You know what? I'm writing a Wincest Wednesday Manifesto, because if I'm spending this much of my time running A Thing, I might as well have a post explaining it and my goals and intentions and answering the most frequent comments I get.
And yes, I'm posting it on a Tuesday, because I'm impatient.
What is Wincest Wednesday?
It's just the concept of doing Wincest things in our community on Wednesdays! For instance, @wincestwednesdays exists and has run prompt events. At various points in the past, there have been lots of people sending asks to each other about wincest on Wednesdays, or making posts asking for other people to post fics, or discuss various topics, or recommend things. It's whatever you make of it. It isn't one thing for one person, and if you want to start doing things on Wednesdays, you should! And also you should tell me about it so I can hype it up.
Okay but what do I specifically do?
@stanfordsweater started sending asks to people on Wednesdays. I thought this was a very cool and noble cause. But she has a life, so she had to stop. Understandable. Me, meanwhile? I work overnight every Tuesday into Wednesday, and there's usually at least a little dead time when all my residents are asleep, I've finished my charting, and I'm between sets of rounds. And because I sent them out in the wee hours of the morning EST, people have most of the day to answer them with it still being Wednesday. It's very convenient. So for like a year now, I've taken up the mantle. I come up with questions every week and copy-paste them into the inboxes of everyone who seems to like answering them. I keep a list of people who have answered in the past to send them out to. And then I reblog the answers. I used to just reblog them all at once, but these days there are like 25 people on my list and that's A Lot, so I'm going to start queueing instead. Which is fun because then it's spread out over the week!
Unsurprisingly, after like 50 Wednesdays I've broadened out a bit because there are only so many ways to ask about a ship without repeating yourself. So instead, I take the Wincest part to mean that I'm interacting within the wincest community. Not to say that I don't still ask about the ship, but there are a lot of other parts of the show to discuss, too.
Why?
So again, all this reasoning is pretty much stolen straight from Ava. I liked her goals. I don't have new ones of my own really.
These days, a lot of fandom discussion is concentrated in places like discord servers. That makes it really easy for fandoms to get insular and die. There's nothing wrong with chatting about a show with your friends — I do it all the time — but that's all anyone does, then when someone gets into a new show and looks it up on tumblr, they aren't going to see anything. They'll think the fandom is dead. And then that leads to a cycle where people stop posting meta and gifs and art and fic because no one is publicly engaging with them and it's just not great.
Supernatural ended 5 years ago. Yeah, it's one of the biggest and most historical fandoms, but if we don't make a conscious effect to keep it going? Things can dry up. If we want to have a community, we have to take it upon ourselves to incite discussions. Send asks! Reblog things! Comment! Having a designated day for it just makes it a little easier to do.
Also as I'm sure we have all noticed, there is a pretty big tendency in this fandom to get cliquey, start talking shit about people's takes, block anyone who disagrees with you even slightly, bitch about those samgirls or those deangirls, etc. And you know. That's also pretty damn bad for community and just no fun. So any way to spread positivity and ensure that we see different opinions and see each other as a community instead of adversaries is good.
I want to send out Wednesday asks
Please do! I don't have a monopoly on this! It wasn't even my idea to begin with! I just happen to have the right hours free, the desire for A Job and A Project, and unlike most of this website, no social anxiety, so I'm not afraid to bother two dozen people weekly. But you don't have to do that! You can just send two people a question on one Wednesday, and that's still fun and positive and community building. You don't have to make a full time job of it. I just have because I'm Like That.
That said, if anyone wants my list of people who like getting asks and at least occasionally respond, feel free to ask for it.
I want you to send me asks
Tell me! My list is basically just people I tried sending questions to one week, and they answered, so I added them to The List. But I don't know everyone. I haven't tried everyone. So just comment or send me a DM or shoot me an ask.
Please stop sending me asks
That's cool. Please tell me. I don't want to annoy and spam you. No hard feelings, I promise. And let me know if you ever want them again.
I feel bad because I don't answer every week. But I do like it! And I want to keep getting questions!
Please don't feel bad. I know how exhausting a new question every week is, because I'm the one who has to come up with them. Answer if and when you have the time and brainpower and energy and if the question sparks joy. Nothing personal if you don't. I get it.
I'm very aware that I have "likes to ramble" disorder (yes, that's a real actual schizophrenia symptom). I have no children. I have no pets. I have only job with a fair bit of downtime. I work 32 hours a week. I don't pick up shifts. I'm not in school. I know that other people have more shit to do. I'm disabled, so I get pretty damn overwhelmed by my 32 hours a week and taking care of just myself, so given that most of you seem to do more than that? Yeah no I am already impressed that you can just like, survive working a normal amount of hours or a semester of college. I am made of basically nothing but words--I know they're a lot harder for some other people than they are for me.
At this point, pretty much every time someone has gone quiet, they've eventually come back and thanked me for continuing to send asks. So I don't really plan on taking anyone off my list unless they ask me to or make a post saying they're leaving supernatural fandom.
Sorry I didn't answer on Wednesday!
I don't care. I'm just happy you answered. To me, all Wincest Wednesday means is that I have to send out the asks on Wednesday. You can answer them whenever you want. Honestly, getting a dozen replies on one day can be overwhelming anyway.
Wow my answer is so long!
There's not actually anything wrong with saying this, but I do laugh every time because my answer would be longer. Again. Likes to ramble disorder. You can DM me one question and I'll write a thousand words back at you. I'm just like that.
I wish it was easier to go back and read people's answers, or find old questions
So, no one has actually asked me to do this, but I often want to find old answers and can't, so. In November I'm getting top surgery. I'll be out of work for 6 weeks (which, to be clear in case anyone is thinking about getting it, that's longer than the normal recovery time. I just have a very physical job). And one of my plans for all that free time is to tag everything. To number each wincest wednesday question, tag them all with "wincest wednesday #x", and have a master post that lists all the questions with their numbers. And then if you want to see everyone's answers to any question, you'd just have to search on my blog for the tag. It will probably take absolutely forever, but I want to have it for me. And I'll feel good about myself for it.
Anyway! Y'all are really awesome and I'm continually impressed I've managed to amass so many people who think I'm cool for doing this. I have like, a little fan club! And every single week, I get people to talk at me, which is all I really want out of life!
