#everything is relative to you

[dewitty1]

Everything is Relative to You

honeybeet @thehoneybeet

Chapters: 8/8 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Pansy Parkinson, Neville Longbottom, Garrick Ollivander, Original Characters Additional Tags: Time Travel, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Dreams, Soul Magic, Magical Theory, Wandlore, Witch Burning, Veritaserum, Animal Familiar, renaissance era italy, Monet References, Brief Lesbian Drarry, Explicit Sexual Content, Wet Dream, Auror Harry Potter, Wandmaker Harry Potter, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, pansy is a legilimens, Desi Harry Potter, egyptian ollivander, Indigenous Character, Sectumsempra Scars (Harry Potter), Temporary Character Death, Suicide Attempt, Magical Assault, Blood, Arrest, Brief Imprisonment, Drinking, Scars, Animal Death, Childbirth, Implied/Referenced Terminal Illness, Mention of colonialism, Implied/Referenced Canon-Typical Child Abuse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Non-Linear Narrative, H/D Erised 2022

Summary:

Potter was supposed to have lived. Draco is certain of this. That Potter would no longer walk the earth was tantamount to the sun moving west to east across the sky. If only he could have stopped this from happening, if he’d have known… It comes to him as ideas often did: too late.

Or, Harry dreams of his past lives, and Draco is in every one.

(੭•̀ω•́)੭* . * ･ ｡ﾟ☆

Excerpt:

Potter collapses on the sofa, the very one Weasley had sat on earlier—no, later—that day.

“I died.”

“Not yet.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

There is a ledge by the window. Draco shucks off his shoes and sits on it.

“What else?”

“That’s it.”

“You can’t give me any other fucking information?” Potter snaps.

Draco examines his fingernails. He has a hangnail. He hates those; he pulls it until blood wells up in its place. Potter’s gaze is intense, but the fire isn’t all anger, once he looks long enough to pay attention to it. The obvious prick isn’t even looking at Draco’s face, but towards his slightly open thigh, where it meets his crotch.

Draco has to do it. If Potter wants to fuck, Draco won’t stop him, especially if it will delay everything enough to prevent the situation altogether. And if Draco fails, Potter will die, and this will have been his last chance to—to not just have sex, but to be something to him.

“I’m here on borrowed time—literally,” says Draco, pulling the chain out of his shirt and holding the Time-Turner up. He frowns at it and puts it away. “Do you really want to hear the particulars of how you died? The gruesome details?”

Potter looks disconcerted. “I suppose not.”

“Right-o,” says Draco, who’s never said that before in his life. “Now that that’s over with, let’s cut to the fun part, shall we?”

Potter’s eyes flick down again. Draco rolls his. “You’re not going to work. We have all day.”

“The raid…” Potter begins. “It has to be today. There are people in danger.”

“People meaning you. Let’s just say I’m warning you out of the goodness of my heart, and since you definitely will be heeding my advice and not going on the bloody raid—”

“I never said I wouldn’t go.”

“—I’m sure I can think of ways you can thank me for it,” Draco finishes.

They stare at each other.

“Don’t be an idiot, Potter,” Draco says finally. It’s too soft.

“You want me,” Potter says, like a question.

“It’s a trap.”

Potter stands, crowds him against the window. “You want me. You’re saving my life.”

“Whether you live or die is irrelevant to me,” Draco sneers. “I’m just looking for a fuck.”

“So you don’t care about me,” Potter says. His eyes are dark. He looks like he’d drink in Draco’s every word if he could and hate every second of it.

Draco opens his legs. “Not at all.”

“Good.” Potter puts a hand just above his knee, pushes it farther apart, grips his inner thigh. “Wouldn’t want you to care about me when I’m dead—”

Draco kisses him, drags his face towards him so voraciously the back of his head smacks into the windowpane. He doesn’t care; if he thought he could undo Potter’s trousers while holding him exactly where he was, he’d do it. Perhaps he needs another go at the Time-Turner—not enough hands. But Potter is pressing back, one hand rising up to palm Draco’s crotch, the other pressing his shoulder into the cold, damp windowpane, so Draco is free to mess up his hair with shaking hands, drag them down Potter’s back, and pull his hips flush against him. He hooks a leg behind Potter’s, trapping him there.

They’re still kissing, if you can call it that, but it’s hungrier than kissing; messier, too. Potter opens Draco’s shirt but pulls away when his fingers brush scar tissue.

