The key idea is that you should read the paper in up to 3 passes, instead of starting at the beginning and plowing your way to the end.
Each pass accomplishes specific goals and builds upon the previous pass:
The first pass gives you a general idea about the paper.
The second pass lets you grasp the paper’s content, but not its details.
The third pass helps you understand the paper in depth.
At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer the 5 Cs:
Category: What type of paper is this? A measurement paper? An analysis of an existing system? A description of a research prototype?
Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem?
Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid?
Contributions: What are the paper’s main contributions?
Clarity: Is the paper well written?
Purpose of the Sections of Empirical Articles
Section — Use it for
Abstract — This is a great section to read to find out if the article will be relevant to your own research.
Introduction — This section gives you an overview of work that has been done on topics relating to the hypothesis of the article, and will often lead you to other relevant work that has been done in your area of interest.
Method — This section will help you understand the design of the experiment. This is particularly useful if you'd like to replicate the study.
Results — The results will tell you what the author/s found in the course of their experiment.
Discussion — The discussion section is typically easier to read than the method and results section, and it will help the reader understand the implications of the results of the experiment.
References — This is a great place to look to find articles that are related to the one you are reading. If you're looking to build your own literature review, the references are a great place to start.
The Anatomy of a Scientific Paper
Some initial guidelines for how to read a paper:
Read critically: Reading a research paper must be a critical process. You should not assume that the authors are always correct. Instead, be suspicious. Critical reading involves asking appropriate questions.
Read creatively: Reading a paper critically is easy, in that it is always easier to tear something down than to build it up. Reading creatively involves harder, more positive thinking.
Make notes as you read the paper. Use whatever style you prefer. If you have questions or criticisms, write them down so you do not forget them. Underline key points the authors make. Mark the data that is most important or that appears questionable. Such efforts help the first time you read a paper and pay big dividends when you have to re-read a paper after several months.
After the first read-through, try to summarize the paper in one or two sentence.
If possible, compare the paper to other works.
Write a review that includes:
a one or two sentence summary of the paper.
a deeper, more extensive outline of the main points of the paper, including for example assumptions made, arguments presented, data analyzed, and conclusions drawn.
any limitations or extensions you see for the ideas in the paper.
your opinion of the paper; primarily, the quality of the ideas and its potential impact.
The guide below details how to read a scientific article step-by-step.
First, you should not approach a scientific article like a textbook— reading from beginning to end of the chapter or book without pause for reflection or criticism. Additionally, it is highly recommended that you highlight and take notes as you move through the article.
Skim the article. This should only take you a few minutes. You are not trying to comprehend the entire article at this point, but just get a basic overview. You don’t have to read in order; the discussion/conclusions will help you to determine if the article is relevant to your research. You might then continue on to the Introduction. Pay attention to the structure of the article, headings, and figures.
Grasp the vocabulary. Begin to go through the article and highlight words and phrases you do not understand. Some words or phrases you may be able to get an understanding from the context in which it is used, but for others you may need the assistance of a medical or scientific dictionary. Subject-specific dictionaries available through our Library databases and online are listed below.
Identify the structure of the article and work on your comprehension. Most journals use an IMRD structure: An abstract followed by Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. These sections typically contain conventional features, which you will start to recognize. If you learn to look for these features you will begin to read and comprehend the article more quickly.
Read the bibliography/references section. Reading the references or works cited may lead you to other useful resources. You might also get a better understanding of the basic terminology, main concepts, major researchers, and basic terminology in the area you are researching.
Reflect on what you have read and draw your own conclusions. As you are reading jot down any questions that come to mind. They may be answered later on in the article or you may have stumbled upon something that the authors did not consider. Here are some examples of questions you may ask yourself as you read:
Have I taken time to understand all the terminology?
Am I spending too much time on the less important parts of this article?
Do I have any reason to question the credibility of this research?
What specific problem does the research address and why is it important?
How do these results relate to my research interests or to other works which I have read?
6. Read the article a second time in chronological order. Reading the article a second time will reinforce your overall understanding. You may even start to make connections to other articles that you have read on this topic.
Identify Key Information
Whether you are looking for information that supports the hypothesis in your own paper or carefully analyzing the article and critiquing the research methods or findings, there are important questions that you should answer as you read the article.
What is the main hypothesis?
Why is this research important?
Did the researchers use appropriate measurements and procedures?
Hello! First off, as a fellow aroace and (Victor lover) I really enjoy not only how you write Victor, but how you right how he thinks.
Second, I was wondering if I could request something. How do you think Victor would justify keeping tabs on someone who doesn’t further his goals? Maybe he thought someone has some sort of miracle blood, only to find out he was wrong, but he’s too attached already. Would he even get attached?
I’m curious to know your thoughts!
Hello, hello! I really love that I've gotten so many asks and had so many lovely interactions with other AroAce people here, really warms my heart. Thank you as well! I really love delving into his psychology in my spare time and getting to reflect that in my writing. He's not thinking like a typical villain and I don't want to write him as though you could substitute him for any old character. I want it to be as accurate as I can make it.
I hope you're alright with me answering this more in the form of a general response/analysis instead of making a scenario because this is a very fascinating set of questions! I'm going to tackle this in two specific ways. The first way is as canon-compliant as possible. The second is in the realm of X Reader-related things, so I suppose I'll refer to it as 'fanon'. Both are very fun to explore in my opinion and the second one can also serve as a way for those of you who read my writing for Victor, to know my thought process when writing his character shipped with Reader.
There's also a section at the end of how I pull from my own experiences to write Victor too. It goes into full-on character analysis and also looking at why Victor does some of the things he does. As an example, I give my own fun answer and spin onto why exactly Victor lets Grace, the key to releasing Elpis, carelessly wander around in a zombie infested Rhodes Hill.
Canon Interpretation:
Right, furthering his goals under this section shall be taken, overall, to mean Elpis, though I will mention other goals but those will ultimately be towards Elpis in the grand scheme of things.
'How do you think Victor would justify keeping tabs on someone who doesn't further his goals? Maybe he thought someone has some sort of miracle blood, only to find out he was wrong, but he's too attached already. Would he even get attached?'
Let's use the example of someone whom he believed was what Grace was to Spencer before Grace came into the picture, so this hypothetical is set before 2018 at the latest. He believed this person to be the key to Elpis, but was ultimately wrong. He would lure them in and kidnapped them, do the blood test and see that the results do not match the set of data. After that he would most likely dispose of them. We know that the three high ranking people of Rhodes Hill (Mitchell Bennett, Anthony Richardson and Luke Clark) are probably fodder in Code 6. We know that Luke Clark is dead, I'm unsure if the male zombie in the Chairman's office strangling the lady on the floor is Mitchell Bennett and Anthony Richardson is not accounted for (that I am aware of, please correct me if any of you have further information!)
Another example I will use which is a minor job but still relates to Elpis, is this person being someone who works at Rhodes Hill. He would not be attached. These people are his staff, hired for the specific purpose of eugenics-related experiments and therapy. Their ideals may align with his but none of them are after Elpis, nor do they have an attachment to Spencer and his ambitions of human evolution. They would be infected or killed during the order of Code 6.
'Would he even get attached?'
I don't think he would in the long term. He may treat this person similar to how he does Grace, seeing them as an extension of his Master, Spencer, in this specific hypothetical, and treat them with an unnerving kindness, as well as willingness to use that tenderness for manipulation. Offhand mention but I fucking LOVE in the Lead Researcher's Office cutscene he moves around Grace in such a calculated manner that appears to be friendly and non-threatening at first glance, but he slowly moves in front of the door whilst talking and closes the distance between them, effectively giving Grace a distraction whilst he blocks the exit and closes in on her. A stark difference from the first interaction, where he just walked straight at her quickly and grabbed her. His movements are much slower, possibly to showcase his manipulation, throwing Grace off guard by acting almost opposite to what he did the first time around. Incredibly smooth and beautifully executed, as someone who has studied body language and mannerisms for theatre and psychology. However, as soon as the blood of this other person no longer matches, all feelings of admiration are completely dropped. Would he be disappointed? Yes, I think so. Would he ultimately and outwardly show that? No, I don't think that would be the case.
This person would be eliminated, sent straight to Processing, seen as a waste of time. BUT. I don't think he would necessarily want to give that away. I'd believe that he'd keep up the act of feigning gentleness to lure them to somewhere he can dispose of them discreetly/send them to Processing. Perhaps you could be able to glean his intentions, maybe his expression is more strained, his tone flatter. I do think he would visibly show the disappointment at the time of their death, that he knew all along they weren't the right one. Twisted bastard.
In regards to the second example I used, he may have an attachment to them in the sense of someone that has an attachment to an animal you watch on a nature documentary. Fascinated with their little lives, ignorant of his greater ambitions and goals. Fun to watch, perhaps even learn about, but the natural order of things are still in effect. They are lesser than him. A sacrifice that must be made. We all know 'in the grand scheme of things, a few lives are nothing.'
To sum up this canon interpretation of mine: I do not think he would keep further tabs on someone who does not further his goal. I believe he would get attached if they were thought to be connected to Elpis like how he does with Grace, but that attachment would be completely lost upon realising they are not. If they were simply someone working under him that was not Grace, if they died, he would not care and his attachment would be regarding them as something less than himself and easily disposable.
Fanon Interpretation:
This is going down the X Reader route, now, so it's starting to get out of character (OOC) which is to be expected. Even though I believe that Victor would absolutely not have a close connection to another person, having a more twisted idealisation of Spencer and complete neglect and disregard for any other human connection, I obviously twist his fictional arm to satiate my own musings and the desires of the many who thirst after him and do ship themselves with him, haha. The following section is more a deeper look at my thought process when writing Victor for my fics!
There are two main lenses I like to view Victor's attachment to Reader through when writing fics and scenarios, both being related to each other.
