I know it’s not your fault, but I wanted to say it was very disheartening seeing that some writers were not comfortable with their matchups for the Valentine Exchange, especially when it comes to writing style. This kind of event is great to allow interaction in the fandom and to engage new writers, even more those who don’t get as much views as others; unfortunately, restricting who you want to be matched up with or who you don't want to gift you just made me feel very unwelcome here. I am sorry that Jily fandom is gate keeping now.
Hi anon,
I’m sorry you feel that way! That was never the intention.
The informal feedback I got was that some people chose not to sign up for the event at all because they were afraid of the match up process for various reasons.
We didn’t want to host a future event where people didn’t sign up for that reason when we could potentially resolve that anxiety for some people. Which is why we’ve decided if there’s someone you don’t want to gift to moving forward for whatever reason you could have that option. The idea was so that more people would feel comfortable participating in future events not less 😔
The change was to make future events more inclusive, not to gate keep.
We try our best to be welcoming to everyone who wants to be part of this space. Both to newbies to the fandom and people coming ‘out of retirement’ and rejoining the fandom space.
