About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning
If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:
These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:
But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.
Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.
If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.
Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.
Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.
Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.
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ship: eddie/buck prompt: couch
hi, and thank you! this got longer than i was planning, lol.
buck/eddie; 700 words; unsubtle metaphors and first kisses
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Eddie opens his eyes to the dim flickering light of the TV, turned down low but not quite muted on one of those Ninja Warrior things that Buck loves. He's tilted sideways, cheek pillowed against the outside of Buck's arm, and he's apparently been drooling a little, which would be more embarrassing if it were the first or even the twentieth time it's happened.
"Sorry," he mumbles, peeling his face away to flop back against the couch and muffle a yawn into the back of his hand. "Time's it?"
"Like ten. You were wiped."
"Haven't been sleeping great lately."
"Good thing I picked out a comfortable couch this time around, huh?"
Eddie laughs softly, rolls his shoulders until they give a couple of satisfying pops, then leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He glances up to see Buck watching him fondly, his face lit up in the glow of the screen, his eyes sleepy and soft.
"Yeah," he says. "Good thing."
Buck huffs a little, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Eddie imagines tracing the shape of it with his fingers, or maybe with his lips. It's a thought he's become more settled with in the past month or so, after Buck ended things with Tommy, or Tommy ended things with him—Eddie never actually got a detailed post-mortem on what went down there, from either of them, and he's not sure he wants one. They're both single now. Buck likes men. Eddie could just kiss him and see where it leads.
Instead, he slouches back against the couch. On the screen, a petite but muscular woman is slamming her way up a salmon ladder while the crowd shrieks, nearly muted, and the timer speeds ahead.
"God, she's so good. I bet she could kick my ass."
"That's your type, huh?" Eddie asks, and Buck ducks his head, laughing.
"I don't know. Maybe."
Eddie hums. He's remembering a night in Buck's kitchen, years ago—you wanna go for the title?—and a tension he can name more easily now than he could back then. For himself, anyway. Sometimes Buck looks at him the way he is now, and he thinks—but he doesn't know. Not for sure.
"Hey, Eddie?"
He didn't even realize his eyes had slid shut again. He blinks, rubbing at them, then rolls his head over to look at Buck. "Yeah?"
Buck hesitates, his lips parted. His eyes flicker over Eddie's face for a moment, and then he scoffs a little and turns his face away. "Nothing. Never mind."
"Oh, no, come on. Now you gotta tell me."
"It's nothing. Seriously."
"Buck."
Buck holds out for a moment, but Eddie can see the moment he gives in, his shoulders sagging, because he's never been any better at saying no to Eddie than Eddie is at saying no to him. It's comforting, the way they both have that problem. Buck rubs at his lower lip, then shrugs a little, then says, without looking at Eddie, "Do you ever… did you ever think that you and me, that we could be…" He glances over, quick and nervous, and Eddie wishes like hell that he knew what his face was doing or how to control it. Buck smears his hand over his mouth a little more roughly, then says, "Seriously, forget it."
"Buck," Eddie whispers. He straightens up on the couch, fully awake now.
"Eddie, I—I don't—"
"Hey," Eddie says, and he reaches up and touches Buck's cheek. Warm skin, stubble just starting to come in. Buck's eyelashes fluttering, his shaky breath. And it's easy from there, to let that guide him: to lean in and press a kiss to Buck's mouth.
It lingers in the stillness for a moment. Then Buck's hand comes up to cup his cheek, and his lips move against Eddie's, kissing him back.
It's soft, and they part just as softly. Buck's eyes are closed, but after a moment he opens them. He breathes out shakily, then laughs a little. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Eddie whispers. His hand is still on Buck's cheek, and he wants to kiss him again, and he thinks maybe he gets to do that now. "Yeah, I think we could."
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