“Everything you need to know about the: Arranged Marriage AU”
Or —
Here it is! The arranged marriage AU, also known as the “Eren fumbled a baddie” AU, also known as the single dumbest Eren in all of the ✨ROVERSE✨.
First, it is useful to clarify the social tone of this story!!!
Although it is set in the Regency period, the society depicted here resembles the world found in Jane Austen’s novels far more than the highly dramatised version popularised by Bridgerton.
Jane Austen’s Regency is comparatively restrained and grounded in everyday social realities. Her stories tend to focus less on titled aristocrats and more on the landed gentry (families who possessed land, income, and local influence but did not necessarily hold noble titles). Bridgerton, by contrast, presents a far more theatrical vision of Regency society. Its narrative centres on the titled aristocracy and places heavy emphasis on spectacle: The Season, the marriage mart, lavish balls, scandal, and heightened drama.
So, if you have followed this blog for some time, you may have noticed hints of another Regency project. This one, Bed of Roses, leans much more toward the tone of Bridgerton. In that story, Eren is a marquess and Mikasa a young lady entering the marriage mart with the clear objective of securing a titled husband. That setting naturally invites glittering ballrooms, fashionable soirées, elaborate social rituals, and the kind of dramatic entanglements that often become delightfully ridiculous.
This arranged marriag AU, now titled This Calamitous Love, moves in a different direction. While This Calamitous Love will still contain its share of drama, its world is not meant to be as dazzling or socially extravagant as Bed of Roses. Rather than focusing on the glittering circles of titled aristocrats and London’s marriage market (here represented by Mitras), the story centres on the rhythms of country life and the landed gentry. The social sphere is smaller, the concerns more domestic, and the setting grounded in estates, neighbouring families, and the everyday interactions of people whose lives unfold largely in the countryside instead of grand ballrooms.
Because of that, the concept of the gentry becomes important. After the peerage or nobility (dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons) came the gentry.
In this fic, the Ackerman and Yeager families are members of the landed gentry: they own property, collect rents from their land, and enjoy a comfortable social position, but they (Eren and Mikasa and their parents) don’t possess noble titles. Except perhaps for their grandparents and their older uncles, because both Eren and Mikasa are children of second and third sons, meaning no noble titles for them. Characters such as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice or Mr. Knightley in Emma are good examples: wealthy landowners of considerable status within their communities, yet not members of the peerage.
And that said, here we go!
Eren and Mikasa come from neighbouring families who live in Shiganshina on properties very close to each other. Their houses are separated only by a small river and a bridge.
Their grandmothers are close friends who always wanted to unite their families. Eren’s grandmother is a viscountess and Mikasa’s grandmother is a baroness. Both women had about three children, but those children married outside the families, so the union never happened.
The viscountess’s third son has a son (Eren) at the same time the baroness’s third son has a daughter (Mikasa). The grandmothers immediately decide to arrange a marriage between the two newborns.
They declare that Eren and Mikasa will marry when they turn eighteen and arrange the betrothal through the children’s parents, who are visibly uncomfortable with the idea but not fully opposed.
Eren and Mikasa grow up together. They are educated together and spend much of their time playing and visiting each other’s homes across the bridge.
They share a close friend, Armin, the grandson of the village church’s vicar. The three of them become very close.
Around the age of twelve, Eren and Mikasa finally understand what marriage means. Eren reacts badly to the idea and says cruel things to Mikasa, including that he would never marry a boring, lice-ridden girl like her.
Mikasa is deeply hurt and stops speaking to Eren. Eren also stops speaking to her, and the distance between them grows.
When they are sixteen, Eren decides—against his grandmother’s wishes—that he wants to join the army. His grandfather, the old viscount, gives him the money to buy a commission.
((A commission is the official appointment as an army officer, granting ranks such as Ensign, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, or Colonel. Buying a commission meant paying money to obtain a rank in a regiment.))
((The system existed so that only men of money or social standing would become officers. Men without money could join as privates and might rise to corporal or sergeant but almost never became officers because those ranks usually required purchasing a commission.))
Eren buys a commission and enters the army as an Ensign. Over the years he rises through the ranks and becomes a captain at the age of twenty-three.
During his years in the military, Mikasa writes letters to him, but Eren never replies. He deliberately ignores them, and eventually Mikasa stops writing.
The next time he receives a letter from her, she informs him that his grandmother is ill and has asked him to come home because there is something important she wishes to tell him. Eren ignores the letter.
Later he receives another letter from his father informing him that the viscountess has died.
Eren returns to Shiganshina, only to discover that his grandmother has already been buried. Her last wish was that Eren should be happy, so she and Mikasa’s grandmother had broken the engagement before her death.
He also learns that Mikasa’s grandmother died a year earlier. The baroness left Mikasa a considerable inheritance, enough to support her for a season with the assistance of Baron Ackerman (now Levi).
Eren celebrates the fact that he no longer has to marry. When he attempts to speak to Mikasa again, however, she treats him with complete indifference.
Eren asks Armin (who is now the village vicar) why Mikasa treats him so coldly. Armin tells him plainly that Mikasa is resentful because Eren never answered her letters.
Eren argues that Mikasa should be happy now that she is free to marry someone she truly loves. Armin reacts sharply and tells him something along the lines of, “And how exactly do you know she doesn’t love you, you jackass?”
Meanwhile, Mikasa begins preparing for her season and attends neighbourhood dances and social gatherings, where she quickly attracts attention.
Eren also attends these dances, since his grandmother had not wanted the household to remain in mourning forever.
At these dances, teas, and gatherings, Eren begins to see Mikasa differently. He notices how beautiful she is, how intelligent she is, how she refuses to be controlled by men, and how capable she seems at everything she does. Slowly, he realises he is falling in love with her.
The realisation makes him miserable. He grows jealous when other men show interest in her.
Armin mocks him for it and says he has no chance of winning Mikasa back. Eren, stubborn as ever, takes that as a challenge and decides he will win her back.
When the season begins, Mikasa travels to Mitras. Eren follows and attends several of the same social events.
During this time, a particular man begins to show strong interest in Mikasa.
One evening at a gentlemen’s club, Eren overhears that man boasting that he intends to marry Mikasa no matter what because he needs her money. He even suggests that if necessary he will ruin her reputation to force the match.
Instead of confronting the man directly, Eren goes straight to Mikasa and warns her about what he heard.
Mikasa rejects the warning and sends him away, telling him he has no right to involve himself in her affairs. She reminds him that he never cared about her before, so he should not pretend to care now.
Eren does not know what to do, but he remains nearby and continues trying to protect her even though she openly rejects him.
Later, Mikasa begins to express doubts about marrying the other man, which prompts the man to put his plan into action.
His method of ruining her reputation is uncertain. One possibility is that he sneaks into her room at night so that people will discover them together. Another possibility is that he arranges a kidnapping.
If it is the kidnapping, Eren rescues her, but the man spreads rumours afterward, damaging Mikasa’s reputation anyway.
Mortified by the scandal, Mikasa decides to return to Shiganshina.
Unfortunately, the rumours spread even there. Because of this, Mikasa asks her father to find her a husband quickly so that the gossip will stop.
Privately, Mikasa’s father approaches Eren. Although Eren behaved badly in the past, he was the one who saved Mikasa, and her father cannot think of a better man to marry her.
Eren sees this as his chance both to save Mikasa and to win her back, so he agrees to marry her.
However, Mikasa remains cold and indifferent. She makes it clear that their marriage was arranged once before, and that is exactly what it is now, nothing more.
How will Eren win Mikasa back? I don’t know, friends, haha!
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