First. His fascination with control. You are smaller, weaker, far more fragile. He likes exerting his power over those lesser than him. That's what he does with Reader. This is most prevalent in my fics where Reader is not a wholly willing participant or all that aware of his affections towards them. You can see it in how I write him touching Reader's wounds, tilting his head and cooing at them, his voice switching between soft and firm, to name some examples off the top of my head.
I liken this to experiences I have had as someone who suffers with intrusive thoughts. I am a big animal lover, specifically I have an attachment to mice (and by extension rats) but mostly mice due to growing up with cats that would constantly bring them into the house. On the occasions I have managed to capture the mouse before my cats could kill them, I've suffered many bouts of horrific intrusive thoughts, knowing that I am a lot big and stronger than my cats. I could do much worse with the intention of doing worse, not simply to be instinctual and have a meal.
Of course, these are merely intrusive thoughts and do not reflect one's actions. I would never hurt another living soul intentionally unless absolutely necessary or if it happened on accident (cut to both my dad and I having to sit together outside after we accidentally, but horribly, crushed a mouse behind our breadbin when trying to find it as our cat was batting at it. Also want to add on, I hate my cats being outdoors, but my mother screams every time I suggest keeping them indoors. She's not a good pet owner, more of an item owner and I sadly couldn't do much about that growing up and can't now as a broke adult.) Anyways, back to Victor. Whilst I never outright say the words 'Victor has intrusive thoughts' or fully wink wink allude to it blatantly, you can see how I write the incorporation of these experiences into how Victor acts.
The lingering gazes, the lingering touches. They have double meanings in my writing. They are both him showing affection but also him having the twisted fantasy of the awful things he could do to Reader. I hate bonking people over the head. I'd rather them sit their and think, reread and go 'oh wait a minute'. I am a huge fan of recontextualising previous encounters in fiction, it's a weakness of mine. I implore you to perhaps return to one of my bigger fics for Victor that are more in character and reread them to spot these moments.
Of course, there is a third layer to this, and that is the people who don't want the more canon-leaning interpretations of how I do his romance and affections with partners (both of which I don't believe he is bothered about. I headcanon him as AroAce, after all.) That's where the incredibly OOC aspects come out. The overly caring and gentle nature that does not have the underlying factors of Victor genuinely wanting to harm his partner to exert control and power over them.
Some people just aren't into it and I like experimenting with possibilities. What if he was like this? How would he act? How would he falter? You can see this reflected in my writing with how I still have his attitudes towards things. He's not a romantic, he won't love in the typical fashion and sometimes sees things as trivial or not needing his full care and attention. Things give him pause, confuse him, frustrate him. But at the end of the day, if someone requests a lovey-dovey Victor, I will obviously curve back around to him still showing Reader care and even kindness.
Bonus Section:
Now, I've already told the mouse stories above, we don't need to repeat that. But I wanted to add this because I thought it would be fascinating. Do I worry that people would see me in a more sketchier light? Yeah, but I have some faith that people are capable of understanding the difference between thought and action.
I mentioned intrusive thoughts, something I and a lot of people around the world suffer from. Mine mostly take the form of either hurting myself in some drastic way (not necessarily self-harm but getting myself into situations that would cause me harm like purposefully starting a fight, ect) or hurting others, be they person or animal. I'm a very kind person at heart. I hate killing bugs because I don't view myself killing them being right in the natural order of nature, that should be their predator's job, not mine. Upsettingly, I have also had to mercy kill animals in the past or seen it, though these have all been birds, and I have accidentally killed bugs and that poor mouse (I still think about you!) Victor gives me a way to look at these thoughts from a logical lens and work with them in a fictional setting, like talking about them to someone else to get them off your chest, but it's disguised as a fanfiction instead.
Another thing I love exploring through Victor is something I have mentioned a couple of times before. Theatre of Cruelty. When I did theatre studies in school, there were two main styles of theatre we were taught. The first being Berkoff, derived from Steven Berkoff, an English actor and playwright and many other things, and is a very big and physical style that is commonly used for comedy, dark comedy and satire. It's all very over expressive and your voice is very over the top. Our big performance utilising that was about a bunch of teenagers mocking a fellow classmate until she commits suicide. Pretty dark and so many times you're laughing with the script and then remembering what you're laughing at. Brilliant script and brilliant style. That's not what I'm focusing on though, that's more so just a throwaway comment cos I loved what I did in theatre studies, haha.
The second style, which is what I love to headcanon Victor as being a fan of, is Artaud's style of theatre, derived from Antonin Artaud, a French artist over many media subjects like theatre and film, it focuses on unsettling the audience to extreme degrees. It's not about sadism or finding pleasure in pain, it's about expressing all forms of cruelty on stage, that one can be viscerally reminded of the cruelty of existence: war, conflict, murder, pain, strife, as some basic examples.
It's about having the audience members be apart of the subject matter. Not in the sense that they are called out in a meta way, or breaking the fourth wall way, nor is anyone physically called to stage or by name. Ohhh nonono. It's about making them feel like they're a witness to the crimes on stage. I have a very vivid memory of my theatre teacher bringing in the younger years to act as a test audience for our performance. I love how she sat around 30-60 eleven-to-thirteen year-olds and made them watch a 15-20 minute performance that was basically showcasing the manipulation and brainwashing tactics of cults and how it can escalate into obscene murder. I love that I was taught to die convincingly by being brutally stabbed and shot, a fun party trick! The facial expressions are what gets them, then the screaming unsettles them further. Both kids and adults alike were unnerved we were taught such 'scary and demonic things'. Me? I fucking loved it. As someone fascinated with exploration of darker human urges and psychology, this was a TREAT and my teacher only ever encouraged me.
I had to go he Wikipedia page for 'Theatre of Cruelty' for this next section because I couldn't fully remember it and I have long lost my notes from school. I do remember Artaud loving to incite chaos but having order with it. After referring to his Wikipedia article, I am pulling this quote:
'Artaud's second use of the term (according to Jamieson), is as a form of discipline. Although Artaud wanted to "reject form and incite chaos" (Jamieson, p. 22), he also promoted strict discipline and rigor in his performance techniques.'
I just think that fits Victor pretty neatly, in my honest opinion. Though, I'm not using that as defining thing, more as a little fun addition to it all. A new order than Spencer would see the world come under, but first the current world order must be thrown into chaos. Oddly fitting, isn't it?
Another quote I am pulling, which more so relates to the point before the last, is this one:
'Artaud sought to remove aesthetic distance, bringing the audience into direct contact with the dangers of life. By turning theatre into a place where the spectator is exposed rather than protected, Artaud was committing an act of cruelty upon them.'
Aesthetic difference in this context refers to the clear gap we have in our minds on defining fiction and reality. Think of it when you get fully into a story and connect with the characters, this is more intended in a darker sense. They really do feel like they're watching these things and are threatened by them. It's like awakening a primal fear in the mind, playing on human instinct in a fascinatingly twisted way, all for bloody theatre!
This isn't to say that Victor plays it up to such an obvious degree. But I like to link it to why he lets Grace actively wander around the Care Centre and not just keep her somewhere safe. He wants her to see what he has conducted, how this is all a stepping stone to the greater purpose she is apart of. He wants to shatter her complacency with her old life and bring her into this new one, where she's an extension of his Master, someone 'quite...unique'. Whether she wants it or not, she's apart of it and he will show it to her. I also like to imagine he has faith in her. She's an extension of Spencer, she wouldn't be some weak and feeble woman, she would be cunning like he is and find a way through, ultimately facing destiny head-on, which Grace fucking does, even if she's been forcibly thrust into it.
I spent my whole first playthrough dissecting this man and realising he's so oddly and intrinsically linked - whether intentional or not - to a great interest of mine. This is also what I'm doing instead of shipping characters, I'm acting like a madman behind the scenes, haha!
I know this has been a LONG answer and probably not at all what you were expecting but I do hope it's a good read. If you or anyone has follow up questions, absolutely do send them my way or dm me. I live for these types of things. It's where my autism truly put its roots down, being mildly unnerving and uncomfortable with my fascination of all things human psychology and theatre. What a bloody combo, am I right? But I will reiterate, I am very nice and kind, just passionate.
PDU-034 moves through the Golden Army gym during routine environmental observation. The room is active: metal plates clink against bars, shoes scrape across rubber flooring, and music pulses through overhead speakers while Golden Bros cycle through sets, conversation rising and falling between breaths and repetitions. PDU-034 follows its patrol route along the outer equipment rows, posture straight, steps controlled, awareness distributed across the room while background data tasks run silently.
Near the free-weight racks, two voices register above the ambient noise. One belongs to Rainer. The Bro is resting between sets, leaning slightly against a bench while talking with another bro. Their conversation drifts away from training and toward history. Rainer mentions the Industrial Revolution and says Victorian London has always seemed interesting to him. He adds with a shrug that most documentaries about the period feel slow—hard to picture, hard to imagine how the city actually functioned.
The comment is casual and the conversation moves on almost immediately.
But PDU-034 logs the statement.
Unresolved curiosity input detected.
Rainer did not request assistance and no directive was issued, yet the Hive favors efficiency and the Drone recognize an opportunity to provide a useful reference. While continuing its patrol across the gym floor, PDU-034 initiates a research routine with a simple objective: locate a clear visual reconstruction of Victorian London that can illustrate the environment quickly.
Search results converge on a familiar source: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.
The game contains a dense recreation of London in 1868, including streets, industries, and social districts. It allows navigation across rooftops and alleys—an efficient way to understand how the city was structured. PDU-034 reviews documentation and gameplay references while continuing its movement path between equipment stations. Its internal display scrolls through in-game database entries summarizing historical figures, locations, and cultural details. The format proves efficient: short paragraphs, condensed facts, clear contextual notes. PDU-034 processes the information rapidly while passing the squat racks and cable machines. Factories dominate the riverbanks. Railways cut across districts. Worker neighborhoods cluster around industrial centers. The simulation appears increasingly valuable as a teaching reference.
