black_sluggard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
black_sluggard) wrote2012-09-17 10:00 pm
black_sluggard) wrote2012-09-17 10:00 pm
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Wtf: "Manifestaciónes de la Muerte" (a Life 'verse sneak peek)
There is no fic here, just world-building.
I've had this in my head for quite some time now (basically, ever since "Quality of Life" was posted), but I've never really taken the time to write it out. I will say that this will probably wind up as infodump in another Slice of Life vignette at some point, possibly around Halloween, in the context of Javier either attending or observing one of these events:
The Manifestaciónes de la Muerte had their origins in the late '60s, after the information about the prospects for post-vital recovery was first released to the public.
The Mexican government had been resistant to the findings. IHN had hit Mexico City especially hard, its dense population and lack of resources contributing to near-epidemic numbers of cases, and the costs of proper treatment were prohibitive. For those unable to afford it, disposal of remains (euthanasia) remained mandatory. This lead to an underground culture of hiding infected loved ones and nursing them in secret—a practice that, at the time, was so full of unknowns that it often ended in tragedy. Even when it was successful, it was incredibly risky, as post-vitals and those who hid them faced prosecution under the law—which, for the post-vitals involved, almost always ended with execution.
Around the early '70s, when the U.S. officially acknowledged post-vitals as being legally alive, the numbers of post-vital immigrants from Central and South America increased as post-vitals sought to escape death or imprisonment. In large cites near the border, such as Los Angeles and Austin, the imagery of Dia de los Muertos was quickly appropriated as a symbol of defiance, both of post-vitals' legal persecution and their rejection by the Catholic Church. Manifestaciónes spread from Mexican-born post-vital refugees to Mexican-American post-vitals, and later to post-vitals in those regions as a whole, persisting even after Mexico followed with their own statutes in 1983.
Nowadays, they remain a fixture of post-vital identity in much of the U.S., particularly in cities like Chicago and New York where post-vital populations were high. Though they are still typically staged on November 2nd—All Soul's Day—the Manifestaciónes have grown past their origins, as other motifs have been drawn into it as well, such as the costuming of Halloween, the Danse Macabre, and the pagan traditions of Samhain and the Wild Hunt among others.
The purpose was dual-edged, both serving to make visible a minority so frequently forgotten or ignored on the margins, and to remind post-vitals that, once, they had not been counted among the living.
Some might note me being a linguistics geek again. (According to Wiktionary) in Spanish the word "manifestación" refers to a demonstration, such as a political march, but of course in English the word "manifestation" is often used when referring to the activities of ghosts.
A note: I'm slightly worried this may come off as somewhat racist. It's not meant to. The U.S. was pretty goddamned horrible to post-vitals in the '60s and '70s as well (one of these days, I will write Reggie's backstory, and show just how much). I think the deciding factor is simply resources. Even if the U.S. ruled that post-vitals were "living", and that mandating euthanasia was inhumane, the sorts of treatment the average post-vital could expect during onset and after would have been absolutely horrific compared to what Javier experienced so many decades later.
I also don't go into how post-vitals are treated outside of the Americas, because post-vitals don't have much presence outside the Americas. For a variety of factors (mostly, because the contagion doesn't seem to have managed to find a zoonotic reservoir outside of those areas) IHN hasn't managed to spread significantly across oceans. While post-vitals overseas may expect and actually experience relatively humane, if distant and suspicious treatment in many places, their actual protection under the laws of individual countries may be shaky, because the legal definitions haven't been tested there the way they have in North and South America. In fact, one OC I've had in mind is a bitter European-born post-vital activist who is no longer considered a citizen of his country due to some quirk of the law.
Moving on, three things that came to mind while I wrote this:
One, I believe I've found the origins of a concept I've had in my head for a while now: that of "Funerary culture". That is, I briefly considered writing an NCIS fic within this 'verse, and thus had to ask myself what Life-verse Abby would be like. By extension, what would Goth culture be like in a world where the undead were a marginalized minority? While a Goth friend of mine has pointed out that, at the time of the IHN outbreaks in the Americas, Goth culture was already forming in the U.K. However, I feel that there would still be a great deal of difference in how the culture expressed itself within the United States. "Funerary culture" occurred to me as a possible likely term, as the symbols associated with death began to take on new meaning. It now seems reasonable to me that the Manifestaciónes would probably lend a strong aesthetic influence to Funerary culture, as numerous motifs of personified mortality came to be woven together under the flag of post-vital identity.
