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I'll keep all the fic-specific stuff under a spoiler cut for anyone who doesn't read my writing, so you can just skip along to the end if you prefer, but it makes a lot more sense with context.
So today I was supposed to focus on finishing chapter five of my fic "Of Mice and Men" (so my apologies to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adja999 in advance). Instead, my brain decided to blindside me with a plot bunny for what at first glance looked like a Life AU story. As the idea developed, though, I could see it quickly devolving into a tract about neurodiversity, recreational drug use, and social conformity.
Because, apparently, somewhere along the way, Life became a kind of weird mental soapbox for me...
A description of something I may or may no ever write follows:
One idea that has been around in this 'verse since the beginning (and I kind of stole it for my journal title), but which was never really defined was the phrase "socially unacceptable deviance". This has always been distinct in my head from regression, but I've never really found the opportunity to establish that distinction. I've shown a few instances of both in Javier's behavior in the past, though I don't think I ever outright named them as such.
In "Quality of Life" and "Life Goes On", there are the two jarringly obvious examples of regressive behavior—the rat incident and Javier's scuffle with the maddened junkie—but a lot of Javier's difficulties during their first time were an example as well. In "A Proliferation of Hearts", I briefly describe the effects the color red can have on a post-vital's mood, specifically Javier, triggering "a faint, eager feeling", and leaving him feeling "overstimulated and unsettled". The decision not to describe the sensation as a specifically painful or unpleasant was intentional, as it was meant to represent the sort of relatively harmless regressive fluctuations alluded to in the beginning of "Occupational Hazards".
On the other hand, the "deviance" Dr. Waters alludes to in her notes on Javier's release refers to something else. The best examples are all in fics I haven't finished yet, but there have been a few in the stories I've already posted. When Javier indulges his taste for raw meat in "Thanksgiving" and "A Proliferation of Hearts", and when he lets his prey drive express itself through sex in "Sublimation", those are both considered "deviant" behaviors. And, though it doesn't yet apply to Javier, a post-vital choosing not to re-learn how to simulate involuntary breathing in order to seem more "alive" would be considered deviant as well.
Regressive behaviors are bad. They represent a lessened control that can be disruptive to a post-vital's life; distracting at best and outright dangerous at worst. Deviant behaviors, are conscious choices that diverge from the norm of being conventionally alive. Because vitality is a social norm to which post-vitals are still expected to adhere to, conventional life something they are expected to fake, even if their brains have been rewired to act differently.
So, the story.
Though I don't recall why, but I was thinking about post-vitals and the color red and this and a thought came to me about police lights. In my head-canon for the 'verse, while marketing people probably manipulate this feature of post-vital neurophysiology pretty mercilessly, in other areas people are probably more conscientious. They don't use red paint jobs for emergency vehicles anymore, after all the last thing you need during a high-stress emergency situation is the possible complication of having any otherwise stable post-vital involved reduced to a twitchy, unpredictable mess. And they especially don't use red emergency lights with their sirens, favoring white and blue instead.
But for the change to have been made, people would have to be aware of the effect in the first place...
The story would have started with Kevin and Javier going to question someone regarding a case, and catching the man—a post-vital former junkie—making recreational use of a red strobe light. After all, a lot of post-vitals are infected through the use of IV drugs, and intravenous drug use is probably a lot less effective when you don't have a pulse to take the chemicals to the brain. So you have to figure something would fill the void. The light induces a mild regressive state, lowering inhibitions and releasing endorphins to yield a sort of "predatory high". It isn't illegal, and it's no more dangerous than getting drunk—not that flickering lights would be possible to regulate if it was—but it's a deviant practice. It is embracing a mental state that is not normal. Some would say not human.
The man they've come to question more or less acts like he's been caught jerking off, and runs off at the mouth, at one point asking Javier if he's ever tried it. Javier firmly states that he hasn't, and his mood takes a serious nose dive. Talking about it afterward, there would be a big angsty discussion about the simultaneous fear and want Javier often feels regarding his abnormal instincts, and the moral implications of indulging, even in a safe, controlled manner, a drive that could make him kill if it ever got out of hand.
All boiled down: Efforts to enforce conformity and normativity make my skin crawl, and the way that those things are often equated with "morality" piss me off. Some of our social norms (not killing, not stealing) are moral, but a lot of other social norms (standards of beauty) are (mostly) morally neutral, and many norms (historically, slavery) harm others, which in my definition of the word makes them immoral. Morality should be based on respect for ourselves and others rather than an arbitrary and changeable clusterfuck of "rules" that consensus society has put together. One person should only have as much say in who another person is as that second person allows.
I do not want someone, anyone, telling me who or what I should be.
