SuperM-onthly

SuperM-onthly is a Twitter and AO3 based, OT7 SuperM monthly writing challenge, beginning the 1st of January 2023. It is the second ever SuperM fic event, with it's predecessor, SuperM Fest, debuting October 25, 2019 - starting only 21 days after the group's official debut. SuperM-onthly does hold the title of being the first SuperM non-fest challenge - being a monthly challenge with five prompts for authors to write from.
SuperM Fest currently runs an OT6 roster, with Lucas being an non-writable character - SuperM-onthly has been very vocal on being OT7. The two collaborate to ensure authors can find one another's fests depending on the OT-Stance of the author/reader.
== Background ==
SuperM-onthly appeared on Twitter on 8 December 2022, promising a new event for SuperM authorshttps://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1600648225744195585?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw. They labelled themselves a 'writing challenge' whilst their Carrd denotes them as a writing projecthttps://supermonthly.carrd.co/. 
Later on December 8, they tweeted "January and February is a busy month for SuperM with three birthdays and enlistment return providing us with plenty of prompts and ideas for our first rounds. We're extremely excited to showcase our first ideas for you all and dive in! See you on Dec 25th!https://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1600871242143133696" showing that the idea for the challenge had been in the works for a while to at least have two months worth of events prepared. The three birthdays mentioned are that of Kim Jongin - January 14, Lucas - January 25, and Ten - February 27, continuing to hint that the fest was OT7 or was at least including Lucas for celebratory days. 
== First Round Timeline, Rotational Group Rumours & OT7 Stance ==
SuperM-onthly prepared for their first round announcement to go live on Christmas Day in South Korea time (KST) with the sign ups for the event to start on January 1st.
On December 13https://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1602644527445073920?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw, it was first answered SuperM-onthly that they would be an OT7 event - including WayV's Lucas amidst controversy. Before SuperM Fest's hiatus break, SuperM-onthly were asked if they knew what had happened to SuperM Festhttps://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1602646451896700929?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw; they answered that they did not and the mod team were also looking forward to the 2022-2024 schedule that SuperM Fest had announced. Originally, the two fests had no connection between the mod teams.
On December 19, their AO3 invitation came through, and they posted Welcome to SuperM-onthly on their AO3 to promote the event. 
On December 22, they posted a tweet explaining that authors will receive "4 different prompts and one highlighted ship to create workshttps://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1606057617389785090?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw". 
=== Rotational Group Rumour ===
On December 22, Twitter account SMPRMCCNT posted that SM Entertainment were planning to make SuperM a rotational grouphttps://twitter.com/smprmccnt/status/1605793280813211648?s=20&t=PdOkmGABiy4NMMxfjsfFOg.
On December 23, SuperM-onthly received an anonymous ask, inquiring if the event would change should SuperM become rotational. SuperM-onthly replied that the event would remain for the original seven members, although some events may feature the rotational units should SuperM no longer remain a fixed grouphttps://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1606107700986781698?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw. They were the first SuperM event to clarify their stance, with SuperM Fest stating they would also remain a fest for the original members later in the day. 
=== OT7 Stance ===
The original prompt reveal for their January round was slightly delayed - with original posting planned for 00:00KST, December 25, 2022. According to the fest, a moderator set their alarm wrong and thus posting was slightly delayed but would still happen before 03:00KSThttps://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1606691169416667136?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw. 
Later that day, their first prompts debuted, featuring the highlighted ship Jongin/Lucas as the January birthdays, with their birthdays highlighted on the January 2023 Round main imagehttps://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1606712066232000513?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw. 
Shortly after the prompts were released, they received an anonymous question stating that someone was uncomfortable with the fest's inclusion of Lucas and would take part if he wasn't involved. SuperM-onthly stated that "We totally understand this, however, we will remain OT7. Part of the reason we wanted to be OT7 was the other SuperM event being OT6 and they had lots of feedback of wanting to write for OT7". In the same answer, they stated that they and the SuperM Fest mods had been talking and SuperM Fest was the place for OT6 authors to go. https://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1606753097690259458?s=20&t=2TzmMnLekeneGpiblh6GQw
Despite SuperM-onthly being a dedicated OT7 account from the start, including listing it in their Twitter biography, their Carrd, and hinting at Lucas' birthday being included in the event, this caused a mild follower drop.
The account has not been updated since Christmas Day 2022 and their Round One has yet to start.
=== Birthday Events ===
Although the events themselves have not yet been announced, SuperM-onthly has stated that they will have two birthday events for Jongin and two birthday events for Lucas - one for each week in January. This was mentioned in their SuperMonthly - January 2023 Round AO3 post - two AO3 collections were also created - Jongin Birthday Event(s), stating the weeks as January 1-January 8 and January 9-January 25 2023 as Jongin's two event weeks - and Lucas Birthday Event(s), stating Lucas' birthday event weeks as January 16-January 23 2023 and January 24-31 2023. 
Although no information has yet been given on the birthday events, it's assumed that there will be four separate events despite them being back to back for both members due to the dates given.
== Upcoming Projects ==
As of December 13, 2022, SuperM-onthly has announced a set of upcoming goals and projects their writing challenge wishes to partake in.Upcoming Features for SuperM-onthly:
➼ Ship Tracker for AO3
➼ Tagging Workshops
➼ Fandom Projects
Potentials:
➼ Fic giveaways + Streaming party (conjoined)https://twitter.com/SuperMonthly/status/1602690572820660224As of late December 2022, it has not been expanded, explained or hinted at what these will be.
==References==
Category:SuperM
Category:2023 Challenges