dear yuletide giftwrapper!

[alexseanchai]

Hi there! My AO3 name is AlexSeanchai, and let me reassure you at the jump that optional details are optional.

I should also advise you up front that I am a Hellenic polytheist, ancestor worshipper, and animist, and I am really hoping to see, anywhere it might come up, respect for my religious beliefs. (I'm only skewing my requests a little in favor of stories about my religious beliefs, this year.) This hope is an optional detail, but I want to highlight the DNW of "Disrespect to my religious beliefs".

I am explicitly welcoming crossovers between my requests.

I am totally here for the Wrapping Paper art treat challenge, Misses Clause, Chromatic Yuletide, Femslash Festivus, and Yuleporn. Also here for poetry (if you are nuts like me [for srs I'm nuts] and/or writing a treat) and interactive fiction.

Likes: FEMSLASH. GEN. Ladies being awesome. People of color being awesome. Queer people being awesome. Trans and genderqueer people being awesome. People of minority religions (especially polytheists, ancestor worshippers, and animists) being awesome. Disabled people being awesome. Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people being awesome. Mentally ill people being awesome. Competence kink. Nonperfect people having nonperfect relationships (whether familial, platonic, romantic, or sexual) but all parties are good people trying to make the relationship work as best they know how. Ordinary people caught in extraordinary events. Worldbuilding!

Likes if you're leaning porny: vanilla is a lovely thing but also there's bondage, body modification, endurance, nipple play (okay, really breast play, but kink_wiki doesn't have a tag for that), sensation play, temperature play, impact play with the emphasis on play, toys toys toys, soft sensuous things, and writing.

Dislikes: Underage. Non-con. Anything that sets off my embarrassment squick—avoid public humiliation, for instance. Anything sexy involving eating or excreting (though if you want to write food porn in the sense of conveying what a tasty meal the characters are having, go to town). Disrespectful treatment of polytheism, ancestor worship, and/or animism. Disrespectful treatment of [insert marginalized group here]. Magically healed disability. "Idiot ball" (which trope needs a less ableist name). Cross-generational sexual and/or romantic relationships, though if an involved character does not, in my head, have an age, then it won't bother me as long as all the involved characters are clearly adult. (Deities don't have ages. Just flat out don't. Or rather, since they can appear as any age they like... Does that make sense?)


Mary Mary - SJ Tucker (Song)
Mary (Mary Mary - SJ Tucker)
Narrator (Mary Mary - SJ Tucker)
Jesus (Mary Mary - SJ Tucker)
stream with lyrics on Bandcamp

fire is only fire; gods have many names
they'll stone you like a liar if you dare dance in the flames

Mary mother of Jesus had a hard life to live. Tell me about that. Tell me about her relationships with her son and with the women (including the song's narrator) who supported her.

Alternately: "slivers of the goddess that they never let us see" is the line that most strikes me in this song. In a polytheistic world, where apotheosis is not unheard of (and may well be how Mary's mortal son got to be a god in the first place), who was Mary, and who did she become?

(Extra bonus points if you cross this over with Arcade Fire's "Abraham's Daughter".)


Mother of the Crows - Seanan McGuire (Song)
Mother of the Crows (Mother of the Crows - Seanan McGuire)
Petitioner (Mother of the Crows - Seanan McGuire)
lyrics on artist site
buy album on CDBaby

Give me leave to light the way,
Bird-wise mother of the crows

This is such a perfectly, and perfectly beautiful, polytheistic hymn, even though I know nothing of McGuire's religious beliefs and, to the best of my knowledge, the Mother of the Crows is McGuire's invention. How does that polytheism play out in the singer's life? What festivals does she celebrate for the Mother of the Crows? What does she do at [ir]regular intervals to honor Her, to make offerings to Her, to ask Her blessings? Who else does she worship, and what stories exist about the Mother of the Crows and the others of Her pantheon?


Peace & Love Inc. - Information Society (Song)
Peace & Love Inc. Customer
Peace & Love Inc. Spokesperson
stream song on YouTube
watch music video on YouTube (I did not nominate the video because I did not realize it existed till going to find the song on YouTube for this letter, but here it is in case you want, like, aesthetic inspiration or something)
lyrics on LyricWiki

If you got to have faith in something
Have faith in us, it can be so easy
Peace and Love, Incorporated

I hope you like intersectionally feminist anti-capitalist environmentalist cyberpunk, because I want intersectionally feminist anti-capitalist environmentalist cyberpunk. Bonus points for a thoughtful exploration of religious and/or queer themes with respect to intersectionally feminist anti-capitalist cyberpunk; double bonus points if the religion is not Christianity and the queer is not m/m.