spending some more time chewing on the concept of byleth and edelgard constantly writing each other letters—both while one of them is off traveling and also when they're both at home and seeing each other every day. there's one on the emperor's desk in her study; one in byleth's storage locker in the barracks; one left on a pillow or slipped into a pocket or tucked into a book the other is reading.
the emperor is interrupted during a big meeting by a page delivering a "most crucial missive from the commander." she unseals it in front of everyone and it's a crude drawing of a smiley face that says "hello i love you"
edelgard would write these excessively verbose things, very heavy on the poetry and flowery language. there are a couple paragraphs of updates and then page after page after page of "i love you"s and "i miss you"s communicated in ten thousand different and increasingly grandiloquent ways. byleth has learned to bring a dictionary along on her trips so she can decode all the sesquipedalian nightmare terms edelgard uses to tell her she's pretty. most letters start and end with an implied threat that if anyone other than byleth reads it or finds out how soft the emperor is, there will be hell to pay, but it doesn't stop her from proceeding to go ham on the romantic sappiness.
meanwhile byleth's letters are. pretty straight and to the point. she's keeping her posted about the weather, about this dog that she met, about a cool tree she saw, and transcribing direct quotes and best wishes from their friends. but she also includes little mementos she picked up or shiny things she found (she's like a crow with pretty rocks, shells, and baubles), and presses flowers that she thinks edelgard will like, and attempts to sketch things she wishes edelgard got to see with her. it's painfully obvious that byleth will never have an artistic career, but edelgard adores every single drawing all the same.
(hubert made a suggestion to have the emperor and her adviser use different seals or envelopes for their personal and official correspondence. this was accepted as reasonable. several months later, edelgard found out he made the suggestion after the third instance in which he'd been doing his secretarial duties and responding to the emperor's mail, only to find the message from the emperor's adviser did not, in fact, contain the woman's latest report on the situation in fhirdiad or fodlan's locket, but a rather lurid list of her intentions for the emperor upon returning home to enbarr. one contained a diagram. hubert did not examine it.)
edelgard, who hoards every paper she's ever had reason to touch and who has a (frankly, pathological) filing system for everything in her life, has a special container for byleth's letters that is under lock and key. byleth, who lived out of a rucksack for most of her life and constantly had to consider carry weight when vetting her few belongings, doesn't really know how to... have... things. she struggled with toting around all this paper for a while, but couldn't bear to toss out even the simplest "meet me at 4pm for the council meeting" message. she had to make peace with the concept of using a drawer for something like long-term storage and frequently checks to make sure they're all still there.
both of them keep their favorite ones in the back of their respective journals and act like they're not so extremely, terminally soft on each other.
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here are some edeleth stories i thought a lot about but did not write. if anybody wants to actually write one of these, be my guest (and also pleeeeease send me a link, i'm desperate for content about Them Girls™)
byleth takes edelgard on a fishing trip and she has an absolutely abysmal time
edelgard makes a valiant attempt to corral byleth's atrocious fashion sense ahead of a formal event
byleth teaches edelgard swear words
edelgard tries some of those weird herbs rhea used to give students to relax; byleth is more than happy to babysit
byleth does edelgard's taxes. she's wearing her goofy professor glasses. it does something weird for edelgard
edelgard takes byleth on a date to the opera and byleth cries the whole time
byleth reads a work of fiction for the first time ever. it's a horror story. she did not like it. edelgard reads her something nicer.
edelgard gets byleth to pose for a portrait and shows it to her
byleth has to give a speech at a big event and is a nervous wreck. edelgard has been waiting all her life for this coaching opportunity
edelgard tries to teach byleth how to draw (she is very bad at it)
byleth cannot for the life of her figure out which fork is used for what purpose at this fancy dinner. edelgard covers for her
edelgard goes all out to celebrate byleth's birthday on the day byleth thought was (read: randomly chose as) her birthday, not her actual birthday; byleth doesn't have the heart to tell her
byleth brings edelgard various souvenirs from her travels around the country. edelgard tries not to be so soft over it, even though they're… not all hits
edelgard attempts to make dinner and botches it beyond salvation. they get takeout.
byleth will not shut up about this cute house she saw when she was out on a mission and how nice it would be for them to "have something like it one day." edelgard arranges to buy the place
edelgard sees byleth in a dress uniform and cannot stop swooning
byleth is being relentlessly pursued by a suitor who won't take a hint and edelgard challenges the idiot to a duel
edelgard decides she will learn to swim. it goes poorly, to say the least, but she manages in the end. as it turns out, getting to see byleth in a swimsuit is a good motivator
byleth gets caught kissing edelgard by hubert. the resulting conversation is unpleasant for everyone. ferdinand, meanwhile, is overjoyed
edelgard is having a terrible, horrible, no-good very bad day. she chews byleth out over nothing and immediately feels awful about it. byleth forces her to take the rest of the day off to chill
byleth is going away for a month-long mission. both girls are inconsolable. they write each other letters literally every day.
edelgard really puts somebody on blast in a council meeting. byleth gets stars in her eyes
byleth concocts a very, very elaborate story about some kind of summit in faerghus; she and edelgard leave enbarr for two weeks to attend. surprise: there's no summit, it's a spa retreat
edelgard arranges a "normal date" where they go out in town in disguise and do very boring things like run errands, look at furniture, buy socks, etc.
