UNCHAINED MELODY: Create filks with your team's theme song.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
BUY YOURSELF FLOWERS: Listen to an audio fanwork of yours and write yourself a comment of all the things you love about it. You don't have to share it, but you could—it would probably make a pretty good self-rec!
Point value: 20 points per comment.
BE HERE NOW: Sit down to record an audio fanwork without having done any pre-planning for what you will record. Choose the fandom and story only after you are all set up to record. Follow your whims in that exact moment! Choosing off a pre-made list is okay, but it must either be a list you created before this challenge began or a list created by somebody else.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
NICK OF TIME: Finish and submit an audio fanwork you began before this round of Voiceteam started. The work cannot have been previously submitted for Voiceteam points.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
Thank you to carboncopies for suggesting this challenge!
IN THEIR SHOES: Record something featuring a favourite thing (ship, character, trope, audio format, story element) of one of your team members. The team member in question may not contribute to this work for points.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
Thanks to Jetainia for this challenge idea!
From Mystery Box 2020
INSPIRED BY: Create a fanwork inspired by an existing audio fanwork made by someone on your team. Your fanwork could be audio, visual, a poem, acting out a scene with hand puppets, or whatever you want.
Point value: 20 points for each player who contributes, +20 points if it requires significant time, effort, or energy on your part.
From Voiceteam 2021
BACK UP YOUR JUNK: Choose 10 of your already-posted audio fanworks and add links to one other hosting website to extend longevity of the fanwork. (If you haven't posted 10 podfics, you get the points for adding additional links to all the ones you have posted.) Bonus points for every 5 podfics you back up beyond the original 10.
Posting a fanwork that has been submitted for Voiceteam but not yet posted is a valid interpretation of backing up that fanwork.
Point value: 30 points for the first set of audio fanworks backed up. +10 points for every 5 additional audio fanworks backed up.
Thanks to Jocunda Sykes for suggesting this challenge!
From Mystery Box 2022
TALK BACK: Either live-listen to or live-record an audio fanwork with at least one other Voiceteam player. Then co-record some kind of live audio response to the audio fanwork you just experienced together. The audio response must be at least 5 minutes long and could be a discussion of the story, a notfic prequel/sequel/story that happens between scenes, a reaction to the podfic itself, or something else.
Point value: 25 points for an audio response to a shared listening experience. 45 points for submitting a shared recording experience plus audio response.
From Voiceteam 2023
YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT: Complete your team's mission. Bonus for guessing other teams' missions. Bigger bonus for keeping your own mission secret.
(You will find your team's mission ten minutes from now in your team channels. You know where.)
Point value: 35 points for each fanwork submitted that contributes to your mission. If your team correctly guesses another team's mission, every team member who contributed to your team's mission earns 10 points. If no other team correctly guesses your team's mission, every team member who contributed to the mission earns 50 points.
This challenge is taking the place of the Mod Dare in Round 3.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: Combine two or more previous Voiceteam challenges.
Point value: Base of 20 points for a non-audio-fanwork project that combines at least two challenges, or 35 points for an audio fanwork that combines at least two challenges. Bonuses of +10 points if the project combines at least five challenges, +15 points if it combines at least ten challenges, or +20 points if it combines at least fifteen challenges. (Bonuses do not stack.)
Thanks to Schittposting and SerenaEW for inspiring this challenge. And happy fifth Voiceteam anniversary to us all!
AND THE BAND PLAYS ON: Create a non-filk audio fanwork with a title that is a lyric from your team's theme song.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
THE EXACT RIGHT NUMBER OF COOKS: Everyone on your team who wants to can submit a single audio clip up to 10 seconds long. Players are not allowed to discuss ahead of time what clips they will submit or listen to anyone else’s clip before submitting their own.
Once all the clips are in, create an audio fanwork, with a cohesive plot, that incorporates as many of your team’s clips as possible. This audio fanwork (e.g. filk, podfic, oral not!fic) may also include any other words, music, sound effects, etc that you want!
Point value: 10 points for submitting your clip. 40 points for creating an audio fanwork that incorporates at least 3 clips, +5 points for each additional clip incorporated.
LISTEN TO THIS!: Create an audio rec of a podfic that you did not make. Your audio rec should be under 5 minutes, and it must include a snippet of the podfic you are reccing as well as your own voice explaining why you recommend it.
Point value: 25 points per recommendation.
SOAPBOX: Write podfic meta about anything. Minimum length of 500 words or 3 minutes of audio.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
Thank you to Jocunda Sykes for suggesting this challenge!
FRESH NEW SOUND: Create an audio fanwork in which you give at least one character a character voice that you have not used in an audio fanwork before. Silly voices are encouraged!
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH: Podfic a story that's at least a week old and has fewer than 100 hits.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
Thank you to Jocunda Sykes for inspiring this challenge!
MAKE A MULTIVOICE: Make a multivoice fanwork (podfic or oral not!fic) with multiple team members, at least two of whom share that fandom.
Point value: 35 points for each team member who contributes.
From Voiceteam 2020
INTO THE UNKNOWN: A player sets some parameters (e.g. max length, rating, trope preferences, vetoed fandoms) and teammates can suggest works to record in fandoms the player isn't in. The person who found the fic should be prepared to assist with pronunciation or context. If the podfic is a multivoice, the player who set the parameters must have the largest role.
Point value: 15 points for finding the fic, or 35 points for contributing to the podfic. (Note: If the person who found the fic also contributes to the podfic, they receive 35 points, not 50.)
From Mystery Box 2021
SPREAD THE WORD: Promote the concept of permission statements (optionally including the Fandom Permission Statements website) on journals/social media sites/etc. to encourage more authors to post permission statements. Posts you make should be significant promo and not just a retweet/reblog. Bonus points for each permission statement posted in direct response to your promo. The bonus applies for ANY permission statement posted, not just blanket yes!
Point value: 20 points for each promo, +5 bonus points for each new permission statement posted.
From Voiceteam 2022
SNUGGLE UP: Find a way to be extra cozy while creating an audio fanwork. This might be recording in your favorite comfy clothes, with your favorite stuffy or comfort object, with an extra cozy-feeling drink, or decorating your recording space with some cozy new decorations. If you are contributing cover art, editing, etc to someone else's recording, you must also find a way to make yourself extra cozy while doing so!
For those in the Northern Hemisphere or a tropical climate, feel free to consider "cool and refreshed" a valid interpretation of cozy for the purposes of this challenge!
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG: Each team will choose a theme song—a non-filk song that embodies your team's spirit. Once the song is chosen, you will earn points for every podfic a team member contributes to that includes this song as intro, outro, interstitial, or background music.
Please note: this challenge may only be fulfilled with podfic and not with other audio fanworks.
Point value: 10 points for choosing the song. (Once the song is chosen, everyone who weighed in on the decision will earn the points). 35 points for each player who contributes to a podfic that incorporates the chosen song.
GUEST OF HONOR: Find or create something (an object, a picture, a living creature, etc) that would make a good audience for the audio fanwork you want to create. As you record, perform your story TO that audience. You should have a reason for why you chose this audience for this particular fanwork—the reason can be as silly or serious as you want—and the audience must be physically present when you record. You cannot use the same audience twice.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes. In multivoice creations, everyone who contributes voice needs to have an audience in order to get points. Other contributors, such as editors or cover artists, do not need their own audience.
Thanks to ShakespeareStoleMyURL for inspiring this challenge!
WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK: Listen to a new-to-you podfic while doing something you have been meaning to do and have put off. (If the task isn't something you can multitask with podfic, you can do it first and then use a podfic as your reward for finishing.)
Bonus points for commenting after you finish listening (and perhaps telling the podficcer what they helped you do)!
Point value: 20 points for listening and doing the task, +10 points for commenting.
STORE BOUGHT GENDER: Create an audio fanwork where the main POV character is agender, genderfluid, multigender, non-binary, or trans. The character's gender does not need to be the focus of the story.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
Thank you to Ghostcwtch for suggesting this challenge!
PODFICCER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY: Create a podfic-centered tour of your fandom. What are some podfic-friendly authors or places? What quirks or the canon or fanon might pose challenge or cool opportunities when recording? What resources might podficcers in this fandom find useful? What challenges welcome podfic, or what are some other podficcers or specific podfics that are great to listen to?
Point value: 30 points for each player who contributes, +10 points if you put in significant effort (screenshots, significant organization, links and examples, creative format, etc).
PODFIC BACKWARDS: Podfic backwards. It's up to you to decide what that means. NO FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS ALLOWED.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
IF YOU BUILD IT: Plan an audio-based or audio-inclusive event that doesn’t yet exist but should totally exist. It could be realistic or totally fanciful—this is a hypothetical plan and there’s no requirement to actually put it into action. This plan can take whatever form you choose—could just be vague notes, an audio brainstorming session, mocking up graphics/Rules/FAQ/etc for the event, etc. (But the more detailed the plan, the more chances for lots of players to contribute and get points!)
Point value: 30 points for each player who contributes.
Thanks to bluedreaming for suggesting this challenge!
From Mystery Box 2020
PRIDE OF PLACE: Record outdoors or next to an open window. Bonus points if the setting of the story matches the setting you are in.
Point value: 35 points, +10 if the setting of the story matches the setting it is recorded in.
From Voiceteam 2023
PASSION PROJECT: Think of a fic that is one of your very top favorites but that you have not recorded a podfic of. Perhaps it is intimidatingly good, or already has a podfic version you love, or is too long, or you just haven't gotten around to it. Record a 500-1500 word snippet of that fic. You can record up to 5 snippets of the same fic.
