The pre-Columbian mythology was something I'd thought about. In in the story I'm thinking of incorporating this into, Santa Muerte/Mictecacihuatl is one of the "archetype" figures that leads the procession.
In the specific scene, the Manifestación the character would attend takes the form of a parade that begins with a bunch of costumed archetypes of personified Death, and as it continues the post-vital participants join from the watching crowd, sometimes also in costume, but often just dressed as if for a funeral.
But my attempts to word it in to the above "article" were kind of awkward, so I decided I'd fuss with it later.
(Because every so often, while writing, I'll slip into encyclopedia mode...sometimes in the middle of a sex scene, which is hilarious.)
About the Catholic stance on post-vitals makes more sense in context to the way post-vitals work. Since I think Castle is not one of your fandoms (which means I doubly appreciate your appreciation of the AU, btw), here is what you would know from reading the fics: 1. Post-vitals are thinking-talking zombies, but they don't start out that way. They spend several months trapped in a state of violent psychosis where they really aren't very discernible from your average "fast zombie" (i.e. they don't shamble, and they don't rot, but they definitely want to eat your face and won't put much thought toward their own well being while trying to achieve that). And, like most zombies of any sort, they don't have a pulse. 1a. The discovery of the fact that, after those several months, if the initial fever isn't interrupted, the victims of the disease return to sentience didn't occur until more than two years after the initial outbreaks (which occurred in 1961). By accident, because someone just happened to keep their control group of volunteers around that long.
2. During the two years after the outbreaks but before this discovery, the Catholic Church ruled that the soul left the body of an IHN victim when the heart stopped (this was during a period where there was a quick succession of popes, and I forget which one). The main goal of this was to ease the guilt on the parts of the living who had to put down their own family members.
(At the time they didn't know it wasn't going to manage to spread to Europe...)
Therefore, because a papal edict is kind of hard to take back, as far as the church is officially concerned, post-vitals aren't alive, aren't people, don't have souls, and killing them isn't any more of a sin than killing a rabid dog.
(This is also why I use the phrase "disposal of remains", which is what they called it then. Only after post-vitals gained rights was it ever considered euthanasia.)
Now, after that discovery, there was a lot of controversy, but like I said, decrees like that are probably hard to take back.
The Catholic angle is kind of important, because one of the characters principally involved in the fics is Catholic. His (former) fiance was Catholic, and his parents are Catholic, and unlike him they still hold to those ideas.
My exception for him is based on the idea that most vital persons don't see much interaction with post-vitals. As a cop, and one who worked Narcotics (because a high proportion of modern IHN cases actually begin with needles rather than bites), Kevin has had a lot more contact with post-vitals. Enough that he has had cause to question the way he was raised to think about them, and while he never was quite comfortable around them, eventually at least accepted that they were people.
And of course, when his best friend wound up being infected by a perp they were chasing, he wound up having to take an even closer look.
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In the specific scene, the Manifestación the character would attend takes the form of a parade that begins with a bunch of costumed archetypes of personified Death, and as it continues the post-vital participants join from the watching crowd, sometimes also in costume, but often just dressed as if for a funeral.
But my attempts to word it in to the above "article" were kind of awkward, so I decided I'd fuss with it later.
(Because every so often, while writing, I'll slip into encyclopedia mode...sometimes in the middle of a sex scene, which is hilarious.)
About the Catholic stance on post-vitals makes more sense in context to the way post-vitals work. Since I think Castle is not one of your fandoms (which means I doubly appreciate your appreciation of the AU, btw), here is what you would know from reading the fics:
1. Post-vitals are thinking-talking zombies, but they don't start out that way. They spend several months trapped in a state of violent psychosis where they really aren't very discernible from your average "fast zombie" (i.e. they don't shamble, and they don't rot, but they definitely want to eat your face and won't put much thought toward their own well being while trying to achieve that). And, like most zombies of any sort, they don't have a pulse.
1a. The discovery of the fact that, after those several months, if the initial fever isn't interrupted, the victims of the disease return to sentience didn't occur until more than two years after the initial outbreaks (which occurred in 1961). By accident, because someone just happened to keep their control group of volunteers around that long.
2. During the two years after the outbreaks but before this discovery, the Catholic Church ruled that the soul left the body of an IHN victim when the heart stopped (this was during a period where there was a quick succession of popes, and I forget which one). The main goal of this was to ease the guilt on the parts of the living who had to put down their own family members.
(At the time they didn't know it wasn't going to manage to spread to Europe...)
Therefore, because a papal edict is kind of hard to take back, as far as the church is officially concerned, post-vitals aren't alive, aren't people, don't have souls, and killing them isn't any more of a sin than killing a rabid dog.
(This is also why I use the phrase "disposal of remains", which is what they called it then. Only after post-vitals gained rights was it ever considered euthanasia.)
Now, after that discovery, there was a lot of controversy, but like I said, decrees like that are probably hard to take back.
The Catholic angle is kind of important, because one of the characters principally involved in the fics is Catholic. His (former) fiance was Catholic, and his parents are Catholic, and unlike him they still hold to those ideas.
My exception for him is based on the idea that most vital persons don't see much interaction with post-vitals. As a cop, and one who worked Narcotics (because a high proportion of modern IHN cases actually begin with needles rather than bites), Kevin has had a lot more contact with post-vitals. Enough that he has had cause to question the way he was raised to think about them, and while he never was quite comfortable around them, eventually at least accepted that they were people.
And of course, when his best friend wound up being infected by a perp they were chasing, he wound up having to take an even closer look.