at some point i will figure out how to write the post-canon, post-empire edelgard autonomy fic of my dreams. it just feels like a very big task and maybe like with playing the dane, i’m simply not old and traumatized enough to manage it yet.
but my vision is thus: it’s set years (realistically, decades) after the end of crimson flower, when everything has gone as right as it can possibly go. fódlan is thriving. the social reforms have taken effect. the nobility system is nearly eliminated, if not entirely so, with titles made merely symbolic. social mobility, welfare, and prosperity are high. there’s an explosion in arts and culture and technology. brigid and duscur have gained independence; relations with sreng and almyra are much improved; heck, maybe they've even figured it out with dagda. in my most idealistic version, leicester and faerghus would eventually be ceded back to become autonomous regions, essentially disbanding the adrestian empire. rule is no longer hereditary, but merit-based. there's a roadmap for the future, and everything is on track—and more than that, people at all points on the power spectrum have already seen it bear fruit. with or without edelgard, it will be pursued. there's buy-in. they believe.
of course, it's not perfect—nothing can be—but edelgard's vision has been fulfilled. the people are empowered. humanity is free. fódlan has healed.
and somehow, she's had enough time to resolve her goals outside of politics, too. those who slither in the dark have been eradicated. edelgard and lysithea's second crests have been successfully removed, allowing them to live if not full lives, then substantially longer ones than they would have with their twin crests intact. who knows—maybe she finally gets around to having that wedding.
point for point, every item listed in edelgard's manifesto has been checked off. the ghosts of her past have been laid to rest. she can finally take off her crown. she can finally pursue the quiet, humble life she's wanted for so long. she can finally breathe.
... but can she?
edelgard is nothing if not driven. her intelligence, vision, and sheer willpower allowed her to plan and execute a revolution against two countries and the most powerful institution on the continent, all while she was still a teenager. as royalty, her life was never truly hers even before she became heir to the adrestian throne, with all the additional baggage of survivor's guilt and the desire for vengeance and her need to ensure nothing that happened to her can ever happen to anyone else, ever again.
so what happens when that drive has no outlet? what happens when someone who has been constantly in motion, constantly working and planning and preparing every spare second of every day since she was fourteen years old, suddenly has to stand still? what happens when someone whose hands have been bound for so long—first literally in the dungeons of enbarr, then by the weight and responsibilities of her crown—is set free?
being edelgard, she would step away from the throne, no matter how hard it was for her to give up control. she's always been focused on the endgame, and she knows that if she doesn't let go, she'll be setting the wrong tone for fódlan's future. she's too devoted to that endgame to cling to power much longer than she needs to, though i could see her making some excuses and trying to iron out just a few more things to buy herself some more time to mentally prepare before she's done for good.
but who would she be then? who is the woman without the crown? what becomes of a machine once it is no longer needed, when it has made itself obsolete? what about when that machine is a person with legs and arms and an innate unwillingness to gather dust on a shelf?
what happens when you get everything you want? what happens when all your wanting has been for others to thrive, and now you have to want only for yourself? how do you discover who you are when you've spent decades being everything for everyone else? how do you find meaning again? how do you find purpose?
after a lifetime of devotion and passion and movement, how do you learn to sit with yourself, and be quiet, and be still?
gosh, i would love to meet her. i would love to pick her brain. but boy, i do not envy the work that girl has to do.
can someone please write this doropetra fashion designer/journalist modern au for me. i spent too long thinking about the devil wears prada today and now i have all the beats mapped out for this story i Do Not have enough time in the world to write.
please help. please. i'll give you everything. all of it. it's all right here. take it. mention me if you swap the names to sell the movie or streaming rights. i just want it to exist.
pitch: dorothea is a hot-nasty fashion mogul and petra is a journalist-turned-reluctant model who captures dorothea's attention (and her heart).
btw this is a Really long post so look out. also i know nothing about the fashion industry and Will Not Learn so don't tell me anything.
setting: various major cities in the USA. NYC, LA, Enbarr (you know, Enbarr, that major city somewhere between florida and texas. we've all been there).
cast
most everybody is in their mid-to-late 20s at the start.
petra: the last journalist with integrity in a world that's actively trying to eliminate journalism as a field. worked her ass off writing listicles and bullshit SEO articles for years until she caught a break and got in with a "Real Publication." she now works her ass off there. unfortunately there's rumors of her team getting laid off due to AI crap so she's stressed af trying to line up her next gig, just in case.
dorothea: hotshot young fashion mogul with a cult of personality around her. was a complete unknown barely out of college when she designed manuela casagranda's absolutely breathtaking met gala dress and her company blew up overnight. now does high-profile lines that are popular with movie star types and bougie social media influencers. notorious for being very, very friendly with her preferred models.
edelgard: petra's finance major/arts minor friend from college and her former roommate. nepo baby with Lots of connections. got petra her first big job writing PR crap for a division of the hresvelg business empire. caused a scandal by getting romantically involved with her TA (byleth) in grad school but they're still together. complains about her PA (hubert) and her lout of a stepbrother (dimitri), both of whom she's constantly texting or otherwise having to corral.
shamir: petra's boss/editor. admires petra's guts and her writing chops, as well as her ambition. somewhat of a mentor to petra, but is absolutely no-nonsense when it comes to work. she's been in this business a long time. there's no fucking around. leonie is another journo on the team. ignatz and linhardt also work with them doing layouts, formatting, and photo/video editing.
manuela: a famous singer from dorothea's hometown who basically adopted dorothea as a protégé after dorothea sent her sketches of designs she'd made. essentially responsible for dorothea's career. they have a bit of a contentious relationship these days as manuela's a bit jealous of dorothea's rising star and because dorothea's been ungrateful in recent years despite how much manuela's stuck her neck out for her. still, she's always there to give dorothea terrible advice when she needs it. her evolving relationship with dorothea is kind of a b-plot.
bernadetta: a reclusive, but well-connected social justice blogger and internet activist. one of petra's good buddies who regularly sends her scoops.
ingrid, ferdinand, sylvain, catherine, felix: models who commonly work with dorothea.