And all that tried channeling itself into a story about zombies getting high off of strobe lights. That is all.
So today I was supposed to focus on finishing chapter five of my fic "Of Mice and Men" (so my apologies to
adja999 in advance). Instead, my brain decided to blindside me with a plot bunny for what at first glance looked like a Life AU story. As the idea developed, though, I could see it quickly devolving into a tract about neurodiversity, recreational drug use, and social conformity.Because, apparently, somewhere along the way, Life became a kind of weird mental soapbox for me...
A description of something I may or may no ever write follows:
One idea that has been around in this 'verse since the beginning (and I kind of stole it for my journal title), but which was never really defined was the phrase "socially unacceptable deviance". This has always been distinct in my head from regression, but I've never really found the opportunity to establish that distinction. I've shown a few instances of both in Javier's behavior in the past, though I don't think I ever outright named them as such.
In "Quality of Life" and "Life Goes On", there are the two jarringly obvious examples of regressive behavior—the rat incident and Javier's scuffle with the maddened junkie—but a lot of Javier's difficulties during their first time were an example as well. In "A Proliferation of Hearts", I briefly describe the effects the color red can have on a post-vital's mood, specifically Javier, triggering "a faint, eager feeling", and leaving him feeling "overstimulated and unsettled". The decision not to describe the sensation as a specifically painful or unpleasant was intentional, as it was meant to represent the sort of relatively harmless regressive fluctuations alluded to in the beginning of "Occupational Hazards".
On the other hand, the "deviance" Dr. Waters alludes to in her notes on Javier's release refers to something else. The best examples are all in fics I haven't finished yet, but there have been a few in the stories I've already posted. When Javier indulges his taste for raw meat in "Thanksgiving" and "A Proliferation of Hearts", and when he lets his prey drive express itself through sex in "Sublimation", those are both considered "deviant" behaviors. And, though it doesn't yet apply to Javier, a post-vital choosing not to re-learn how to simulate involuntary breathing in order to seem more "alive" would be considered deviant as well.
Regressive behaviors are bad. They represent a lessened control that can be disruptive to a post-vital's life; distracting at best and outright dangerous at worst. Deviant behaviors, are conscious choices that diverge from the norm of being conventionally alive. Because vitality is a social norm to which post-vitals are still expected to adhere to, conventional life something they are expected to fake, even if their brains have been rewired to act differently.
So, the story.
Though I don't recall why, but I was thinking about post-vitals and the color red and this and a thought came to me about police lights. In my head-canon for the 'verse, while marketing people probably manipulate this feature of post-vital neurophysiology pretty mercilessly, in other areas people are probably more conscientious. They don't use red paint jobs for emergency vehicles anymore, after all the last thing you need during a high-stress emergency situation is the possible complication of having any otherwise stable post-vital involved reduced to a twitchy, unpredictable mess. And they especially don't use red emergency lights with their sirens, favoring white and blue instead.
But for the change to have been made, people would have to be aware of the effect in the first place...
The story would have started with Kevin and Javier going to question someone regarding a case, and catching the man—a post-vital former junkie—making recreational use of a red strobe light. After all, a lot of post-vitals are infected through the use of IV drugs, and intravenous drug use is probably a lot less effective when you don't have a pulse to take the chemicals to the brain. So you have to figure something would fill the void. The light induces a mild regressive state, lowering inhibitions and releasing endorphins to yield a sort of "predatory high". It isn't illegal, and it's no more dangerous than getting drunk—not that flickering lights would be possible to regulate if it was—but it's a deviant practice. It is embracing a mental state that is not normal. Some would say not human.
The man they've come to question more or less acts like he's been caught jerking off, and runs off at the mouth, at one point asking Javier if he's ever tried it. Javier firmly states that he hasn't, and his mood takes a serious nose dive. Talking about it afterward, there would be a big angsty discussion about the simultaneous fear and want Javier often feels regarding his abnormal instincts, and the moral implications of indulging, even in a safe, controlled manner, a drive that could make him kill if it ever got out of hand.
All boiled down: Efforts to enforce conformity and normativity make my skin crawl, and the way that those things are often equated with "morality" piss me off. Some of our social norms (not killing, not stealing) are moral, but a lot of other social norms (standards of beauty) are (mostly) morally neutral, and many norms (historically, slavery) harm others, which in my definition of the word makes them immoral. Morality should be based on respect for ourselves and others rather than an arbitrary and changeable clusterfuck of "rules" that consensus society has put together. One person should only have as much say in who another person is as that second person allows.
I do not want someone, anyone, telling me who or what I should be.
And all that tried channeling itself into a story about zombies getting high off of strobe lights. That is all.
