someone write a crappy YA novel and call it A Winter of Operas and Priests

I had a strangely thematically consistent time with this year's Candy Hearts exchange! I received a fic for Conclave and a fic where some dudes in the eighteenth century go to the opera, and I wrote a fic for Conclave and one where some dudes in the eighteenth century go to the opera. The opera-going dudes are all also pretty Catholic. I don't recall having written or received any fics about priests or operas before, or really any stories about Catholicism; things just assembled in a cluster this time around.

So, I received a lovely heartfelt post-canon Conclave gen fic:

The doorway into thanks (878 words) by maharetr
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Conclave (2024)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Vincent Benítez & Thomas Lawrence (Conclave)
Additional Tags: Prayer, Shame, Grief/Mourning, so many feelings
Summary: Benitez did not immediately take his rapt gaze from the turtles. “Are they escaping because they’re bored? Or because they don’t feel safe, maybe?”

And, to my delight, a fill for my wildcard Les Misérables request, which took the crackship just seriously enough to relish in it--I found myself picturing young Gillenormand here as rather resembling the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair:

Two Gentlemen of the Paris Opera (1168 words) by strikethesun
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Luc-Esprit Gillenormand/Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel (Les Mis - Hugo)
Characters: Luc-Esprit Gillenormand, Bishop Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel
Additional Tags: missing chapter, Post-Opera Flirting, Strongly Implied Offscreen Slash, First Meetings, invented backstory
Summary: Over the course of, according to M. Gillenormand, a rather tedious opera—he has not recorded the name, but his scant description leads one to believe it was a work of Rameau’s—the young, dashing bourgeois appears to have become utterly engrossed in the appearance of a gentleman he did not recognize who was seated nearby.
A hitherto lost chapter of Les Misérables in which M. Gillenormand and M. Myriel have a memorable meeting.

So those were a delight. Of course I spent the month-and-change before Valentine's Day thinking only in a vague, anticipatory way about what I would receive, while focusing my bits and bobs of spare time and attention on what I was going to write.

( Many words about my assignment )

The end product was this:

Cattivo (2746 words) by Eccentric_Hat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Amadeus - Shaffer
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/Antonio Salieri
Characters: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri, Constanze Weber Mozart
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Daemons
Summary: Salieri took righteous offense at Mozart, at his unjust measure of genius, at what it meant for himself. Salieri's daemon had a slightly different response.

After that was up and beta'd, I tried to write some treats, and I ended up writing one. I have much, much less to say about this story than the last one, though I am fond of it. I wanted to write something for Conclave, having a sense that this is the moment to do so, and the only person besides me who had requested that fandom was requesting / ships. So I once again had to find a way to write something shippy enough it would meet the brief, although I wasn't really interested in sex-at-the-Vatican. I settled on giving two of the main characters a past relationship. This is the easy answer for me, a person who loves writing about people's relationship to the past; once it was posted, the fandom found it and said "ow." I'm sorry, but not very sorry.

You can, or at least I can, see some of my real-world feelings toward the Catholic Church peeking through in this fic, especially the beginning (I only wish the archdiocese of Minneapolis and Saint Paul had gotten someone like Aldo Bellini installed when Nienstedt stepped down), though nobody seems to have particularly noticed. Mostly it's about two old friends having poignant coffee. I wrote most of this the day the collection opened, and was happy that I found a simple enough central metaphor that I didn't have to spend long seeking a title or summary:

Fulcrum (1151 words) by Eccentric_Hat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Conclave (2024)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Aldo Bellini/Thomas Lawrence (Conclave)
Characters: Aldo Bellini (Conclave), Thomas Lawrence (Conclave)
Additional Tags: Past Relationship(s)
Summary:

Give me a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth.

Overall, an exceedingly good Candy Hearts. I didn't really have time for any of this, but it was a major bright spot in a strange winter.