#gallibert

I got bored and I like making lists and excel sheets, so I went ahead and mined all the data from the various Bertholdt relationships that exist on AO3. The resulting statistics and graphs are quite interesting, so I want to share them!

To start, I went to AO3′s tag search page, searched for every ship that contains Bertholdt OR Bertolt, picked the Relationship category, selected Canon and Non-Canon, and sorted by chronological ascending so that they would show up in the order in which they were created.

Then, I went ahead and collected the following data: 

The canonical ship name

Characters involved

Type (romantic or platonic)

Genders involved

Number of characters in the ship

Number of fics in the tag

The order in which they were created

A link to the works and tag page

The number of G, T, M, E, and Not Rated fics

In doing so, I ignored synonym ships. Half of all of Bertholdt’s current 525 ship tags are variations on Reiner/Bertholdt. I’ve only catalogued the canon tag, or if that was missing, the most canon spelling.

Then, I went ahead and created some tables to count totals and other numbers that seemed interesting.

Important to note is that the total number of fics isn’t an accurate sum of total fics that are on the archive. For example, if a single fic is tagged with both “Armin Arlert/Bertolt Hoover” and “Armin Arlert & Bertolt Hoover”, then this fic will represent itself twice in the data. The numbers are more to be taken as relative: how many fics contain this ship tag and how does that compare to other ships?

I went with ships because these are the easiest way to ensure that the fic is at least a little bit about Bertholdt. Most fics that tag him have him in the background or he doesn’t even show up in them. When at least one relationship with him is tagged, the odds that he’s relevant in the fic increase by a lot. The number of fics that have him as a main character but that don’t tag him in any relationships is rather insignificant, so this is the best way to go through Bertholdt fics and collect some data.

You can find the full sheet here. Data was captured on the 8th of January 2023. The newest ship tag at the time was Bertolt Hoover/Onyankopon and I will likely not update these stats since it’s quite a bit of work. Unless some really bad life decisions lead me to still be in this fandom in five years and data has shifted enough to see an evolution.

Find the full sheet with data here.

Let’s go through the data!

‎

‎

Number of fics

When sorted by size, these are the ships with the most fics:

Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover (2666)

Bertolt Hoover/Annie Leonhart (465)

Bertolt Hoover/You (310)

Reiner Braun & Bertolt Hoover (300)

Reiner Braun & Bertolt Hoover & Annie Leonhart (275)

Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover/Annie Leonhart (125)

Armin Arlert/Bertolt Hoover (75)

Bertolt Hoover & Annie Leonhart (63)

Bertolt Hoover/Eren Yeager (61)

Bertolt Hoover/Original Character(s) (59)

Bertolt Hoover/Jean Kirstein (58)

Marco Bott/Bertolt Hoover (55)

Bertolt Hoover & Reader (40)

Armin Arlert & Bertolt Hoover (32)

Sasha Blouse/Bertolt Hoover (30)

Reiner Braun & Pieck Finger & Marcel Galliard & Porco Galliard & Bertolt Hoover & Annie Leonhart (29)

Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover/Reader (25)

Mikasa Ackerman/Bertolt Hoover (23)

Porco Galliard/Bertolt Hoover (23)

Bertolt Hoover/Ymir (20)

Not unexpected that RBA ships and reader ships are at the top, considering the former has always been popular and the latter is a large trend at the moment. 

I was surprised that Bertholdt/Armin is the largest rarepair considering that when I first got into this ship in September of 2020, there were about 20 fics in this tag and over half of them were either crack, didn’t contain them, or had them as background characters. It’s nice to see it boom!

Ships with Eren, Jean, and Marco are one of the first Bertholdt ship tags to be created on AO3. They used to be popular in the early days but are quieter in recent years due to a shift in character spotlight.

‎

‎

Characters

Ships

The following graph shows how many Bertholdt ships each character is a part of.

Reiner, Annie, Marco, Jean, Eren, Marcel, Armin, and Reader take up the top spots for characters who appear in the most ships.

‎

‎

Fics ‎

When you bring in how many fics are tagged with a ship containing each character, the view becomes quite skewed.