Point value: 30 points.
From Mystery Box 2023
ROLE MODEL: Listen to a teammate's podfic. Then create a podfic with at least one overlapping character, where your interpretation of that character is inspired by their performance.
Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes.
Sign-ups close April 28th at 11:59 PM UTC (for another reference point, in EDT this is 7:59 PM on April 28th). You can either fill in the embedded form further down this page, fill it out at this link, or you can email us your sign-up at voiceteammods@gmail.com.
The first thing you need to decide when signing up is whether you want a higher points cap or a lower points cap. People with a lower points cap will be able to earn a max of 200 points per week (and any creations they submit beyond that don't count for additional points), and people with a higher points cap will be able to earn a max of 400 points per week. No matter what points cap you sign up for, you can decide to take a points break for any week that you want if you’re finding the idea of earning points for that week more stressful than fun!
We will be matching you to a team of about a dozen people, so we need a little more info from you about your fandoms, interests, and preferences. This will help us do our best to match you up well with other participants. (Please note — matching is never perfect! If you end up on a team that’s not a good fit for you, let us know and we can find you a different team.) You can choose one sign-up buddy and we will put you both on the same team. Sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
If you’re curious who else has signed up for this adventure, you can check out this list of fannish names and AO3 accounts for other players! (All other information from your sign-up is only viewable by the mod team. If you’d prefer your fannish name and AO3 account to be only viewable to the mod team as well, there’s a checkbox on the sign-up form that will do that.)
If you're a new Voiceteam player, you can let us know during sign-up if you'd like to be matched with a more experienced player to guide you through your first Voiceteam. If you're a returning player, you can let us know during sign-up if you'd like to volunteer to be a guide!
(If you are a past player who is not able to participate in the current round due to life circumstances but who still wants to hang out with everyone in the Voiceteam Discord as a Discord "ghost," you can skip the sign-up form. Just email us at voiceteammods@gmail.com or send one of the mods a Discord DM.)
Once your sign-up is complete, the mods will email you a copy of your answers. If you decide later that you’d like to change one of your answers, you can reply to that email and we’ll make the change for you! Other options for how to change your sign-up are listed in the FAQ.
What is Voiceteam? You could describe it as a fandom challenge, or as a creative competition, or as a series of friendship quests for podficcers. At its heart, Voiceteam is a fannish game for the podfic community with summer camp vibes. It takes place on Discord, where you’re grouped into teams of around a dozen players each. Across three week-long rounds in May, you can earn points for your team by making voice-based or voice-adjacent creations that fulfill different challenges. Each round begins with ten new challenges being revealed, and then teams are set loose to strategize, create, earn points, and have fun!
Sound interesting? If you’d like to learn more, read on for all of the specifics, logistics, updates, and rules of Voiceteam 2025!
TIMELINE
Sign-ups: April 1–28 Discord Server Opening/Orientation: May 1–3 Check In 1: May 2 Round 1: May 4–10 Break 1 and Check In 2: May 11–12 Round 2: May 13–19 Break 2 and Check In 3: May 20–21 Round 3: May 22–28 Break 4: May 29–30 Tiebreaker: May 31 Results: June 1
Voiceteam runs on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). All single dates listed above are scheduled at 12:01 AM UTC of the relevant day. All date ranges begin at 12:01 AM UTC on the first day in the range and end at 11:59 PM on the last day in the range. To get a sense of what that is where you live, you can do a Google search for “midnight UTC in my time zone” or enter your location on this time conversion website. Your mods—eafay70, forzandopod, irrationalpie, klb, novalinium, and twtd—are in EDT (UTC-4), MDT (UTC-6), and PDT (UTC-7), but we have players from across the world. Anyone from any time zone is welcome and able to participate!
Note for new players: Voiceteam has been running for 11 rounds, and every round we’ve made tweaks to help the experience work better for more and more players and situations. We like all of these changes, but they’ve also made the details of Voiceteam more and more complicated to wrap your head around all at once! So we’ve made a simplified overview of Voiceteam as a starting place for new players that just focuses on the basics. Feel free to start there!
Where did this idea come from? Voiceteam is inspired by a combination of Amplificathon, GISH, and the 2000s era sorting and landcomms on LJ. (Name inspiration is from here.) We wanted a point-based podfic event like Amplificathon used to be, and we also wanted an event with excitement, fun, and occasional silliness, where anybody who loved podfic would feel welcome and would have plenty of opportunities to bond and make new friends!
If you want a lot more information on the origin of Voiceteam, you can check out the audio documentary An Abridged History of Voiceteam, created by TheLordOfLaMancha during Voiceteam Mystery Box 2023
Do I have to be an experienced podficcer to join? No! You just have to love podfic. There are non-voice ways to participate in audio fanworks for points, like contributing writing, beta, editing, directing, or graphics. There will also be some challenges that can be fulfilled without audio fanworks. No one has to do every single challenge.
How big of a commitment is this going to be? No bigger than you want it to be! The point of this event is to have fun and make friends, and if you end up getting inspired to create a bunch of stuff, cool. If not, that’s also cool.
Okay, but what if my version of fun is to scheme with my team members and Crush The Competition? Go for it! Just make sure that it’s all in good fun and that team members with different reasons for participating don’t feel pressured.
How do I earn points? At the beginning of each new round, a list of ten challenges will be posted in the Discord’s public channel. For the seven days that the challenges are open, these challenges can earn points.
What’s an example of what a challenge might look like? You can find examples of past Voiceteam challenges here.
What if I don’t like some of the challenges? That’s okay! The challenges are spread out to interest a wide range of different players, and not every challenge will work for everyone. In some cases, you might have feedback about how to tweak the challenge to make it more fun for you, which we invite you to share in the #feedback-about-voiceteam channel or by DMing a mod. If none of the challenges of a particular round work for you, please also let us know, because the mods may be able to add a bonus challenge for the week to give you and others who feel similarly an alternate way to earn points.
In other cases, you might find across the round that seeing what other people create inspires you and changes your mind about some of the challenges. Sometimes players even find that the challenge that seemed least appealing to them at first ends up being their favorite! We encourage you to keep an open mind, and to reach out to teammates for ideas about how to make a tricky challenge fit with your interests, or for cheerleading and support in trying something new.
We do ask, though, that you keep any negativity about challenges or rounds that don't work as well for you to appropriate areas (such as #feedback-about-voiceteam or conversations with mods) and that in team spaces you focus on the challenges you are interested in and/or constructive problem-solving about those that you are having trouble with. This will help keep team spaces positive, encouraging, and fun!
How do I keep track of when challenge drops and deadlines will happen in my time zone? We know this can be confusing! We will have a time zone converter set up in Discord in a prominent location to help players keep track of when the next drop or deadline is coming up.
Another way to keep track of Voiceteam happenings is to subscribe to the Google Calendar with our schedule. (You’ll need to click the + in the bottom right corner to add it, which will convert it to your local time zone.)
Those in time zones where 12:01 AM UTC is too late at night to comfortably stay awake for challenge drops can opt into a special channel where the challenges are dropped 4 hours early, so that their sleep schedules are not too disrupted by Voiceteam!
What is Discord?/Tell me more about how the Discord server is going to work. Discord is a chat-based platform. Every server (like the Voiceteam server) can host multiple text and voice chat channels. Some of the channels will be open to the entire Voiceteam community and some will be visible only to members of your team. Voiceteam players will be emailed an invitation to the Voiceteam Discord server on 12:01 AM UTC May 1st.
Do you recommend teams create their own separate Discords or group DMs to coordinate projects for Voiceteam challenges? We hope this event can be an opportunity for participants to get to know each other better and form lasting connections! However, in the interests of facilitating moderation we'd encourage you to keep to the Voiceteam Discord for coordinating Voiceteam projects with your team, rather than creating a separate team Discord for yourselves. If you do decide to create a separate Discord for your team, we highly recommend you add one or more of the Voiceteam mods so it's easier for us to get caught up in the case of issues - you can always remove us after all of the challenges have closed.
Regarding DMs, all players will have the opportunity to assign themselves the roles “DMs Open,” “Ask to DM,” or “DMs Closed.” Please respect the DM preferences that players show through these roles.
How will the teams work? We’ll use the info you give us in your signups to create teams of around 12 players. Once you’re assigned a team, anything you create counts toward your team’s point total. Beyond that, being on a team can be as interactive as you want. You can hang out in your team’s Discord channel all the time to chat and scheme and create with team members, or you can just check in every now and again to say hi and see if there’s anything happening you want to participate in. Or anything in between!
To help teams start conversations and get to know each other better, we’ll provide optional icebreaker questions when the Discord first opens and during each break between rounds.
How much input do I have about who's on my team? In your sign-up, you can specify one friend (aka sign-up buddy) that you want to guarantee is on your team. You can also let us know if there are any people you definitely do NOT want to be on a team with, and we'll honor that. And if there are any fandoms you're not comfortable interacting with you can let us know and we’ll make sure not to put you on a team with anyone who lists those as their primary fandoms, for the sake of everyone involved! Other than that, team sorting is up to the mods. But we’ll try to sort you onto as fun and well-balanced a team as possible! If you feel that the team you end up on isn’t the right match for you, please let the mods know and we can help you move to a different team.
What are Discord "ghosts"? Discord ghosts is the name we use for past players who are not able to participate in the current round due to life circumstances but who still want to hang out with everyone in the Voiceteam Discord. Ghosts will not be part of a team or able to submit any creations on Airtable, but they will have access to All-Team Channels in the Discord and can help cheer on and support all of the players from there.
