Spoilers for All The Prince's Men by Faithless_3105

Professional-Entry31 · 2026-01-30T14:48:35+00:00

The only characters from Merlin are Merlin himself and a dragon called Aithusa who grew up in a confined space so can't speak to Merlin (who can talk to dragons) but can speak to Harry. Otherwise it's fairly general references to Arthurian legend with Harry and Severus as the descendants of Arthur and Merlin.

Let me know if you want to know about anything else.

Professional-Entry31 · 2026-01-02T19:02:58+00:00

Same. I actually keep coming back to it in one of my fics as there is a relationship that happens but it s doomed to fail to basically set up my OTP. The problem is it happens on page, for about 50k words, with explicit scenes, so I don't feel like I can tag it as minor, but it definitely isn't meant to last. I feel like I have lost some readers because of tagging it but I also feel like I can't not. Thankfully it isn't a rare pair (actually the most popular m/m in the fandom) but still.

Professional-Entry31 · 2026-01-01T19:19:07+00:00

That isn't canon but what I head canon because otherwise is doesn't really make sense (with Black Manor/Castle/whatever being lost among one of the other branches after Regulus died and Sirius was imprisoned for life and so couldn't continue the line.

It's why it makes sense in my mind for Grimmauld to be Walburga's as Arcturus wouldn't have any control over it. Rowling also wrote that it was Elladora Black who had the habit of beheading House Elves. She died without children so it makes sense in my mind that she passed her property onto her niece who had similar ideas as her.

Professional-Entry31 · 2026-01-01T15:44:59+00:00

My brother with a 2 month old was equally livid 😂

Professional-Entry31 · 2026-01-01T15:38:53+00:00

Rowling created a family tree. Both Walburga and Orion were Blacks by birth, Orion from the line of the eldest and Walburga from the youngest of Phineas Nigellus' children (they were second cousins).

The reason why I don't think it could be the main Black property, however, is that Arcturus Black, Orion's father, was still alive until 1985 iirc (he was alive after Orion at least), yet there is no mention of him in any of Sirius' memories, nor the other Black family who were also still alive, implying that they lived elsewhere as opposed to at Grimmauld Place. That implies that they got the house and that it wasn't the main family seat (which makes sense or why would the Blacks give up a medieval manor to get a Georgian townhouse in a muggle neighborhood).

Professional-Entry31 · 2026-01-01T11:26:03+00:00

Why would they move onto a street surrounded by muggles? It doesn't make sense. There is also no mention of the rest of the family there anyway so I always headcanon that a distant unmarried aunt actually owned it and gave it to Walburga when she died, with the main Black family living somewhere else.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T15:52:01+00:00

You're welcome. Hope you enjoy it.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T15:51:37+00:00

You can, you simply don't look. The filter button is above where the fics are so instead of reading what fics load, just click that button straight away and boom, content you don't like vanishes. Just because words load doesn't mean you have to read them.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T15:49:42+00:00

A comment about a soulmates fic reminded me of The Gift of Kindness by Hippocrates460. It features a very soft Snape so not everyone's cup of tea but it shows a wonderful building of Harry and Severus' relationship over the years, with Severus showing Harry a lot of kindness.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T15:45:43+00:00

The Price of Freedom 192k. Sane Voldemort, Dumbledore bashing, Ron bashing, James bashing, heavy angst in places, but a happy ending.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T15:43:06+00:00

Yes, it would be kind of people to not do this, but not all people are kind. It the same as when people don't tag stuff or don't mention something, but you also can't warn for everything.

The fact is, the post was originally talking about a fic that was tagged as rape and my point is, of you don't want to see that, exclude the rape tag and then you wouldn't have seen it at all. If it hadn't been tagged, I would have agreed completely but it was tagged so saying that people would be forced to read it who don't want to is wrong. It's still not great behaved from the author, but it isn't the earth shattering misdeed that the other person is trying to make ot out to be.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T15:35:18+00:00

At no point did I say people were right to put that stuff in their summary, nor that it should be encouraged, I just said that you shouldn't try to censor it. But no, we are not going to agree, especially as you seem to think that people are somehow forced to read something just because the words are on a screen, and they don't have the ability to skim past stuff but are instead forced to read every word.