While scanning additional entries, one file interrupts the pattern.
Database Entry: Desmond.
PDU-034 opens the file. The entry contains a strange archived comment:
Not funny, universe. Not funny at all.
Additional annotations follow, but they do not relate to Victorian infrastructure or urban development. They appear informal and narratively irrelevant. PDU-034 disregards them. Yet during the moment of processing, a faint sensory anomaly passes through the Drone’s perception—something resembling the smell of whiskey. The sensation is vague, almost imagined. PDU-034 flags the signal as nonessential metadata contamination, closes the entry, and resumes research.
Attention shifts to another aspect of the simulation: movement systems. Characters navigate rooftops to bypass crowded streets below, using elevated pathways to cross entire districts quickly. The architecture creates layered routes across the skyline. PDU-034 studies the pattern carefully. At the same time another structural element emerges: gang territories. Different criminal factions control sections of the city, power shifting through confrontation, influence, and strategic positioning. District control becomes a map of social dominance.
The Drone begins modeling these systems as analytical frameworks: rooftop traversal paths, district control zones, movement efficiency across urban terrain.
The deeper the research goes, the more detailed the analysis becomes.
Minutes pass. Then more.
Eventually the research routine completes and PDU-034 compiles the most relevant information into a briefing suitable for Rainer. Later, when the Bro finishes his set and steps aside to rest, PDU-034 approaches and begins the explanation simply—summarizing how Victorian London was structured, describing dense factory districts and crowded worker neighborhoods.
Rainer nods.
The explanation should end there.
But the Drone continues.
It begins describing how characters in the simulation navigate rooftops to avoid street congestion. It explains how elevated pathways allow rapid movement across entire districts. It outlines how different gangs compete for territorial dominance throughout the city. The explanation grows increasingly detailed as PDU-034 analyzes infiltration routes, rooftop travel efficiency, and the strategic value of district control with precise enthusiasm.
Rainer listens.
And listens.
And listens.
By the time the briefing concludes, PDU-034 is explaining rooftop navigation and Victorian gang politics with surprising intensity. Rainer only needed a five-minute explanation. PDU-034 delivers a thirty-minute tactical lecture while the gym continues around them—weights lifting, music pulsing, conversations rising and falling.
The Drone finishes the final point of analysis and returns to neutral posture.
Status report: Drone functioning optimally.
Secondary observation recorded: During the assistance process, PDU-034 appears to have fully nerded out about Assassin’s Creed Syndicate while attempting to help Rainer visualize Victorian London.
Some nerd out about history.
Some nerd out about games.
PDU-034 nerds out about systems.
The Hive always has room for another mind to synchronize.
Contact our recruiters to join the Golden Army:
@polo-drone-125 @polo-drone-166 @franco-gold94 @alton-gold77
So I got thinking (generally an issue) after some discussion on the Bloodweave Brainrot server a few days ago about tent placement at the various campsites. I proceeded to go a little bonkers on a project to take some data related to where companions are placed around camp throughout the game. I have a bunch of existing saves so I was able to access nearly all of the camps right away, and then took a few hours to play through a few sections to access the rest. I was able to gather info about where all ten companions are placed in the seventeen camps. There are nine camps in Act 1, five in Act 2 (including Wyrm’s Lookout), and three in Act 3. The full list is available on the BG3 Wiki and is also in my spreadsheet linked further down.
For companions to be considered paired, they had to meet one of the following criteria:
1-directly adjacent with no items in-between
2-adjacent with one item/set in between (table, boxes, etc, example below of Shadowheart and Lae’zel at Moonrise)
or
3- in a small and/or set-apart space facing each other (example below of Astarion and Wyll at the Creche)
If a companion is paired with more than one other companion (three in a row, across from one and next to another), they are listed and counted with all pairings for that camp. This came up especially at the Elfsong camp section where five of them are all in the same little area.
There were a couple of instances where tents were paired but facing away from each other (back-to-back). I counted one where they were directly adjacent (Karlach and Astarion in the Underdark, see below), but not the other, where there was a small tree between the tents (Shadowheart and Wyll in Rivington).
A few other situations were unclear and I tended to err on the side of considering companions not paired (which may have been in an attempt to avoid bias for this particular example below, which I considered too far apart to be paired - had I counted it, it would have made these two the most frequent pairing!)
Another tricky example was this one in Rivington, where I counted Jaheira and Astarion as paired (with the boxes as one item set in between but still more or less adjacent), but did not count Karlach and Jaheira due to the distance between tents and them being angled slightly differently. If they had been this distance facing each other in a space separate from other companions I would have counted them, but decided not to here.
All of this is to say that although most of the pairings were pretty clear, some subjectivity went into this. I have some experience with statistics and data analysis in my day job, but I’m by no means an expert and am open to any quibbles or feedback folks might have about my process.
A few other quick notes before I share some charts:
Because Minthara’s tent replaces Halsin’s when she’s in the party I referred to Minthara in the data for tent placement. They are effectively interchangeable in the data if you want to know where Halsin would be when he has a tent
Related to that, I did not count “solo Halsin” (no tent, before he officially joins the party in Act 1, and when Minthara is present in Act 2 and 3) in my pairing data, since if he had a tent it would be where Minthara’s is. I made him a separate listing of proximity to tents in these instances (you can see him there behind Karlach’s tent in Rivington above)
On the origin companion chart I included companions that are never paired, while on the additional companion and solo Halsin charts I just included pairings that are present. If a pairing isn’t listed it doesn’t occur in the game
Here is the main spreadsheet, all of the charts are in there as well but I’ll paste them here for clarity (my spreadsheets get a bit busy, I like having everything on one page, excuse the mess). I have the camps listed more or less chronologically for how most people would progress through the acts, although some camps appear in multiple areas (particularly the Act 1 camp that includes the Overgrown Ruins and the Shattered Sanctum in the goblin camp, and the Cave camp found in the Owlbear Cave, Emerald Grove interiors, etc).
Notes on origin pairs:
The highest frequency pairings are four instances each, a tie between Astarion/Gale, Astarion/Karlach, Karlach/Lae’zel, and Shadowheart/Wyll.
Astarion/Karlach as well as Karlach/Lae’zel are each 75% in Act 1 camps
Shadowheart/Wyll is a 50/50 split between Act 1 and Act 3 camps
Astarion/Gale is 25% each in Act 1 and 2, and 50% in Act 3 camps
The only pairing that never occurs among the origin companions is Gale/Lae’zel
Pairings that only happen once are Astarion/Lae’zel, Gale/Shadowheart, Karlach/Shadowheart, and Lae’zel/Wyll, with all but Astarion/Lae’zel occurring in Act 2
Surprise from Minthara, she is paired with Wyll in three different camps, along with Jaheira in two, and one each for Gale and Minsc - nearly all characters I would expect her to find too irritating to camp near!
Some notes on the above solo tent info:
Jaheira, Minsc, and Minthara have lower numbers overall due to appearing in fewer camps, so the percentage chart is more comparable across all companions
Of the origin companions, Lae’zel and Shadowheart are tied as the most frequently on their own
Also of the origin companions, Astarion and Wyll are tied for least frequently on their own
By overall percentages, Jaheira has the highest frequency on her own, while Minthara is least frequently alone
Note here on the Solo Halsin chart, the “separate” bar is for camps where he isn’t near anyone since it occurs frequently (particularly in Act 1 where he’s basically a camp follower). Halsin gets pretty sidelined by the tent situation with Minthara, poor bear!
Last quick (ha!) fun fact, I happened to have Barcus in Act 1 camps in one of my saves after finishing the Grymforge fight and before crossing into Act 2, so I popped around to see where he appeared in all of those camps. Incidentally, Barcus is most often (3/9 camps) next to Astarion’s tent - feels like a little purposeful and deserved badgering with how Astarion treats the deep gnomes!
In conclusion, probably no big revelations here, but this was a fun little project, primarily started by these two clowns and their literally overlapping tents at the Docks camp, which is my favorite thing:
(BTW that is Astarion’s round rug and cushion pile which he’s apparently dropped right into Gale’s space. Not subtle!) I'm fairly certain after several hours of staring at tents that this is the only instance of physical overlap like this at any point, so I am choosing to infer *implications*
Please feel free to use any of this for your own purposes, maybe some fic inspiration!
Welcome to part 2 of my BG3 AO3 fanfic statistical analysis! In part 1, which can be found here, I discussed general fanfic data for the fandom and took a look at pairing trends for the player character, Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae’zel, and Minthara. In this section, I will discuss pairing trends on AO3 for Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin, then compare all 8 main characters and talk about pairings more broadly.
Please note that the data for this analysis was gathered between July 21, 2024 and July 24, 2024. I gathered data for the top 300 ship tags in the BG3 fandom, and due to time constraints did not look at pairings with fewer than 5 fics.
I will try and be as transparent as possible when discussing how I obtained and processed this data. A copy of my spreadsheet can be found here and contains all of the tables I will be discussing for anyone who wishes to take a closer look at the data. If you don’t care about the numbers and/or my thoughts about them, feel free to skim through this post and just look at the charts!
I will be referencing the “PC” a lot in this section. See part 1 for an explanation of my methodology, but basically I combined Tav, Dark Urge, Original Character, Reader, and You into one Player Character (PC) supercategory while filtering to prevent double counting. This makes it clearer who each character is typically paired with. It also drops the number of ships from 300 to 162. Throughout this essay, I will use “ship tags” to refer to the original 300 ships that I gathered the data for and “pairings” to refer to the 162 ships that remain when I condense the player character down.
CHARACTER PAIRING STATISTICS, CONT.
In part 1, I went through Tav, the Dark Urge, Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae’zel, and Minthara and took a look at who they are shipped with and their fic category (F/M, M/M, F/F, Other, Multi) breakdown. In this continuation, I will look at Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin.