“I don’t care,” Draco says. “I don’t care.”

“I did this,” Potter says, and Draco could almost laugh at the mixture of possessiveness and anguish on his face, but he doesn’t.

“Irrelevant,” he says instead. “Are we fucking like you’re about to die or are we going to faff about?”

Potter laughs, soft and low. “I’m not going to die.” He presses his mouth to the hollow of Draco’s throat. Draco reaches down between them, shoving Potter’s fingers under his waistband.

“If you did, it wouldn’t matter—touch me for Christ’s sake.”

Potter pulls his hand back. “No.” He is infuriating in his smugness. “I thought you didn’t care.”

(｡・‧̫・｡).*＊♡

[thehoneybeet]

🥀 Fic Claim: Everything is Relative to You (E, 43k)

Potter was supposed to have lived. Draco is certain of this. That Potter would no longer walk the earth was tantamount to the sun moving west to east across the sky. If only he could have stopped this from happening, if he’d have known…

It comes to him as ideas often did: too late.

Or, Harry dreams of his past lives, and Draco is in every one.

Tags (check the fic for a full list):

Time travel, Past Lives, Dreams, Magical Theory, Wandlore, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Wandmaker Harry Potter, Legilimens Pansy Parkinson, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Major Character Death, EWE, Angst with a Happy Ending, Nonlinear Narrative, Animal Familiars, Renaissance Era Italy, Witch Burning, Reincarnation

It was such a delight to write this for @amywaterwings as part of H/D Erised 2022. Amy, I have so much admiration for you as a writer, and it was so fun to comb through your fics (and comment replies) for themes you enjoy. Huge thank you to @the-fools-errand for her eyes and the @hd-erised mods for putting on another excellent fest: @gracerene, @firethesound, @dictacontrion, you deserve a million thanks for bringing Erised to life year after year. I also want to thank everyone who's already commented or left kudos, it truly means the world when you do 🌹

As a little something extra, here are two sketches Andrea did, because while Gio may be a phenomenal musician he can't draw for shit.

Full images under the cut because the first one is a little NSFW.

Gio posing as a sculpture, and a self-portrait of Andrea.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

[dykedvonte]

Curly's little blurb on his steam trading card just keeps reminding me he is a much more miserable person than people realize.

We don't get a lot of his thoughts, inner confliction that aren't bogged down by what Jimmy says or does. Even in the The Last One and Then Another, his dialogue is reflective, not the Curly before the crash but the result of everything. Parts of the him he was are there of course, but also disfigured and warped beyond recognition just like he is physically.

Curly really doesn't think much of himself and desires. He clearly chases fleeting moments of happiness. He doesn't really have prospects for himself, assumes in a similar way to Swansea, that if it should make it happy then he is happy. Though, he hasn't reached the point Swansea did to admit it doesn't. He neither sees the glass half full or empty, it's just water, something he needs and he'll take it from any perspective.

He wasn't running from anything but he's never really been going towards something either. He's listless. I've been using the term complacent to describe how he feels about his life and the closest people (really just Jimmy) in it, but now that word feels too neutral, too nice. Happier than Curly really was. There isn't just one word for it, he's unfulfilled, uncertain, uninspired. There are no active problems he faces and that's the issue, why should he be upset?

I believe he really is a person who doesn't know who he is or wants to be. He follows a structure. I don't think he's suicidal, but he clearly doesn't think about what makes him happy. He's numb. I suppose that is a better word than complacent, used to the feeling even if he hates it. It doesn't hurt so why stop it?

[arttsuka]

ford and stan but as a two-headed creature

I was like 'man I don't feel like drawing that, I'll just do a quick photo edit/trace and be done with it'. This took me more than an hour.

I used these images to make that:

[m4gp13]

Why did Rick do this to us?

Seriously, he went, "Yeah I'm gonna establish a history between two important characters on opposing sides of a conflict in which one of them clearly has negative feelings about the other. and then never bring it up again 🤪" BITCH COME BACK HERE!!!

There was so much that could have been going on between these two! I was talking to @nakamurastorrington about this on twt the other day.

