met only by a mystified stare from Isaac.

"Anyways, my man…let me show you what your homey got from Yomi."

He then presented the most shimmery herein of jet-tinted globes.

Grant grinned excitedly. "It's a long lost relic, to accompany its sister spheres which exist in the vicinity as well. It's called…the Black Crystal."

Yea, said Crystal had in fact so existed in the past, and would have continued to exist alongside

Crystals White, Blue, and Red in the time of Simon but for Danasty's gifting of the onyx orb now to Isaac.

(And yes, this author is aware through his gobsmackingly unique talent of Googling that Crystals so Black may exist in other Castlevania carousings such as that in which Innocence was so waywardly Lamented…but as the Creed of the Rifleman proceeds here (and just like the Creeds of the Apostles or Nicenes certainly do not proceed here, upon pain of immediate fucking combustion), there were many like this Black Crystal, but this one was Grant's…and now it would be graciously for Isaac henceforth.)

Said Forgemaster now forayed a look of distrust upon Grant as he simultaneously marveled at the Crystal. Then he recalled seeing something broadcast in his mirror that had made him sneer.

"Hold up…this isn't like some Jim Henson shit or anything, is it?!"

"No, no…that's The Dark Cryst…look, honest to goodness here, despite what the real god of this world wants, I'm actually here to help you. Seriously."

Danasty rolled his eyes to the perpetually-crescent moon above, and then continued. "I know it's beyond human comprehension in this reality, right, but like guys who look like me actually can be of help for you—not just men of your own skin, or women, or like Ancient-Greek-Berry-Binging-Baxter-Fucking-Stockman and shit."

Isaac nodded as he took all this in now. It was something more incomprehensible than human minds could possibly posit…and yet everything here seemed legit.

Then there was one critical detail that needed addressing, another about which he had learned from watching the glass a while back.

"Wait," Isaac interpolated. "You mean Baxter Stockman from the 2003 version of Turtles?"

"Nah, nah, nah…the one from the 1987…I didn't even know about…Christ, do they have to reboot like everything here anymore?!

"Look, anyway, Ise…this Crystal here will give you not only increased power and ability now, but it will calm you, make you see that rage isn't the way here, that revenge is really for children. Something you don't want here.

"You, Isaac, will find that an inner peace will be upon yourself when you do battle with the

diabolically wily and doubtlessly white warlord, such that you will feel sated after that battle and you will even allow others the opportunity to avail themselves of the agency which you yourself cherish.

"Really, you will have peace you state which should be upon the God you worship by faith.

"And hopefully in time we can all say regarding the false god…Pus be upon him now."

Nodding slowly and quite understandingly now was the other man, he accepting this gift from

someone who did not look on the surface like the Ship Captain or the Mirror Merchant. He had to say here, though: "I would thank you not to make light of the statement regarding peace and my God."

Grant measured the other man earnestly. "Isaac. Ise. Iseley Brother; I love you, I do; and when this is all over for you, you and me and Hector are all going to go bowling (and yes with your Crystal along with like two out of the other three between White, Blue, and Red)…and because Ellignoramus's will be done, you're gonna get like an automatic 310, and Hector will score like a 186, and I'll roll like a fifty-fucking-nine, okay…but I'm asking you here, please, let such a pun slide… … …when you're about to go into battle with half a million men, most of whom are undoubtedly palefaces, and all of whom are malevolently possessed, and most saliently, all of whom are wearing Crowns of fucking Thorns."

(AGAIN NATIONS AWAY FROM HENCE)

"I've seen them through the mirror…my creations will have you join up with them."

"But, Hector…"

"Oh, shush."

And with that, the other Forgemaster turned his back most decisively on Lenore.

Flanking the man were several forge-femmes which he'd made in secret ever since he'd had the willpower to cut the involuntary-servitude-enacting ring from his finger (while keeping said digit itself intact here, mind you)…just as Isaac severed that brazen briary Christian circlet which the elderly Caucasian commander tried to force upon him. All the lady creatures he concocted would now usher out the infinitely more monstrous maids who had plagued him of late.

Here, to clarify, Hecks was at least to some degree stronger than the mere manchild he portrayed in the nefarious Netflixverse. More elaborately, as it turned out now, (at least in this rendition anyway), Hector was seeking to effect even more than his canonically intended objectives through planting those small metallic widgets in the walls of the castle in Styria. Those clandestine doodads were additionally secreted by the existence-stunted sucka for the sake of detecting the most potent wall-dwelling implements to employ against undead indeed.

Yea, in the intense ensuing hours, those paranormal pogs would produce the fervently-sought porks that the Forgemaster would find and foist upon the face of the crooked Carmilla, while she lay ever defenseless in a mystic rack made from magical fabric similar to the cell that would hold Lenore.

[CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP]

Right and repeatedly across the kisser did those pieces of pig plunder the contumacious countenance of the morbid maiden, that rage-infected succubic-Emma-Frost who lay much more than frazzled while glaring impudently yet impotently up at the man who was now undoing her.

[CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP]

To be clear, it was not murder which Hector was perpetrating this moment, unlike the act which the witch and his current victim had visited upon the creature who had turned her. Nay, as with the iconic horror fantasy iteration of this author from six years back, the pork chop operated to purify and not to pulverize Carmilla, to heal and not to harm.

All the same, as Hector was assuring the empress of the evening right now,

[CHOP CHOP CHOP]

"You…"

[CHOP CHOP CHOP]

"…Fucking…"

[CHOP CHOP CHOP]

"…Lose."

It also functioned to punctuate the agency that the man never had, he who had been Cursed in this world with such Darkness that was not a lovely and amiable masochistic Konosuba Crusader but rather a near void with naught but vixens who so sought only to use and manipulate and discard him.

But again, and seemingly detonative of the domes of all readers of this clever narrative, here Hector actually enjoyed some agency of the sort of which he himself should have had and which Isaac very heavy-handedly talked about (and which no character should ever really discuss aloud honestly, as it would be akin to a story player saying like "This was a protracted exposition" or "That was a very disappointing denouement").

(And not to mention agency here of which Isaac also unwittingly and likely unintentionally deprived Hector of, because Ellignoramus Forbid should the latter have had any vindication given his demographic identity).

At any rate, once the abovementioned vesper-blessed veal had been served upon the lurid lamia that was Carmilla, Hector's constructed countesses commenced to show the now depowered and rehumanized hussy the door.

"Come back here and you'll receive a similar fate as the one who turned you—only you'll be drawn and quadrillioned."

Thence as the humongous heaving wooden doors closed cataclysmically anew for the time being, Hecky turned his attention upon the ginger ghoul who deceived him so.

"Diplomacy my ass," he said to Lenore as his creations grasped at the insidious Sister upon the arm from either side. "What you wrought upon me was nothing less than subterfuge."

"Hector," started the ostensible lover now with somewhat of a stammer, "we…you and I…we had something so special…"

"No. I was never anything other than your Patty Hearst, or your patsy at worst. You're leaving Styria, and I'm getting out of Stockholm."

Lenore crinkled her brow in confusion.

"Syndrome, that is."

She and the reader of this story then rolled their eyes.

"Anyway, Lenny…as I told you earlier…I saw them through the mirror…I found Striga and Morana riding out in a direction away from this estate. You'll be escorted out of here by my associates to catch up with them."

Hector then adjusted, with a clove of garlic he managed to engineer to become a remote control, the settings on the mirror so that another lady began to emerge through the glass.

Looking on with sadness and apprehension, Lenore: "And what will you do now?"

Opposite the siren her former prisoner and paramour shrugged, as he allowed his mother to grab him by the ear. "She survived the fire from all the way back when—jumped out the back window!"

(Yes, just like in this author's recent Payoff story which a grand total of two people read).

"I owe her big time, so I'm going to make things up to her for a while now.

"Not only that, but you know, I'm a white guy in Netflix Castlevania…I've always got to job* to some lady here!"

(*"Jobbing" is a pro wrestling term referring to the concept of losing to another person in the course of the planned and practiced bout between participants in the match; has also been used loosely to connote just submitting to the power of another in narrative).

Lenore then turned on her heel as her escorts started taking her away.

"Oh, and by the way, Len…"

She spun back around abruptly, just in time to see a few leather cords fall at her feet.

"They need to put those on you, neck and wrists and ankles, in order to keep tabs and such. There's no way we're letting you or Carmilla go out on your own terms, after what you put me through."

All five leashes were then retrieved by the forge-femmes as they turned to Lenore expectantly.

AFTERWORD

I will get this out of the way right away: I am a white male Catholic writing this story. Now, if you've read some of my other stuff on here you can see I'm not the best Catholic in the world (given that roughly half of my stories are like "torrid romances" and all) so when I talk about problems, namely what I see as hypocrisy, in much storytelling these days, believe me when I say that I have my issues as well and I know this. I guess when it comes to the ideal of Christian virtue on one hand and then hypocrisy on the other, it takes one to know one. All this said, and as I have said in "Afterwords" of other stories, I'm just tired of all the double standards in stories, and Netflix Castlevania is incredibly guilty of this on at least the fronts of race, religion, and gender. Certainly it's not just this series that is guilty of it but this one if particularly egregious. Before seeing it, I was not the hugest fan of Warren Ellis (although I did tailor my Miss Caretaker Sou story on here ("Kindred Cruelness") so that it was like Ellis's Marvel Ruins from the 1990s. After this Castlevania I found myself much less of a fan of his.