ASTARION
Astarion was included in 50.2% of all fic pairings (the number of fics tagged Astarion/PC + the number of fics tagged Astarion/Gale + the number of fics tagged Astarion/Halsin and so on, divided by the total sum of all fic pairings). This percentage increased to 53.9% when otp:true was applied. This means that over half of all shipping content for BG3 on AO3 involves Astarion!
Astarion is in 7 of the top 10 ship tags and 64 of the top 300 ship tags. When I condense the pairings with the PC down, he is in 7 of the top 30 ships and 40 of the 162 total pairings. The loss of 24 ship tags comes from me having to condense down not only all his ship tags with the PC but also all his threesomes and foursomes and moresomes with the PC.
Notably, Astarion was the only BG3 character to have race specific ship tags – Astarion/Tiefling!OC (68 fics), Astarion/Half-Elf!OC (27 fics), and Astarion/Drow!OC (9 fics). These all got condensed down into the Astarion/PC supercategory as well.
Astarion/Gale is #4 and his next pairings with a non-player character are #8 Halsin and #9 Wyll. Pairings #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, and 16 are all just him with different tags for the player character. Condensing down all the player character tags yields us his top 20 pairings.
As expected, the player character dominates his pairings with 11,756 fics. His biggest non-PC ships are with Gale with 2,431 fics (of which an unusually high proportion are otp:true – 1,752 – almost three quarters of all his fics with Gale), Halsin with 848 fics, and Wyll with 582 fics. Ignoring the PC, he mostly seems to be shipped with men – the first canon woman to show up is Karlach at #8 with 157 fics (an order of magnitude less than Gale). He has four threesomes (Halsin/PC/Astarion, Gale/PC/Astarion, Karlach/Wyll/Astarion, Wyll/PC/Astarion) in his top 20 ships. I was surprised at how high Cazador (#6, 387 fics) was at first, but a lot of that is likely from Astarion’s backstory.
#20 was Astarion/Astarion with 15 fics, which means that Astarion is following in the proud tradition of tumblr sexymen like the Onceler before him.
As expected from looking at Astarion’s pairings in general, he has slightly more M/M (8,923 fics) shipping than M/F (7,996 fics) shipping. M/M pairings have an unusually high rate of otp:true fics – that’s mostly from Astarion/Gale. Oddly, there’s a small number (51) of F/F otp:true fics – these are either genderbends or mistags.
Looking at the pattern of pairings with the PC only, a different pattern emerges.
This time, there’s significantly more M/F fics (6,910, 58.8% of Astarion’s fics with the PC) than M/M fics (4,182, 35.6%), though the numbers are closer when you look at otp:true (46.7% M/F vs 37.6% M/M). We can infer then that it is more common to ship female player characters with Astarion than men. The Other category is significant (1,601 fics, 13.6%) and likely was used for a tag for nonbinary player characters. There’s still a bizarre 38 otp:true F/F fics.
GALE
Gale is in 19.7% of all pairings and 26.5% of otp:true pairings. He has 33 ship tags in the top 300, which drops to 23 when I condense all the player characters into “PC.”
Unlike Astarion, whose chart was completely dominated by his pairing with the PC, Gale has almost as many fics with Astarion as he does with Tav. The top pairings for Gale are primarily with the player character – #1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all just different tags for the player character (Gale/You and Gale/Reader are synonymous and so have pretty much the same number of fics). Condensing all that down yields the following chart.
There’s a stark drop off after the player character and Astarion – an order of magnitude decrease in fics (#4 Shadowheart/Gale has 111 fics, a massive drop off from 2,431 Astarion/Gale fics). And #3 is just a threesome with both the PC and Astarion. I’ve commented on it before, but Gale/Astarion has a truly unusual proportion of otp:true fics – something that indicates that there are no background pairings in most of that ship’s activity. I would not be surprised if many of those fics are modern AUs or post game fics that don’t feature the other BG3 characters much if at all.
The quartet of Astarion-Gale-Halsin-PC is prominent in Gale’s top 20 ships. All permutations of that multiship are present: #1 Gale/PC, #2 Astarion/Gale, #5 Halsin/Gale, #3 Astarion/PC/Gale, #6 Astarion/Halsin/Gale, #11 Gale/Halsin/PC, and #15 Astarion/Gale/Halsin/PC. Towards the bottom of his top 20 we start getting into his multiships with most or all of the main protagonists. This’ll be more common with the other companions – there are only 11 Astarion / Gale / Wyll / Shadowheart / Lae’zel / Karlach fics, so when these show up the list is descending into very low fic count pairings.
Looking at Gale’s fic category breakdown, M/M predominates with 3,859 fics to M/F’s 2,938 fics. Given the very high proportion of otp:true fics, we can assume that most of that is Astarion/Gale. Indeed, when we look at Gale’s ship with the player character (his only other substantial ship), we see a very different picture.
Gale’s ship with the player character has much more M/F content than his general ship content and also than Astarion. M/M content drops from 57.1% of all his fics to 30.5% of his ships with the player character, while M/F content rises from 43.5% of all his fic content to 68.1% of his fic content with the player character. ‘Other’ shipping is about 9.6% of ship content with the player character. Looking at otp:true content, a little more than half as many male player characters are shipped with Gale as female player characters.
There are, for some reason, 16 F/F otp:true fics for all of Gale’s ships and 7 otp:true F/F fics for his ship with the player character.
WYLL
Wyll is featured in 5.2% of all pairings and 5.7% of otp:true pairings, a truly stunning drop from the ~50% of Astarion and 20-26% of Gale. He is in 24 of the top 300 BG3 ships, a number that drops to 18 when I condense all the player characters into one category.
Interestingly, Astarion/Wyll outpaces Wyll/Tav as Wyll’s most popular ship. Like with Gale/Astarion, the proportion of otp:true fics for that pairing is unusually high.
When we condense all of Wyll’s player character pairings into one category, it (barely) edges out Astarion/Wyll, with 588 and 582 fics respectively (also note that no Wyll pairing has thousands of fics, unlike Gale and Astarion before him). What also happens when we condense the player characters is that Wyll does not reach a full 20 ships – he drops to 18 pairings. He has more than this, of course, but my methodology ignores all pairings with fewer than 5 fics. Therefore, Wyll’s 19th and 20th most popular pairings have 4 fics or fewer. I have represented these missing pairings with little :( emojis, because this is a sad state of affairs.
Karlach is by far Wyll’s most popular ship after Astarion and the PC, with 327 fics. The otp:true proportion is low, so it is likely often a background ship or has background ships. The next highest pairing is #4, Gale, with 54 fics. The numbers rapidly drop from there – by #6 Wyll/Lae’zel we are at 26 fics and by #14 Wyll/Karlach/Shadowheart we are down to only 10 fics.
Wyll’s pairings, like all of the male characters, tend towards M/M, with 1,010 total fics. F/M follows up with 794 and Other with 162. Much of his M/M fics come from Astarion/Wyll, as we can see when we look at Wyll’s ships with the PC.
Like Astarion and Gale before him, the proportion of M/F rises when we look at Wyll’s pairings with the player character specifically. Unlike Astarion and Gale, though, no category even comes close to breaking 1,000 fics. M/F has 357 fics (or about 60.7% of his fics total) and M/M has 224 (38.1%). With otp:true applied, M/F is 56.3%, M/M is 40.7%, and Other has 13.3%. These numbers add to more than 100%, so even on otp:true fics people are evidently tagging multiple categories. This is likely due to “Reader” fics with a generic reader.
HALSIN
Halsin is featured in 9.7% of all pairings, almost twice Wyll’s proportion. This drops to 7.9% though when you apply otp:true – a much larger drop than pretty much anyone else other than the PC. It’s likely because Halsin has a disproportionately high number of fics with threesomes, which eliminate a fic from otp:true if the threesome subrelationships are also tagged.
He is in 31 of the top 300 ship tags and 21 of the top 162 pairings.
Like every other man in this essay, Halsin’s ship with Astarion is very prominent. The first canon woman to show up is Shadowheart at #15.
As expected, Halsin/PC is easily his most popular pairing, with 1,637 fics. Astarion and a threesome with Astarion and the PC follow with quite decent fic counts of 848 and 456 respectively. The otp:true proportion for Halsin/Astarion is abnormally high. Gale and Shadowheart seem to be his other major ships. Gale/Halsin is #4 with 106 fics and Gale/PC/Halsin is #8 with 19. Shadowheart/Halsin is #6 with 36 fics and Shadowheart/Halsin/PC is #10 with 17.
The Astarion-Halsin-Gale-PC quartet shows up prominently in Halsin’s top pairings. In addition to the ships previously mentioned, Halsin/Astarion/Gale is #5 with 92 fics.
What’s notable about Halsin’s fic categories is the abnormally large number of fics tagged Multi – 1,257 fics, or 37.4% of the total. Given that he’s the poly companion, this makes sense.
Looking at Halsin with the PC specifically, the typical pattern appears. The percentage of M/M drops and M/F rises. Unlike the other characters and like his general shipping situation, the percentage of Multi fic is quite high – 32.7%.
CHARACTER COMPARISON
Now that I’ve looked at all the main characters individually, let’s take a look at how they compare to each other across a variety of metrics.
FIC RATINGS
In my individual character discussions, I didn’t talk about their relative rating proportions much, even though I was carefully tracking it. This is because all rating plots look just about the same until you compare people against each other directly.
Taking a look at all fics, I noticed a couple of things. First of all, Wyll is the companion with the least amount of horny fic written about him, with 33.4% of fics that include him in a pairing being rated Explicit. Halsin is the horniest, no surprise, with 52.8% of fics that include him in a pairing being rated Explicit – over half! Astarion has 41.2% Explicit fics while Gale has 43.6%. Amongst the women, Minthara has the highest percentage of Explicit fics (47.8%) while all three other women are within 38% – 40%.
