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chenziee · 6 years

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Do you have any ereri fic recommandation? I read the 6th ward yesterday (and I'm still slowly moving on, it was so sad ;-; but in a weird way it made me accept Sasha's death in the manga more easily, and it's all good), so preferably a long one please. Thank you for being awesome!

Aaahh, thank you ;__;

Hmm, I have a few fic recs but I’m not sure what you have and haven’t read so I’ll just throw in whatever has stuck with me through all these years and I can think of off the top of my head meaning these might be fics that have been recced a million times over already because they are good. If you want more/something else, let me know :)(On that note, I’d like to direct you to @fuckyeahererifanfic who have a large and beautifully categorized database of ereri fic to fit any specific needs

I’m only going to link COMPLETED fics, because I tend to only read those AND I have a particular track record of fics being abandonded after I pick them up and now have trust issues but if you want some in-progress fics, I can rec some too.

The Little Titan Cafe by @pocketsizedtitan (66k words): Modern, coffee shop AU and the cutest thing.

Just another cliche AU in which Eren works as a barista in his mother’s café, specializing in latte art. And then there’s Levi, who’s not exactly your typical patron, because, well, he’s blunt and rude (which Eren supposes isn’t that much different from regular customers) but mostly he just confuses Eren’s poor little homosexual heart.

Nuthatch (31k words) and the sequel Sparrow (116k words) by @sugarplum-senpai Canonverse. Pining and slow burn at it’s finest. All I’m going to say about it.

After the war has ended, Levi finds himself thrown into coerced retirement. With nothing but time on his hands, he buys an old house, and throws himself into renovation work to fulfill himself an old, almost forgotten dream: opening a tea shop. If only he could forget about expressive, green eyes and a smile like sunshine. Luckily, he’s still got Hanji.

[Prequel to “Sparrow”]

After the war has ended, Eren’s life is finally good. He’s seen the ocean, is back at HQ where he trains the new Scouts, and he has dinner with Levi every single night. So yes. Things are just as well.

[Sequel to Nuthatch | can be read as stand-alone work]

The Old Boat House by @oppa86oppa (102k words): Modern/fantasy AU, Levi is a merman (fitting to read during mermay no?) Has some andgst and some fluff, a bit of everything, really.

One night after Eren and his friends share a bottle of whisky, two bottles of whatever Annie brought and a couple of ghost stories, they walk the path along the gravel road, through the wheat field and past the small forest and stumble upon the old boat house. Inside they find something that’s sleeping on the bottom of the lake, someone clearly not human. One of them comes up with the idea they should catch it, probably fucking Jean, and in their surprise they actually succeed. However, in mere seconds the situation is suddenly turned completely upside down.

Eren doesn’t fall into the water, he doesn’t jump, he’s pulled down.

Art of War by catsonfire(53k words): Modern AU, fluff and comedy

Noisy neighbors, nursling dinosaurs, satanic box cutters, shitty convenience store management, the word ‘fuck’, hereditary (but not really) homosexuality, beer and ramen, pennies, truckstops, strippers, closets, semi-public defacing, rings, house parties, “recreational” drug use, accidental rendezvous, toxic stew (don’t eat the stew), nice abs, housewives–batteries not included, over-educational movie sessions, copious domesticity, kittens named after landlords, a shit joke at participating locations, and many, many happy endings.A modern AU in which Eren moves into the apartment directly above Levi’s.

Do you want me or do you want me dead? by fmaloser (82k words): Modern not-your-typical-high-school AU. A personal favourite of mine and the amount of kudos is a sacrilage. Although yes, it’s dark. There is blood and gore. The relationship they have is not healthy. Lots of angst. Boys are both broken and break other peoples’ bones, but I love them for it. (Read the tags before reading the fic.)

It’s decided that the school douchebag, Levi, needs a tutor to help get his grades back up. It’s also decided that high school senior, Eren, is perfect for the job.At first, the two hate each other. But after their pasts come back to bite them in the ass, they realize that maybe that’s not the case.

An Unlikely Alliance by @monsoondownpour (117k words) Arranged Marriage Between Waring Kingdoms AU. Everything you want from a good fic.

When Scouting Legions main trading partner, Wall Maria, is experiencing economic strain from constant attacks by the neighboring kingdom Titan, the leaders of the two nations come to an agreement: Scouting Legion will provide military protection in exchange for land and financial aid for the still growing nation.Their new alliance will be sealed with the union of King Jaegar’s son Eren to the Scouting legions strongest soldier, Lance Corporal Levi. But how will the cold, impassive soldier warm to his new husband, who is far from the weak, spoiled princess he was expecting?

Witch’s Vein and Bloodstains by @monsoondownpour (38k words) Fantasy AU. Not that long but so beautifully written it’s unreal. The atmosphere and how it’s delivered is honestly something I aspire to.