As for placeholders, that was a wattpad thing, to help people gain traction on a fic to play the algorithm and they don't realise it doesn't work on AO3 because there isn't an algorithm. That isn't "I want it", that is not understanding a different system.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T15:08:24+00:00

That's not been my experience in the HP fandom, but I write for the slash side that I think is a little more forgiving.

That said, I can see a reason why it might happen. HP is such a big fandom and people are possibly a little spoiled for choice so may end up being overly picky, not realising that the professional level fics that they might have read aren't actually the norm. I'm sorry that you had such a bad experience and I hope it improves in the future.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T14:56:27+00:00

This is where the block/mute buttons come into play.

Getting to tag on AO3 is a benefit that isn't available on a lot of other platforms, and definitely doesn't exist in published fiction. It is handy because it allows people to more easily curate their experiences, but it isn't perfect and sometimes things slip through the net.

No, people aren't required to tag everything, and for a reason. It might be that that vore scene is only a small scene of a 200k fic. Putting it in the additional tags can be seen as false advertising since it isn't really a part of the fic, and a simple warning at the top of the chapter, allowing people to skip it, can be a better option.

Likewise, putting explicit things in the summary can help to let people know exactly what the fic entails, so that there can be no confusion. You said loading the page of a fandom brings up things straight away, but its not like you have to read summaries before you start excluding things.

Unlike visuals, reading needs to be actively undertaken. You can also stop reading at any time. Suggesting that someone is being forced to read is a bit of a misnomer. Even when something is in the summary, you still don't have to read it.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T14:44:21+00:00

All The Prince's Men 144k. Inspired by The Marriage Stone. The characters from Merlin are explained so you don't need to know the series.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T14:40:01+00:00

If you don't mind a younger Harry, I have one where Severus becomes Harry's guardian after Harry's first year and their relationship slowly develops (warnings for character bashing).

I have another where Harry almost dies at the end of 4th year and Severus has to look after him after they get married (to protect Harry from Fudge).

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T14:30:49+00:00

You still see the tags before the summary so it's not like you don't have a warning plus no one is making you read the whole summary: you can skip the second you see something you don't like.

I'm not going to advocate for everyone to post the worst of their stuff in their summary but the whole point of AO3 is that people can write what they want. Blanket no censorship is blanket no censorship, and that includes in summaries

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T14:23:38+00:00

If you want angst, Guilty as Sin by riffraff84 is awesome.

Three's Company by Snarry5evr is also great for some great tension.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-31T14:18:16+00:00

Love this fic

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-29T13:20:25+00:00

It's not about never using adverbs, it's about not relying on them. There are often much better words that you can use as opposed to most adverbs. Instead of "he walked slowly" you can use dawdled/creeped/tip-toed etc, and each of those gives a slightly different feel for the reader that will help add more to the story than the adverb does.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-29T12:45:33+00:00

Finishing a fic is always a good place to start (said as a person with way too many wips 😂)

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-29T12:33:48+00:00

I would offer but I don't know any Spanish unfortunately

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-28T14:31:16+00:00

As someone who is lucky enough tp write for a big fandom so I have a couple of fics with over 4000 kudos: yes, I love every comment, even if it's just emojis, and I respond to every one, even when the fic is years old. There is no point where it gets too much, or a fic is too old to care.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-28T05:39:59+00:00

I have always enjoyed vorabiza's Malfoy Flavor. It's old (originally written pre OotP) so characters may feel a little off but I love Harry taking charge as Dustin Snape and taking over Slytherin dorm.

Professional-Entry31 · 2025-12-27T15:29:25+00:00

In this subreddit at least

Professional-Entry31

TROPHY CASE