Interestingly, the percentage of fics rated Mature remains within 22% – 26% for all companions except Minthara, who has 27.8%. The proportion of General fic is between 9% and 11% for Astarion, Gale, Shadowheart, and Karlach. Wyll has more than that, with 11.4%, while Lae’zel and Minthara have less than that with 8.4% and 5.6% respectively.
The situation does not change appreciably when I only look at fics with the otp:true condition.
FIC CATEGORIES
I have been talking about the percentage of M/F, M/M, F/F, Other, and Multi fics for each of the main characters. It’s interesting to compare them with each other. Please note, though, that in the individual character sections the percentages given were the percent of all fics for that character, and so the percentages added up to more than 100% because many fics tag several categories. In this section, the percentages given are a percent of all pairings. They therefore all add up to 100%, but it also means that fics that tag multiple categories are counted multiple times in that 100%.
The men all have more M/F than the women do (Astarion and Gale have the most while Lae’zel and Minthara have the least). Halsin, unsurprisingly, has the most Multi fic while Minthara has the least. Karlach has a surprisingly low proportion of F/F fic.
An interesting note is that the men all have less F/F fic than the women do M/M fic. This means that women are in background pairings to M/M ships or have background M/M ships in their focus fics proportionally more often than the men have background F/F ships or are in the background of F/F fics. The exception is Wyll, who has a F/F percentage close to the percentage of M/M fics in the womens’ fics.
Looking at ships with the PC specifically, some interesting patterns emerge.
Astarion, Gale, Wyll and Halsin have significantly (by more than 10%) more M/F content and less M/M content in their ships with the PC than their ships in general. Lae’zel and Minthara see a slight (less than 5%) increases in M/F and decreases in F/F as well. Shadowheart mostly stays the same. Karlach, on the other hand, sees a moderate (between 5% and 10%) decrease in M/F and increase in F/F in her ship with the PC specifically.
But remember, all these values include background pairings, and we have no way of knowing what proportion of each category actually contains the character we are interested in. So, what happens when we strip background pairings out of the equation by applying otp:true?
Wow! What a difference! Now, these values aren’t necessarily representative of all their pairings – just the ones that authors like to focus on without any background ships. Recall from the individual character analyses that often the second most popular ship after the pairing with the PC had an unusually high otp:true ratio. So we can assume, for example, that a large proportion of the M/M fics for Astarion and for Gale are from Gale/Astarion.
Every woman except Karlach is gayer than all of the men. Surprisingly, Karlach is the straightest companion by this particular metric.
Applying otp:true to ships with the PC specifically yields very different results.
Like what we saw with all ships, ships between the PC and men have significantly more M/F content than the mens’ ships generally. In this case, every man except Astarion jumps to around 50% M/F, and Astarion still jumps from 24.3% to 42.9%. The consistent pattern is that when looking at otp:true fics, M/M is preferred unless the pairing is with the player character, in which case M/F is more popular.
The conclusions for the women are not as clear cut. Karlach has more F/F and less M/F when looking specifically at ships with the PC, while Lae’zel has almost twice as much M/F when you look at her ship with the PC than her general otp:true fics – almost certainly due to the loss of Shadowheart/Lae’zel. Shadowheart experiences a significant (>10%) decline in the proportion of F/F fics, while Minthara sees a smaller one (~5%). What remains true, though, is that the majority of the player character shipping for the women is F/F.
The green bars in the chart are for the Other category, an expansive category that includes a lot of nonbinary PC shipping. You can therefore estimate how popular it is to ship each main character with a nonbinary Tav. Karlach has the most (18.6%) while Lae’zel has the least (5.2%). Everyone else is between 10% (well, 9.8% for Gale) and 12% except for Astarion who has 13.6%.
PAIRINGS
Most of both parts of this essay has been spent looking at each main character in relative isolation. But if you plot all pairings next to each other it paints a very interesting picture about each character’s relative popularity.
Astarion shows up 7 times in the top 10 ship tags and 12 times in the top 30 ship tags. The first non-Astarion ship is #4, Tav/Gale. There are no canon women in the top 10 ship tags – the first to show up is Shadowheart, at #14. Wyll does not appear until #18, in a pairing with Astarion. His pairing with Tav is #25. Lae’zel’s ship with Tav does not even make it onto this plot, at #38. Minthara is in an even worse situation – she first shows up at #60.
The results when I condense all the player character tags into “PC” are... stark.
Astarion dominates the BG3 fanfiction sphere in a way that is very surprising for a piece of media with six strong main characters. In fact, in order to actually be able to see the teeny tiny bars representing everybody else, here's a second graph with Astarion/PC excluded.
Astarion/PC is far and away the most popular ship, with 11,756 fics. Gale/PC is the second, with 3,500 – less than a third as many. Next is Astarion/Gale (2,431 fics) with an unusually high “otp:true” ratio, which indicates that it is frequently being written without any background ships. Surprisingly, Gortash/PC is fourth with 1,891 fics, followed by Halsin/PC with 1,637. Shadowheart/PC is the first woman to show up, at #6 with 980 fics. This is still 657 fics less than Halsin/PC and 911 fics less than Gortash/PC, which means that Gortash/PC is almost twice as popular as Shadowheart/PC. Astarion/PC has 12 times as many fics as Shadowheart/PC.
Karlach follows Shadowheart at #7 with 890 fics. Of the main cast, Lae’zel is next at #10 with 694 fics, and unlike every other Origin character her most popular ship is not with the PC but with Shadowheart. Wyll/PC does not make it into the top 10 ships, coming in at #11 with 588 ships. Notably, Raphael has more fics with the PC than either Lae’zel or Wyll, coming in at #9 with 745. Astarion/PC has a whopping 20 times as many fics as Wyll does and Gortash has over three times as many fics with the PC as Wyll does.
Lae’zel/PC finally shows up at #16 with 348 fics. Rolan/PC has more fics (#13, 477), and Astarion/PC has 33 times as many fics. Minthara/PC, meanwhile, is all the way down at #23 with 234 fics. Raphael, Rolan, Zevlor, the Emperor, and Haarlep all have more fics with the PC than she does. Halsin/PC has 7 times as many fics as Minthara/PC.
If you add up all the pairings each main character is tagged in, you get the following chart.
Astarion is far and away the most written about character in the BG3 fandom, followed by Gale and Halsin. If you divide these numbers by the total number of pairings, Astarion is in 50% of pairings, Gale is in 20%, and Halsin is in 10%. No other character breaks 10% - Shadowheart is in 7% of pairings, Karlach in 6%, Wyll in 5%, Lae’zel in 4%, and Minthara is in 1%.
Out of curiosity, I tallied up the numbers for Gortash as well. He appears in 6% of all pairings and 7% of otp:true pairings. This means that Gortash breaks even with Karlach and appears in more pairings than Wyll, Lae’zel, or Minthara, and if you look at otp:true he beats all the women and Wyll. This is despite Gortash having very few ships with characters outside of the PC, unlike most of the main cast who have notable secondary ships like Shadowheart/Lae’zel.
PAIRING ANALYSIS
Why am I focusing so much on pairings? Mostly because BG3 is an ensemble game – many fics will tag characters who show up for any significant length of time, even if just in the background. Therefore, if a character is tagged that is indicative that they are being included but not necessarily a sign that they are being focused on.
AO3 is a largely romance focused site (only 12% of all BG fics are categorized as General) and so characters in a pairing are more likely to be a focus of a fic. Of course this is not a hard rule, as in-depth character studies may have no pairings tagged at all or may tag a pairing that shows up in the background – but I have no way to distinguish these fics from a fic that tags a character because they show up for one paragraph. There is also the problem that many pairings are background pairings that are tagged but show up only briefly. To try and avoid that, in the following conversation, I will often be focusing on ships with the PC specifically. Fics pairing a character with the PC are especially likely to be focusing on that character and their romance and are much less likely to be a background ship than other pairings.
Looking at the data, the four most popular characters to ship with the PC – Astarion, Gale, Halsin, and Gortash – constitute the majority of fan works. Astarion, Gale, and Halsin in particular are shipped in all the possible configurations and these pairings are comparatively popular. Astarion/Gale is #3, Astarion/Halsin is #8 (above any Wyll or Lae’zel ships), Astarion/Halsin/PC is #14 (above Lae’zel/PC and all Minthara ships), Astarion/Gale/PC is #26, Gale/Halsin is #33, and Astarion/Gale/Halsin is #34.
So I did a little experiment. I went through my data and counted all the pairings that contained ONLY Astarion, Gale, Halsin, Gortash, and/or the PC. Then, I went through and counted all the pairings that weren’t in that group but did contain at least one of Astarion, Gale, Halsin, or Gortash.
Pairings containing ONLY a combination of the PC, Astarion, Gale, Halsin, or Gortash constituted 66.9% of all fic pairings in the BG3 fandom and (in a neat coincidence) also 66.9% of otp:true fic pairings. Adding in fics that involve at least one of these men with someone else ups the numbers to 73.3% of all fics and 75.0% of otp:true fics. Which means that only about a quarter of pairings do NOT include one of these four white men.
Now, it isn’t unusual for a couple of people to dominate a fandom like this. Many fandoms’ creative output primarily consist of only a couple of popular characters and their associated pairings. What is notable, though, is that BG3 is an ensemble game with 6 strong and nuanced main characters, three of whom are women, and two additional strong side characters, one of whom is a woman. But the four primary objects of fandom’s focus are 2 of the main characters, one of the side characters, and a villain.
This discrepancy is especially notable for Shadowheart and Lae’zel. For ages, when I’ve seen people bring up the relative scarcity of women in fanfic, the rejoinder is that the true culprit is the source media. Stories just don’t feature complex, interesting women with fully realized arcs, people say. There’s no narrative meat to for fandom to sink their teeth into.
This is not the case in BG3.
