Voiceteam

Voiceteam is a Discord-based team scavenger hunt for the podfic community, in which teams earn points for making different voice-based or voice-adjacent creations. It was created by cantarina, forzandopod and klb and inspired by land comms and defunct points-based podfic challenge amplificathon. 
AO3 collections are set up to post the fanworks created during the challenge, though posting to AO3 is not required. 
Points are scaled according to team members' participation desires. The prizes are generally defined as "bragging rights", "high stats", and "lots more podfic to listen to". 
The first Voiceteam ran over 4 weeks in May 2020, with ten point-earning challenges per week. A shorter edition, "Mystery Box," ran over 2 weeks in January 2021. These challenges have both subsequently run each year. 
==2020 Edition==
Around 100 people signed up for the 2020 challenge and were split into eight teams. 1070 works in 481 fandoms were posted to the main AO3 collection.
Each team also had its own AO3 collection:
* Team Red Out Loud
* Orange You Glad I Saved This Braincell
* Golden Geese
* Peas in a Pod
* Team Chartreuse
* Blue Team Bleu
* Podfic Gothic
* Purple Podfic Eaters
The mods also had a mini team, "Lesser Known Clowns", so they could try some of the challenges when they weren't modding.
===Schedule===
From the info post:
* Sign-ups: April 20–30
* Discord server opens: April 30
* Week 1—Introductions: May 1–7
* Week 2—Music: May 8–14
* Week 3—Adventure: May 15–21
* Week 4—Endings→Beginnings: May 22–28
* Amnesty: May 29–31
* Results & Party: June 1
===Challenges===
Week 1 challenges:
* pick a team name
* pick a mascot
* create fanwork of your mascot
* comment on a team member's podfic
* list of fandoms shared by two or more members of your team
* make a multivoice fanwork
* simulpod a fic
* rope them in (get a non-podficcer to podfic)
* wish fulfillment - create an object you wish you could give to a character in one of your teammates' podfics
* replication - create an object that was featured in a podfic by you or a teammate
* BONUS: create an anthology
Week 2 challenges:
* comment on a Voiceteam player's podfic, sharing at the end of the comment a song that the podficcer's performance made you think of
* make a filk
* create a podfic for a fandom that's a musical
* tie it up with a song - choose a song and create an anthology where each podfic incorporates the song in some way
* podfic + making music = love - create a podfic that includes a team member singing or playing an instrument
* create a fanmix
* start of something new - create a podfic that includes pre-recorded music in a way you haven't before
* character cover - perform a song in-character as a character from a podfic you have created or listened to
* notfic a song
* musical tropes - as a team, create a list of at least 15 tropes and what musical genre they should be
Week 3 challenges:
* snapshot - take a photo of yourself, with others as needed, recreating a moment from a podfic
* audio muse - create something while listening to a podfic
* first! - create a podfic in a fandom that didn’t have any podfics on AO3 when this week of Voiceteam began.
* weird science - incorporate one or more clips from another Voiceteam player’s audio fanwork into a fanwork of your own.
* housewarming - find a podficcer with fewer than 5 podfics posted to AO3 and leave a comment
* rope them in 2 (non-human edition) - incorporate a non-human voice into one of your podfics
* make a podvid
* pitch n' pod - introduce Voiceteam players to a fandom they didn't know before and have them record a group podfic in the new fandom
* never have I ever... until now - play podfic-themed Never Have I Ever with one or more of your team members. Then create an audio fanwork that does one of the things from the game you had never done before.
* swap - find another Voiceteam player who has a different process from yours. Learn about each other's process. You’ll take something from each other’s process that you haven't ever done before and use it in the creation of a new podfic each.
* BONUS: day in the life - create at least 30 seconds of audio and/or video in-character as a character from a podfic
Week 4 challenges:
* to infinity and beyond - make plans with one or more other Voiceteam players to work on an audio project together after the end of the month
* post-canon - create an audio work set post-canon for any fandom
* write or record new commentary on an old fanwork of yours
* podfic broken telephone - begin a game of Podfic Broken Telephone with at least 5 team members. To earn the points, you only need to plan the order of participation, create the first fanwork in the chain, and send it along to the second person in the chain.
* high five - leave feedback for a member of a different Voiceteam about something they posted during the challenge
* my turn - repod something recorded earlier for this year of Voiceteam by any player
* dream big - begin a long-for-you podfic that you won't be able to finish by the end of the month.
* team love - have a Lovefest with your team, where each player gets a turn receiving positive feedback from the rest of the group.
* what comes next - record the sequel (or *create* a sequel) to any audio fanwork you have created or loved in the past.
* time warp - record an audio fanwork in a fandom you used to be in but haven't created/consumed fanworks for in at least one year.
* BONUS: finish or make significant progress on an old or aspirational project
===Winners===
Team Red Out Loud were the winners: blackglass, canarypods, elrohir, esbielle, fensandpodfic, fickle_fixations, idellaphod, LittleRedRobinHood, quothegayven, silverandblue, sophinisba, twtd. 
