An Interview with the SHINee Rebanded Creator - SHINee on the OTW

As part of our SHINee Rebanded event, we wanted to interview the creator of the fest and bring some insight into the fest, what happened to it and if there are any current plans to bring the fest back!

Mod Flame interviewed the creator on January 3rd, 2023 and can be read below!

Welcome, how are you doing?

I’m doing alright. Very surprised and honoured to have been asked to do this,especially considering I somewhat abandoned the fest. I appreciate it; it’s very exciting. The entire archive project sounds and looks really cool, it’s amazing work you guys are doing.

Would you like to introduce yourself?

I’d rather stay anonymous at the moment but I was, and suppose, still am Mod Chick from SHINee Rebanded. It’s funny how many Mod Chick Taemints there are but I’m not the same as the numerous ones around.

Can you tell us about yourself as a Shawol?

Sure! I actually became a Shawol in 2018, myself, after seeing Taemin perform live at Music Bank Berlin - he was absolutely bewitching. I’ve always had an on-off stanship with SHINee since about 2016 but seeing him perform live really made me just jump into that pearl aqua pool. I am Taemin ult-biased, with the other four constantly bias wrecking me, and Minho has been a strong bias since I first properly got into the group.

Who’s your favourite SHINee pet?

Kkoong. I’m a cat lover through and through. All of the dogs are a joint second though, very close behind.

What’s a concept you want SHINee to do again or what would be your dream concept?

I’d love them to do something like DxDxD again, or Press Your Number as a group with the whole clone thing. My dream concept would be full on like… metal vibe aesthetic. SHINee has always been the one starting the trends all round, imagine that.

You admin the SHINee Rebanded Fest on Twitter - have you done anything else?

I did create the Rebanded fest, I’m a sucker for No Band AUs… I was also the original creator of the GIRLnee fest but I did give that up before leaving. I never ran the first round or even met the moderator that took it over. I had a brief stint on another SHINee fest as well before. I got really into the creative groove in 2019-2020 - all my fests were given up to other moderators and I have zero interaction with them now, though, or they ended up abandoned.

Since 2020, I’ve had a hand in a few things since but not as a mod. I’ve helped with creative input for a few non-SHINee fests over the years and helped some of the SuperM fests with round input too. I don’t do anything at the moment though, past working on my own WIPs and living in my own little fic bubble.

I have to say, I find that impressive - not all moderators can run more than one event at the same time.

I got really into the groove and just got really excited to bring about new worlds and inspiration and ideas for Shawols. I guess in a way it worked as a distraction as well, but the main reason was always to create new spaces and inspiration for Shawols and ensure we always had something new or something running so there was always a creative choice.

How many fests have you been part of as creator or mod team?

Over time? About… easily over fifty since I discovered fests. Including before and after getting into k-pop.

It sounds like you have a lot of love for fests and authors in the fandom. Do you have any plans to return to event running?

I do! Fic has been a life changing experience for me, between therapeutic writing, laughs, distraction, hobby, enjoying fandom and everything else. I have a lot of love for all the SHINee authors out there. We’re an amazing bunch and I’m honoured that every single author who has written for my events - or considered it - has done so.

I’ve been debating coming back into the fest area and have some ideas for SHINee fests but looking at your guys fest list it looks like Authorwols are spoiled for choice already. It’s awesome to see so many fests, potential ideas and events cropping up. If I did come back, it would be to potentially run the Rebanded fest and nothing more. At the moment, I don’t know what 2023 is going to bring for me, so I have no plans right now.

Can we ask what happened to SHINee Rebanded?

I actually was in the process of becoming homeless at the time I was trying to run the event. I tried looking for a new moderator for Rebanded, and managed to get cover for my other events and fests but, for some reason, we just couldn’t find one for Rebanded. A little while after disappearing from the fest, I was homeless for two years so understandably, sorting it out was not in the forefront of my mind.

With that being said, I am doing much better now, I have housing and the like now, it’s all good. 2022 was my year, thankfully.

Would you consider giving it up to another moderator?

Call me selfish, and I probably am, but SHINee Rebanded has become… something a little personal for me. It’s a really big personal factor in my life and I don’t think I would be able to give someone else complete control over it. It filtered out at the worst part of my adult life, and it’s remained there, strong and steady in Twitter account deletion sprees, the current reign of terror and more, like I’ve managed to. If I was going to get a second moderator, it would be to run it with me, not to give it over. I’ll definitely see what 2023 holds. If someone would want to join as a moderator with me, I’d be very glad to do that, however. I never could give the fest away though.

Why did you want to run an Alternate Universe - No Band fest?

I love AUs. I am a sucker for AUs. I love medical AUs, I love royalty AUs, assassins, the works. When I first started out in 2018 in SHINee ficdom there was nothing on AO3. The tags weren’t used, if you wanted to find an AU you had to try and find the right Alternate Universe - [Theme] tag and even then you had to hope that the author had used them. I get it, I don’t care about tagging a lot and find it a chore when I do force myself to sit and tag my works properly as per wrangling guidelines - but, the idea of the fest was to just bring new AU ideas, encourage some tag usage and maybe make AUs a bit easier to find for readers. That’s all.