What is a mod dare? Mod dares are an extremely optional just-for-fun twist that arose organically in Voiceteam 2023 and that we've continued since then. Every round, there will be a secret dare by the mods hidden somewhere within Voiceteam. If someone on your team finds it, and it sounds like fun, the team can decide to take the dare! Mod dares are always completed as a group rather than as an individual, and they don't earn any extra points—just a shout-out in the stats post at the end of the round.
Are there limits or requirements for crossposting creations I make for Voiceteam? Nope! You may crosspost any works made for Voiceteam whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to not crosspost at all and only share with the mods, or only share within the Voiceteam Discord. One reminder, though, is that since many Voiceteam works are collaborations, all collaborators should discuss and be on the same page about when/where a work will be crossposted.
What if I was already working on something before Voiceteam started? Is it possible to get points for it? Any creation can earn points for a Voiceteam challenge as long as it is completed during the time that challenge is active. This includes WIPs you were already working on that happen to align with one of the challenges.
How are multichapter works scored? For multichapter works, each chapter can be submitted for points separately. Different chapters will each be treated as their own creation, so you can submit any chapter for any challenge, independent of what challenge(s) other chapters of that work were submitted for.
What if I'm collaborating on a work with other players and someone doesn’t complete their part by the deadline? If a good-faith plan is made for multiple people to collaborate on a work and some members aren’t able to meet the deadline, the partial project can be submitted for points by the members who did finish in time.
Are minors allowed to participate? Yes, minors (and over-18 folk who prefer to avoid mature content) are welcome to participate in Voiceteam! To accommodate these participants, NSFW content in the Discord server is kept in separate age-restricted channels. The only time NSFW content would be mixed in with SFW content would be in team-specific channels, and only in cases where every team member is over 18 and has expressed comfort with doing so.
I observe Shabbat in a way that makes me not able to participate on that day (or have a similar situation that means I’d need to take a certain day each week off from playing), but I still want to compete for points! Is there a way for me to do that? Absolutely! If you'll need to take off a specific day each week but still want to play for points, let us know in advance and we'll make your deadline for each round a day later than everyone else’s to make up for it.
What are content moderation rules and how do they work? We've put in place two content moderation rules. If someone finds a fanwork that they think may violate one of the rules, they can report it privately (and anonymously if they want) to the mod team.
We have designed our response plan to prevent this system from being used to harass fanwork creators. We will never publicly share information about any reports, and we'll only contact the creator(s) about a report if we are sure the fanwork really is against one of these rules. If it’s unclear to us whether the fanwork violates the rule, the mod team will privately consult with one or more members of the marginalized group impacted, or as close as possible to that group, to assess if harm is being caused to the impacted community by the fanwork. If harm is being caused, we'll move forward in private conversation with the creator(s) of the fanwork to discuss the situation together and figure out possible next steps.
If the work is in violation of one of the rules and the fanwork’s creator(s) cannot or do not wish to alter it, any points previously earned by the work will be removed and the work will be removed from the Voiceteam AO3 collection.
What plans does Voiceteam have in place to address racism within fandom and our community? At the start of Voiceteam, players will have the option to opt into a section of channels intended to be a safe space for creators of color. This space is run by a mod of color, and none of the white mods will have access, nor will any white player in Voiceteam. We ask that everyone - whether you're a person of color or not - respect that space.
We will also continue with the universal bonus of +10 points for any Voiceteam fanwork that centers one or more characters of color. This includes racebent characters.
We are continuing to reflect as a mod team about our anti-racism practices within fandom, which we recognize to be a space deeply shaped by racism. We remain open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in this area.
When you sign up, there will be some questions about fandoms or tropes you like, and mods will use that to match you up with people with similar or overlapping interests. During the event, many challenges or prompts encourage working with others, and your team is often a good place to find people to collaborate with. If you wind up on a team that isn't a good fit for you, there will be several check-ins throughout the event where you can let the mods know, and we can work with you to find a better fit!
Orientation/entering the Discord server
On the date in the schedule, a new Discord server will open, and you'll get an invite to join and get to know your team. Some channels will be visible to everyone, but there will also be a set of channels specifically for your team. Many participants will add colored or themed hats to their profile pictures (for fun, it's not required!) and start linking resources or posting memes to get into the spirit of Voiceteam. It can be a little chaotic! We (participants and mods) are generally a friendly bunch though, and happy to help answer any questions!
This year, there will be three short practice challenges to complete for fake points, to learn (or remind you) how challenges work (and hopefully get started on having fun!)
Challenges/prompts
There will be three rounds, each with ten challenges/prompts. The challenges from Voiceteam 2024 Round 1 are a good example. Some are more straightforwardly related to podfic-making, like High Five, which had players make a list of five audio fanworks they'd like to create and gave points for both making the list and making those fanworks. Others might be about podfic listening, like Choose Well, which had players listen to a podfic while doing something good for them. There's always a range of different challenges so there should be something for everyone!
It's not required to be around right when the challenges are revealed, but it can be fun to watch it happen live (watching the emoji reactions tick up is some prime entertainment)! If challenge drop isn't at a good time for you in your time zone, there's also an option to preview the challenges four hours ahead of time.
Fulfilling challenges/prompts
Each challenge will explain how to get points for it, but generally everyone who works on a project will get full points for it, no matter the size of the contribution. Unless specifically stated in the challenge text, you're encouraged to fill each challenge multiple times! Each challenge remains open until the end of the round, at which point there’ll be a two-day break when no challenges are active.
Each creation you make can only be turned in for one challenge, but you are free to count each chapter of a podfic as a separate creation (allowing you to turn them in for different challenges). There are no cross-posting requirements, though there will be an optional collection on AO3 and you’re encouraged to share what you make with your team and the whole discord server!
Points cap and earning points
The goal of the points cap is to give people an achievable target and discourage taking on so many projects you burn out. We will provide each team a scoreboard that will show your points for each round, so you will not be required to do any math! This explanation is just for your information.
Points for projects you work on will be associated with a particular challenge in a particular round. Your points for each round are capped at either 200 (low cap), 400 (high cap), or 0 (points break).
Let's look at an example of how points are earned. In 2024, Round 1 contained the Moooood challenge, worth 35 points, to make an audio fanwork involving animal noises you make with your own voice or body. If you make a podfic that fits the challenge, you get 35 points. If your teammate makes a podfic for the challenge, and you contribute some animal noises, you both get 35 points. There are also some bonuses that may apply, such as the length bonus. If a teammate makes a podfic for the challenge that's over 10 minutes, there'll be a 10 point bonus, so if you contribute more animal noises to their podfic, now you both get 45 points. Points add up a lot faster when you work together! In this hypothetical scenario, you're already at 115 points (out of your 200 or 400 point cap), and you haven't even tried any of the other nine challenges yet!
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
Challenge points: 35
Challenge points: 35
Challenge points: 35
Length bonus: 10
Contributors:
You (podfic, including animal noises)
Contributors:
Teammate (podfic)
You (animal noises)
Contributors:
Teammate (podfic)
You (more animal noises)
Total points:
You get 35 points
Total points:
Teammate gets 35 points
You get 35 points
Total points:
Teammate gets 45 points
You get 45 points
You'll notice in the above examples that collaboration is really lucrative, points-wise. In Project 2, each person did less work than in Project 1, and each player still earned full points. Sometimes a single project can have small contributions by 10 or 20 people or more, and every contributor gets full points for that project! (Don't worry, the person who coordinated the project does get a bonus for the extra work of organizing all those people!) So here's an important strategic tip: if you're ever overwhelmed trying to figure out how to earn more points for a round, the answer is almost always collaboration!
Once you reach the points cap, any additional projects you made after that, for these or other challenges in the round, will not earn you any more points (though they may earn your co-creators points!). You can switch cap in either direction before any challenges are revealed, or from low to high at any time until the final round ends. There'll be an opportunity to pick points break for any particular round of challenges after each round is revealed.
Team scoring
In order not to benefit larger teams or teams with more people picking high cap, every team's score will be multiplied by a magic number that will make up for this. This means you can pick low cap or go on points break and that won’t negatively affect your team’s score! Some teams are interested in trying to win, but plenty of teams are not!
Tiebreaker
After all three rounds have ended, there will be a tiebreaker challenge. This is how we decide the winner of Voiceteam if there was a tie for first place. But the Tiebreaker round can be fun to play with your team even if you aren't on one of the teams competing for first place! It's a chaotic free-for-all with no point caps, where teams strategize to see how many points they can earn across a 24-hour period. Participation is optional, and you won't harm your team's chances if you choose to sit out.
Mod dares
For each set of challenges, there will be an extra twist called a "mod dare" hidden somewhere within, or associated with, the Voiceteam server. Teams can choose to try to find the dare, and if they find it, can choose to complete it. An example dare from Voiceteam 2024 was to create a team slogan, and then find a way to incorporate the team slogan into all 10 of that round's challenges. Working together on a dare can be good for team bonding, since dares are meant to be completed as a group rather than on your own. But they're also totally skippable, especially since you don't earn bonus points for completing them.
Chaos
The Voiceteam discord server is often a chaotic place to be. It can be overwhelming, particularly at first, but things often become more calm as the month progresses. You are not required to engage in the chaos if you don’t want to. It is perfectly acceptable to mute any channels that don’t appeal to you or to simply stick to your team’s channels.
After five years, there are many in-jokes. These are a few of the main ones:
Team hats
Teams often choose hats to add to their user icons to represent their teams. These hats are optional, but people often find them an easy way to create team unity and esprit de corps.