Like, Annabeth's fatal flaw is hubris and Ethan's mother is the physical embodiment of the punishment for hubris, they are diametrically opposed! They have their shared history at camp but very different experiences with the system where Annabeth was pretty much immediately claimed and became the head councillor of her own cabin from a very young age, establishing her as a respected veteran at camp. Meanwhile, Ethan was shoved into a corner of someone else's cabin because he wasn't worth his own cabin, and so he just faded into the background. Also, Their relationship with Luke! They both had Luke as a big brother figure. Annabeth saw him as genuine family and Ethan would have looked up to him as his brother while in the Hermes cabin. Then Luke left and Annabeth still held out hope for him and refused to believe he'd ever truly passed the point of no return even while everyone constantly told her she was wrong, and Ethan, despite spending a year working for Kronos and seeing the worst of the results of Luke's actions, still believed he was in there fighting Kronos. Not to mention, THEIR MOTHERS??!?!!?!

There could have been such interesting conflict between them! Annabeth should have gotten to talk to Ethan during the parley. If anyone should have gotten to snap at Ethan about his mother, it should have been her because he would have snapped back so hard!

[pinkd3mon]

Star Allies Guest Star teams

[thehoneybeet]

My goodness @epitomereally I am stunned by this gift. Not only does it feel incredible on an emotional level to hold a copy of this story in my hands, but the way you bound it is just so pleasing to hold and read. I've spent the last couple of days re-reading it (something I don't do very often with my own fics) and delighting in the size (perfect for holding in one hand), the soft and beautifully dyed bookcloth, and the gorgeous typesetting. I love the wispy design for the title and chapter headings; like fire or ink flowing through water. And I am so incredibly touched by the symbolism of the sewing on the spine. You captured the essence of it beautifully.

I am so glad that you liked the story and honored that you bound it with so much love and care. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Binderary 1 of 3: Everything is Relative to You

Everything is Relative to You by @thehoneybeet

Potter was supposed to have lived. Draco is certain of this. That Potter would no longer walk the earth was tantamount to the sun moving west to east across the sky. If only he could have stopped this from happening, if he’d have known…

It comes to him as ideas often did: too late.

Or, Harry dreams of his past lives, and Draco is in every one.

This was my favorite fic I have read thus far from H/D Erised 2022 — it’s an incredible non-linear story that keeps defying your expectations and the PROSE omg. I am so happy to have bound a copy for @thehoneybeet and myself. I bound this as a part of Renegade’s Binderary 2023 (where we challenge ourselves to make as many books as we can in a month). I specifically focused on some of my favorite fics published in 2022 that I hadn’t already bound :)

This fic is romantic and melancholy and shows two lives twining, diverging, and then coming back together over and over again, and I really wanted to show all that in my bind. I designed a long stitch pattern with two colors of thread with the colors pulling away, but always coming together again, and dyed the bookcloth to fit that moody vibe of the whole fic. Some vibes I had listed out that I tried to stick with throughout the whole design: dancing apart & coming together; the watery depths; elemental; string theory; the boatman who takes people ‘beyond’; and lonely but hopeful. 

This was my first time doing a quarter-legal binding. I love the size; it fits so nicely in my hand. I’ll absolutely bind more fics in this size. Thank you so much for writing this, honey, and so happy to make you a copy!

Materials:

Dyes: Dharma Trading Procion dye

Thread: UberArt on Etsy

Body font: Adobe Garamond

Title font: Signature December

Smoke brushes: XResch on DeviantArt

Endpapers: Craft Consortium Ink Drops in Ocean (my beloved)

[ckret2]

Hello! As someone who is very confused on the layout of the mystery shack, I gotta ask: where does bill sleep??? Like I know he sleeps somewhere upstairs, but he doesn’t usually sleep in the attic since the door had been firmly shut prior to the tooth fairy arc. So does he sleep in the hallway?

he sleeps in the attic, he doesn't sleep in the attic bedroom.

the layout of the mystery shack is somewhat inconsistent, but we get this map in season 2 and for fic writing purposes and building in the sims 4 purposes I use this as the "canonical" layout of the Mystery Shack:

Each room identified:

For necessity's sake (i.e. we ran outta room on the first floor), i've decided that several rooms, most notably Stan's (former) master bedroom and the main bathroom, are on some kind of magical invisible impossible second floor that logistically can't exist since the staircase goes directly to the attic, but that we won't worry about anyway.

This is the attic:

Notice most of it is a big open room. It appears to partially be used for storage (such as: when we see all Mabel's puppet supplies sitting around in the main attic in Sock Opera) but is mostly empty.