Jeritza: a nobody fashion photographer who thinks he's somebody. he's absolutely awful.
claude and hilda: paparazzi who work for tmz, buzzfeed, whoever will take em. petra thinks they are the scum of the earth. they are.
act 1
we open with petra on yet another bullshit assignment for her crappy job writing articles about things that don't matter. this one is a profile piece about a local fashion photographer, the mononymous Jeritza, who might be somebody someday and seems to think he already is. leonie was supposed to do the article but she flubbed it by offending Jeritza, who now won't give her the time of day, so shamir asks petra to please step in last-minute. petra's mad, but she gets her hustle on and goes anyway. it's not like she can be too picky with gigs in this economy.
by the time she gets to the shoot, she's late, and Jeritza is throwing a tantrum. the model isn't working out. Jeritza cannot work in these conditions. Jeritza fires the model and is about to freak the fuck out when petra walks in the door. oh, Jeritza says. i can work with you. petra did NOT sign up to be a model, has never wanted to be a model, has no interest in this whatsoever. but let's be real: it is a great angle for the piece. this could get clicks. shares, even. so she does it.
the shoot is a massive success, which is to say Jeritza is delighted with the results, but as it's just for a local streetwear company, the impact on culture is negligible. petra writes her article, which gets some attention due to the very funny portrait it paints of the histrionic artiste that is Jeritza. it's not much buzz, but it's just enough buzz to get shared around in fashion circles—enough for it to wind up in dorothea's inbox, courtesy of manuela. "Thought of you!! XD XD This is so funny!!" manuela writes. dorothea replies "lol" and is about to move on with her day when she decides to give the article a courtesy skim and scrolls down far enough to see the pictures.
oh. who is that model?
a few days later, petra's out at a bar getting drinks with edelgard and bitching about life when she gets a call from an unknown number. she figures it's probably spam, but they leave a voicemail. the transcription mentions it's from a dorothea arnault, whoever that is. edelgard almost shits a brick. DOROTHEA ARNAULT? you need to call her back. right now. petra's like okay jeez, i will. what's the big deal. edelgard facepalms. she forgot that petra doesn't follow fashion even a little bit ("isn't the gucci, like, the area between your butthole and your—?" "no petra it is not"). embarrassing for her, but there's no saving some people.
edelgard briefs her on the arnault situation. dorothea's studio is huge right now. edelgard's family business has been sponsoring some of her recent fashion shows and everybody who's anybody is trying to get an arnault outfit for their next event. while dorothea's very popular on social media, she's very tight-lipped about her private life. a profile on her could be a huge break for petra.
okay, petra thinks, what the fuck, okay. i'll call her back.
dorothea picks up on the fifth ring. uh-oh: she sounds hot.
hel-looo, miss macneary, she says, it's nice of you to pick up the phone. i saw that little article you wrote recently. you're sooooo funny. [her voice is sweet and smooth like butter. she sounds like she's twirling her hair as she talks. she doesn't say how she got petra's number. petra doesn't think to ask.] and those photos of you... my, my. you're quite the looker, aren't you? and you don't even model professionally? that's a terrible shame. you'd do well, you know. i'm in berlin right now but i'll be in enbarr's fashion district on tuesday afternoon. why don't you come by the studio? we're doing a shoot for some designs i'm releasing soon... a secret summer collection. oops, i shouldn't have told you about that, should i? well, i'm sure i can trust you to keep my secret. and maybe i could even trust you to write something nice about me? i think they'd suit you, you know, these new pieces i've got. if you have any interest in trying your hand at modeling again, i'd love to see you in them. 11 o'clock. ciao!
petra gets a handful of words in edgewise. most of them are yes. she keeps her phone held to her ear for too long after dorothea hangs up. she wishes she'd been sober for this conversation. she's not really sure what she just agreed to. she doesn't want to forget the sound of that voice.
she shoots a text to shamir. edelgard buys her a shot the instant she steps back into the bar.
tuesday comes and petra's nervous. she packed and repacked for this. checked twenty-five times that she brought her tape recorder and her good camera. arnault is gonna think that camera's a joke, but it is what it is. she's trying to play it cool, hyping herself up the whole time she's on the train. it's gonna be fine. just keep the tape rolling. write the profile. she doesn't have to model, she can just do what she does best. listen. pay attention. write honestly. move on.
sure.
if petra thought dorothea sounded hot, she's wholly unprepared for how hot she is in person. she's spellbinding. drop-dead gorgeous. positively unreal. and on top of that, she's so charming. she's graceful. smart. funny. flirty. and she keeps touching her—little touches on her hand, her arm. chaste things. friendly things. things that could be accidents.
she's exactly petra's type.