Flan
In Voiceteam 2022, there was a challenge called Flanfiction, which was: "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." Players got very creative and silly with the challenge, and flan has since become a symbol of Voiceteam chaos.
Craig
Craig is a Discord bot that can record audio from voice channels. In theory, he is very helpful, but in practice he is often glitchy and ends up with damaged audio. Players have a love/hate relationship with Craig, but one thing we can all agree on: he is not to be trusted!
Voiceteam filk
Filk is fandom songs, usually with new lyrics written to existing tunes. There has been a lot of filk written about Voiceteam over the years, since Voiceteam itself the one common reference point that everyone within the server shares. Players will often share filk from previous rounds, or start planning new filks, soon after the Voiceteam Discord opens.
While you might feel out of the loop during the first few days, there will be plenty of new shared experiences, jokes, and references across this year's rounds, so if you just dive in and go through the experience with us, everything will make sense by the end!
PODFIC RADIO: Chip in to the creation of a Voiceteam-wide fictional radio station! Each team will create their own mini radio show made up of different short segments. Possible segments include: (filk) songs, commercials, weather, news, skits/radio dramas/stories, or anything else you can dream up that you might hear on the radio! See this doc for more information and examples. Once your team has contributed their segments, one or two team members should edit them together to make a radio show. Here’s an example of an edited-together radio show from VT2021! Point value: 35 points per segment for each player who contributes. Each unique segment you contribute to earns points separately. Whoever coordinates the segments and pieces them together should give themselves a Project Lead Bonus! Thank you to fishandchipsandvinegar for helping put together this challenge and creating the resource doc!
SNUGGLE UP: Find a way to be extra cozy while creating an audio fanwork. This might be recording in your favorite comfy clothes, with your favorite stuffy or comfort object, with an extra cozy-feeling drink, or decorating your recording space with some cozy new decorations. If you are contributing cover art, editing, etc to someone else's recording, you must also find a way to make yourself extra cozy while doing so! For those in the Southern Hemisphere or a tropical climate, feel free to consider "cool and refreshed" a valid interpretation of cozy for the purposes of this challenge! Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes
Set 2
GOOD TALK: Choose a fic and have a book-club-style discussion about it with one or more other players. In this discussion, you might dig into characters, author choices, themes, etc. The discussion can be either via voice chat or text, and it does not need to be recorded or submitted to the mods. Then either simulpod or multivoice that fic. Point value: 40 points for each player who contributes to a discussion (which does not need to be submitted) and podfic (which does need to be submitted) of the same fic
BRING LIGHT: Do something that:
is connected to audio fanworks in some way, and
will make another person's life better
Note: For this challenge, please use a very broad definition of making someone's life better! It can be as small as making them smile for a moment, or laugh, or making them feel cared for, or helping their day go a bit more smoothly. The person whose life you make better does not need to be a Voiceteam player. Point value: 20 or 35 points, whichever feels right to you. If 20 points, put your name in the base level on Airtable, and if 35 points put it in the bonus level.
Set 3
ACTUAL SCAVENGER HUNT: TEAM EDITION: For the first 48 hours, any team members who want to contribute can add items to a teamwide scavenger hunt list. The final list should have between 20 and 25 items. Then pairs of teams will swap lists with each other. Once the lists are swapped, players earn points for each audio fanwork they contribute to while in physical contact with an item from their team's assigned list. Bonus if the item from the scavenger hunt list is audibly present in the fanwork (for example, as a prop for foley). The team pairings will be assigned by the mods, and a shared channel will be created for each pair of teams to communicate with each other. Scavenger hunt items can range from things that are realistic to obtain (like a takeout menu) to things that are impossible to obtain (like pixie dust) but are open to creative interpretation (like pixie stix powder). They can also include categories of objects (like "something that crinkles in a cool way"). If there are any questions about whether an item qualifies, the team who made the scavenger hunt list will make the ruling! Point value: 10 points to contribute to the list (not ten points per item, but ten points total for each player who contributes one or more items), 35 points per person who contributes to an audio fanwork while in physical contact with an item from their list, +10 if the item is audibly present in the fanwork Thanks to AirgiodSLV for inspiring this challenge!
SPREAD LOVE: You can earn points for choosing one of your audio fanworks that you would like more listens and comments on and sharing it in #spread-love or #spread-love-nsfw. Then, all players can earn points for listening and leaving a thoughtful comment on any of the audio fanworks posted in those channels! Point value: 5 points for submitting an audio fanwork in the channel, 20 points for listening and leaving a thoughtful comment.
Set 4
GUESS THAT VOICE: For the first 48 hours of this challenge, you can earn points for submitting one clip of your voice, ranging from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, from one of your audio fanworks (posted or unposted). After 48 hours, all submitted clips will be anonymized and shared by mods in #guess-that-voice, and players will be able to use a Google Form to guess them. (We will share more information about guessing once we get to that part of the challenge.) Players will earn points for every correct guess. Point value: 15 points for submitting a clip, 5 points for each correct guess Thanks to Annapods for inspiring this challenge!
DO THE WEIRD STUFF: Create an audio fanwork where you either record the audio or make the cover art in a way that strikes you as especially strange or unusual. This could include recording in an unusual place or context (in an airplane, walking down the street, etc), doing something especially unusual as part of recording (a weird character voice, strange movements or sounds, etc), or doing something especially unusual as part of making cover art (writing the title with noodles, posing in a strange way, etc). This can range from moderately odd to super weird, depending on how chaotic your inner gremlins are feeling this week. Alternately, you can fill this challenge by making audio fanwork of an especially strange or unusual text! Point value: 35 points for each player who contributes
Set 5
CRISS CROSS: Create an audio fanwork where the tone of the music and/or effects is as mismatched as possible to the tone of the story and performance. Extra coolness points if it's a collaboration where the music/effects are added by someone other than the narrator. (Please note: coolness points are not redeemable for actual points.) Point value: 40 points for each player who contributes Thanks to SerenaEW for suggesting this challenge!
CLEAN SLATE: Make progress on backlog of something related to audio fanworks (e.g. comment replies, comments to podfics you've listened to, half-edited files to finish, backups, crossposts, etc). If you don't have a backlog, you can get points for helping another Voiceteam member with theirs. Bonus if the backlog you are working on gets fully cleared! Point value: 30 points for a work session where you make significant progress on a backlog, +10 for clearing it
Surprise Bonus Challenge
UNO REVERSE Create an audio fanwork that fills none of the other ten Mystery Box 2024 challenges. This challenge gives negative points. Point value: -35 points for each player who contributes
Audio of Voiceteam Mystery Box 2024 Sign-Up Post (read by klb):
Ready to sign up for Voiceteam Mystery Box 2024?
Oh heck yeah.
Sign-ups close December 21st at 11:59 PM UTC. You can either fill in the embedded form further down this page, fill it out at this link, or you can email us your sign-up at voiceteammods@gmail.com. For Mystery Box, you can either sign up as a team or as an individual.
The first thing you need to decide when signing up is whether you want a higher points cap or a lower points cap. People with a lower points cap will be able to earn a max of 100 points per pair of challenges (and anything beyond that doesn’t count for extra points), and people with a higher points cap will be able to earn a max of 200 points per pair of challenges. No matter what points cap you sign up for, you can decide to take a points break for any pair of challenges that you want if you’re finding the idea of earning points for that pair of challenges more stressful than fun!
Team Sign-Ups: Teams can be as small as 5 players or as big as 15 players. All you need to do is find some people to make a team with and then make sure everyone writes your team’s name in their sign-up. Gather up your friends and let's go on an adventure together!
Individual Sign-Ups For individual sign-ups we’ll be matching you to a team of up to twelve people, so we need a little more info from you about your fandoms, interests, and preferences. This will help us do our best to match you up well with other players!
For individual sign-ups you can choose one sign-up buddy and we’ll put you both on the same team. Please note that to keep matching from becoming overly complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
If you’re curious who else has signed up for this adventure, you can check out this list of fannish names and AO3 accounts for other players! (All other information from sign-ups is only viewable by the mod team. If you’d prefer your fannish name and AO3 account to be only viewable to the mod team as well, there’s a checkbox on the sign-up form that will do that.)
Please note: sign-ups this year do not ask for pronouns, because instead of using pronoun roles this year we’re planning to use the Discord feature for adding pronouns to your server profile. If you have questions about how to do that, we’ll help you with it once you arrive in the Mystery Box Discord!
Audio of Voiceteam Mystery Box 2024 Rules (read by twtd):
Voiceteam Mystery Box is a two-week mini spinoff of Voiceteam to wrap up the holiday season and start the new year! Starting on 12:01 AM UTC December 27th (7:01 PM EST on December 26th), we will announce two new point-earning challenges per day for five days. All ten challenges will remain open until 11:59 PM UTC January 8th (6:59 PM EST on January 8th). Once all the challenges have closed, the team with the highest score wins!
Voiceteam runs on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Sign-ups and challenges close at 11:59 PM UTC on the dates listed. All other scheduled events happen at 12:01 AM UTC on the dates listed. To get a sense of what that is where you live, you can do a Google search for “midnight UTC in my time zone" or enter your location on this time conversion website. Your mods—eafay70, forzandopod, irrationalpie, klb, novalinium, and twtd—are in EST (UTC-5), MST (UTC-7), and PST (UTC-8), but we have players from across the world. Anyone from any time zone is welcome and able to participate!
MAJOR CHANGES FROM LAST YEAR
We recognize that this year’s Voiceteam Mystery Box will take place during a scary and difficult time in the world. While we have decided to go forward with this round, to offer a source of joy, community, and structure to those who might need it more than ever right now, we are changing this year’s rules to allow any player to go on retroactive points break for any reason at any time. We hope this will allow players to feel safe shifting their focus away from Mystery Box with minimal stress, if other things come up that more urgently require their attention.
