yuleswaps 2025 announcement <3

[kindness_says]

[Update: Sign-ups are now live! New post here.]

Hello! A few people have been wondering in the Yuletide Discord whether we would have swaps this year... tl;dr it was dicey, but YES!

You may thank morbane (even more than usual ;)) for following up on everyone's behalf; Livi and I had been having an extremely slow/distracted convo about it since early September, but as always, knowing people are waiting on us motivated me LOL. But neither of us will be your primary mod this year! It will be the lovely Helen (patrokla), who started helping out last year. <3

Here is the lil statement I made in Discord, very slightly modified for DW:

Hi everyone! Official announcement (and thank you, Morbane, for playing go-between while we worked things out behind the scenes :)) -- yuleswaps WILL go forward this year, we hope, and we're sorry for the delay!

Indeed I (Kat/Kindness on AO3/kindness_says) had some commitments in Sept/Oct and did not think I'd be able to prioritize swaps this year, and Liviania/anialove is also pretty busy irl atm -- but Helen/patrokla (a great longtime swapper who joined our team last year) is stepping up to give it a shot in spite of their own busyness! We're meeting tomorrow in hopes of getting sign-ups open by the end of this weekend and matches out in early November so as to stay roughly on the usual timeline. Perhaps ambitious, but we will try!

If anybody else was interested in running swaps, Morbane absolutely was speaking for me that we're not offended, and please feel free to DM me comment or email (yuleswaps at gmail) if you're interested in helping out. ESPECIALLY if you are at all code-savvy/great at answering emails efficiently/bursting with ideas for future improvement. <3

You might hear from me again, or you might not! I will def be helping on the backend, for at least this year/as long as I can, and we really appreciate your patience if we're a little slow or clunky this year as we try to sustain/transition. I also apologize to anyone who didn't get fully covered after January (haven't done 2024 cleanup yet... will try if there's time)!

I have LOVED running swaps, well mostly I have anyway ;) for the past 15 (!!) years. Back in the day I did not read coal but was always charmed when friends occasionally sent me screenshots of anons thrilled about swaps, and I similarly really enjoyed skimming like...1-2 years' worth of this discord not long after Morbane emailed me (was very tempted to answer some super old questions but refrained lol). Your enthusiasm has absolutely been the thing to make all the time and headaches worth it.

<3 <3 <3

So that's that!

Love/candy/books/drinks always,
Kat

P.S. For any newer Yuletiders who are interested (or just confused as to what Yuleswaps is), here is last year's sign-ups post, which links to our FAQ, etc. This year's sign-ups post will come soon, if all goes to plan! here is this year's sign-ups post, which links to our FAQ (soon to be updated)!

Comments

[chanter1944]

Thank you both, Kat and Livi, for all the work you've done as truly excellent mods over the years! I will owe you two a debt of gratitude forever and ever for dealing with the whole porch pirates situation, not to mention letting me sneak in a signup under the wire at least once! <3 <3 <3

[kindness_says]

<3