but petra is a journalist with integrity, dammit. she's going to be professional. and to her credit, she is professional. arnault makes it hard, but she manages. she blends in, listens, stays focused, stays out of the way. the model's cute—ingrid something-or-other. she can't remember but she got it on the tape recorder. told petra her instagram handle like six times, too, so she won't have any trouble finding her. the shoot is almost wrapped when dorothea asks if petra would be interested in modeling for her. she's not at all offended when petra politely declines. she poses when petra asks to take her photo for the profile. thanks her for coming out and talking to her. says goodbye with a polite handshake and that dazzling smile. she thinks about that smile and that touch throughout the whole train ride home.
skip ahead to friday. petra is working on the story and transcribing the audio recording when she gets a text from dorothea. so lovely meeting you on tuesday [heart emoji] [kiss emoji] [heart emoji] i know it's last minute, but the final pieces of the summer collection are coming in tomorrow and i think you'll like them for your profile. i'll fly you up tomorrow morning to meet me at my studio in manhattan, unless you're busy, of course~
petra is not busy tomorrow. shamir is considering opening a new style division of their publication.
the flight is the train ride but worse. keep the tape rolling, macneary. listen. pay attention. write honestly. move on.
she's resolute. committed. her resolve doesn't waver even when she gets off the plane, ready to call an uber, and there's a guy in a suit with a sign that says MACNEARY on it. it doesn't waver when the guy stops her and says no, he's not looking for another macneary, he's here for her, courtesy of ms. arnault. it doesn't waver throughout the ride—the chauffeured ride, in a fancy car, just her and the guy—from jfk through the streets of nyc, seeing the skyline she's only ever known from movies and on tv. it doesn't waver when she's escorted into a skyscraper in the garment district and guided up to the floor where ms. arnault is waiting for her.
it wavers when she sees her. when dorothea says her model couldn't make it that day and she could really, really use petra's help, it falls completely.
you can guess how the rest of that trip goes. petra barely remembers it herself. she gets back home to enbarr, trying to recover from the whirlwind week she's had by doing what she does best—working. she can scarcely believe any of it was real. she has to believe it when she gets back to her shithole apartment, sets to the task of transcribing the audio from her tape recorder, and realizes it was rolling the whole time.
the whole time.
and there's absolutely no denying any of it after dorothea sends her the photos for her review.
you look so good in these, she tells petra when she sends her the first photoset. i think you look better out of them, she says when she sends the second.
petra considers her options. considers freaking out. considers not replying. considers moving to australia. she considers and reconsiders and does none of those things.
what she does do is send dorothea the audio recording. dorothea sends her some photos of her own.
they meet up again in LA on the day the profile drops.
act 2
if that first week was a whirlwind, the summer is a hurricane. petra's being lauded for the quality of her profile on dorothea, as well as for being the only member of the press who can get close to ms. arnault. it's borderline scandalous, how she's also modeling the summer line despite not even being a real model. it's a thinly-guised affair—almost completely un-guised when their flirting gets a little too overt during a show in tokyo. who cares. petra's entranced. dorothea takes her everywhere, her personal reporter, lavishing her with gifts, showing her the world. she's keeping her busy between all this travel and all this passion. they go to show after show, shoot after shoot; petra works her ass off, keeping the tape rolling, listening, paying attention. so what if she doesn't have time to answer shamir's texts right away the way she normally would. the website's getting more traffic than it ever has, carried by petra's inside scoop on the world of dorothea arnault. shamir can cut her a break.
and she's surprised by how much she likes dorothea. how much she likes spending time with her. dorothea's all the things petra thought she was: glamorous, bubbly, charismatic. but she's also so brilliant, so hard-working, busting her ass every single day of her life. and she's sweet, too. she lavishes petra with attention, gives her all kinds of little gifts and things—nothing too expensive as to make petra uncomfortable (the jetsetting is bad enough as-is), but small, practical things she actually likes and could use. she asks petra about herself almost as often as petra asks questions about her. it's not petra's job to talk beyond getting the conversation flowing, to put more of herself into the discussion than there needs to be to get dorothea to open up. she's here to listen. to pay attention. write honestly and move on.
but she's finding she doesn't really want to move on.
one night they're hanging out in dorothea's fancy hotel room eating room service and drinking wine when dorothea makes a crack about how little petra knows about fashion. petra admits that she really didn't intend to get into it, that it just kind of happened. that what she really wants to do is investigative work, writing about events, exposing corruption, that sort of thing. no offense to dorothea! it's been fun doing this, don't get her wrong, but she's got goals, other things she wants to do—once dorothea gets tired of her, she jokes. sort of jokes. dorothea laughs. she smiles at her and asks why she wanted to be a journalist.
and petra's honest again. honest like she hasn't been before. she tells her a little about her childhood, her family life. about growing up in brigid (you know, the country on planet earth) and moving to enbarr as a teenager after her father died. seeing her super-smart, brilliant mother and grandfather go from these auspicious jobs in their home country to shitty ones that just barely pay the bills here, all in the name of long-term security. how they taught her to work hard and always act with integrity, no matter what she's doing. she tells her about the struggles of learning a new language, how it made her become a good listener, how she fell in love with writing because it gives her time to think about her words, to express herself the way she wants to. she wanted to be a journalist to speak for those who can't raise their voices loud enough on their own.
dorothea smiles at her the whole time she's talking. petra's not used to being on this side of the table, to being listened to like this. she almost doesn't know how to handle it; she's apologizing, feeling embarrassed for having said so much, but dorothea says don't be sorry. that's beautiful. she's lucky to have such wonderful people in her life who love her and support her. and she likes hearing petra talk.