As we did during this May Voiceteam, we will have a safe space for trans creators in addition to our safe space for creators of color.
This year, we are making official the role of Discord “ghosts”! Past players who are unable to play this year but still want to stay involved have the option of participation in this way. Discord ghosts will not be part of a team or able to submit any creations on Airtable, but they will have access to All-Team Channels in the Discord and can help cheer on and support all of the players from there!
We are adding the following question to our sign-up form: “We want to be able to offer a positive space for all participants, particularly within teams. If there are any fandoms you're uncomfortable interacting with, please list them here so we can avoid sorting you onto a team with anyone who has any of those as their primary fandom.”
RULES
For Mystery Box, we’ll be offering team sign-ups and individual sign-ups. In team sign-ups, teams of between five and fifteen players can sign up as a complete group. In individual sign-ups, individual players can sign up to be matched by mods with others who signed up individually. Individually matched teams will have up to twelve players. If you would like to sign up individually, but are reluctant to be on a team made up entirely of people you may not know, we offer the option of a “sign-up buddy.” If you and your buddy designate each other on the sign up form, we’ll put you on a team together. Please note that to keep matching from becoming overly complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
Each player will have a cap for how many points they can earn for each day’s challenges. You can sign up for a lower point cap (100 points max for each pair of challenges) or a higher point cap (200 points max for each pair of challenges).
Since team sizes and point caps will vary, each team’s final score will be scaled. Points will be determined by dividing the number of points each player earned by their total maximum (based on their choice of point cap), averaging this number for all the players in the team, and then multiplying this number by the average team size.
This challenge is all about adding fun and connection to our lives, not adding stress! If you choose to sit out a couple days or to only take on a single challenge for the whole event, that’s perfectly allowed. You may take a points break for any day’s challenges—just let the mod team know you want a points break within 24 hours of that day’s challenges being revealed. If you take a points break, your score is not included in the team’s scaled score for that day. Players who prefer to participate without concern for points are welcome to take a points break for all 5 days!
Challenges will sometimes leave room for interpretation. If you are not sure whether something counts, please check with the mods. We support creativity and will often be generous with what we allow!
Completed creations should be submitted to the mods via an Airtable form. A mod will look over and verify your submission and will reach out to you if we disagree about the point value or need more information from you. You are also encouraged (but not required) to share your creations within the Discord and/or crosspost your creations to our AO3 collection so that other players can see and enjoy them!
Each team member has the final decision about their own creations (including their part in collaborative creations, if they choose to participate in any). There are no minimum requirements for the quality or size of your creations.
If a good-faith plan is made for multiple people to collaborate on a work and some members aren’t able to meet the deadline, the partial project can be submitted for points by the members who did finish in time.
The mods are committed to supporting a positive experience for our players! Please feel free to come to the mods to request support with any issues, including but not limited to: feelings of exclusion, conflict with a group member, and concerns about the rules or structure of Voiceteam. If you suspect a problem might be brewing but are unsure whether it’s worth checking in with the mods, PLEASE give us a heads up about it. We’ll keep your concerns confidential unless you give us the go-ahead to share them, but we can help you think up solutions or make mod-level changes as needed to address the problem. For more serious problems, see our anti-harassment policy.
Code of Conduct for Players This is a community space, and players are expected to act in ways that take the needs and feelings of other players into account. Specifically, players should not publicly complain about their team, give unsolicited critique of another player’s fanwork, or pressure or exclude team members. Pressuring team members includes repeatedly suggesting ways for the team member to earn more points, or repeatedly checking in on a team member's progress, without that team member having agreed to that type of interaction first.
Any player who breaks this code of conduct will be contacted by the mods and asked to stop. If this type of behavior happens repeatedly, they may be asked to leave Voiceteam or asked not to return in future years.
The above code of conduct is not intended to silence calling out or calling in of racism, transphobia, or other behavior harmful to historically marginalized communities. This community will always make space for that kind of feedback, and the mods will always work to support players who speak up about this type of behavior. This includes calling out/calling in of the mods.
Code of Conduct for Mods Mods will not delete any words by players from our Discord unless those words violate our anti-harassment policy and their deletion is requested by the affected community members. In case of deletion, we will keep screencaps of the unedited conversation for accountability reasons. If necessary, we encourage participants to hold us accountable to our own actions. We aim to mod this event from within the community, not above it. We will always be open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in our anti-oppression work and our work on making Voiceteam a fun and healthy community.
Audio of Voiceteam Mystery Box 2024 FAQ (read by twtd):
FAQ
I haven’t played Voiceteam Mystery Box before. Can you give me a clearer understanding of what it is and how it works? We recommend you check out our New Player Q&A, which is made of questions new players asked in the Mystery Box 2023 Discord and the answers they were given by returning players.
If you want more information on the origin and general vibe of Voiceteam, in awesome audio documentary form, you can check out An Abridged History of Voiceteam, created by TheLordOfLaMancha during Voiceteam Mystery Box 2023.
Do I have to be an experienced podficcer to join? No! You just have to love podfic. There are non-voice ways to participate in audio fanworks for points, like contributing writing, beta, editing, directing, or graphics. There will also be some challenges that can be fulfilled without audio fanworks. No one has to do every single challenge.
How big of a commitment is this going to be? No bigger than you want it to be! The point of this event is to have fun and make friends, and if you end up getting inspired to create a bunch of stuff, cool. If not, that’s also cool.
What is Discord?/Tell me more about how the Discord server is going to work. Discord is a text-based chat platform. Every server (like the Voiceteam server) can host multiple text and voice chat channels. Some of the channels will be open to the entire Voiceteam community and some will be visible only to members of your team.
Voiceteam players will be emailed an invitation to the Voiceteam Discord server on December 23rd. You can spend the first days saying hi and getting to know your team—we’ll provide some optional icebreaker questions you can answer for each other—and then the first list of challenges will be posted at 12:01 AM UTC on December 27th.
I don’t have a pre-made group and don’t like the idea of being matched to a group of total strangers. What can I do? While Voiceteam is a great place to make new friends, we also know there are lots of reasons someone might not feel comfortable being thrown into a social situation with a group of strangers. To address this, we have the option for “sign-up buddies”! People who sign up in individual sign-ups can choose one sign-up buddy, who will be guaranteed to be on the same team with them. Please note that to keep matching from becoming overly complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
What if I have one or more people I’d like to privately request to NOT be on a team with? If you sign up without a pre-arranged team, there will be a field in the sign-up form where you can tell us who, if anyone, you would like to request to NOT be on a team with. Nobody except the mods will see what you type here.
What if my team is not a good fit for me? Switching teams is a possibility—please reach out to us if you would like to request a team change and we will let you know about other teams you could switch to! If a player chooses to switch teams after the challenges have begun, we will have an individual discussion with them about their options for how to handle previous points and points going forward, since those options will vary from player to player based on the specifics of their situation. However, one rule of thumb is that when a player switches out of a team, it will never negatively impact the score of that team.
If you want to discuss team switches or any other concerns or feedback, feel free to message mods at any time via Discord or email. We will also have an optional check-in on Airtable around the time Day 3 challenges are revealed.
Can I change my sign-up after I’ve submitted it? You can! After you submit your sign-up, we will email you a copy of your answers. If you’d like to make any changes, you can reply to that email and we’ll edit your sign-up for you.
What if I don’t like some of the challenges? That’s okay! The challenges are spread out to interest a wide range of different players, and not every challenge will work for everyone. In some cases, you might have feedback about how to tweak the challenge to make it more fun for you, which we invite you to share in the #feedback-about-voiceteam channel or by DMing a mod. In other cases, you might find over time that seeing what other people create inspires you and changes your mind about some of the challenges. Sometimes players even find that the challenge that seemed least appealing to them at first ends up being their favorite! We encourage you to keep an open mind, and to reach out to teammates for ideas about how to make a tricky challenge fit with your interests, or for cheerleading and support in trying something new. We do ask, though, that you keep any negativity about challenges that don't work as well for you to appropriate areas, such as #feedback-about-voiceteam or conversations with mods. (Note: announcing that you plan to go on points break right after a new set of challenges drops counts as negativity.) In team spaces, please focus on the challenges you are interested in and/or constructive problem-solving about those that you are having trouble with. This will help keep team spaces positive, encouraging, and fun!
How do I keep track of when drops and deadlines will happen each day? We know this can be confusing! We will have a time zone converter set up in Discord in a prominent location to help players keep track of when the next drop or deadline is coming up.
We're also maintaining a Google Calendar with these dates and deadlines that you can subscribe to. (If you just view it, it will show up in GMT (UTC+0), but if you add it to your own Google Calendar, which you can do by clicking "Add to Google Calendar" on the bottom left, it will convert to your local timezone.)
What if 12:01 AM UTC is very late at night in my time zone? Those in time zones where 12:01 AM UTC is too late at night to comfortably stay awake for challenge drops can sign up to get emailed the challenges 4 hours in advance, so that their sleep schedules are not too disrupted by Voiceteam! They will also be given a channel in the Discord where they can discuss the challenges amongst themselves. However, anyone who receives the challenges early must NOT discuss them or react to them in any way outside this channel until the challenges have been officially announced in the Voiceteam Mystery Box Discord.
I observe Shabbat in a way that makes me not able to participate (or have a similar religious or cultural reason that I’d need to take certain days off from playing), but I still want to compete for points! Is there a way for me to do that? Absolutely! If you will need to take off specific days for religious or cultural reasons but still want to play for points, let us know at sign-up, and we will send you the challenges earlier to make up for the missed time.