Some red team members recorded a meta discussion about their Voiceteam experience for Behind the Pod: BtP S2, Party Favour: Team Red Out Loud, Voiceteam 2020- ROAD TO GLORY
==2021 Edition==
===Schedule===
The schedule was modified to answer previous particiants' feedback. The new schedule allowed 5 days for the challenges, with 2 days off, over 4 weeks.
In order to afford participants who needed a quiet moment to process the challenges rather than the high-energy effervescence/chaos of the live challenge drops on Discord, mods posted the list of challenges one hour early on the Dreamwidth community, with a gag order until challenges were revealed on Discord. 
===Challenges===
An overarching "superchallenge" was added to the weekly challenges, which would act as a tie-break in case of ex-aequo winners. 
Examples of new challenges included: 
* Cover Art First: A player creates cover art, and one or more player creates an audio fanwork inspired by it. 
* Cast On: Create a podcast episode. 
* Chaos Mission: Generate a word for the team using a random generator, make a podfic connecting to the word. 
* Sardines: Create an audio fanwork with contributions from as many players as possible. 
* Commentary: Write or record a new commentary on a fanwork created before the start of the challenge. 
* Accept Criticism: Get feedback from another player on a newly-created fanwork which made you take a risk in some way
===Winners===
Team Neon Carrot were the winners: blackglass, canarypods, Djapchan, esbielle, GodOfLaundryBaskets, Jetainia, LittleRedRobinHood, lysandyra, MouseK, Ravin, Tipsy_Kitty, TheLordOfLaMancha. 
==2022 Edition==
===Schedule===
The challenge ran from May 1st to June 1st, 2022. The schedule was adjusted again in response to participants' feedback, with three 7-day rounds, cut up by 2 days off in between each round. 
===Challenges===
The tie-breaker was based on how many individual challenges each individual player on a given team had completed during Round 3. 
New challenges included: 
* Storytime: Create an illustrated children's book connected to podficcing. 
* Song Lyrics Connect: Record podfics whose titles make up the lyrics to a pre-agreed existing song. 
* Weighted Blanket: Podfic a story by an author who has given Blanket Permission to Podfic but has no podfic of their works on AO3
* Flanfiction: Create something—anything—that in some way is connected to audio fanworks and in some way is connected to flan. NO CLARIFYING QUESTIONS PERMITTED ON THIS CHALLENGE.
===Winners===
Team Dandy Lions were the winners: aethel, bluedreaming, flowerparrish, greedy_dancer, JocundaSykes, peasina, Ravin, sophinisba, twtd, UnholyCrowley. 
== 2023 Edition ==
=== Schedule ===
The challenge ran from May 1st to May 30th. The schedule again featured three 7-day rounds with a two day break between rounds. The tiebreaker was a 24-hour lightning round of the 3 challenges that received the least submissions in the earlier rounds.
=== Challenges ===
Some notable challenges this year included: 
* CLOSET COSPLAY: Create an audio fanwork in costume as the POV character!
* SEA WITCH: Create an audio fanwork that includes no spoken words. It must include some element of character and/or plot. No follow-up questions allowed.
* BLORBO-IN-LAW: Record a work that features a fandom that you are not in and have not seen the full source material for, but that you see a lot on your dash/timeline/etc.
* TALK BACK: Record or listen to an audio fanwork at the same time as at least one other Voiceteam player, and then co-record some kind of live audio response to the audio fanwork you just listened to. 
There were also a few impromptu mod bonus dares, including "use the sad trombone noise", "use the same fic for all the challenges", and "create a chain connecting posts from all the challenges". 
=== Stats ===
There are 1126 publicly posted works from Voiceteam 2023, featuring 323 fandoms. There were 2488 challenge submissions, and a total audio production of 425:56:14, or over 17 days.
==Mystery Box==
Following the success of the first May edition, a shorter version of the challenge was organised at the end of December/beginning of January. Players were given the option to be matched onto teams or sign up as a pre-existing team of at least 5 players. 
===2020===
Two challenges were posted every day from Dec 26 2020 to Dec 30; challenges closed a week after posting. Results were announced Jan 9th 2021. 
===2021===
Two challenges were posted every day for 7 days from Dec 26 2021. Challenges closed a week after posting. Amnesty closed Jan 9th. 
===2022===
Two challenges were posted every day for 5 days. All challenges closed on the same day.
===2023===
Two challenges were posted every day for 5 days. All challenges closed on the same day. 
== Impact ==
* During the challenge, many participants will modify their icons to feature a hat in their team's colour. These are often (but not always) the Carmen Sandiego hat. 
* There have been a number of Simulpod-related challenges, resulting in the current record of 18 repods of Roll of the Dice, a Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves fic, as well as the remainder of the top 5 known repods.
* The Voiceteam AO3 collection is (as of January 2023) responsible for approximately 10% of the podfic on AO3.
== External Links ==
* An Abridged History of Voiceteam - an audio documentary discussing the origins and history of Voiceteam, made for Voiceteam Mystery Box 2023 and posted to AO3 on January 8, 2024 (locked to AO3 members)
Category:Podfic Challenges
Category:2020s Challenges
Category:Social Media Feature