things are different after that night.
act 3
the start of the Drama Arc. the summer's coming to an end. petra and dorothea are still spending so much time together, jetsetting around the world. petra's working on a piece that's a backstage look at the arnault company's leadup to milan fashion week. the stress is getting Real and the cracks are starting to show. petra's missing deadlines, blowing off shamir, blowing off edelgard, blowing off her family. she's barely in enbarr these days, jetlagged to hell, lost between time zones. her pal bernadetta reaches out and says hey, there's something Big i'm working on that i could use help digging into, can you give me a hand? petra says sure, i'll take a look. she doesn't. she forgets somewhere between london and são paolo.
things are still hot between her and dorothea, but she's starting to see the cracks in her, too. she's getting to see more of her, more of what lies beneath all that glam and bubbly personableness. you don't go from being a nobody to a mogul in your 20s by being nice, and what petra slowly discovers is that dorothea isn't just not nice, she is ruthless. she's nonstop, working her ass off, and anyone who can't keep up with her gets left behind. she hints at her past sometimes: at her shitty childhood, at growing up in poverty, at being orphaned, at having spent years in foster care. but she never opens up. she's 100% focused on the future, and it's all she wants to talk about. dorothea wants to live her dreams, yes, but more importantly, her goal is self-preservation.
petra finds this out when they're at a shoot one day. petra's off to the side, fucking with her piece of shit camera when who storms up to her but ingrid, and she's pissed as shit. she chews petra out. calls her an asshole. says she stole her job. asks what the fuck is wrong with her, doing that while posting her articles, publicly announcing to the world that she never even wanted to be a model. petra's floored. she doesn't even know what she's talking about. she asks ingrid to start over.
that "second date" of theirs in manhattan, way back when? turns out dorothea was telling the truth when she said her model couldn't make it that day. ingrid was supposed to be modeling. she was dorothea's #1 for ages. she'd just come off back-to-back-to-back shoots when she got sick, really sick. stuck-in-shanghai-and-probably-not-going-to-be-able-to-board-a-flight-to-manhattan-tomorrow sick. she told dorothea so, said she'd try her best. dorothea said not to bother and didn't call her again.
it'll happen to you, too, ingrid tells petra, once you aren't useful to her. you're giving her all this press now, but if you ever do anything else, she'll drop you like she drops everyone else.
ingrid storms off, leaving petra standing there, holding her stupid camera. she looks at dorothea, standing across the room, running the show, correcting this and that, getting everything perfect, exactly the way she wants it. petra looks at her and wonders. wonders what would happen if she wrote something dorothea didn't like. if somebody new caught her eye.
they get dinner that night and it's tense. dorothea's stressed. she's carrying on about this and that, talking about the shoot, texting and responding to emails, slamming back glass after glass of wine. petra's quiet, letting her talk. too quiet, apparently, because dorothea eventually takes her head out of her phone and asks her what's up. nothing, petra says, just thinking about everything going on, about the shoot today. dorothea rolls her eyes. i know, she says; on top of everything else, ingrid was there, and she wanted to have a whole conversation with me, like i wasn't busy and like she didn't fuck me over the last time i saw her. she texted me earlier, too. the audacity of this bitch, she gripes, going back into her phone, still mad. a little later into dinner, manuela calls and dorothea answers it; she's bubbly and sweet, all hi how are you omg it's been so long, i miss you, sorry i've just been so busy~ i've gotta go but we'll catch up soon. she hangs up and shoots petra a look. she's so needy, dorothea says, laughing. petra tries to laugh too and can't quite manage.
they're still going everywhere together in the leadup to milan fashion week, and petra's still working on the piece, but she's feeling a little gross and she's quieter than ever. she lets herself believe that maybe it's fine, maybe it's okay, maybe she's not really that cold and ruthless. but then dorothea shows her one day.
everything's been going wrong: there's equipment stuck in customs, marketing materials haven't been delivered from the printers yet, the studio they rented for pre-shoots is double-booked. then a model's late to the shoot and another one is complaining and dorothea is done, so done. she fires them on the spot, gets on the phone and calls two new ones who will get the job done and done without question. petra's quiet. listening. paying attention. keeping the tape rolling as dorothea justifies herself aloud, without prompting. don't judge me, she says. i do what i have to do, and everyone else should, too. i know no one is going to take care of me. i've got no reason to take care of anyone else.
she's a mess all night. angry. stressed. shutting herself off. petra's seen her get like this a few times, but this is the worst it's ever been. she's in her phone all night. practically snaps at petra when she asks if she can help her with anything. shrugs away from petra's touch.
they go to bed and petra barely sleeps. she just lies awake, thinking. thinking about dorothea. thinking about herself. thinking about how she's been blowing off her friends, her family, her boss. thinking about how swept up she's been in all this crazy stuff she doesn't even really care about, putting off her own career. feeling guilty about ingrid. feeling guilty about blowing off shamir and bernadetta. worrying about who she's become around this woman. wondering what happened to her integrity.
fashion week goes great. flawlessly. petra heads back to enbarr afterward. she's almost ready to publish her piece, but she's gotta make up with shamir first. she apologizes. says she's so sorry. sorry for blowing her off. sorry she missed her deadlines. shamir is pretty fucking done with her and has told her as much already, but petra's earnest, and her piece is ready, and she wants to give the girl one more shot. she tells petra alright, i'll forgive you, but i need this piece tonight or we're done. i can't keep waiting on you and your schedule.