In a land of sentient forests and unpredictable magic, it is never wise to venture far without a witch.

The Survey Corps is in dire need of a replacement after a tragic accident took Ilse’s life in a quest gone horribly wrong. Eren might not be what anyone expected, but he has raw talent and curious allure that even Captain Levi can’t deny. When circumstances conspire to pit the squad against the same adversary that took Ilse barely a year ago, will they be able to handle the challenge a second time round?

Fallen Star @monsoondownpour (31k words) Modern AU. Lots of angst. Actually it’s mostly angst because even the ridiculously fluffy parts hurt. (But spoiler: happy ending, yay!)

Detective Levi Ackerman had his life in order; a steady job he enjoyed, a close circle of friends, and a spitfire little sister who was all the family he could ever want or need. His world was a simple one until ballet prodigy Eren Jaeger stumbled into it.Someone like Eren didn’t belong in his world.Now he wasn’t sure how he would live without him.

Lists by Trick_Fantasy (72k words) College AU. Can be highly triggering for anxiety, there is emotional manipulation, and VERY toxic friendships. It’s about learning to get past all of that. Read at own risk. But it’s an amazing fic and will forever be one of my favourites.

The story of Levi (“Why bother trying to make friends when you can learn to control people instead?”) and Eren (“Because you can control people better when they think that they’re your friends. They don’t even know they’re being manipulated.”) coping with social interaction at college in their own different ways.

Augenfresser by @foxicology (75k words) Modern/Fantasy AU. Horror/Thriller. Deals with heavy stuff, the ending is up for interpretation and known to fuck people up. Be warned.

Monsters did not like to hide under beds, as his father had told him. No; he found the monster hiding in his closet.

Love.exe by @cofferi (70k words) Modern AU. Finishing off with more fluff/comedy so I don’t seem like such a psycho. Definitely a fun read.

All Levi wants to do is drink tea, run his goddamn convenience store, and not have to deal with this kid who keeps coming in to leech his wifi bringing down high-end corporations.

Also literally anything by @sciencefictioness is a sure bet. Just saying.

Also going to take the oppotunity to throw in my own AO3 because why the hell not (although it’s mostly oneshots).

I’m very sure I’m missing some amazing fics and authors but this is what I could think off at 1AM and not make it a mile long post. I hope you find something you haven’t read and that you enjoy these gems anon :)

Also I can’t help but throw this fic in:

Tinsel Town by TheWonderYears (33k words) Modern AU. Psychotic-murder-boyfriends AU. Seriously. It’s very graphic. Blood, gore, torture, all the fun stuff. I love it. My ultimate fave, always and forever.

There’s Definitely Something In The Water.

Aaaand there goes my ‘I’m not a psycho’ claim.

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thisnerdsadventures · 3 years

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a 2021 update

Ah, so I have forgotten to update in a million years, per usual

~ Random thought section ~

I woke up this morning and read this tweet thread about Alice Wu's director's note for her movie The Half of It. It's streaming on Netflix, and I highly encourage to go watch it, it's probably one of my favorite movies from the past few years. Anyways, she talks about how she produced the film while digesting the heartbreak of a friendship breakup - the whole thread hit me on a different level, but here's a quote that really hit home for me, especially a month from graduation: "The end of the film is each of their beginnings. And for my characters, I can think of no happier ending." We spend a lot of time worrying about the end of things and the uncertainty of things to come. Yet, there was a time where we worried about the exact same things for the very chapter we are now so nervous about leaving.

1. I'm nervous about leaving school and starting the..... rest of my life???

2. I'm nervous that my friends will slowly fade away. I'm nervous that they'll get on with their lives and I'll be slowly still trying to get my bearings, stuck in limbo.

3. I'm nervous that starting adulthood will be difficult because there are no more college orientations, no more awkward freshman dinners, perfect opportunities to meet new friends who are just as nervous as you are.

In writing this out, I felt a sense of deja-vu, like I had written these words before. So I just looked back at some of my posts right before entering college, and lo and behold:

08-18-2016: Today I said goodbye to one of my closer friends, and i realized that without even knowing it, Sunday’s party was the last time I would see some of my closest friends. It’s awful that way, that you don’t even know it’s the last time until it’s passed, and you’re left to pick up the the end of a chapter of a relationship from the scraps of an unexpected and improper farewell.

I feel like I’m in a weird twilight zone between college and high school where my present friends are all beginning to fade away to move on in their lives, and I’m yet to really meet anyone in my class yet, so at the moment,,,,,,there really isn’t anyone.

I wrote this less than a week from moving to Boston, and it's so shocking to me that I also experienced the "unexpected and improper farewell" part in senior year. It's almost the exact same thing that happened in COVID and is continuing to happen. You never know when the last time you might see someone might be, except instead of consolidated over the course of one pre-college summer, it's over the course of more than a year, the time that this pandemic has been going for.

