SuperM Fest

Challenge
Name:	SuperM Fest
Date(s):	2019 - present
Moderator(s):
Founder:
Type:	RPF Ships within SuperM
Fandom:	SuperM
URL:	twitter AO3 mod profile carrd
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SuperM Fest is a Twitter and AO3 multi-event fest within the SuperM fandom. The theme of the fest revolves solely around the ships of K-Pop super group SuperM, with many different themes and events - such as their recurring rare pair round, Going 100.

As of November 2022, it was the only SuperM-centric fic festival since SuperM’s debut in October 2019, and the first SuperM festa to have been created. Since December 2022, a second writing event has appeared.

First Round

SuperM Fest began in 2019 with their first round starting soon after their creation and ending in 2020. The fest’s debut round began officially on October 25th 2019, after SuperM’s debut on October 4th of the same year. It’s important to note that the informational thread for the round was redone numerous times, leading to incoherent timeline data on the Twitter account. The round ended in August 2020, with twelve fanfics and nine authors, across seven of the SuperM ships (with the majority of them being brand new ships or rare pairs within the fandom).

Their first round was run and completed on Archive of Our Own.

The top 3 fanfics of the round were

Creative Interpretations - a Mark Lee/Everyone fic

Speaking Maple Syrup - a Mark Lee/Kim Jongin fic

2 Fast - a Taemin/Jongin/Ten fic

As of December 26, 2022, the works have 1,255, 550, and 357 kudos respectfully.

The most written ship for the round was TaeKai - Kim Jongin/Lee Taemin - an already popular ship due to the friendship between the two before they were grouped together in SuperM.

Halloween and Adoption Rounds

The fest initially began a Halloween Round on July 26, 2020, and an Adoption Round for any unclaimed first round prompts on August 31, 2020 - however, these rounds were never seen to completion, with both moderators at the time vanishing from the account.

The fest fell into an unofficially announced hiatus with no further information given.

2022 Return, 'Going 100' Round and New Themes

After a 2 year hiatus, SuperM Fest returned to the Twitter fic festa-sphere under new ownership and moderation in June 2022. It was stated that the original creator left fandom and fest spaces, and gave the fest to the new owner after meeting them in a different fandom space after noticing a small drop in SuperM fic postings.

New rules, informational sites and question-asking capacity were created, but the fest continues to use the original Archive of Our Own account.

Following recent at-the-time scandals and issues, SuperM Fest currently runs a rota of OT6 ships, with Lucas being unable to be written as a main character - although being able to use him as a side character is currently allowed.

After fanning out their rules, SuperM Fest returned with an eight round, year and a half long schedule, with a predicted end in early 2024.

With feedback from the participant base, SuperM Fest began their return with their first mini-event, the recurring Going 100 round.

The image that went alongside the first announcement of the Going 100 first event.

The round theme is inspired by the SuperM music video - 100 - and the lyrics from the song - ‘we go 100’. The event takes place as the SuperM Fest’s rare pair round focusing on any and all SuperM ships, clonecest, OT3-OT6s, and platonic relationships that have 99 or less fics on Archive of Our Own.

The first Going 100 round began on July 1, 2022 with a planned ending in late September of the same year. The fest returned to an excited community, pulling in over fifty prompts on their Prompt Meme within the first two weeks of their event. Within the under-100 pairs, Byun Baekhyun/Lee Taemin proved to be the most popular in this round, despite at the time of the event starting, having only thirty-six works on the Archive and being tied-fourth as the rarest pair of the group (alongside Byun Baekhyun/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, also with thirty-six works).

The event debuted a brand new feature to the fest of round/event goals. Moderators take a look at ships that are still at a low number, close to a new milestone, and similar, and create hopeful goals for each round - for instance, the first Going 100 Event had a goal of “Taemin & Mark (platonic) are at 0 fics with no tag at the start of round count — we'd like to see them at 1-3 fics by the end of the round”. The mod team uses them as potential inspiration for authors, or a challenge for some to try their hand at a new ship they haven’t written before.

Prompt Archive & TenMin Hub Merge

In June 2022, SuperM Fest unveiled a Prompt Archive project. This serves as an archive for all their unclaimed prompts from Round One and a place authors can put their works or prompts up for adoption. This is done via the Prompt Meme Challenge on AO3. This had limited popularity, although a handful of authors did put some works up for adoption and some prompts were claimed.

During June 2022, TenMin Hub - a Taemin/Ten community hub on Twitter - shut down due to online abuse. SuperM Fest merged TenMin Hub's original archive with their Prompt Archive, giving the content a chance to be written still. The prompts are still available in both SuperM Fest and TenMin Hub's prompt archives.