okay, petra says, you'll have it tonight.
she's worried. nervous. there's so much on her mind. the piece is ready but it's not going to make dorothea happy. she wants to call her first. she tries and gets her voicemail. tries again. nothing. texts her instead, a few times. hey, she writes, i need to talk to you. call me when you get the chance. it's about the profile. it's important. i'm on a deadline.
nothing. the hours are ticking by. she calls her. texts her. it's really important, dorothea. i need you to talk to me. please.
nothing.
petra's left wondering. wondering what to do. whether she should hit send on this email or hold off. wondering what she wants out of this.
and what is this, anyway? a summer fling? are they dating? girlfriends? they've never put a name on anything. do they have a future? can petra even think about building a future with someone she doesn’t trust to keep her along if she ever should need help? maybe dorothea’s hot and smart and maybe she’s got incredible drive but if she doesn't share petra's values, if she’s not going to be able to live for more than herself, and be true to herself, can petra accept that? does dorothea even know herself well enough to be able to be authentic?
time runs out and petra sends her piece to shamir. dorothea leaves her on read.
the piece is published. it's a huge hit, and not just in fashion circles, because it's a perfect portrait of dorothea arnault, and who doesn't love a biography of a wunderkind. it's honest. it's real. it talks about everything: her light, her darkness, the ups and the downs of being with her. it's raw. personal. revealing. it's all her brilliance and all her evils, captured in the way only someone who really loves her could do.
when it drops, petra expects dorothea to call and rip her a new one. she doesn't expect her not to call at all. but dorothea's radio silent. a few days later, some dickhead paparazzi petra has the misfortune of knowing (hilda and claude) send her a picture of dorothea in LA, running around with some red-headed douche (ferdinand).
sorry, dorothea texts her eventually. i've been soooo busy. i've missed you, but we'll catch up soon.
sure, petra writes, knowing they won't. i'll see you soon, she writes, knowing it's goodbye.
act 4
petra goes back to her career. back to her friends. crashes on edelgard's couch for a while. spends time with her family. starts addressing the connections she fucked up, fixing things with shamir, trying to gain momentum again. despite the profile on dorothea being such a success, it takes a long time for her to get back on her feet. but it's okay, 'cause if she's busy, she doesn't have to think about her.
months go by. every couple of nights, dorothea drafts a text to petra and deletes it.
it's february now, which means new york fashion week is here, and although petra is branching into investigative stuff nowadays, shamir calls in a favor and asks her to help cover it. petra knows she might see dorothea there. knows it’s a risk. decides she’s gonna be so strong and brave, and she can’t really afford to pass it up anyway because it’s a big career opportunity, a chance to revisit fashion after her profile last year. so she goes.
and they see each other. and nothing happens. they don't even say hello.
but that night, when petra’s in her hotel room, spiraling, dorothea calls her. she's in a hotel up the street. she asks petra to come over. for all her sense, her morals, her logic, petra is no more than a lesbian, so she says yes.
they don't talk. they jump right to making out sloppy style and fucking nasty and holy shit, it’s just like it was when they first met: hot and intense and so good, so perfect. except it’s not, it’s not, because this isn’t going to work out no matter how much they want it to, and they both know it. they get into a big fight after dorothea makes a crack about the profile and petra loses it. she puts dorothea on blast for being such a piece of work, saying she can’t ever be with her no matter how much she wants to because dorothea won't ever put someone else first and she’ll never figure out how to be anything other than alone.
then petra drops another bomb. over the past few months, she's made up with bernadetta, and it turns out that the big scoop bernie uncovered is about exploitative business practices a certain scummy fashion company engages in. a certain scummy company that dorothea's company is partnered with. said company's dealings wouldn't get their business partners in legal trouble, but public perception would certainly change. she's been working on an exposé about it. she's going to release it soon. really really soon. like as soon as she gets back to enbarr.
dorothea looks like she's been hit by a truck. she begs petra not to release the story about the company. it’s going to fuck her brand. she'll be ruined. she offers petra whatever she wants. gets nasty, even, defensive. then she fucking breaks. she doesn’t fully open up, but it’s the closest she’s ever come to doing it. she says she's sorry, sorry for hurting her, sorry for shutting her out, sorry she cut and ran like she always does when she might catch feels, when she might be vulnerable for once. she says she's sorry and she asks her please, please, not to release the story.
petra doesn’t give her an answer. she just goes back to her hotel.
once she gets back, she doesn't sleep. she stews for ages, pacing, going back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. act with integrity and drop the story as-is. don’t drop the story and protect the person she cares about, in spite of herself. amend the story so maybe dorothea won’t catch heat...? no, that wouldn’t be acting with integrity either. she can’t win either way.
and dorothea’s having a think, too, which is to say she’s a fucking WRECK. realizing how bad she’s fucked up her life. realizing that petra liked her for her. wanted to get to know her for more than her name and her money and her connections. told her things about herself she didn’t even realize were true. and she hurt her at every single turn. for the first time in her life, she had a chance at something real with a good person who really loved her and she fucking blew it. there’s so much dissonance as she tries to defend her own actions to herself and can’t because petra’s wormed her way into her head, the only person who ever Really questioned her, the only person who ever made her question.