Honestly it's not just this Castlevania, though: not to be overly soapboxy, but just for one moment here: we see so much in the media from commercials like the Doug/Helicopter Liberty Mutual commercial to the mockumentary Death To 2020, to the 2021 Candyman film and countless pieces of cinema and television shows beyond, wherein people who are white and/or male are made to look like and play the fools or the brute-force walls to be knocked down, and to me it is total hypocrisy. Yes, I know, there have been tropes in past decades wherein women and/or people of color have played smaller roles in relation to white male characters; one that comes to mind here off the bat (to give detractors of my story here even more ammunition) is DC Comics's Camelot 3000, wherein the main heroes are all white, and all the drama happens to them, while Galahad (Asian) and Gawain (Black) literally just arm wrestle and play chess in the background. That's certainly bad and wrong as far as storytelling goes here; what I'm arguing here is that to flip things and have white characters play the fools or walls to be knocked down is just as bad. In a way it's even worse, as those who have been underrepresented should know how it feels and not inflict it on others.

Taking each of the aspects in turn and such: Religion: It's like, don't even get me started on this. I am not trying to Bible thump here or anything in saying that it's wrong to shit on one faith here (images of Crowns of Thorns and Crucifixion used liberally here for effect…fucking burning to death people who dare to pray Grace) and then punch-pull on another faith like Islam by giving it the dignity of "Peace be upon Him" from Isaac. Why didn't Ellis shit on that faith also while he was at it? Oh, that's right: it's only okay to "punch up" and not "punch down" (which I will get to at the end of my argument here). Also, by the way: stating that the Morningstar and Boomerang etc are religious symbols does not begin to make up for the offensiveness of things like the Crown of Thorns and Crucifixion above, so I do not accept that argument.

Then for Race: So many white people and especially white men in this world (other than the main named heroes) only function as figures that oppress, and ultimately they become nothing more than walls to be knocked down. Even fucking Hector resigns himself to be such a wall, albeit passively, when he decides at the end to allow Isaac the chance to just take his revenge without resistance. It's like he knows what his station is in Ellis's world and cannot be anything else. God forbid should there have been someone out in the world to help Isaac who was white and male—and you cannot count Dracula for this because as a night creature he is "othered," meaning he is not among the white people living at large out in the world but rather is marginalized and oppressed like many other peoples. Dracula back before his turning, okay; maybe also Ancient Greek Berry Binging Baxter Stockman (1987 Version) back when he was human. Even like Alucard gets relatively better treatment in the narrative than Trevor or St. Germain because the former is half vampire in addition to being half white. I put Grant in here to actually have a white male character in the world who is presumably not othered (or at least not as othered as Dracula or Alucard) who could actually help Isaac and not be the victim along the lines of 2021 Candyman (in which the deck was stacked in scenes where only white girls in a high school bathroom would be presumptuous enough to dare invoke the title character's name, or only white male police officers would attack the female lead at the end of the film).

Finally for Gender: How many decades have we had the overly gratuitous Wahmen Wallop wherein a female character has to be overly aggressive just to have something to prove, like she's friggin

Tommy from Goodfellas? It's not necessary anymore now that it's been done a trillion times, and there is perpetuation of the double standard of intergender violence where against men there can be wanton slaughter (umm…I don't know here…STRIGA'S DAY ARMOR SCENE MAYBE) (and I also maintain that Striga at least in that scene is as much an overpowered Mary Sue as Sypha here) but again punches are pulled against women for the most part. There are very few exceptions to this in the series; one I found peculiar was Cho, the Asian Warlord, who gets frozen and then shattered by Sypha at the end of Season Two. You're telling me that in one of the bloodiest series of the past few years, Cho is going to get served like, as mentioned above, fucking Bobby Drake Iceman would in a move reminiscent of Spider Man And His Amazing Friends. Okay. I know that the brutalization of women is an issue in society and a horrible abomination generally; it is still punch-pulling and a double standard in this series.

Really my thesis here all comes down in the end to what happened the other month with Dave Chappelle, where he was accused of "punching down" against transgender people with his humor. I actually made an offbeat transgender comment at the beginning of my story "Coitalmania" (the first story); I am pointing that out for transparency here because I do not want to hide anything. To be fair, I pointed out a unfavorable scene against at least someone who appeared to be transgender or cross-dressed in my Payoff story last month, and I do not intend to make any adverse comments as I did in my earlier Castlevania story. But what I'm really getting at here is that for people to call out "punching down" implies that it's totally okay to shit all over identities that are white and male and Christian, which has happened time and again throughout especially the past several years. That is completely hypocritical bullshit and in order for there to be real equality, either everyone should be shit on equally or no one should. I said this before in another story I wrote on here a while back: Until men and non-men, whites and non-whites, Christians and non-Christians all "job" equally, we will never have real equality in any fiction. All deck-stacking, directional punching, and punch-pulling should be abolished if there is imbalance as there has been over time. I understand that to get rid of so much may leave us with so much forbidden to the point where we get into massive Censorship territory if there is little left then; all I am saying is that the imbalance of the way things are now, there is an incredible amount of hypocrisy at work here in stories as they are.