Fuh-Q Fest

Synonyms:	FQF
See also:	Challenge, Ficathon
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logo of the Fuh-Q Fest webring

Fuh-Q Fests are the ficathon challenge to pair up a given name with a given character or a choice out of a set of given characters. Also they can be the challenge to write a story about a given pair including a given scenario. Most of the stories generated by the Fests are of on adult nature.

See the List of Fuh-Q Fests.

How They Are Run

The challenges took place mostly in "waves", separated from each other by predetermined times by their creators, which leads to variations between the challenges of different characters and fandoms.

A example is SSFF who had around 3 waves between 2002-2003, each containing a range of "scenarios" to be chosen by the participants. There was a production of fanfiction and fanart by the authors, some of which were quite popular and had their placement there in the pantheon of ficwriters of their respective characters, ships and fandoms.

History

One of the earliest Fuh-Q Fest was the Spock Fuh-Q Fest that according to the old webpage was initiated by kira-nerys on June 23, 2000 and was the idea of Hatifal, Laura JV and kira-nerys.

The Spock Fuh-Q fest started as a joke. Someone said that Spock wasn't a sexual being, and we decided to prove them wrong. There are stories pairing Spock up with Christopher Pike (Animasola) Kor (Islaofhope) Data (kira-nerys) and Jadzia Dax (JA Chapman) just to mention a few.

And the second wave with the same premise pairs up Spock with Q (Arachnethe2) Lon Suder (Dread Nought) and Kathryn Janeway (Hafital) and a plethora of other characters.

kira-nerys wrote:

"I started it :) Heh, I started the Spock Fuh-Q-Fest in 2000 due to an argument on ASCEM-L about Spock not being able to have sex more than every 7th year (when he was in Pon Farr) It spread from Spock to Kirk/Spock, to other fandoms. If only we'd known what would happen when we started that."

... one of the forces driving more engrossing K/S on the Internet was the Spock Fuh-Q Fest run by kira-nerys in 2000. The idea evolved from heated discussions on ASCEM concerning the sorts of stories people wanted to read, specifically whether or not Spock would express his sexuality, outside of pon farr, with anyone. Said Kira, instead of talking about it, why not encourage people to write more of what she wanted to see?

And so the gauntlet was thrown down to get Spock laid left and right. Boy, was that a way to get the attention! At this point ASCEM was large, busy and high traffic with dozens of messages a day from members interested in different characters and different Trek series. For people looking specifically for Kirk and Spock, it could be time-consuming, overwhelming, and not particularly pleasant. The Spock Fuh-Q Fest seemed to serve as a gathering point, drawing in several new authors or authors who were new to ASCEM. J.S.C.. joined offering two stories to give online readers their first taste of her writing: one pre-K/S story, and then “Idol” (www.kardasi.com/fuh-q-fest/idol_by_js_cavalcante.htm) told from the point of view of Isis.

It was run as another kind of challenge—those joining were given assignments to pair Spock with a certain individual. Despite this, in the end, many of these stories turned out to be either K/S or set against a backdrop of a K/S relationship, perhaps not surprising considering how undeniably intermeshed their closeness is. Said Kira of the Spock festival, “It generated an awful lot of amazing stories, and that made me want to see what a Kirk/Spock Fest would generate, so I started that.”

What it generated was a batch of some of the most satisfying popular K/S stories to be available on the Web. Kira herself and other cyber writers like Vanasati and Menolly were inspired to write more. Given such a welcoming venue, in the first round in 2000 long-time writers such as Jenna Sinclair, Liz E. and Starluck were lured out for a Web audience. Jenna’s “The World Turned Upside Down” and J.S.C.’s “The Word Withheld” are stories that could have just as easily been written for a print zine, but were sent to the festival instead, since it was there, I suppose.

One month after the Spock Fuh-Q Fest, the Kirk Fuh-Q Fest began and ended on November 1, 2001.

Sometimes, the object of the Fuh-Q Fest was to highlight—much as the way Dark Agenda, Kaleidoscope, and Eid ka Chand do today—under-represented characters in fandoms, such as the Gilderoy Lockhart Fuh-Q-Fest in HP, and the Femme Fuh-Q Fest in Star Trek.

For a list of Star Trek Fuh-Q-fests, see, for example the sites listed at the Fuh-Q Fest webring, or the older list at the Fuh-Q Fest Schedule.

Origin of the Name

According to kira-nerys, "The Fuh-Q spelling comes from the fact that most people who were involved with that discussion [that led to the Spock Fuh-Q-Fest] on ASCEML were on a [Yahoo! Groups] list called Fuh-Q. (Yahoogroups doesn't accept anything called 'Fuck' so hence the spelling)."

The name "Fuh-Q" was originally the title of a TSU written by JA Chapman and Olivia Monteith. This title was later used as the name of a private Yahoo group started by several TSU writers and co-modded by JA Chapman and Charlene Vickers, who wanted to be able to discuss anything and everything considered off-topic on ASCEM and that had a more free-flowing vibe. The name Fuh-Q was not pronounced 'Fuck' but 'Fuck You', as the joke was "If you don't like what we're talking about, Fuh-Q." kira-nerys was a founding member of Fuh-Q and it was there that she first was inspired to start the Fuh-Q fests which have now extended well beyond the Star Trek fandom but the original Fuh-Q Fest authors and collaborators began with this small group forever linking the Fests with both ASCEML and TSU as well as Fuh-Q.