Second Hiatus and SuperM Rotational Rumour

Just after the sign ups of the Going 100 round, SuperM Fest ended up going into another unofficial hiatus in mid July 2022. With the mods disappearing during a documented heatwave in their country, it sparked mild worry for the health of the moderators, however, on December 23, it was mentioned on the fest's Zaqa and Twitter page that it had been down to personal problems offline.

Rotational Rumour

On December 22nd, the Twitter account SMPRMCCNT posted stating that "[SM Entertainment] are also planning to make SuperM rotational instead of having a fixed lineup because of certain issues involving one member." SuperM Fest returned from their hiatus briefly on December 23rd to address this rumour, stating that "if the group becomes rotational we will not be changing our set up. We will remain as a fest for the original members of SuperM and will not be changing the fest per rotation/etc. This fest and space will remain for the original members only."

A Zaqa the SuperM Fest team received during their hiatus, answered on the 23rd of December, 2022.

The SMPRMCCNT tweet sparking the SuperM rotational rumor

They have since stated that once they can set up a dedicated and stable schedule, they will return to finish the Going 100 round.

SuperM-onthly

SuperM Fest held the first - and only - SuperM fic fest title until December 2022.

On 8 December 2022, SuperM-onthly, a SuperM monthly writing challenge, debuted their event on Twitter, thus creating a second writing event for the fandom. Since their public acknowledgement of SuperM-onthly, SuperM Fest has removed the "and only SuperM fic fest" from their Twitter bio and positively promoted the second challenge - this has yet to be removed from their Carrd during their hiatus.

SuperM Fest and SuperM-onthly are known to be friendly and aid one another with promotion and helping authors find events. SuperM-onthly posted their Welcome to SuperMonthly work - their AO3 debut for event promotion, using the fandom tag - Public Service Announcements - they have stated that although their round info will be posted to the official tags each month, they will be moved to the PSA tag to not spam tags in the future. After this, and the public show of positivity between the two, SuperM Fest's previous Going 100 - The SuperM Fest Rare Pair Event round announcement changed from the SuperM (Korea Band) fandom to the PSA fandom tag also - suggesting the Mod Teams are in discussion or, at least, inspired by one another.

Both fests have since deleted their works on the Archive.

Anti Fan Targeted Harassment & Tiger Inside Mini Round

On January 4th, the fest tweeted that they were having some problems with their AO3 account and would be backlogging the Going 100 round prompts and their Prompt Archive. They also stated whilst this was happening, they would be hosting a mini round in collaboration with SuperM Creation. On the 5th, they confirmed the round officially. When asked what had happened on AO3, the fest shared that they and other SuperM events had received waves of reports against them with another fest getting threats to be reported. This notably only happened to the SuperM writing events shortly after SuperM announced a 2023 comeback. SHINee AO3 has since taken co-ownership of SuperM Fest's collections on AO3 until SuperM Creation had an Archive account to do so. SHINee AO3 officially labelled the SuperM Fest as at risk. Also on the 5th, they ran polls on Twitter asking the participants when they would like the Going 100 round to be finished.

On the 7th of January, SuperM Fest unveiled their new round, teasing a new theme. It was shared that the round would be inspired by SuperM's Tiger Inside and would be a mini round with a schedule of January 09-23. The specific round theme is set to be shared on the 8th of January.

Other Non-Challenge Events

SuperM Fest hosts a multitude of fandom driven events and content, including numerous fic recs, fic promotion for non-fest SuperM works, and unofficial tag wrangling aid.

Member specific fic recs are hosted for members’ birthdays - such as their Taemin Day Fic Recommendation, focusing on any SuperM fic that focused on Taemin as a main character - and a community fic rec event always available - the fest tends to share these recommendations when the mod team is busier than usual.

Their fic promotion works on a basis of authors using the Twitter hashtag #SuperMFest_OffSeason where the fest will check and promote the content shared there.

The tag wrangling occurs in different ways - they aid in canonising SuperM based tags that authors or prompters require and the Fest has said in passing numerous times that participants can have a moderator read through a work and provide tag suggestions/advice, although, this is not currently shared on their informational pages. They regularly aid in making “Song:” tags canon and also aid other fandoms such as NCTV, EXO, SHINee, Super Junior, and more in canonising tags depending on whatever SuperM authors need and request. This was previously done on AO3 but the work has since been deleted due to an AO3 strike due to non-works not being allowed on the Archive. It is unclear if they continue to do this in a different form.

SuperM Fest actively has it's own Archive of Our Own Additional Tag - started by one of the authors in the first round. The tag is canon to the fest, although, other SuperM events and non-fest related works have used it as a tag as of December 2022. Participants of the fest are encouraged to use the tag on any work related to the fest.

It is unsure if these features will remain in their 2023 return.

SuperM Fest have stated they work behind the scenes often to try and use their fest to help promote and save fanon lore and data.