A Promise (An Attack on Titan Fanfic: Erwin Smith)

Author's Note

Hi!

This is the author, you can call me buncha and you've finally reached the end of this story

(yeheyyy)

honestly i have a lot of things i want to say about this book, but i'll try to keep things short (is 1k words short?)

im only strict with spelling and punctuations when writing the actual story, so dont be too surprised if u see lazy typings in here

(WARNING: personal vent coming thru)

Writing this has been my greatest comfort for the past year. 2019-2020 was really hard for me, went thru the toughest sht in my already-miserable life, was in the lowest of the low, alone and had no one to talk to, and generally wasnt in a good place mentally. So when I decided to pick up the aot anime from where I left off, I just latched my entire existence onto Erwin Smith for reasons I could not put into words

i dont know what happened, but I just suddenly became so obsessed with him. It got so bad that the first 60 chapters of this fic were written in a span of just 3 months.. i could literally finish 4-5 chapters in one sitting every day

anyway, i was so down bad and needed to touch grass but in the end, writing this fic somehow became my way of coping. Ironically, I found comfort in the angst and drama, probably bc I occasionally manifested myself in Isa and loved how she was always comforted by the others, so it feels like i was healing myself through her?

(yes, i DO need help and a desperate touch of reality)

because maybe, i wanted to heal part of my pain and loneliness through the relationships i wrote in this fic. Not only an intimate relationship like Isa and Erwin's, but also the friendship she had with the others rlly kept me going through the entire year

another reason i wrote this was bc there is an alarmingly lack of Erwin fics on this app. Most are Levi fics, and although I love Levi, I was in a dire need of Erwin content, so by the power vested upon me by absolutely no one, i took the saying "Be the change you want to see in the world" and made this self-indulgent fic starring our beloved commander

now enough of my sob story! moving on

FUN FACTS ABOUT A PROMISE (some may not be fun)

1. isanna means strong-willed, and herrmann means warrior :) not that it has any significance to the story whatsoever

2. isanna is inspired from mikasa (obviously). i even borrowed some of her dialogues bc im just so creative like that

i actually contemplated giving her a more detailed background—smth like the Ackermans, just so I could give more in-depth characterization, but i ended up garbaging the idea away bc aside from the fact that such ideas have already been used by other fics, I was impatient and wanted to finish this quick (which explains why the last few chapters were pretty meh and i acknowledge as bad writing). Also, this fic mostly serves as my sort of "simple comfort fic" so i didnt want to make it too plot-heavy, if that makes any sense

to put it simply, Isanna Herrmann is a very normal character with a very normal background. despite that she is still very precious to me, as I created her during my most vulnerable moments

i have another pending canon aot erwin fic, so i'll try to be more creative in that one and give my ocs more in-depth characterization to compensate for the lack of creativity in this story, altho im not sure when i'll put it out;]]