Because of the sheer number of Reiner/Bertholdt fics, Reiner racks in 3530 fics, representing 65,8% of all Bertholdt fics. Annie comes in second at 996 fics or 18,4% and Reader is third with 310 or 5,7% of fics.

To give a more representative overview of the other ships, Reiner, Annie, and Reader’s data were removed from this graph.

Armin (122 fics), Jean (115 fics), Marco (106), and Eren (100) are notably higher than the rest.

I live for unhinged Bertholdt. I don’t make the rules, he’s just hot. Also implied GalliBert because I’ve been thinking about them all day.

Set in a canon-divergent where both Reiner and Bertholdt make it back to Marley after RTS.

Reibert & Gallibert.

--------

Reiner didn’t have much hope almost for anything. There were only a few things that kept him grounded; Gabi and the kids’ cheerful smiles and innocent like laughter, being finally home after a long five years spent on that cursed island.

And Bertholdt, who also made it home with him.

His partner, his friend–his dearest friend–and sometimes, during moments Reiner tries to not let his mind linger on for more than a second, even more.

He was often tempted to try and share a smidge of what he felt for the other man with someone he could trust. Pieck came first to his mind but, shame and self-loath often held him back.

Talking about it with the man in question was out of the equation. For so many reasons. Many of which revolved around Bertholdt’s exclusive interest in the opposite gender, his so far never-refuted interest in a five feet tall blond whom they’ve yet to bring back home (another reason why Reiner would never try to rob Annie or Bertholdt of their chance to be together, not until he made sure she was alive, unscathed and home).

However, even when he was feeling selfish enough to want Bertholdt for himself, there was always one line he could never cross. One conviction that always managed to stop him from even alluding to his feelings for the brunet. One that made dread settle in the pit of his stomach, and made it hard to breathe at times.

The thought – no, the unyielding conviction that Bertholdt had suffered enough because of him during their time in Paradis. That Bertholdt deserved someone much, much better.

He didn’t know who Bertholdt exactly deserved. Reiner often tried to evade the notion altogether as it made his heart clench at the grim reminder that it would—should—never be him. But he knew for certain there was one person he would’ve never thought about being the right fit for his dearest friend.

Not until that day.

He didn’t have a particular reason to trudge toward Bertholdt (and Galliard’s) shared room. But when did he ever have a reason to want to talk to his best friend?

He was about to put his hand on the doorknob when it froze mid-air at the muffled but, unmistakable moan from behind the wooden door.

Initially, Reiner tried to not think anything of it. Maybe Galliard just sneaked a girl from downtown or some colleagues of theirs–whoever she was. As long as it’s not what Reiner thinks is happening.

The latter hope soon disintegrated when he finally made out Bertholdt’s voice, alongside Galliard’s.

Reiner couldn’t bear to stand there any longer, not when their moans and grunts were growing louder despite their earlier attempts to be quiet. Reiner retracted his hand, as if scalded, before he turned on his heels and practically ran outside of headquarters. He doesn’t remember who he saw on his way outside, what he might’ve said or done. All he could remember was there suddenly wasn’t enough air in the world to breathe.

He doesn’t know how much time he had spent overcoming his panic, just that the night was eerily quiet but the air wasn’t as fresh anymore. Not with the puff of smoke he’s been exhaling from his second cigarette. He knew he should go back to his room, because they had an early meeting tomorrow with the general and it was probably late by now. He knew he’d also struggle to fall asleep, haunted by the knowledge of whom Bertholdt had finally deemed worthy of his love.

For some reason, Reiner felt like he should’ve seen it coming. After all, wasn’t Galliard better than he was, almost on every aspect?

Perhaps it had been karma, for causing his brother’s death. For snatching away the Armored Titan from him when Reiner didn’t deserve it in the first place.

Galliard managed to get back at him in the worst yet, most fitting way Reiner could possibly imagine.

------

This is just a snippet from the whole fiction. I haven't decided how it ends yet but, hopefully i'll be getting back on it sometimes soon.