The kids' room is closed off. Bill sleeps in the main attic, underneath the window seat:

Except at the end of Journal 3 we know they threw out the window shaped like Bill and replaced it with normal glass. So it's more like,

In the bottom right corner of the window seat pic you can see the top step of the staircase going downstairs; the attic window seat is in the open attic space, not in a "room" and not closed behind any doors.

[moonsnqil]

does aftg count as a slow burn if we didn't even know there was a spark until the last book

[transingthoseformers]

I've been thinking about especially doomed megop

Situations where they do honestly still kind of love each other (or it's one sided?) but they just. Can't get back together. It's too late. It's been too late.

[thehoneybeet]

10, 12 and 18. Also love your fics 💕

Thank you so much, lovely anon! This is for the writer asks (I love to be asked things!)

10. How do you decide what to write?

I used to be wary of writing prompts, I think because all the ones I had seen before fanfic seemed derivative and unoriginal to me, or just too broad. But most of my fics have been created as part of an exchange or a prompt. I especially love exchange fests like @hd-erised because tailoring a story to the prompts and likes of a recipient has helped me write stories I don't think I ever would have come up with on my own.

It's a bit like visual art: a few limitations end up being incredibly inspiring and freeing.

As for telling when a prompt or idea feels right: usually when my mind starts daydreaming scenes easily and I get excited to write them.

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

Hmm this is an interesting question! I think my process as a reader has been more the other way around. When I first started reading fic, I read anything. Gradually I've figured out what tropes I really love and tend to stick more to those, and generally avoid things that don't quite light me up.

As a writer, I think I'm growing more adventurous though, but this has more to do with my confidence in my abilities and less on what I like/dislike. I used to think I probably wouldn't write kink. Then I wrote wild with all regret.

As a result of writing for specific people, I've written tropes and storylines I probably wouldn't have picked out on my own. For example, soulmate fics where the characters have little agency aren't really my jam, but everything is relative to you is essentially an exploration of soulmates via reincarnation. But I think it was important for me that in each of their lives, they came together ultimately because they wanted to, and not because they were forced.

18. If you wrote a sequel to EIRTY, what would it involve?

Lately I've been daydreaming about a sequel that would really be more of a companion piece. In keeping with the physics theme, I might call it something like, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction", or just "for every action", and it would be a series of Andrea's (Harry's) letters to Gio (Draco), which Hermione read but Harry never got to read in the original fic. I might include some of Gio's letters too, if any can be scrounged up from the historical record.

I'm not sure if that's something people would be interested in reading, though. I know epistolary fics can be a challenge to get invested in sometimes. Would love to play with putting the letters in non-linear order. 16th century magical renaissance Italy, anyone? Let me know if that's something you would like to see!

[desultory-novice]

Treasured Treats

@jojo-schmo

[dykedvonte]

Honestly I see Jimmy's refusal to put Curly out of his misery less about his weird feelings of envy or his delusions but the fact Curly is all but stated to be a shield to Jimmy from his actions and people seeing the worst in him.

The only characters that Jimmy really interacts with one on one before the crash are Curly and Anya, two individuals he has wildly different relationships with. It's likely that Curly really did most of the talking between them as the pilots and the rest of the crew as staff. They didn't know of Jimmy's more reprehensible behaviors cause they never really had the chance to and Jimmy is subconsciously aware. If they had disliked him more than Anya would have told Swansea earlier or even Daisuke when things got really bad.

It's why he takes the immediate opportunity to blame Curly; He's the shield. He's saved Jimmy's ass more times than he can count and more times than Jimmy would ever admit. Even when he can't really do it anymore, he mentally shields himself from his own faults by putting Curly between them. Letting Curly die puts too much on him because he doesn't know how to function without a safety net.

In the end Curly only lives because Jimmy needs the idea that Curly will inevitably make things better to stay alive, meaning Curly has to live, no matter how much it pains him to do so.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Obsessed with how pathetic you make Jim Guangyao look. The hat. I love it.

Don't let the smile and sweet words fool you, Jim Guangyao has lost everything in the divorce, and continues to lose.

[canisalbus]

translated by GT

Today I learned that the Pope has the right to appoint secret cardinals, and even the cardinals themselves may not realize that they now have a new position. Popes have the right to make the name public at any time, but if the Pope dies before the Cardinal's name is made public, the individual ceases to be a Cardinal.

Yes, Catholicism is weird.

But more importantly, there is only one person in the world who can prove that I am not a cardinal.

.