Or, Holly's Rant About Why She Did the Thing(s)

I apologize for the wait, I have midterms right now and life is being a whiny brat. Anyway! Here's the notes chapter! If I get more questions that haven't been answered, I'll probably add them to this chapter in an edit. As always, don't be afraid to review/PM if you have something to say! :D

-Holly

Why was Petra asleep so long?

Okay. So, I realize that she probably wouldn't really be in a coma for five days and not have any major complications. However, I am not a doctor (although if we're talking diabetes, I probably know more than some doctors), so I just sort of did research where and when I could and tried to fit in with what I had planned.

The real reason I wanted Petra out of it was for the sake of Levi's character development. I wanted him to do a lot of thinking and a lot of introspection, which he couldn't do if Petra woke up too soon, because then he'd shove it all to the back of his mind and focus on Petra's recovery. He probably wouldn't have opened up to her if she hadn't been out so long. Fear is a good motivator, people. Our dear heichou is no exception.

Characters that were/weren't used

I got a lot of people asking where Eren & co. were in this story and why they weren't in more. Don't get me wrong, I love Eren (and don't even get me started on Armin! I will admit though, I'm not too fond of Mikasa. But anyway) but wasn't a story about Eren and the gang. This was a story about Petra and Levi, and they spend most of their time associating with the Survey Corps veterans, like the Special Ops Squad, Hanji, Erwin, Mike, etc. The 104th kids have their own stories to tell in this AU, I guarantee it-but it's not this story.

Levi's backstory

Okay. There was some frustration here on the readers' behalf about Levi's past. 'Why don't we know more?' 'Why are you being so vague?' 'Are we ever going to know?' 'Holly, we hate you' (you guys are too sweet to actually say that, but I would hate me at this point! XD) I was being intentionally vague with this; I wanted to tell the majority of this story from Petra's point of view, and she didn't have access to all of the gritty details, so neither did we. Why was Levi so vague with Petra about his past? That was a hard one. I didn't want to get into the details too much at first because I feel like Levi wouldn't really want to talk about it. He sure doesn't in canon-verse! I wanted a little reluctance on his part. Petra is very...not quite 'normal', but she's had a normal upbringing (by Levi's standards), and he doesn't want to risk scaring her off or making her wary. Remember, Levi's big problem in this story is upsetting the status quo. But I also wanted to stay loyal to the character and essence of Levi: Levi is brash, bold, sassy, and not afraid to speak his mind. So it was a battle trying to find a healthy balance there.

Levi's motorcycle

I really wanted Levi to have a motorcycle. I think it fits with his character very well-when you have a motorcycle, you ride by yourself, you can zip in and out of traffic, you don't have to help people move their stuff or give rides (no extra helmet), and public transportation is just plain filthy and full of idiots (to Levi). How can he afford a bike on a data entry specialist's salary? Good question! He cheats. ...No, really, the bike is something from his gang days, the one thing he kept, really. Erwin got a little...'creative' with the paperwork and whatnot. Levi never actually 'bought' the bike per se. He's very fond of it though, and keeps it in good condition. On days with good weather, sometimes he'll tune it up in the driveway. He also likes going on long rides, just because. It's very relaxing. He never named the bike, but if it did have a name, it would totally be Black Dynamite.

...For those of you who watch the AoT shorts, I hope you understand that reference.

Petra riding with Levi (shoulders to waist)

Continuing on with the bike: this wasn't really a question or anything that people took notice of, but I wanted to do a quick blurb on this. When Petra first starts riding with Levi, she puts her hands on his shoulders instead of his waist. This is a perfectly safe way to ride (I do this when I ride with my dad or brother). But as the story (and their relationship) progresses, she starts riding with her hands on Levi's waist. This is a very small detail, but I think it works well to show how they've come to trust each other a little more (Petra by doing it and Levi for letting her).

The Special Ops Squad

Holy shiz you guys, I have so many feels for the SpecOps Squad, okay? SO MANY FEELS. One of my greatest regrets (on behalf of Isayama) was that the Squad barely had any screen time! When Gunter died, it didn't matter too much to the audience because we didn't know him. We knew his name (some of us had to think back, who was that guy? Oh, right. Too bad.) and that was about it-how much more tragic would that have been if we knew more? If we knew that he left a grandfather and a mother behind? That he liked to cook, or have long talks with his grandpa, listening to stories of his life. Or Auruo, being a big brother and his pride at being able to protect his family, coming home after expeditions and telling these grand stories of how Big Bro Auruo was out saving the world? What about Erd, making a home with his finacee/wife and his fear of not coming home to her? What about Petra's relationship with her father, how she would write to him about her hopes and dreams, glossing over the gory details and the fear so as not to worry him too much? That was what I wanted from the Squad, and that was what I desperately wanted to portray here in Enchanting.