she's always figured things out alone. she's always had to figure things out alone. this time, though, dorothea's not sure she can handle it. so she does the only thing she can think to do: she goes to manuela with her tail between her legs. manuela's a little pissy at first as dorothea's been blowing her off for a while now, but she's also worried, because dorothea has never come to her like this. not once. and she's offered for her to, a lot.
when manuela hugs her, dorothea breaks. she ugly-cries into manuela's arms. tells her how bad she's fucked up. how much she hates herself. how sorry she is for being a dickhead when manuela's only ever wanted to be there for her. manuela comforts her. chastises her for being an asshole, yeah, but shores her up, too. tells her if she's really sorry, she'll figure out how to change. tells her that she's there for her, and she'll keep being there for her, so long as she tries. dorothea's blown away. she thought she'd lost her shot at having love in her life, but she was too blind to see there are other types of love she's been shutting herself away from, too.
dorothea leaves manuela's, still feeling like shit, but with plans to get lunch or at least call each week, and with the promise that she's going to do better, be better.
she makes an effort, too. she cuts ties with the skunks. changes her business practices. starts being more charitable, less ruthless, less aggressive. it’s a slog and it sucks and she’s bad at it but fuck she’s going to try. even if petra never takes her back, even if petra just thinks dorothea’s trying to cover her own ass again and protect herself from the impact of the story, it doesn’t matter. she’s going to be better. she’s going to try to do things right, because someone believed in her, someone thought she could be better. and she’d never thought so highly of herself, never thought she could be more until petra came into her life and saw the potential in her.
petra releases the story a week or so later, unrevised. she texts dorothea before she does. says she’s sorry. dorothea says it’s alright. she understands.
the story drops and it’s a clusterfuck. an absolute PR disaster. the scummy company folds overnight. a bunch of related fashion companies, including dorothea’s, are in huge hot water. dorothea’s on the press circuit, doing damage control. petra’s watching an interview with her, listening to her spouting off her PR beats. fully expecting dorothea is going to deny everything, throw everyone she can under the bus to keep her shit afloat. so she just about has a heart attack when dorothea admits she’s fucked up. admits she made the wrong decisions, did stuff she knew was scummy. takes accountability. is honest for once. honest in a way petra didn’t think was even possible for her.
dorothea outlines her plans for how she’s going to be better, the changes her company’s making, how things are going to be different. says she’s making a commitment. if it all folds, so be it. at least she’ll be able to sleep at night.
because capitalism is the way it is, the company doesn’t go under. they’re in the red for a while and the "Controversies" section of her wikipedia page is now significantly longer, but the news cycle goes on and consumers forget and a few months later, pieces from dorothea’s summer line are all the rage with the kids on tiktok. petra’s more than a little bitter about it, but mostly she doesn’t give it any thought. she did her part. wrote honestly. spoke the truth. kept her integrity. she’s become a big name since that scoop, too, with her career really taking off. she's writing books and shit, appearing on tv, what have you, doing the investigative work she's always dreamed of doing.
she’s in london one night on the final leg of a press tour, sitting in her hotel room, when she gets a call.
it’s dorothea. she’s in london too. would petra like to get brunch tomorrow?
yeah she would. bitch loves a mimosa.
they get brunch and it’s tense. they try small talk but don’t really know what to talk about. dorothea makes it more awkward by cracking a joke about petra writing an article about her after this brunch and petra only kind of laughs.
but then dorothea apologizes. earnest. honest. like she’s never been with petra. tells her she’s sorry. tells her how she changed her life and made her think about herself differently, made her think she could be a better person. made her Want to be a better person. convinced her it’d be worthwhile to try. and she has. she’s made so many steps since they last saw each other. doing better. living kinder. living true. says she doesn’t expect anything from petra at all. just wanted to say sorry, and thank you for seeing the best in me.
petra says you’re welcome.
dorothea pays for brunch and they go their separate ways. dorothea holds it together until she gets to her hotel room and then she loses it, bawling her eyes out like she has never ever done, like she’s never let herself do. but it’s okay. she loves petra, that hot journo with the cute accent and more morals than sense, but dorothea knows she doesn’t deserve her, and she’s going to be okay with that. she’s going to live better anyway, for herself, because she’s worth it.
act 5
a year and a half goes by before dorothea and petra run into each other at a formal Thing. they talk, cordial, business-like, just catching up. dorothea makes a crack about the tmz photos of petra with three or four different high-profile supposed gfs over the past year and a half, calling her a heartbreaker. petra laughs, a real laugh. says dorothea's one to talk. asks if she's been keeping up with her? how often does she google her? dorothea says she does it more often than she'd like to admit. petra blushes, laughs again, flattered.
she asks if dorothea's been breaking more hearts lately herself and dorothea says nah. she's been focusing on her business. she's got this non-profit going now too, and it's been taking off. just landed some pretty big investments that will bring arts programs to schools that don't have funding for them. she looks proud of this. she is. she's actually spending more time doing that these days than her fashion stuff, which makes her a little sad, but it's not so bad because it's given her a bit of a mystique: the designer whose work was once Everywhere, now dropping limited release lines every few seasons instead of keeping up with the fast fashion whirlwind. it's different but it's good. she likes it. she's happy.
petra says she's glad to hear that. that she's happy for her. makes a reference to the new line dorothea's rumored to be dropping this fall. dorothea's eyes almost pop out of her head. you know about that? yeah, petra says, i google you. she's known about the non-profit, about everything dorothea's been telling her about. she's a journalist. she likes knowing things. but she likes knowing about her. knowing that she's doing well. and it's really good now, knowing that she's happy. she tells dorothea she's happy for her. that she's proud of her. that she knew she could do it.
dorothea doesn't cry. just says thank you. she gets called away by somebody else, and petra does too, pulled in the opposite direction. dorothea thinks about hugging her first. almost touches her hand. elects not to. says it was good to see her. then they're both whirled elsewhere and they don't see each other again.
but that night when dorothea's in her hotel, she gets a text. it's from petra. would she like to get coffee tomorrow?