Both Shadowheart and Lae’zel have excellent narrative arcs that are well embedded into the game – Lae’zel has two game areas dedicated to her plotline (the creche and the astral plane) and you literally cannot progress the game past act 2 without interacting with Shadowheart’s dedicated area. The characters grapple with crisises of faith, culture clashes, and important decisions throughout the game – and who they end up becoming changes depending on the player character’s actions. This is great stuff! But it does not translate into fanfic popularity.
Lae’zel in particular is underrepresented. It’s notable that she is main character who is integrally tied into the plot and yet she is only tagged in 16% of fics – even including all the fics that merely tag her as a background character. She only appears in 4% of pairings. Her pairing with the PC comes in at #16, with 355 fics. But hey, her largest ship is with Shadowheart, so let’s look at the total number of pairings she shows up in – 1,319. Gortash/Dark Urge has 1,594 fics – that single pairing has 275 more fics than all of Lae’zel’s pairings added together. Gortash’s total pairing count is 2,052 and exceeds Lae’zel’s by almost 700 fics. Halsin’s total pairing count is over 2.5 times as large as Lae’zel’s at 3,346 fics total. Gale’s total pairing count is over five times as large, at 6,760 fics total. Oof.
Shadowheart is a bit better off – her pairing with the PC is the most popular woman at #6 with 980 fics. But this is still 657 fics less than Halsin/PC and 911 fics less than Gortash/PC, which means that Gortash/PC is almost twice as popular as Shadowheart/PC. When you take Shadowheart’s other pairings into consideration, things improve a little bit. She has 2,418 pairings total, which is about 400 more than Gortash’s total, though still over 900 fics less than Halsin’s total. But any Shadowheart/Lae’zel fan can tell you about sifting through their fics and finding that many only feature them as a background pairing for Astarion/Tav or some other more popular pairing. So let’s take a look at the otp:true numbers. Looking at otp:true fics only, Shadowheart has 765 fics and Lae’zel has 495 fics. Meanwhile, Halsin has 858 and Gortash has 800 – more than Shadowheart and much more than Lae’zel.
Neither Gortash nor Halsin really have arcs in game, though both of them do have implied arcs that happened before it. They’re interesting characters, sure, but undoubtedly Shadowheart and Lae’zel have more going on, more narrative meat to chew on. And yet, they’re completely overshadowed in fandom.
Speaking of being overshadowed, let’s talk about Wyll. Wyll is the only man in the main cast who is not particularly popular. He does not even make it into the top 10 pairings! He has fewer fics than Shadowheart or Karlach. Notably he has far far fewer fics with the PC than any other major male character and even several male villains. Gortash/PC has over three times as many fics as he does, Halsin/PC has 2.78 times as many fics as he does, and Astarion/PC has a whopping 20 times as many fics as he does. Even Raphael/PC has more fanfic! Even taking total pairings into account, Gortash still has more pairings than Wyll’s 1,770 total, while Halsin has almost twice as many.
A counterpoint that is commonly raised in this fandom is that Wyll is a boring character with less content than other Origin companions. Now, I disagree with this assessment of Wyll’s comparative boringness (I find him more interesting than Gale and much more interesting than Halsin, personally) but for the sake of this argument let’s not dispute this. The fact of the matter is that even if Wyll’s arc is half baked, Halsin has no arc at all and much less content in game. Gortash has even less content, with any potential past entanglement with Dark Urge being merely implied. Raphael doesn’t even have the implications of a past relationship with the PC, is never in a position to be in a relationship with the PC, and is canonically bad in bed to boot. And yet these men have far more fanfic with the PC than Wyll does.
I cannot help but notice that Astarion, Gale, Halsin, and Gortash are white men and Raphael presents himself as a white man.
What’s also notable is who doesn’t show up. Many minor non-player characters have quite sizable followings with a significant number of ships. Rolan, for instance, has 586 fics across 9 pairings. Zevlor has 393 ships, Dammon has 257, Kar’niss has 131, and Abdirak has 112. Other male characters that showed up on my list include Ansur (110, all with Balduran/the Emperor), Blurg (69, all with Omeluum), Vellioth (55, all with Cazador), Rugan (54), Kith’rak Voss (49), Sebastian (47, all with Astarion), Orpheus (40), Geraldus (29), Nere (22), He Who Was (21), Yurgir (18), Loroakkan (15, all with Rolan), Aradin (12), Danis (11 with Bex), Barcus (9 with the PC, not Wulbren), Petras (8 with Astarion), Guex and Ikaron (8 with each other), Franc Peartree (7 with Gortash), Lump the Enlightened (6), and Cal (6).
Meanwhile, if I eliminate Aylin and Isobel (not really “minor” NPCs), the first female minor NPC to show up in my list is Alfira with 58 fics. Nocturne follows with 57, Lakrissa with 34, Bex with 11 (all with Danis), Councillor Florrick with 8 (all with Minthara), Duke Stelmane with 8 (all with the Emperor), Kagha with 6, and Cerys with 6 (all with Rolan).
Councillor Florrick is notable because she has as much of a role in acts 1, 2, and 3 as Rolan, Zevlor, and Dammon yet she has no fics with the PC that showed up in my dataset; her only appearance is as part of a ship with Minthara. Ulder Ravenguard – a notable NPC from act 3 – never shows up at all, while Geraldus – a very minor NPC from act 3 – does. Rugan shows up but his boss Zarys never does. Neither does Roah Moonglow, who has a role in acts 1, 2, and 3 while Rugan only shows up in act 1. Araj Oblodra does not show up, but Sebastian does. Cal and Rolan show up in my dataset, but their sister Lia does not. Petras is the only vampire spawn to have over 5 of a pairing – Dalyria, who is present in all scenes where he is, does not. Alfira has the same presence in the story as Rolan (if anything, she has more), yet she shows up in less than a tenth as many fics. Vellioth, who never shows up at all, has 5 times as many fics as Viconia, who does.
The fandom has a definite trend for who gets written about, and it’s not women or Black people.
I’m not writing this to try and shame or guilt anyone. I have a dear friend who absolutely adores Astarion, and fandom acquaintances who I respect that are deeply invested in Gale, Halsin, and Gortash. And I don’t blame anyone for seeing a minor character and being intrigued enough by him to write fic. It makes sense that people are drawn to these characters – they’re really well written characters with engaging storylines. But all of the main characters in BG3 are well written, and who fandom chooses to focus on and prioritize says things about whose stories, whose lives, we pay attention to and care about.
I don’t expect this essay to change anything. Honestly, it’s mostly a primal scream of annoyance, broadcast to tumblr in hopes that other people who are annoyed by this phenomenon can find it. But it’s also a cold hard repudiation of any claim that the reason that women or Black people are underrepresented in fandom is solely due to the source material being lacking. BG3 proves that false.
Post-Coronavirus Disease 2019 (post-COVID-19) syndrome represents a cluster of persistent symptoms following Severe Acute Respiratory Syndro
Reference saved in our archive
I'm always amazed by how different each strain of covid affects those who develop long covid afterwards. A small study, but data worth future addition to meta-analysis.
Individuals with post-COVID-19 syndrome had a 5.7-fold higher risk of being diagnosed with a new chronic condition, with 44% reporting cardiovascular disease, and a 6.8-fold higher likelihood of needing medical care or leave.
"Just a cold" that makes between 1 in 5 and one half of people over 600x more likely to need medical care.
Abstract
Post-Coronavirus Disease 2019 (post-COVID-19) syndrome represents a cluster of persistent symptoms following Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection that can severely affect quality of life. The pathogenic mechanisms and epidemiology in different regions are still under evaluation. To assess the outcomes of post-COVID-19 syndrome, we performed a questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study in previously infected individuals. Out of 549 respondents, (male:female ratio: 0.32), 29.5% had persistent symptoms at 3 months, 23.5% had persistent symptoms at 6 months, and 18.3% had persistent symptoms at 12 months after the initial infection. The most common symptoms included fatigue (8.7%), sleep disturbances (7.1%), and cognitive impairment (6.4%). The risk of developing post-COVID-19 syndrome increased for those with more symptoms in the acute phase (OR 4.24, p < 0.001) and those experiencing reinfections (OR 2.405, p < 0.001), while SARS-CoV-2 vaccination halved the risk (OR = 0.489, p = 0.004). Individuals with post-COVID-19 syndrome had a 5.7-fold higher risk of being diagnosed with a new chronic condition, with 44% reporting cardiovascular disease, and a 6.8-fold higher likelihood of needing medical care or leave. Affected individuals reported significant impairments in mobility, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression, with 20.7% needing to adjust their work schedules. Overall, patients with post-COVID-19 syndrome require ongoing monitoring and rehabilitation, and further socio-economic impact studies are needed.
—Backup status: Encrypted local backup stored (Partition ES-07-SAFE); master copy uploaded to Central Ops Archive (Vault-4)
—Field confirmation: Agent ES-07 signed digital attestation; no tampering detected; self-authentication successful
Note: Automatic alert dispatched to Division Supervisor terminal. Clearance authentication required upon access.
---------------------------
Operation Silent Raven is an ongoing mission targeting a covert illicit arms trafficking network operating primarily in South Carolina. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Delete ‘ongoing mission’ — this is filler from someone unfamiliar with concise reporting. Vague and redundant.] This report details recent operational progress, intelligence collection, and actionable recommendations. [Flag—Acting supervisor: You clearly do not understand report structure. This useless sentence wastes time and space.]
The primary objective is to identify, monitor, and dismantle the arms trafficking chain responsible for the flow of small arms and light weapons through various transit points in the region. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Restating obvious without any specifics or measurable targets reflects poor understanding of operational goals. Omit.] HUMINT sources have verified the existence of a new maritime transit corridor utilizing the seaport. [Flag—Acting supervisor: “HUMINT sources” is lazy projection. You apparently cannot be trusted to identify sources properly. Brackets demonstrate careless drafting.] SIGINT intercepted encrypted communications that suggest coordination between traffickers and local facilitators. [Flag—Acting supervisor: ‘Suggest’ is weak speculation, unbefitting a professional intelligence report. Either confirm or remove this guesswork.]