Are there limits or requirements for crossposting creations I make for Voiceteam? Nope! You may crosspost any works made for Voiceteam whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to not crosspost at all and only share with the mods, or only share within the Voiceteam Discord. One reminder, though, is that since many Voiceteam works are collaborations, all collaborators should discuss and be on the same page about when/where a work will be crossposted.
What if I was already working on something before Voiceteam started? Is there a way to get points for it? Any creation can earn points for a Voiceteam challenge as long as it is completed during the time that challenge is active. This includes WIPs you were already working on that happen to align with one of the challenges.
How are multi-chapter works scored? For multi-chapter works, each chapter can be submitted for points separately. Different chapters will each be treated as their own creation, so you can submit any chapter for any challenge, independent of what challenge(s) other chapters of that work were submitted for.
What if I am collaborating on a work with other players and someone doesn’t complete their part by the deadline? If a good-faith plan is made for multiple people to collaborate on a work and some members aren’t able to meet the deadline, the partial project can be submitted for points by the members who did finish in time.
Do you recommend teams create their own separate Discords or group DMs to coordinate projects on Voiceteam challenges? We hope this event can be an opportunity for participants to get to know each other better and form lasting connections! However, in the interests of facilitating moderation we'd encourage you to keep to the Voiceteam Mystery Box Discord for coordinating Voiceteam projects with your team, rather than creating a separate team Discord for yourselves. If you do decide to create a separate Discord for your team, we highly recommend you add one or more of the Voiceteam mods so it's easier for us to get caught up in the case of issues - you can always remove us after all of the challenges have closed.
Regarding DMs, all players will have the opportunity to assign themselves the roles “DMs Open,” “Ask to DM,” or “DMs Closed.” Please respect the DM preferences that players show through these roles.
Are minors allowed to participate? Yes, minors (and over-18 folk who prefer to avoid mature content) are welcome to participate in Voiceteam! To accommodate these participants, NSFW content in the Discord server is kept in separate age-restricted channels. The only time NSFW content would be mixed in with SFW content would be in team-specific channels, and only in cases where every team member is over 18 and has expressed comfort with doing so.
I am a past player who is unable to play this year, but I’d like to still be involved in some way. Is there a way to do that? Players who have participated in past Mystery Box rounds but are not participating in this round can sign up for a focus group discussion in our planning server. In this focus group, after sign-ups close (December 22nd–23rd), volunteers will read through the planned challenges in advance, give feedback, and ask questions so that we can revise them and make them as good as possible before they’re officially revealed!
Past players who are unable to play this year but still want to stay involved also have the option of participation as Discord “ghosts,” which is a tradition started by flamingwell in Mystery Box 2023. Discord ghosts will not be part of a team or able to submit any creations on Airtable, but they will have access to All-Team Channels in the Discord and can help cheer on and support all of the players from there!
What are your content moderation rules and how do they work? We have put in place two content moderation rules. If someone finds a fanwork that they think may violate one of the rules, they can report it privately (and anonymously if they want) to the mod team.
We have designed our response plan to prevent this system from being used to harass fanwork creators. We will never publicly share information about any reports, and we will only contact the creator about a report if we are sure the fanwork really is against one of these rules. If it’s unclear to us whether the fanwork violates the rule, the mod team will privately consult with one or more members of the marginalized group impacted, or as close as possible to that group, to assess if harm is being caused to the impacted community by the fanwork. If harm is being caused, we will move forward in private conversation with the creator of the fanwork to discuss the situation together and figure out possible next steps.
If the work is in violation of one of the rules and the fanwork’s creator cannot or does not wish to alter it, any points previously earned by the work will be removed and the work will be removed from our Voiceteam AO3 collection.
What plans does Voiceteam have in place to address racism within fandom and our community? At the start of Voiceteam, players will have the option to opt into a section of channels intended to be a safe space for creators of color. This space is run by a mod of color, and none of the white mods will have access, nor will any white player in Voiceteam. Most importantly, we ask that everyone - whether you're a person of color or not - respect that space.
We will also continue with the universal bonus of +10 points for any Voiceteam fanwork that centers one or more characters of color. This includes racebent characters.
We are continuing to reflect as a mod team about our anti-racism practices within fandom, which we recognize to be a space deeply shaped by racism. We remain open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in this area.
Will there be a safe space set aside for trans players as well? Yes! We will also have a set of channels designated only for trans players, and run by a trans mod.
BECHDEL TEST [35 points for each player who contributes]: Create an audio fanwork that passes the Bechdel test—has at least two female characters in it who talk to each other about something other than a man.
(Challenge suggested by DevilWithABirdDress)
BRAIN ART [N points for each player who contributes, where N is the number of points earned for the challenge used]: “Misread” a challenge from the previous two rounds by changing a single word or phrase. Fulfill the new challenge you have just created.
ROLE MODEL [35 points for each player who contributes]: Listen to a teammate's podfic. Then create a podfic with at least one overlapping character, where your interpretation of that character is inspired by their performance.
VOICE BATTLE [40 points for each player who contributes]: Make something that you can argue to the mods fits the title of this challenge. NO CLARIFYING QUESTIONS ALLOWED.
(Challenge idea thanks to flamingwell and kittona!)
WORD OF GOD [35 points for each player who contributes]: Pick a random word by choosing a book (or other physical printed material) and pointing to a page without looking. Whatever word your finger lands on, search for that keyword on AO3. Record an audio fanwork of one of the works that turn up in the results.
LEND AN EAR [35 points to each person who contributes]: One or more players create an audio fanwork, with another player beta listening to a test recording or draft of that audio fanwork and offering at least 5 constructive notes. These could be about pacing, volume, music or sound effects, character voices, foreign language pronunciation, story interpretation, or other artistic choices. (Note: these constructive notes should focus on artistic choices, rather than something out of the podficcer's control, like their natural speaking pitch or accent.) The player(s) who create the fanwork should create it in a way that accomodates this beta process, like creating a test/draft recording first to be listened to and being open to changes including re-records if they choose. Making the suggested changes is not required, but suggestions should be received with an open mind, and the player(s) who created the audio should implement any of them that they think will improve the audio fanwork!
LISTEN TO YOUR HEART [20 points, +5 if it's someone who meets the bonus condition] Listen to one or more audio fanworks while doing something kind for someone you know who is not a Voiceteam player. It should be something that you don't usually do for that person, so it feels special. Examples: Make a special meal or treat for them, make them a gift or card, send them an especially thoughtful text while listening to filk, take a task unexpectedly off their plate by doing it for them, etc. Bonus points if it's a person you've been wanting to reach out to, spend more time with, or stay in better touch with than you have been lately.
Note: Like CHOOSE WELL, this is on the honor system. You do not need to explain to us what you did or how it was special unless you want to!
PRESENT! [35 points for each player who contributes, +5 if it's a surprise]: Think of a current Voiceteam player who might like an audio fanwork as a gift, for any reason. Make them one. Bonus points if you use their Dear Podficcer letter, or other information you've learned about their tastes across this month, to make them a *surprise* gift!
3-MINUTE MASTERPIECE [45 points for each player who contributes]: Create an audio fanwork of 3 minutes or less that showcases at least 3 post-production skills or techniques. These could include soundscaping, underscoring, other use music and/or sound effects, layering voices, voice effects, filters, etc.
THEME SONG [35 points for each team member who contributes]: Create a theme song for your team.
CROSSOVER [35 points for each player who contributes, +5 for each additional fandom, with a max of 50 points]: Create an audio fanwork that is a crossover. Bonus points if it crosses over more than 2 fandoms.
CHIP IN [30 points for each player who contributes, +20 if it requires significant time, effort, or energy on your part]: Create or do something that gives back to the podfic community: compile a resource post, write a walkthrough, add something podfic-related to Fanlore, solicit blanket permission statements, find authors with blanket permission to add to the FPS database, help other podficcers back up their files, create useful scripts/spreadsheets/workskins, or something else!
DAYS OF YORE [20 points for each player who contributes, +20 if it requires significant time, effort, or energy on your part]: Create a piece of visual art for an audio fanwork posted in Voiceteam 2024 Round 1. You must listen to the podfic at some point before submitting your art for points. The art can take many possible forms (drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, handcraft, digital art, a photograph of a scene you have created, a photograph of yourself in cosplay doing a pose that connects to the audio fanwork, etc etc, etc!) Each audio fanwork you create art for must be from a different Round 1 challenge.
SOPORIFIC [35 points for each player who contributes, +5 if someone confirms that it works]: Make an audio fanwork that is designed to help people sleep. Bonus points if you can get at least one person to try it and confirm that it worked!
BAND TOGETHER [35 points for each player who contributes, +5 if self-recorded non-vocal sounds are included]: Create a filk involving audio contributions from at least two players. Bonus for including self-recorded non-vocal sounds (like clapping, tapdancing, banging on things, playing your own instruments, etc).
HELLO STRANGER [10 points for creating or significantly revising your Dear Podficcer letter, 35 points for each player who contributes when you make an audio fanwork that fits your letter]: Create a Dear Podficcer letter (if you don't know what that is, you can find a definition and examples at these links), or look at your Dear Podficcer letter if you already have one. Then make an audio fanwork that would be a perfect fit for yourself based on the letter.