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This is a collaborative story about Hubert von Vestra from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The goal of the game is to help Hubert have a perfectly normal day without too much excitement or fanfare.
The story progresses based on the results of the poll at the end of each chapter. The gameplay is intended to emulate old text-based adventure games (and, yes, Homestuck).
Mostly, this is an excuse for me to draw silly stuff and make stupid websites.
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What do I do?
Be Hubert.
Vote for the action you want Hubert to take.
????
Profit
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OK but seriously how do you play this?
I'll draw a panel and write a post. The end of the post will contain a poll or other question to decide where the story goes next.
You can help direct the story by:
Voting in the poll
Providing a custom response in the post tags or replies
Asking for clarification or details via ask or by replying to the post, ex. in the replies on this post
In each post, words that appear in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS have definitions in Hubert's JOURNAL. The first time a defined word appears in a post, it will link to the part in the journal where the definition appears. Any subsequent time the word appears in the post, it will only be BOLDED AND CAPITALIZED.
The post may also contain links to minigames I've made (ex. the coffee game) or to other pages on my website that are related to the game (ex. Hubert's inventory, aka his pocket). I don't intend to link to any other websites, but if I do end up linking to another site in the post, I'll give a heads up.
Depending on the choices made in the story, Hubert's mental state may be affected. You will want to keep that in mind when voting. Remember: YOU are Hubert. And you want to have a perfectly normal day.
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How does voting work?
Options for Hubert to take will be listed in a poll at the end of each post. The poll duration will be one day. When the time has elapsed, Hubert will take the highest-voted action. I'll write/draw how it plays out, then post a new poll to choose the next action.
Polls will have a minimum of four options representing potential actions for Hubert to take. Three or more will be preset options, and the last will be an "Other/Write-In" option for a custom response.
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How does the Other/Write-In/Something Else option work?
If you vote for Other in the poll, please provide the action you want Hubert to take by leaving a reply on the post or in the tags.
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If the Other/Write-In/Something Else option wins, how will a response be selected?
I don't know yet! We'll find out together. Either I'll take the most common response, I'll pick one at random, or I'll just choose the one I think is funniest.
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How will the story play out?
I have an outline for the story. To the best of my ability, I'm going to try and keep it on track, but I'm leaving most of it to the winds of chance. If things start to really get off-track, I may eliminate the write-in option and just give three preset choices, but here's hoping it doesn't come to that.
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When does the game update?
The game will update after the current poll has expired and whenever I get around to drawing and writing the response. I'm making an attempt to turn things around in 24-48 hours after the poll ends, but who knows how long I'll keep that up.
Note that many of the pages for game mechanics, such as the JOURNAL and Mind Wasteland, are updated almost as often as new posts are made, depending on how the story plays out. You might want to keep an eye on those.
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Something is broken/not working on one of the webpages.
UH-OH! That's not good!
If you run into any problems with the site(s), please refresh the page and, if it's still not working, check back in 5-10 minutes. I'm coding this like a lazy person (read: rawdogging it without version control—yeehaw!) so it's entirely possible that if something is busted, it's because I'm actively tinkering with the site.
If it stays busted for more than 5-10 minutes, or if you run into responsiveness or accessibility issues, please shoot me a DM or an ask and I'll try to get it fixed shortly. Your help is appreciated!
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I have a question about the current poll options/a game mechanic.
Send me your question via a reply on the post or an ask and I'll get you an answer :0)
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STORY DETAILS
What knowledge do I need going into this game?
The game is set just over two years after the end of Fire Emblem: Three House’s Crimson Flower route. Consider that route utterly spoiled.
There may be references to events that have happened in my post-war fanfic series, In the Days After. However, you don't need to have read the series to know what's going on in the game. Hubert will also keep notes on anything that is relevant in his journal and you can reference the information there.
(FYI: the journal, minigames, and related tools are not hosted on tumblr and are instead on my own website for formatting/organization purposes. I'll give a heads up if linking to any pages not on this blog or my own website.)
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Does this include DLC or FEW: Three Hopes content?
Sorry, I’m a fake fan. I haven’t played Three Hopes or the FE3H DLC and have a child’s knowledge of what happens in either of those games. I’m sticking with my area of expertise.
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What ships appear in this game?
It's my story and I'm gonna make it gay. As of, uhhh, right now, these are the confirmed ships:
Hubert / Ferdinand
Edelgard / F!Byleth
Dorothea / Petra
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RESOURCES
Links
Beginning of the story
All posts up to this point
Tools and mechanics
The tools listed below are updated almost every time a new post is made, depending on how the story progresses.
Hubert's Journal
To-Do List
Mind Wasteland
Pocket
Games
Games probably won't get updated again unless I get a sudden burst of inspiration or if there's a bug. If there's a bug, please let me know via ask or emailing me at [email protected].
