Summary

  • Data from the fanfiction website AO3 reveals the most popular romantic pairings of the past 12 months.
  • Baldur's Gate 3 claims several spots on the list - an impressive feat for a video game, and especially one that only launched last year.
  • Unsurprisingly, Astarion/Tav is the most popular painting, coming in fourth place overall.

Happy birthday, Baldur's Gate 3 - you've made it into the fanfiction charts. According to data collected from the site AO3, multiple pairings from Baldur's Gate 3 made it into the top 100, with the most popular being the relationship between Astarion and the player character, Tav.

The 2024 ship stats were put together by AO3 user centreoftheselights, and reveal which pairings across all different types of media have the most fanfics written about them. Here, we can see that the Astarion/Tav relationship tag was the fourth most popular on the entire site in the past 12 months, with 8,776 published works about the pair.

People Really Like Writing Fanfiction About Astarion

This is an incredible feat for a game that only launched last year, as many of the pairings that surround it come from properties that have more established fanfictions communities. Baldur's Gate 3 is also one of the few video games to make it onto the list too, alongside Genshin Impact and Call of Duty.

Fun fact: one of the most popular tags in the Baldur's Gate section of AO3 is "blood drinking". I just thought you'd all like to know that.

Astarion and Tav aren't the only Baldur's Gate 3 couple feeling the love. Here are some other Baldur's Gate 3 pairings that made the list, alongside their placements:

  • 31) Gale/Tav
  • 45) Astarion/Gale
  • 52) Astarion/Reader
  • 56) Astarion/The Dark Urge
  • 85) The Dark Urge/Enver Gortash

Well, at least there are two whole pairings that have nothing to do with Astarion. The fanbase has some restraint, it seems.

This isn't bad going for a game that only celebrated its first birthday yesterday. Of course, Baldur's Gate 3 was in early access before that, but it didn't reach most of its fans until its full launch last August. Now, it has maintained a strong playerbase and is still receiving huge updates - and a lot of love from players, it seems.

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Baldur's Gate 3

RPG Systems 5.0/5 25 9.4/10 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 96/100 Critics Rec: 98% Released August 3, 2023 ESRB M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence Developer(s) Larian Studios Publisher(s) Larian Studios Engine Divinity 4.0
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Baldur's Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.

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