#the first fan campaign i was ever involved with fell apart so dramatically that someone actually faked their own death

[queerly-autistic]

I just think it's a great time to remember that, yes, even if there is a group of people that gave guidance and set certain things up and steered the ship at the outset, everything that's been happening with regards to saving OFMD has been ordinary every day fans doing what they do.

Heck, there's been almost zero guidance for a few weeks, and the #SaveOFMD and #AdoptOurCrew tags have been rolling along with thousands and thousands and thousands of tweets (I've only seen it dip below 20k once). We did that. Just regular fans did that. So many of these amazing things (like Lube As A Crew!) came from fans reaching out and going 'ooh let's try this!'. Heck, Lube as a Crew was trending MASSIVELY well last night without any guidance from some centralised group - the community did that!

The power in a fan community is that it is grass roots. It's organic. It's why there's so many different OFMD fan fundraising initiatives that all work separately but alongside each other, and it's how we as a fandom have raised so much money for so many different causes.

If you want to do something, do it! Give it a go! Set it up! If you need to, message/tag someone who has a little more clout in the fandom and see if they'll give your idea a boost! If you have an idea but are unsure and need some help shaping it, reach out and find people to help (more on where you might find this in a later paragraph)! It's all coming from the ground up, not the other way around.

There are new groups of fans that are stepping into the space to try and provide guidance, or at least provide a space to develop ideas, but, crucially, these have all so far seemed to have a greater focus on working with the community, rather than leading it. Which I think is the best direction to go in.

Yes, it's great to have spaces where we have people with experience giving some sort of a steer, or offering professional advice, but, again, it needs to be rooted in community - nurturing community, encouraging involvement, sharing expertise whilst also giving space for people to develop their own ideas and find support. Some of the newer initiatives popping up (such as @AdoptOurCrew and @SaveOFMDCrew) seem to be very much about that, and that's what's needed. That's where the power is.

On that note, if you have an idea you want some backing or support with, you can do much worse than getting in touch with one (or both!) of those accounts. I'm currently in the SaveOFMD discord server (campaigning is my job, so wanted to get involved and try and be useful!), and I've been in touch with AdoptOurCrew individually (they helped boost my call out for stories for an article), and I thoroughly recommend that anyone who has an idea, or wants to get involved, reach out to them. Crucially, for me, it all feels like part of the same community working together towards the same goal.

I know that it's reassuring to think there's something centralised that we can just follow - one place that has all knowledge and where everything is coming from - and I know that losing that is frightening, but it's really important to remember: that is not how any of this works, it is not how communities work, and it is not how this campaign has been successful.

It's not been just a couple of people at the top. It never was. It's you who has achieved all this. You are the reason so much has happened so far. You are so much more powerful than you are giving yourself any credit for.

Our Flag Means Us, remember?

#save ofmd #save our flag means death #renew ofmd #renew our flag means death #ofmd #our flag means death #adopt our crew #erin waffles #it feels like a lot of drama but i promise you it is fine and will pass #the first fan campaign i was ever involved with fell apart so dramatically that someone actually faked their own death #a couple of times actually #and yet it carried on because that's what it's about #so trust me when i say that everything is going to be ok #*old lady voice activated*