Two, I may also have found the roots of another concept I've been toying with: the ILG. Originally, the ILG were going to be a gang comprised primarily rising out of drug culture, and the numbers of post-vitals exposed to IHN by the needle. The name stands for "Ira, Luxuria, Gula", the Latin words for the deadly sins of wrath, lust, and gluttony (the sins for which post-vitals are most stigmatized). Looking at the history I've set up here, I think it makes a lot of sense that the ILG probably started in Mexico or southern regions of the U.S. along the Mexican border. And, in fact the Spanish, "Ira, Lujuria, Gula", is nearly identical. By adding the immigration of post-vital refugees with the Gula's original ties to the drug trade, they get to occupy a muddier position in post-vital culture as a whole. And though the origins of the gang may have been regional, the "tribal" factor of post-vital identity would have long eclipsed that. Also, since I've had in mind that the Gulas frequently (illegally) "home nurse" their members through onset, having their origins in the early underground practices just makes sense.
This is actually the only part of this post that ties back in any way to the established Life 'verse whatsoever. I have numerous interludes planned that would reference the Gulas, and plans to tie several events (such as Javier's exposure, and Castle's) to the ILG.
Third and finally, it occurs to me that Neo-Paganism might have a stronger presence in the Life 'verse. I don't imagine this would be a large enough difference for it to ever matter, but given the Catholic Church's (briefly mentioned) rulings on post-vitals prior to the awareness of recovery, and afterward when those rulings failed to budge I imagine there was probably a great deal of backlash. Though it wasn't my original thought, as I wrote the paragraphs on the Manifestaciónes, it occurred to me they could almost be seen as an intentional perversion of the Catholic holiday around which they grew up. People just don't like being told that they are soulless shells deserving only the mercy of real death.
So, anyway, this is what i did with the past...oh, four hours or so? *sigh*
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(I have a thought about one tiny piece of it. Just a little thought about something to consider. But I'm not sure if you'd be interested? Because I know how world building is, and I don't want to be that person who's all, "well obviously, it'd be X")
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Ooh, and this is really really a minor point, because it doesn't really matter at all, but it might be interesting. Even with zombies, the catholic church would be unlikely to support a euthanasia program. Which is not to say they would be taking an enlightened view, just that they're so strongly anti-euthanasia (and anti-death penalty, and anti-abortion) even in the most extreme cases imaginable, that that their form of disapproval probably would not extend to killing zombies- especially of the walking talking variety. If only because all of those other positions are based on pretty fundamental theological grounds, and taking a different tact would mean unraveling and refuting a great deal of their theological/philosophical underpinnings. Like if protestant churches decided the whole reformation thing was a mistake. Okay, maybe not that big, but that kind of change. Leper's colonies, though, would be a whole 'nother story and maybe not asking any questions about what the government does there, and strongly disapproving of "choosing" unlife, maybe to the point of excommunication...yeah. As I said, it's the kind of detail that doesn't really change the shape of things, so it's not a big deal, but it might be the kind of detail that can be mined?
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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.
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I really love the depth you've put into this. I admit, Castle is totally not one of my fandoms (though I have seen a few episodes) but with this kind of world building, it doesn't need to be to be utterly rich and fascinating.
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The first fic can almost be seen as a weird examination of my experiences surrounding my father's stroke (only, you know, with added gay love story...), and at some point the 'verse as a whole sort of became a metaphor for the stigmas and dehumanization surrounding mental illness (which is a significant personal fear of mine).
There's also a lot of civil rights history in there, and the types of fear surrounding HIV in the '80s, and my experiences of family members encountering stigmatization and difficulties after being released from prison.
So...really, it's almost literally brainvomit.
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