And I hate that I said the "fade away and move on" thing verbatim, literally nearly five years ago. To be honest though, it's true, a lot of them did fade away and move on. But so did I, I wasn't left behind. To some extent, I was the one who did a lot of the moving away. And like many things in life, a couple of us continue to hang around, and maybe our friendships cycled in and out over college, but have come around again after a few years. I guess those are the ones that you know will stick around. The limbo period between chapters is a hard one, and it's nice to know that present-day me isn't the only one who has felt this. It's nice to know that past me met so many incredible people so fast, that I forgot this limbo period happened.

I know this part is getting a little long, but there's just a couple more snippets I want to share:

08-13-2016: I recently read Marina Keegan’s essay The Opposite of Loneliness, and one line resonated with me a lot: We’re so young. It seems silly and almost pretentious for me to think that this party would be so final, and yet it does, even though we have decades upon decades to build and connect or reconnect.

We’re so young, but that doesn’t stop the understanding that we are going to a new chapter in our lives and that it’s going to redefine our relationships. I hope it doesn’t change them too much.

I suppose much of the anxiety of going to college results from having to build my own community from the ground up again.... I tell myself the pieces will fall together and everything will be ok, but it doesn’t stop the increasing anxiety from, well, increasing.

I loved this collection of essays, if you haven't read it, I recommend you do. In moving around for so many years, I haven't been able to keep a lot of books in my possession, but I kept this one because that essay really hit home for me, and continues to, no matter what part of life I'm currently experiencing.

I think moving to college did change my relationships. But change is not a bad thing - your childhood friendships, the few of them that survive, end up strengthening and growing into adult friendships. And in the end, isn't that better than not changing at all? I'm hoping that a few of my college friendships will do that too - we'll go from college friends to family friends, and my kids will call them "Aunt" and "Uncle" and they'll grow up watching their parents talk for hours in the front yard before finally getting in the car and leaving for home.

08-13-2016: But hey, this is part of what I signed up for, I knew I wasn’t going to have much of an initial safety net, but I’m sure I’ll survive. We, as humans, always find a way to adapt right?

I think I survived and adapted. Not in the way I saw things going, but we can never really fully predict things, can we? One day, I'll learn to give myself a safety net for the next chapter, I'm sure. Today's not that day though.

Going back to her director's note, there was one more thing that just struck an emotional chord for me:

Fun fact, Alice Wu actually went to MIT for a bit before transferring to Stanford, and then she became a software engineer at Microsoft! I relate a little too much to her. Maybe one day I too will dump coding for my art form. But for now, in this above example, I relate far too much. I worked on my album, Imperfect, a little too obsessively this past winter while trying to digest the throes of heartbreak from one of my own friendships that ended. I still don't know if there was an ending for that friendship. I think I've spent a lot of time trying to put off the end, like a TV series that just keeps adding more and more seasons. Regardless of whether it needs to end or not (which I have not decided and will continue not to do so), I spent a lot of time thinking about who I was before and after that friendship, and I've concluded that a lot of who I am now, what my life looks like now is a result of that friendship. I'll give you a hint: I really like who I am now, compared to who I was before, and it showed me a lot of parts of life and friendship that I never expected would happen. That friendship was (is?) one of the most beautiful things that has happened to me in my life.

Let's finish off this reflective post with a quote from Khalil Gibran, that's kinda related to that point about how transformative the past can be, and how we're far better off in future chapters of our lives because of it.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

Again, if you haven't read his collection of poems, you should absolutely 100% drop whatever you're doing right now and do so! Wow, I really just assigned an entire reading list in this post.

I hope in making this movie, Alice found peace. I would hesitate to say that I found peace when making my album. I wrote a lot of songs about the heartbreak I felt from that whole experience. But the last song I wrote, "Best Friends," ends the whole thing on a positive note, that at the end of the day, I remember how my friends (past and present) literally saved my life and how things are looking a little better, and whatever happens, I hope my best friends will be there waiting for me, whoever they end up being.

- OK I PROMISE I DIDN'T SET OUT TO BE 100% SO EMO -

But yeah, I haven't really been doing much otherwise? I guess just tryna stay alive, I've been cooking a lot and cooking a lot of good good food, I did apply to an MBA program, I got my COVID vaccine (second shot this week!), I am excited to announce I am publishing a paper in my MEng lab, which is a really big accomplishment imo, I am thriving in my (1) econ class that I kept, even though I didn't realize we had readings assigned like for the past month, I went to try pastries from this Turkish bakery, I biked, probably, 15 miles over the past month, I've read at least 4 or 5 books this year so far, and am hoping to knock another one out today. Currently dying because trying to finish my thesis in like . a week, which is looking a little challenging, but I'm sure it'll happen!!!??

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