Auruo's reaction

I took Auruo's reaction to Petra's accident from the manga. When Petra dies, Auruo is-for a split second-frozen in horror. Here is one of his best friends, his comrade, dead in front of him. Then he gets angry, at the female titan. But here, there was no female titan, there was no scapegoat for Auruo to blame. So he just sort of stays in emotional limbo, trying to figure out what he should be feeling. Auruo isn't the type of person to shoulder all of the blame for everything that happens, so he doesn't just martyr himself, 'oh it was all my fault! If only, if only!'. He tries to sort through it and work through his emotions. I actually have a one-shot in the works of Auruo during Petra's stay in the hospital, going out to lunch at the Legion and meeting Ilse, so look forward to that!

Petra being an LOTR fan

Pabihira caught this one! There was a quick little LOTR: FOTR reference in chapter 6, where Petra says "one does not simply take a nap when there are visitors". This was just a fun little line that came out, but when Pab caught it, I kind of got thinking, and here's what I came up with: I think LOTR would appeal to Petra-a story about people bonding together over a seemingly impossible task against innumerable enemies but still living to win and tell the tale? I think that sounds a lot like the goal of the Survey Corps, and something like that would strike a chord with Petra, no matter what reality she's living in. She's still a soldier of humanity at heart.

Also, there was a RoosterTeeth reference in chapter 14, where Hanji says, "well, that was a thing". That was a quote from Yang Xiao Long from RWBY (which owns my soul). Kudos to Somebody Else for catching that one ;)

Why didn't I bring the 104th in for most of the fic?

This kind of goes back to the characters things I talked about. I love the 104th kids, I really do, but I didn't want their stories interfering with the main plot of Enchanting. They got their little scene in chapter 15 and they're getting a few one-shots, but I really wanted to focus on the Survey Corps Elite for this fic.

Petra's dad

Okay. So, the deep answer to 'why wasn't her dad there?' was that Levi didn't know him, and we were focusing on Levi and his internal struggle, so he wouldn't really be up to date on the news of Peter being in the hospital.

So, with that on the table, the real reason was that I forgot about him. Whoops.

Petra's accident

Petra's zipline accident was the whole reason I wanted to write this fic. I got really bored during church (as I do every week-when do you think I write out plotlines for these fics?) and came up with the idea of replicating Petra's death in a modern AU. I wanted to do something with college, something Rivetra, something with the SpecOps Squad-BOOM, we have the bare bones of Enchanting.

Now, just because it's similar to Petra's canon-verse death, don't go thinking this is a reincarnation AU! This is just a regular AU, an alternate universe in which the titans never existed and the SNK characters got to live out their lives without any grim reminders! I did want to stay in character and replicate some of the original events, because seeing how they would play out is very interesting to me. But there was no past life of fighting titans.

Levi's talk with Peter

As Rivetra fans, we all know how heartbreaking that scene with Levi and Petra's dad is in SNK ("she was going to devote herself to you", "I think she's a little young to get married"). I wanted this to be a kind of second chance for that to happen, for Levi to hear these things and not be crushed by the guilt and sorrow of 'she'll never have that chance'. Not a reincarnation, I know, but a second chance nonetheless to be happy.

'Time'

The theme of 'time' is very much present in the epilogue. Back to Petra's death in canon-verse, she ran out of time. She and Levi never got together, but if she had lived, they might have. Time was something that they just didn't have. Here, they do, they have all the time they need-because they deserve to be happy, dammit!

EruHan

Okay. I got quite a few comments about this ship (not in a bad way, I was very amused!). I included EruHan because I wanted to experiment with it; I was seeing a lot of this ship and I wanted to know if I shipped it or not, so I played around with it a bit. Turns out I don't ship it-I'm now a diehard Mobuhan shipper (Moblit and Hanji), but for purposes of this AU, it's a thing.

AuruIlse

Okay. I know that they never met in canon, but I think that Auruo and Ilse would have gotten along really well! They both give everything to humanity to fight, they refuse to give up, and they give their lives to ensure the survival and freedom of the human race. I know that this is a common theme with characters in the Survey Corps, but these two seem like they really embody that fight. Ilse is known for that quote, "even if I have no weapon, I will continue to fight! I will not stop fighting!" I love that quote! When Auruo's entire squad lays dead before him, he doesn't allow himself to stop and mourn-he continues to fight, to the bitter end. This ship is only mentioned in the epilogue, very briefly, but I do want to do more with it.

Yumi Curry

This pun was a stroke of brilliance, okay? Like, seriously. I wrote about Ymir and Christa in the curry shop when the SpecOps guys brought lunch to Petra's hospital room, and I wanted to mention it again in the epilogue, but I didn't have a name for the place, so I thought-curry, curry...there's Ymir and Christa...WAAAAAIT. Ymir-Christa, Yumi-Kuri is the ship name for those two, Yumi Curry. BOOM. Brilliant.

Pixis Pizza

Because it sounds catchy. Also, I once found a picture of the SpecOps Squad + Eren working in a pizza place and I just got 'pizza' stuck in my mind. Why does he play Stevie Nix? Watch ShinigamiEater's AoT short 'Eren's Testimony' on YouTube and you'll understand. The employees are all members of the Garrison/Stationary Regiment. This is an OC-Free Fanfiction! Yaaaaay! Not a single OC in the entire fic, folks!