Fanfic / Attack on Titan: A Blacksmith's Tale

Attack On Titan A Blacksmiths Tale is a Attack on Titan fanfic by crod42.

It follows Dillon Amsdale, the son of a Blacksmith from the interior of Wall Sina who enlists in the 104th Training Corps after the fall of Wall Maria. During training he becomes involved with Annie Leonhart. While she carries her hidden mission, he has some secrets of his own.

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Tropes contained in Attack on Titan: A Blacksmith's Tale:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: While rewriting the story, the author decided to remove the antagonistic relationship between Dillon, Eren, and Mikasa in the original version to better develop their character interactions, feeling he let his dislike of Eren color his writing in the original version.
• Ambiguous Situation: How much of Matthew's sudden personality shift was the result of Elise' Mind Rape versus the repressed rage he'd blocked.
  • Did Elise know Atticus had restarted Project Psion? Was she a massive Hypocrite or an Unwitting Pawn?
• Attention Whore: Its strongly implied that Carolyn wants to be publicly recognized for her good work, explaining why was so distraught at seeing Project Psion dismantled and why she chose to be a lawyer openly fighting the corruption of the Military Police.
• Berserk Button: Many.
  • Insubordination for Levi.
  • Historia learns the hard way to NEVER accuse Dillon of being so willing to turn on or kill his loved ones at the drop of a hat.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between Annie and Dillon.
• Bluffing the Authorities: Dillon does this to Commander Erwin, Captain Levi, and Commander-in-Chief Zackley when he promises to kill Annie if she even considers betraying them again in order to keep her alive. Even Annie was fooled.
• Broken Ace: Dillon is basically this by Chap. 62.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Dillon does this to Matthew during their final fight. He does not take it well.
• Calling the Old Man Out: When Matthew goes on about how Annie and Carolyn are nothing but monsters that devalue lives, Dillon immediately responds that just a few minutes ago, Matthew gave a concussion to Jean to get his ODM gear and killed a civilian for trying to save Jean. The comparison to monsters pushes Matthew over the edge.
• Constantly Curious: The little girl, Ana, from chapter 59.
• Darkest Hour: After Chap. 64, Dillon's screwup has cost him everything he had left including his relationship with Annie. It gets worse. He's manipulated into going after Zeke and the other infiltrators who easily capture him and in Marley he's turned over to Atticus whose restarted Project Psion. Plus Ymir Fritz was manipulating him all along.
• Deadpan Snarker: While most of the cast is this, Annie and Levi stand out.
• Death Glare: Annie is a master of these.
• Death Seeker: Dillon in going after the Titan Shifters, was aiming for this. Too bad that was exactly what the enemy wanted.
• Defeat Means Respect: Dillon fears if he doesn't beat Annie during their rematch, he'll lose her respect. He actually does win, though some readers speculate she threw the fight for his benefit.
• Didn't Think This Through: Dillon's greatest flaw, especially when he's letting his emotions guide his actions. See Fatal Flaw.
• Emotionless Girl: Annie starts off as this.
• Enraged by Idiocy: how Dillon feels towards Ymir's reasonings behind betraying them.
• Every One Has Standards: Zoe and Levi are both nauseated when they learn first hand how Titan powers transferred via Annie's memories.
  • Even though he has little regard for Dillon by that point, Levi is disturbed by Carolyn's lack of concern towards her son's potential execution and deliberately leaves her behind in jail. Zoe is equally disgusted by his disregard and takes satisfaction in beating her up to provide a cover story for the coup.
  • Reeves may have not particularly liked Matthew Amsdale, but still expresses sympathy for his son.
• Face Your Fears: many times when Annie is the Female Titan, she makes sure Dillon is there for this very reason.
• Fatal Flaw: Dillon has two very prominent ones…
  • Dillon's impulsiveness borderlining on recklessness has caused no shortage of problems with Annie, his friends, and the Scout Regiment. Sure, because of this trait, he was able to ensure Mikasa would survive when she lost the will to live, and he saved Annie during the most critical moment in the story. However, he had to be verbally restrained from committing treason to rescue the Shiganshina Trio when Eren was almost executed by the Garrison, he chased after his mother's kidnapper despite being on trial for treason, and he attacked Captain Levi in Annie's mind (It Makes Sense In Context). The worst of them all is what he did to prevent a battle breaking out between Dauper and the Scout Regiment. He severed the mind links between Levi and Hanji with the rest of the Scouts to prevent them from summoning reinforcements with a single thought. That action resulted in Levi and Hanji being imprisoned, Dillon finally being branded as a traitor, and nearly everyone tearing him a new one for his stunt with Annie breaking up with him.
  • Most of the time, however, the emotion behind his impulsive decisions is his fear of failure, especially when someone's life is on the line. If a friend of his is in danger, he will do everything in his power to save them no matter how bleak, even if it means revealing his psychic abilities back when they were kept secret. Ultimately, if someone dies, Dillon will blame himself for failing to act one way or the other, such as when the Female slaughtered his squad or when 354 people died in Stohess because his faked death kept Annie from deciding to flee. With his mental issues causing so much strife, that fear has gotten worse and has driven him to extremes to try and fix them.
  • However it's revealed that Ymir Fritz was egging on this trait, to push him into alienating his friends and allies so she could freely manipulate him.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Dillon's shower is interrupted by four Scouts that try to kill him.
• Giant Woman: The Female Titan.