WE ARE EVERYWHERE [10 points for each player who contributes, +1 per each additional unique location after the first 5, with a max of 50 points]: Create avant-garde location-based audio art with your team! Each team member should think of one or more unique places they could plausibly record from. Choose a single sentence for team members to record in each place, with the only change being the name of the location. (For example, a team could choose the sentence "I am creating art [describe the location]" and examples could be "I am creating art in the bath," "I am creating art beneath four cats," etc.) Edit all the clips together. The minimum number of clips is 5—bonus for each clip after that.
You have our permission to get weird with this one.
COLD READ [35 points for each player who contributes, +5 if you have submitted one kind and are now submitting the second kind]: Record a podfic as a "cold read." There are currently two equally valid definitions of this term—feel free to do either!
Definition 1: Record the story as you are reading it for the first time (with editing). Definition 2: Record a story in an unedited or minimally-edited reading-aloud-to-a-friend style (which can optionally also include your reactions and commentary on the story, pauses to sip tea or comment on things happening in the room around you, etc).
For the sake of listener accessibility, make sure you clarify to listeners which type of "cold read" you're choosing for each recording, perhaps by explaining in the notes, or perhaps by adding a tag such as "unedited" or "first-time read" to each one that differentiates which style you've used.
Bonus if you have already submitted a podfic that fit one definition and then submit a second podfic that fits the other definition!
SEA WITCH [35 points for each player who contributes]: Create an audio fanwork that includes no spoken words. It must include some element of character and/or plot.
TRANSLATION [40 points for each player who contributes]: Translate a story into another language, dialect, or interpretation. The resulting work does not need to be an audio fanwork in the typical sense, but there must be at least some kind of audio element. Cat meows, interpretive dance, etc are ON limits.
UNIVERSAL BONUS [10 point bonus]: Bonus for any Voiceteam fanwork that centers one or more characters of color. This includes racebent characters, as long as the fanwork includes a reference to that character’s identity.
LENGTH BONUS for audio: +10 points if over 10 minutes, +15 points if over 30 minutes, +20 points if over an hour.
PROJECT LEAD BONUS [15 point bonus]: A player qualifies for this bonus if they: a) took the leading role in a multivoice project involving three or more Voiceteam players other than themself and b) did significantly more work than the other people involved in the project (e.g. prepared the script, organized roles, set deadlines, followed up with people, answered questions, and edited together the work).
Round 1 Challenges
THINKING OF YOU [10 points for choosing, +10 for using the bonus method, 35 points for each player who contributes to the podfic]: Choose a written work for a teammate to audio record. Bonus points if you listen to a podfic of theirs first, then recommend them something you think would be well-suited to their strengths as a podficcer.
TWO-TIMER [50 points for each player who contributes]: Record two distinct versions of the same story. This should involve two separate performances (with the same person/people voicing the same role(s) both times), not just the same performance made different through edits or effects. Examples: one traditional recording, the other whispered ASMR style; one English, one Turkish; one traditional, the other with commentary between paragraphs.
IMMERSION CHAMBER [35 points for each player who contributes]: Choose a fandom that has an audio or video component. Immerse yourself in watching or listening to that canon for at least 30 minutes, and then start recording an audio fanwork for that fandom within the next 5 minutes, with the canon character voices still ringing in your ears. If possible, don't interact with anyone or speak aloud in between the end of watching/listening to canon and the beginning of recording your audio fanwork.
CHOOSE WELL [20 points, +5 if it's something you don't usually do]: Listen to podfic while doing things that are good for you, physically or emotionally or otherwise. For example: cuddling a pet, cooking a healthy meal, eating vegetables, drinking water, going on a walk, doing stretches/yoga, or soaking your feet. Choose a length of podfic that feels appropriate for the amount of points you're earning (which will vary from person to person depending on spoons/energy/barriers/choice of activity) and spend the entirety of that podfic doing things that are good for you! If you are comfortable doing so, tell us about it in the #good-things channel so we can cheer you on and be inspired by you! Bonus if this involves something good for you that you don’t usually do.
Please note: We are using the honor system for what you think is good for you. You do not need to explain what you did when submitting for points (or tell anyone at all) unless you want to!
SYNC UP [40 points for each player who contributes]: Blend your team's voices in magnificent harmony! First have a team discussion where you compare and teach preferred sound editing methods (e.g. noise reduction, volume balance/loudness normalization, limiting, filter curve). Then pick a shared editing process for everyone to try. Finally, create a multivoice audio fanwork where everyone follows that editing process on their individual recordings, and those separate files are combined to make the final work. Marvel at how good everyone sounds together!
MOOOOOD [35 points for each player who contributes]: Make an audio fanwork (podfic, filk, oral notfic, etc) that incorporates animal sounds in some way. Create the animal sounds with your own voice and/or body, not with props or in post-production. Make them as realistic as possible.
HIGH FIVE [10 points for posting your list, 35 points for each player who contributes to an audio fanwork created from your list]: Create a list of 5 audio fanworks that you'd like to create. The list could include stories or lyrics you'd like to record and/or ideas for audio fanworks you'd like to create from scratch (such as filk or oral notfic you'd like to create or stories you'd like to write and then record). Each player may only make one list, and the list must be posted in #high-five before you start creating any of the audio fanworks. Each audio fanwork you make off your list earns points.
PILLAR TO POST-PRODUCTION REMIXED [40 points, +5 if you use a writing game, +5 if at least half of a team contributes to a single submission]: Two or more players collaborate on writing a fic, and two or more players collaborate on recording it. The minimum length of the written/recorded work is 2K. Bonus if you use a writing game such as Frantic Fanfic or The Showrunner Challenge (or a game you make up yourselves) as part of the writing process. Bonus if at least half of any team contributes.
For Frantic Fanfic, or similar games where multiple stories are written at once, all of the works created in a single writing session combine to count as a single submission, but you don't have to record every story written in that session, as long as what you do record reaches the minimum wordcount.
WEIGHTED BLANKET [30 points for each player who contributes]: Find an author that has a blanket permission statement, but there were no podfics of their works posted on AO3 at the time this challenge began. Podfic one of their works!
FANWORK OF YOUR MASCOT [30 points for each player who contributes]: Create a fanwork of any medium involving your team’s mascot. (If your team doesn’t have a mascot yet, step 1 for this challenge will be to choose one!) It could be fanart, text or oral not!fic backstory, podficced text, yarncraft, a cake, or something we haven’t thought of yet. Remember, until these challenges are officially revealed by mods in the Discord, please do not mention them anywhere outside the #super-secret-headquarters channel!
Sign-ups close April 25th at 11:59 PM UTC (for another reference point, in EDT this is 7:59 PM on April 25th). You can either fill in the embedded form further down this page, fill it out at this link, or you can email us your sign-up at voiceteammods@gmail.com.
The first thing you need to decide when signing up is whether you want a higher points cap or a lower points cap. People with a lower points cap will be able to earn a max of 200 points per week (and anything beyond that doesn’t count for extra points), and people with a higher points cap will be able to earn a max of 400 points per week. No matter what points cap you sign up for, you can decide to take a points break for any week that you want if you’re finding the idea of earning points for that week more stressful than fun!
We will be matching you to a team of up to twelve people, so we need a little more info from you about your fandoms, interests, and preferences. This will help us do our best to match you up well with other participants. (Please note — matching is never perfect! If you end up on a team that’s not a good fit for you, let us know and we can find you a different team.) You can choose one sign-up buddy and we will put you both on the same team. Sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
If you’re curious who else has signed up for this adventure, you can check out this list of fannish names and AO3 accounts for other players! (All other information from sign-ups is only viewable by the mod team. If you’d prefer your fannish name and AO3 account to be only viewable to the mod team as well, there’s a checkbox on the sign-up form that will do that.)
Once your sign-up is complete, the mods will email you a copy of your answers. If you decide later that you’d like to change one of your answers, you can reply to that email and we’ll make the change for you! Other options for how to change your sign-up are listed in the FAQ.
Voiceteam is a Discord-based annual event for the podfic community. Teams will earn points for making different voice-based or voice-adjacent creations. For each round, players will get a list of ten point-earning challenges and then will be set loose to strategize, create, and have fun!
TIMELINE
Sign-ups: April 1–25 Discord server opens: April 27 Check In 1: April 29 Round 1: April 30–May 6 Break 1 and Check In 2: May 7–8 Round 2: May 9–15 Break 2: May 16–17 Round 3: May 18–24 Amnesty: May 25 Tiebreaker: May 26 Chill Optional DIY Afterparty: May 27–31 Results: June 1
Voiceteam runs on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). All single dates listed above are scheduled at 12:01 AM UTC of the relevant day. All date ranges begin at 12:01 AM UTC on the first day in the range and end at 11:59 PM on the last day in the range. To get a sense of what that is where you live, you can do a Google search for “midnight UTC in my time zone" or enter your location on this time conversion website. Your mods—airgiodslv, eafay70, forzandopod, klb, and novalinium—are in EDT (UTC-4), CDT (UTC-5), and PDT (UTC-6).
Day 1: In Which Our Heroes Encounter Two Strangely Glowing But Probably Totally Safe Boxes
TEMPTATION [15 points for making a pitch, 35 points for contributing to an audio fanwork based on someone else's pitch]: Each player can make up to two pitches for texts or (if you are pitching an audio fanwork not based off a starting text, like a podcast or oral notfic) prompts that you think would make a good audio fanwork. Anyone who is tempted by a pitch and contributes to an audio fanwork based on that pitch gets points, and the tempter gets bonus points for each person one of their temptations works on. Players may be tempted by as many different pitches as they want, but a player can only get points once for each pitch they are tempted by. Thanks to moon_apple and bluedreaming for inspiring this challenge!
