こんにちは !!

The snk fandom is ever-expanding, and with new fans come new shippers. Maybe your’e one of them. No doubt you have plenty of questions about the ship and the shippers, I’m here to answer them; because not so long ago, these were my questions too. Honestly, I was afraid someone would think that my questions were silly, so I never really asked them. Google was basically my best friend there :’) but this simple Q and A compilation should get you covered. So let’s get started!

1. Why is it called ereri?

 This is a romantic relationship between Eren Jaeger and Levi Ackerman. Levi was initially mistranslated as Rivaille and that’s what stuck to the ship names.

(top)Eren x (bottom)Rivaille = EreRi

(top)Rivaille x (bottom) Eren = RivaEre/RiRen

Ereri is used to refer to both, though.

2. Why do people ship them?

A lot of reasons! Some enjoy the courtroom scene, where Levi kicked Eren to within an inch of his life (Personally squicks me out, can you tell?). Some people like the superior-subordinate dynamic. Others like the slow but strong platonic bond building between them. Some like the symbolic “humanity’s strongest’ and ‘Humanity’s last hope’ feel. 

Some just happened to stumble upon fanfictions (which, by the way, are excellent) and were instantly convinced. Ditto with fanart. And there are so many shippers whose stories I’m yet to hear!

3. So is it canon?

Romantically? No. But Eren and Levi share a strong bond fueled by mutual trust and respect (and a bit of awe). Currently, as per official sources, Levi is Eren’s mentor figure/vanguard.

4. The official art tends to suggest that ereri is canon… I’m confused.

Ah, the official art… aka the fuel to our fangirl-fire. It’s true! A lot of the official art does give off ship vibes between the two. Is it because the animators ship it? Is it to boost merchandise sales? Is it because Eren and Levi play an important role in each other’s lives?

Who knows? All we can do is be sob gratefully into the nearest soft thing.

However, no ship is canon unless explicitly stated by Isayama.

5. How popular is ereri among all snk ships?

It is extremely popular. I don’t have current statistics, but fanlore tells me that when snk was released, everyone and their mother shipped it. 

Last time I checked, ereri is the most popular ship of snk; (even appearing in the top 20 ships of 2015) and has a huge presence on ao3 as well. (Again, my stats are fuzzy currently but if someone can give them to me I’ll put them up!)

6. What are antis? Why are there so many about ereri?

Anti is short for anti-shipper. In short, people who are against a particular ship. And yes, an uncommonly large number of people are against ereri. Their main arguments are the large age gap between the two (which they incorrectly call pedophilia) and the courtroom scene I mentioned earlier (which they use to label the whole relationship as abusive).

 Their aim seems to be to stop shippers from shipping ereri and they do so by baiting and spamming shippers with hate, spamming the tag with hate or in extreme cases, suicide-baiting and rape/death threats.

7. What’s the community like?

So far, I have no complaints. My ereri family is so sweet and caring and supportive <3 However, I must warn you that there are some bad eggs. Some shippers crosstag, harass people for not liking ereri, harass their own friends for not liking ereri in the same way that they do, and basically you’d do better to stay away from.

Most of us aren’t like that, though! We are simply a bunch of content creators who use Tumblr as a platform for our ship and interact with each other quite happily. We support and comfort each other. We share each other’s ups and downs. We are decent human beings.

These are all the questions I can think of for now. I hope you find this guide useful, new shipper!  Feel free to ask me any question I haven’t answered on here.

Happy Birthday to the Twins!