• Good Parents: In a universe where parents of certain characters are either dead, abusive, dictators, or even if just one parent is alive, Dillon breaks the mold with having a mother and a father who love him dearly and support his decision to enlist in the military and when he brings Annie home. Horribly subverted when Project Psion is revealed, and it's all downhill from there.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: How many see Krista/Historia.
• Heroic BSoD: Dillon undergoes this when he learns Annie is the Female Titan to the point Erwin puts him under suicide watch.
• Hopeless Suitor: Bertolt for Annie. Eren for Annie as well.
• Homeschooled Kids: the downside of being an Amsdale.
• Hope Bringer: Dillon is this in the eyes of Annie.
• Icy Blue Eyes: The first thing Dillon notices upon meeting Annie.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: One of the very first memories Annie encounters when she enters Dillon's mind is him begging his father to take his own powers away when they first manifested.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Between Annie and Dillon by Levi. 'Moment forever ruined', indeed.
• Knight Templar: Elise who Mind Rapes Matthew and tortures Carolyn for what happed in Project Psion.
• Mind Manipulation: The very thought of doing that to someone is reprehensible to Dillon. He almost gives into the temptation of attempting when Levi and Hanji nearly push him over the edge. Thankfully, he resists.
• Motivated by Fear: The real reason why Dillon enlisted and the driving force behind most of his impulsive actions. See Fatal Flaw.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Annie breaking up with Dillon. While understandable given Dillon's self-destructive behavior, it plays right into Ymir Fritz's plans and leaves Dillon vulnerable and weak for her manipulations to send him right into Marley's hands.
• Nightmare Fetishist: An unexpected outcome of Dillon constantly interacting with the Female Titan. Despite having little-to-no skin and her being responsible for the trauma he suffered, Dillon can't help but find her figure attractive and the warmth of her body incredibly soothing. It takes Annie pinning him against her gigantic breast to finally get him to admit it. She actually finds this flattering and definitely preferable to him hating and fearing her Titan form, though she does tease him about it. One reader speculates that this attraction is why Ymir Fritz appears to Dillon as a giant, naked woman in his subconscious and why she encouraged him to be more intimate with the Female Titan.
• Not What It Looks Like: So Dillon has asked for the keys to the guest house that's in a different district and he takes his girlfriend over there without parental supervision. Annie understandably thinks Dillon set this up so they could have sex. Upon realizing the implications, he quickly explains that Ehrmich was closer to Trost and it was getting late. They decide to go through with it.
• Odd Couple: Annie and Dillon.
• Parental Betrayal: Dillon suffers this first by Matthew and then by Carolyn in later chapters.
• Psychic Link: Between Dillon and the Survey Corps. But, most often with Annie.
• Psychic Nosebleed: One of the two most common indicators that Dillon is pushing himself too hard when using his abilities. Headaches is the other one.
• Psychic Powers
• Rage Breaking Point: When Dillon's squad is slaughtered by the Female Titan and one of the Scouts is statistically killed, Dillon launches a brutal mind assault that probably would have killed a regular, human being. He tops this twelve chapters later when his own father turns against him. After everything Dillon has gone through up to that point, this outcome was inevitable.
• Secret Project Refugee Family: Horribly subverted with Mathew, Carolyn and Dillon Amsdale, the Mad Scientist, her experimental subject, and her Tyke Bomb son whose family disintigrates over the course of the fic.
• Sanity Slippage: Dillon, starting with the Expedition. Zig-zagged in later chapters.
• Self-Deprecation: No one hates Dillon Amsdale more than himself, especially when he can't overcome his problems.
• Shout-Out: Surprisingly quite a few to Mattew Stover 's novelization of Revenge of the Sith homaging a number of his phrases especially with Dilon's fight against the MP in Chap 69 which echoes the description of Anakin's duel with Dooku in the book.
• Sick Victim Gambit: Dillon manipulates his Face-Heel Turned father to come out of hiding by preparing to commit suicide by jumping off the Wall, knowing damn well he'd come out of hiding to stop him. In reality, Dillon was using his powers to find a nearby Elise while his father was too distracted to notice.
• Statuesque Stunner: Annie to Dillon after he gets over the initial shock.
• Slasher Smile: Annie sports one of these while killing Survey Corps in her Titan form. This sight haunts Dillon for many chapters.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: In their normal heights it's the opposite. But when Annie is in Female Titan form, she literally towers over Dillon.
• There Are No Therapists: Which causes many problems for the Survey Corps.
• Tragic Villain: Matthew Amsdale. Although he crosses into murder and abuse by the end, he was the victim of Mind Rape and dies before he can be helped.
• The Unfettered: Carolyn Amsdale. Her intention are theoretically good, but she's willing to do anything in the pursuit of her goals. For example she was willing to turn her son into a weapon to stamp out rampant corruption in the interior.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Bertolt for Annie. Which leads to a near murder of Dillon by the Colossal Titan. It gets worse when Bertholt learns of Dillon's powers and starts believing he brainwashed Annie into turning on them.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Annie has no problem hurting people who hurt Dillon,squashing Elise like a bug, going after Ymir with a vengeance, and even threatening Historia when she blows up at Dillon.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Commander Erwin and Carolyn Amsdale have this in common something that disturbs Levi.
• What Does He See in Her?: When Dillon refused to abandon Annie, after her motivations are revealed.