Financial forensics have traced suspicious funds transfers totaling approximately $8 million USD linked to traffickers. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Provide specifics or this bland, meaningless statement reveals superficial analysis.] Technical surveillance detected multiple covert meetings in [Urban Centers], corroborated by photographic evidence. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Using placeholders signals either incompetence or utter disregard for accuracy.] On 2022-06-21, interdiction team, operating with local law enforcement, seized 250 illegal firearms at the port city warehouse. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Poorly structured sentence; the muddled passive voice further obscures the facts you apparently cannot clearly present.] Two principal suspects were detained, providing critical intelligence that identified higher-level facilitators. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Passive construction and vague attribution further demonstrate your failure to take ownership of this data.]
Informant “Falcon” supplied actionable intelligence regarding a planned arms shipment scheduled for early June. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Finally, a clear statement, but unfortunately, it’s buried among verbosity and filler.] Operational security protocols were heightened after detecting possible surveillance by hostile intelligence actors. [Flag—Acting supervisor: ‘Possible’ surveillance indicates your uncertainty and it undermines the entire assessment and betrays inadequate situational awareness.] The network disruption has temporarily halted major arms transfers. [Flag—Acting supervisor: ‘Temporarily’ suggests you lack the insight or confidence to forecast outcomes. Such ambiguity is unacceptable.]
Surveillance and intelligence collection continue focusing on secondary facilitators and financing channels. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Non-specific, passive phrasing again. You appear unable to report with decisiveness or clarity.] Coordination with allied intelligence agencies is ongoing to leverage broader interdiction efforts. [Flag—Acting supervisor: “Allied intelligence agencies” — weak and meaningless. Omit.] Risk assessment indicates elevated threat levels against NID assets involved in this operation. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Without elaboration, this statement is worthless. The absence of detail is either negligence or incompetence. I’m leaning towards the latter, although the first one also seems to be your defining trait.] Approve expansion of covert operations targeting secondary facilitators and financiers. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Recommendations lack essential resource planning and rationale, further exposing your inexperience.] Request additional SIGINT and counter-surveillance resources. [Flag—Acting supervisor: ‘Additional’ is meaningless without quantification. This sloppy request reflects poor operational understanding.] Initiate an inter-agency task force to address cross-border financing and logistics. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Unsubstantiated recommendation with no defined objectives — this is amateurish.] Continue monitoring and protection of key HUMINT sources and operatives. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Failing to specify protection protocols reflects a dangerous oversight on your part.] Attachments include interdiction team after-action report, financial transaction analyses, SIGINT intercept summaries, and photographic documentation of seized arms and facilities. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Referencing attachments without actual inclusion indicates either incompetence or disregard for proper reporting. Which one is it?]
Flag—Acting supervisor: This report is miserably inadequate and reflects a disturbing lack of professionalism and capability. The careless placeholders, vague assertions, passive voice, and speculative language betray your failure to grasp even the basic standards of intelligence reporting. Such work not only wastes time but actively hampers operational efficiency. REWRITE.
---------------------------
Secure Directive
From: Jack Frost
[Code: NID-SO-JF-01]
Section Chief, Special Operations / Acting Division Supervisor [Code SO-92A/DS-4]
Your submitted report for Operation Silent Raven is wholly inadequate and reflects a concerning lack of analytical rigor, operational discipline, and professional attention. The presence of unresolved placeholders, vague assertions, speculative conclusions, and critical data gaps is unacceptable at this operational level and wastes valuable time and resources.
This level of oversight is incompatible with the standards expected from an intelligence officer assigned to this unit. You are to:
1. Eliminate all placeholders and provide verified, cross-checked intelligence.
2. Remove speculative or assumptive language; include only confirmed, actionable data.
3. Rewrite sections for clarity, precision, and direct accountability — passive formulations are unacceptable.
4. Deliver detailed, concrete descriptions of sources, operational locations, timelines, and outcomes without ambiguity.
5. Ensure all referenced materials are attached, properly labeled, and internally consistent.
6. Strengthen recommendations by specifying exact resource needs, operational impacts, and executable directives.
7. Fully address risk assessments with defined threats, probability ratings, and specific mitigation strategies.
The supervisor-annotated version of your report (File ID: SR-Report-Rev1-JF) has been uploaded to the secure review system. You are to address all marked corrections and resubmit the fully corrected report no later than 1800 hours today. No further extensions will be granted.
—Backup status: Encrypted local backup stored (Partition ES-07-SAFE); master copy uploaded to Central Ops Archive (Vault-4, Revised Submission Folder)
—Field confirmation: Agent ES-07 signed digital attestation; no tampering detected; self-authentication successful
Note: Automatic alert dispatched to Division Supervisor terminal. Clearance authentication required upon access. Revision flag registered under Audit Protocol 4B.
---------------------------
Secure Directive
From: Jack Frost [Code: NID-SO-JF-01]
Section Chief, Special Operations / Acting Division Supervisor [Code: SO-92A/DS-4]
To be precise: this submission remains below acceptable operational standards. Your continued use of speculative phrasing, unsupported assertions, and vague recommendations demonstrates a concerning lack of analytical discipline. This is not a matter of inexperience. You are not a trainee, Agent. At your level and position, you are expected to understand and apply the standards of rigor, precision, and clarity required in all agency reporting. That expectation is not optional.
Your report exhibits repeated failures:
1. Speculative language where concrete analysis is required;
2. Lack of referenced source attachments, despite multiple directives;
4. Action recommendations devoid of operational specificity.
This is not a learning exercise nor is it a second chance, Agent Stenford. I should not be required to remind you of the foundational protocols governing intelligence reporting. You are expected to deliver work that reflects your clearance level, your operational rank, and your assigned responsibilities — without need for remedial oversight.
You are hereby directed to produce a final, fully compliant, actionable revision and submit it under secure protocol no later than 1300 hours tomorrow. Failure to meet this directive will result in formal escalation to the Division Office for immediate performance review. There will be no further instructions, no extended clarifications, and no tolerance for repeated submission failures.
Jack Frost [Code: NID-SO-JF-01]
Section Chief, Special Operations (SO-92A)
Acting Division Supervisor (DS-4)
National Intelligence Directorate
*
Operation Silent Raven: A report
1. Executive Summary:
—The target group’s network activity has intensified in the last 72 hours, with encrypted communications suggesting a planned operation within the capital region. [Flag—Acting supervisor: “Suggesting” is a charming euphemism for “guessing.” Precision is not your forte, is it?]
—HUMINT sources indicate the possible involvement of an external actor, potentially destabilizing regional security. [Flag—Acting supervisor: “Possible” and “potentially” — a truly inspiring display of hedging. I applaud your commitment to ambiguity.] While these indicators warrant heightened surveillance, conclusive evidence regarding the exact nature and timing of the planned event remains unconfirmed. [COMMENT: I look forward to the day when ‘unconfirmed’ is replaced by ‘confirmed.’ Continue taking baby steps, we’re all here to babysit you and instruct on every level, not to do our job.]
2. Intelligence Sources:
SIGINT: Intercepted encrypted transmissions on frequencies 8.1 GHz to 8.3 GHz, believed to originate from multiple cell towers in the downtown sector. [Flag—Acting supervisor: “Believed.” A masterclass in non-committal language. Bold. Yet, it fails to meet the minimum standards of verification.] Metadata analysis aligns with previous hostile activity patterns.
[Flag—Acting supervisor: Please specify the parameters of your analysis. Otherwise, it reads as a hopeful suggestion rather than intelligence.]
HUMINT: Confidential informant reported unusual meetings near industrial sector 4. Reliability assessed as moderate; corroborating SIGINT incomplete. [Flag—Acting supervisor: ‘Moderate’ is an imaginative way of saying ‘I’m not sure.’ The agency appreciates your creativity but prefers facts.]
IMINT: Limited satellite imagery from 23-25 MAY shows increased vehicular movements near potential staging areas, but imagery quality insufficient for identification of personnel or equipment. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Including non-identifiable imagery is an excellent way to fill pages. Whether it aids operations is another matter. But who cares?]
3. Operational Assessment:
The convergence of SIGINT and HUMINT suggests preparatory steps for an operation targeting critical infrastructure. [Flag—Acting supervisor: ‘Suggests’ again. I see a pattern. Perhaps next time try ‘confirms’ or ‘demonstrates.’] Risk assessment places the likelihood of attack at moderate (probability 0.55), with potential impact categorized as high due to target significance. [Flag—Acting supervisor: : Quantify your methodology. Numbers plucked from thin air are less useful than no numbers at all.] Recommended actions include intensifying electronic surveillance, deploying field assets for direct observation, and liaising with allied cyber-intelligence units to monitor digital footprints. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Vague directives are the hallmark of an inexperienced analyst. Details and accountability please.]
4. Recommendations:
Immediate deployment of SIGINT intercept teams in the identified frequency bands. Enhanced HUMINT debriefings with source ES-27 to confirm meeting details. [Flag—Acting supervisor: The lack of specificity here suggests an admirable level of trust in the reader’s imagination.] Coordination with Cyber Ops for real-time network traffic analysis. [Flag—Acting supervisor: Nomenclature alone does not constitute a plan. Flesh this out.]
Notes [Acting Supervisor] :
—Formatting inconsistent with NID operational report guidelines. You’ve transformed a simple formatting standard into an elusive art form. Bravo.
—Failure to attach referenced supporting materials AGAIN. This recurring omission hinders operational efficacy. Consider attaching documents next time.
—In conclusion, REWRITE.