We had a few questions from some of the project followers - what additional information would have been given in the briefings?

Ah, it’s been a while and I don’t quite remember the whole set up I had going but there would have been more focus on the member’s acting. In terms of what additional information would have been added, there wasn’t much I had planned in that area as the fest was set up to be maladaptive to the participants and content received. For instance, medical au was one of the featured themes and if that had way more prompts than others, additional information would have added potentials for Kibum and stuff like that to encourage authors to write something else and for readers/prompters to push further AU ideas.

I remember distinctly I had a plan to see if the participants could guess where Minho and Kibum were since Minho’s placement could have fit a handful of his acting work, and where Kibum had ended up was going to be entirely set up by what authors wrote and what participants guessed. It was very much a participant-necessary and fuelled concept that was maladaptive to how the fest round went. I’d always wanted a fest that was interactive in terms of concept and that was something I had been playing with in Rebanded.

Was a proper conclusion for the fest planned? And if so, what was it?

There was! It was set up in numerous ways depending on the fest. If people wanted a round two or special rounds then Taemin’s magic hand curse messed up the initial machine more than previously thought - it would have sent SHINee to new alternate universes and began ‘data collection’ for a second round.

If it was going to be a special round, then some members would have returned but not all of them, with the SHINee members ‘themselves’ in the fest-verse guiding Shawols.

If there wasn’t going to be a second round the machine would have worked. If there was going to be a second round but it was going to be a long wait, then the machine would have brought SHINee back and a new parallel universe travel idea was going to be made up for the next round. The fest was really set up to keep the original concept but have different themes and concepts on the alternate universe theme.

It really just depended on what participants wanted to do and if I could do another round and such at the time, but again, it was all very much bare boned as it was adaptive to the rounds and wants of the participants. Taemin’s magic hand curse was pretty much the main theme of all the plans, it was… handy.

Were there any plans to include Taemin’s Koala Kid?

There was, actually. It was going to be the basis for a fanart round if people ever wanted to do that. It was something I was already working on depending on how the first round went.

Do you know at the end of 2022, there were only thirteen fics on the SHINee and Alternate Universe - No Band tags?

I didn’t know that, I haven’t gone on a good reading spree for a while.. It’s definitely more than there were but that’s a small number either way. I’ll definitely be reading them all after this interview, though.

Well, the OTWols did a little challenge over the past week and we do have a small surprise for you.

What’s that?

As part of the OTW Event, looking at SHINee Rebanded for Dec-Jan, we actually did an OTWrangling Challenge for Archive Authorwols - we’ve encouraged people to add the No Band tag to their previously posted works and challenged authors to write mini works based on the tag. The tag now has over 50 works on it.

[creator began laughing in shock here] That’s… amazing. Thank you. It’s so amazing to see my almost-but-never fest can have such an impact still… thank you, guys, that’s so touching. I can’t wait to read them all. All this for my fest? I know there's probably an OTW reason but... at least inspired by Rebanded? That's... amazing. 

What would you say to people that are wanting to start a fic fest?

Check what’s there first. Speak to other fests that are already there. See what their plans are, work on a schedule that will boost authors and not overload them - this is a mistake I made in my first few fests. Run polls, find out what authors want - not just readers. A big part of fest feedback comes from readers and you’ll find a lot of fests that have like 200 votes for a round but only 4 authors, because nearly all the votes were from readers and not authors. Most importantly, have fun! Having fun is the most important part of running a fest.

Is there anything you would like to see from the fest-sphere?

More vampires. More vampires. And demons. A horror fest would be pretty cool - not like Halloween or a horror themed round around Halloween once a year but something focused on horror would be pretty cool. Who knows, maybe that will be my step back into fest spaces. More trans stuff as well. Not just GIRLee but like… trans!GIRLee too. It’d be hella fun to see more of that. Also I would love to see a SHINee/SuperM event that's like SHINee/SuperM in the vein of like... Minho/Jongin, Kibum/Ten and stuff like that, I feel like that would be very fun to do.

To close this up, we just wanted to thank you for your work in the SHINee ficdom and we had an anonymous say that they loved the theme of the fest and they adored the references to SHINee’s non-SHINee work.

Ah, thank you guys. The archive project looks so cool and I’m excited to be somewhat of a part in it. And thank you, anons! It’s so wonderful to see the love for the SHINee fests, even though some of us didn’t get to run rounds. It does mean a lot to see so much love and interest in Rebanded in 2023 despite everything that happened.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Just have fun writing, creating, event running and anything else, Wols! It’s been awesome being part of the fest/creation-sphere and I can’t wait to see what 2023 brings us. Hope it brings us all some amazing works, events and writing muse!