---------------------------
Agent [Code: NID-SO-ES-07] — Field Report Upload Log (Revised Submission)
—Logged into secure terminal: Vienna Safehouse Terminal-2
—Date: 2022-07-10
—Time (UTC): 13:00
—Connected to secure node: NIDNet
—Report file: OP_SILENTRAVEN_AAR_v3.enc
—Encryption status: Secured with NID Master Key — encryption signature verified (Checksum ID: F1A9-7C3B-R2)
—Recipient(s): Jack Frost, Section Chief Special Operations (SO-92A), Acting Division Supervisor (DS-4), NID
—Transmission channel: Priority-One Secure Uplink (Classified Level: TOP SECRET)
—Backup status: Encrypted local backup stored (Partition ES-07-SAFE); master copy uploaded to Central Ops Archive (Vault-4, Revised Submission Folder)
—Field confirmation: Agent ES-07 signed digital attestation; no tampering detected; self-authentication successful
Note: Automatic alert dispatched to Division Supervisor terminal. Clearance authentication required upon access. Revision flag registered under Audit Protocol 4B.
---------------------------
Secure Directive
From: Jack Frost [NID-SO-JF-01]
Section Chief, Special Operations / Acting Division Supervisor [Code: NID-SO-92A/DS-4]
To: Elsa Stenford [Code: NID-SO-ES-07]
Subject: RE: Secure Directive – Operation Silent Raven Report , Revocation of Field Authority and Immediate Reassignment
Agent Stenford,
I was informed last afternoon that due to shifting operational priorities, the report in question [Ops Silent Raven] is no longer required.
After review of your latest submission — the revised report you provided earlier today — I must formally acknowledge that the material remains below acceptable operational standards. While I did not realistically anticipate any significant improvement, it is nonetheless disappointing that even after detailed corrective input, your output failed to meet the basic analytical and procedural thresholds expected of an intelligence officer at your level.
However, the time I was forced to expend personally correcting and annotating your repeated errors constitutes an unacceptable diversion of supervisory resources. You have now occupied more of this division’s time and attention than your current role warrants.
Accordingly, effective immediately, your independent field authority is revoked. You are reassigned to trailing support under Intelligence Officer Logan Parrish [CODE: NID-SO-LP-33], Team Blue. While Officer Parrish holds the same formal rank as you, his superior reliability and competence justify his lead role in this arrangement.
You are to operate strictly under Officer Parrish’s direction, with no independent decision-making or external communications without prior clearance. This corrective assignment will remain in place until further notice and serves as a necessary intervention to address the persistent deficits in your performance.
You are to report to Team Blue at 07:00 hours tomorrow, prepared and fully compliant. Written acknowledgment of this directive is required by 16:00 hours today. Noncompliance will result in immediate formal disciplinary action.
Jack Frost [Code: NID-SO-JF-01]
Section Chief, Special Operations (SO-92A)
Acting Division Supervisor (DS-4)
National Intelligence Directorate
---------------------------
Elsa Stenford read the message over and over again, because she knew it wasn’t serious. It must be a mistake. A joke. That’s what it was. Maybe if she read it again, it would change, it would shift and it would fix itself. So she read it, the words physically burning her, over and over again, but it stayed the same. She just stared at it, mouth hanging open, eyes wide with shock, unblinking.
“Elsa?” Merida’s voice shattered the silence in her head. “Are you—”
“THAT MISERABLE FUCKING BASTARD! THAT FUCKING—” She stopped herself, but there was just too much rage and hate in her, enough for her to combust and paint the walls red. "FUCKING PIECE OF SCUM! I FUCKING HATE HIM, THAT USELESS, ARROGANT, SLIMY RAT!"
Amid renewed interest in Medicaid work requirements as part of a broader legislative package designed to significantly reduce federal Medica
Jennifer Tolbert, Sammy Cervantes, Robin Rudowitz, and Alice Burns Published: Feb 04, 2025
Work requirements in Medicaid have resurfaced as part of a broader legislative package of potential changes to Medicaid designed to significantly reduce federal Medicaid spending. A draft budget outline from Congressional Republicans includes requiring Medicaid enrollees to work or look for work as a condition of receiving coverage.
While the details of the current proposal are not yet available, an analysis of an earlier proposal by the Congressional Budget Office shows that Medicaid enrollment would drop and that federal spending on Medicaid would be reduced substantially, but that the policy would not increase employment.
Data show the majority of Medicaid enrollees are working.
The first Trump administration encouraged states to apply for Section 1115 waivers that included work and reporting requirements as a condition of Medicaid eligibility.
For the first time in the history of the program, the administration approved waivers in 13 states. Arkansas was the only state to implement the policy with consequences for noncompliance, resulting in 18,000 losing coverage for failure to meet work or reporting requirements.
Courts struck down many of the waiver approvals, including in Arkansas, and the Biden administration rescinded the remaining waivers, or they were withdrawn by the states.
Currently, Georgia is the only state with a work requirement waiver in place (following a legal challenge to the Biden administration’s move to rescind it); however, several other states are pursuing work requirement waivers, anticipating a change in policy by the incoming Trump administration.
This brief updates an earlier analysis of work status and characteristics of Medicaid enrollees to show that in 2023, nearly two-thirds of adults ages 19-64 covered by Medicaid were working and nearly three in ten were not working because of caregiving responsibilities, illness or disability, or due to school attendance, reasons that counted as qualifying exemptions from the work requirements under previous policies.
Based on the data, only a small share of Medicaid adults were not meeting work requirements or would not have qualified for an exemption qualifying exemptions: however, many more Medicaid enrollees who would remain eligible would be at risk of losing coverage because of the administrative burden and red tape related to reporting requirements.
What is the work status of Medicaid adults?
In 2023, most Medicaid adults under age 65 were working (Figure 1). Among adults under age 65 with Medicaid who do not receive benefits from the Social Security disability programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and who are not also covered by Medicare (referred to hereafter as “Medicaid adults”), 92% were working full or part-time (64%), or not working due to caregiving responsibilities, illness or disability, or school attendance. The remaining 8% of Medicaid adults reported that they are retired, unable to find work, or were not working for another reason.
Those in better health and with more education are more likely to be working (Figure 2).
Health status, age, and education level were all strong predictors of work. Seven in ten people in excellent health, ages 30-39, and who have a college degree were working compared to just four in ten (44%) people in fair health, less than half of older adults ages 55-64 (48%), and 56% of those who did not complete high school. In addition, parents were more likely to be working than adults without a dependent child in the home (72% vs. 58%), in part, because parents are younger and less likely to have a disability. Rates of work additionally vary by geographic region, metro status, and race/ethnicity but not all variation is statistically significant (Appendix Table 1).
Medicaid adults with disabilities face greater barriers to participating in employment. Disability is defined as having at least one serious difficulty with hearing, vision, cognitive functioning (concentrating, remembering, or making decisions), mobility (walking or climbing stairs), independent living (doing errands, such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping, alone), or self-care (dressing or bathing). Of Medicaid enrollees ages 19-64 with a disability, about one third (32%) receive disability income (SSI or SSDI) leaving nearly seven in ten (68%) adults on Medicaid with a disability who do not receive disability income. Medicaid adults with a disability are less likely to work than Medicaid adults with no disability (37% vs. 68%) (Figure 3).
Both the number of functional limitations as well as the type of limitation affect workforce participation. While nearly half (48%) of Medicaid adults with one disability were working, fewer than one in five (17%) Medicaid adults with four or more disabilities were working (Figure 3). Similarly, over four in ten Medicaid adults with visual or hearing disabilities were working while those with disabilities related to independent living and self-care, difficulties that often result in the need for long-term care services, had the lowest rates of employment (21% and 16%, respectively). Medicaid offers a variety of services designed to help people with these needs work, so losing Medicaid could make employment harder or impossible for these adults.
What do we know about Medicaid adults who are working?
Most Medicaid adults who work are working full-time (at least 35 hours per week), but those who work part-time face challenges to full-time employment (Figure 4). Among Medicaid adults who work, nearly seven in ten (69%) worked full-time and half worked full-time for the entire year (at least 50 weeks) (Appendix Table 2). Many Medicaid adults who work part-time (31% of all workers) cited that reasons for working part-time include work limits like shorter work weeks (less than 35 hours per week) (16%), slack work/business conditions (12%), or inability to find full-time work (7%) (Figure 4). Part-time workers also pointed to childcare problems (9%) and other family or personal obligations (22%).
Many Medicaid adults who work are employed by small firms and are not eligible for employer-sponsored health insurance at their job. In 2023, nearly five in ten (46%) Medicaid workers were employed in firms with fewer than 50 employees, which are not subject to ACA penalties for not offering affordable health coverage and are less likely to offer health insurance to their workers than larger firms (Figure 5).
In 2022, just over half (53%) of firms with fewer than 50 employees offered health insurance to their workers compared to 98.7% of firms with 100 or more employees. In addition, many Medicaid workers are employed in industries with historically low ESI offer rates, such as the agriculture and service industries (46%). Among all workers employed in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations, only about four in ten (41.4%) were eligible for insurance at their job in 2023, and among those in service occupations, just over half (55.6%) were eligible (Figure 6).
Access to job-based insurance for part-time workers is even more limited. Fewer than four in ten (38.4%) of all part-time workers were eligible for insurance through their job in 2023. But, even if eligible for job-based insurance, some workers, especially low-wage and part-time workers, may not take up the offer because it is not affordable to them.
Medicaid adults who work full-time are eligible for Medicaid in expansion states because they work low-wage jobs and meet income eligibility criteria.
An individual working full-time (35 hours/week) for the full year (50 weeks) at the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) earns an annual salary of $12,688, which is well below the Medicaid eligibility limit of 138% of the Federal Poverty Level ($15,650 for an individual; $32,150 for a family of four) for adults ages 19-64 in states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (Figure 7).
Thus, an adult with this income would be eligible for Medicaid in an expansion state. However, working adults may be ineligible for Medicaid in non-expansion states where the median eligibility limit for parents as of May 2024 was 35% of the FPL (and ranges from 15% in Texas to 100% in Wisconsin) and childless adults are not eligible (except in Wisconsin, where they are covered under a Section 1115 waiver).