FANDOM RUMMY [35 points for each player who contributes to a set of 3, +5 if it's a set of 4]: Coordinating with one or more other Voiceteam players, create a set of 3 or 4 audio fanworks in different suits, where the suits are the following: live-action fandoms (clubs), animated fandoms (diamonds), book fandoms (hearts), and podcast fandoms (spades). Audio fanworks from a fandom with fewer than 100 works on AO3 can be used as wild cards, regardless of suit. A set may include up to one wild card. Each player can only contribute to one audio fanwork per set.
Day 2: In Which That Seemed To Go Perfectly Fine, So What's The Harm In Opening These Two Additional Mysterious Boxes That Have Arrived On The Doorstep
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY [points vary based on score of the original challenge]: Complete a challenge from a previous Voiceteam event that, as of the beginning of Mystery Box 2023, you had not completed. You do not need to have participated in the Voiceteam event the challenge was originally from.
PASS IT ON [35 points for each player who contributes]: Players work together to record an audio fanwork sequentially in parts. Each contributing player adds their part to the work and passes it along to the next. A player should listen through the full work so far immediately before recording their own part to add on to it. The newly recorded part must either come after or be layered on top of (as in added sound effects or vocal harmonies) the parts that were recorded before.
Day 3: In Which Hopefully Recycling Day Is Coming Soon Because This Pile Of Empty Boxes Is Getting A Bit Unwieldy
PRESENT! [30 points for each player who contributes, +10 if the gift is not for a Voiceteam player]: Think of someone who might like an audio fanwork as a gift, for any reason. Make them one. Bonus if this person is not a current Voiceteam player.
MUSIC FIRST [40 points for each player who contributes]: Create an audio fanwork where the song selection comes before any other part of the creation process (including selection and/or creation of the story). The song can be incorporated into the audio fanwork in some way (such as intro, scene breaks, ending, underscoring, soundscaping, etc.) or, if you do not want to include it for copyright reasons, you can just link or mention in the notes what song inspired the fanwork. This challenge can be completed by a single person or by a group—if created by a group, selecting the song and prompting others with it (perhaps with a note about how it could be used such as “dark, spooky, quiet piano, good for horror or ghost fics” or “includes the lyrics ‘part-time soulmate, full-time problem’”) counts as a contribution for points.
Day 4: In Which It Turns Out The Boxes Have Been Sentient Alien Lifeforms All Along And Our Heroes Get A Bit Dramatic About It
GET YOUR FEET WET [40 points for each player who contributes]: Create an audio fanwork in a fandom that's new to you (that you haven't posted an audio fanwork in before). If you've only posted an audio fanwork for that fandom in a multivoice capacity before, and you create a solo audio fanwork this time, it counts.
SENSE OF DIRECTION [35 points for each player who contributes, +10 points for taking on the role of director]: Create an audio fanwork with someone taking on the role of director. It's up to you what the role of director entails—be creative!
Day 5: In Which Everyone Realizes They Have Grown A Bit Too Fond Of Each Other To Keep Fighting And Redirect Their Energies To Throwing A Slapdash But Successful Multispecies Rave
PASSION PROJECT [30 points]: Think of a fic that is one of your very top favorites but that you have not recorded a podfic of. Perhaps it is intimidatingly good, or already has a podfic version you love, or is too long, or you just haven't gotten around to it. Record a 500-1500 word snippet of that fic. You can record up to 5 snippets of the same fic.
NEW EARS RESOLUTION [10 points for making a resolution, 35 points for each audio fanwork made in keeping with your resolution]: Make a new year's resolution related to the audio fanworks you want to create next year, and then points for each audio fanwork you create that is in keeping with your new year's resolution.
Sign-ups close December 22nd at 12:01 AM UTC. (Please note that in many time zones, this will be on the evening of December 21st!) You can either fill in the embedded form further down this page, fill it out at this link, or you can email us your sign-up at voiceteammods@gmail.com. For this round you can either sign up as a team or as an individual.
The first thing you need to decide when signing up is whether you want a higher points cap or a lower points cap. People with a lower points cap will be able to earn a max of 100 points per pair of challenges (and anything beyond that doesn’t count for extra points), and people with a higher points cap will be able to earn a max of 200 points per pair of challenges. No matter what points cap you sign up for, you can decide to take a points break for any pair of challenges that you want if you’re finding the idea of earning points for that pair of challenges more stressful than fun!
Team Sign-Ups: Teams can be as small as 5 players or as big as 15 players. All you need to do is find some people to make a team with and then make sure everyone writes your team’s name in their sign-up. Gather up your friends and let's go on an adventure together!
Individual Sign-Ups For individual sign-ups we will be matching you to a team of up to twelve people, so we need a little more info from you about your fandoms, interests, and preferences. We are constantly refining these questions and there are some new ones this round that we hope will help make matches better than ever! (Please note, though, that matching is never perfect. If you end up on a team that’s not a good fit for you, feel free to reach out to us and we will move you.) For individual sign-ups you can choose one sign-up buddy and we will put you both on the same team. Please note that to keep matching from becoming overly complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
If you’re curious who else has signed up for this adventure, you can check out this list of fannish names and AO3 accounts for other players! (All other information from sign-ups is only viewable by the mod team. If you’d prefer your fannish name and AO3 account to be only viewable to the mod team as well, there’s a checkbox on the sign-up form that will do that.)
Voiceteam Mystery Box is a two-week mini spinoff of Voiceteam to wrap up the holiday season and start the new year! Starting on 12:01 AM UTC December 27th (7:01 PM EST on December 26th), we will announce two new point-earning challenges per day for five days. All ten challenges will remain open until January 9th. Once all the challenges have closed, the team with the highest score wins!
Voiceteam runs on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which means that all challenge drops and deadlines are scheduled at 12:01 AM UTC of the relevant day. You can use TimeAndDate to convert to your timezone. Your facilitators—airgiodslv, cathalinaheart, eafay70, forzandopod, klb, and novalinium—are in EST (UTC-5), CST (UTC-6), PST (UTC-8), and CET (UTC+1).
MAJOR CHANGES FROM LAST YEAR
Players who have participated in past Mystery Box rounds but are not participating in this round can sign up for a focus group discussion in our planning server. In this focus group, after sign-ups close (December 22nd–23rd), volunteers will read through the planned challenges in advance, give feedback, and ask questions so that we can revise them and make them as good as possible before they’re officially revealed!
We’re making official our hospitalization exemption for points break: if any participant is hospitalized during Voiceteam Mystery Box, they are allowed to retroactively opt in to points break for any day even if the deadline for doing so has passed.
We are revising the project lead bonus from requiring that the project involve “three or more people” other than the project lead to requiring the project involves “three or more Voiceteam players” other than the project lead.
RULES
For Mystery Box, we’ll be offering team sign-ups and individual sign-ups. In team sign-ups, teams of between five and fifteen players can sign up as a complete group. In individual sign-ups, individual players can sign up to be matched by mods with others who signed up individually (individually matched teams will have up to twelve players).
Each player will have a cap for how many points they can earn for each day’s challenges. You can sign up for a lower point cap (100 points max for each pair of challenges) or a higher point cap (200 points max for each pair of challenges).
Since team sizes and point caps will vary, each team’s final score will be scaled. Points will be determined by dividing the number of points each player earned by their total maximum (based on their choice of point cap), averaging this number for all the players in the team, and then multiplying this number by the average team size.
This challenge is all about adding fun and connection to our lives, not adding stress! If you choose to sit out a couple days or to only take on a single challenge for the whole event, that’s perfectly allowed. You may take a points break for any day’s challenges—just let the mod team know you want a points break within 24 hours of that day’s challenges being revealed. If you take a points break, your score is not included in the team’s scaled score for that day. Players who prefer to participate without concern for points are welcome to take a points break for all 5 days!
Challenges will sometimes leave room for interpretation. If you are not sure whether something counts, please check with the mods. We support creativity and will often be generous with what we allow!
Completed creations should be turned in to the mods via an Airtable form. A mod will look over and verify your submission and will reach out to you if we disagree about the point value or need more information from you. You are also encouraged (but not required) to share your creations within the Discord and/or crosspost your creations to our AO3 collection so that other players can see and enjoy them!
Each team member has the final decision about their own creations (including their part in collaborative creations, if they choose to participate in any). There are no minimum requirements for the quality or size of your creations. If a good-faith plan is made for multiple people to collaborate on a work and some members aren’t able to meet the deadline, the partial project can be submitted for points by the members who did finish in time.
The mods are committed to supporting a positive experience for our players! Please feel free to come to the mods to request support with any issues, including but not limited to: feelings of exclusion, conflict with a group member, and concerns about the rules or structure of Voiceteam. If you suspect a problem might be brewing but are unsure whether it’s worth checking in with the mods, PLEASE give us a heads up about it. We’ll keep your concerns confidential unless you give us the go-ahead to share them, but we can help you think up solutions or make mod-level changes as needed to address the problem. For more serious problems, see our anti-harassment policy.
Code of Conduct for Players This is a community space, and players are expected to act in ways that take the needs and feelings of other players into account. Specifically, players should not publicly complain about their team, give unsolicited critique of another player’s fanwork, or pressure or exclude team members. Pressuring team members includes, but is not limited to, repeatedly suggesting ways for the team member to earn more points, or repeatedly checking in on a team member's progress, without that team member having agreed to that type of interaction first.
Any player who breaks this code of conduct will be contacted by the mods and asked to stop. If this type of behavior happens repeatedly, they may be asked to leave Voiceteam or asked not to return in future years.
The above code of conduct is not intended to silence calling out or calling in of racism, transphobia, or other behavior harmful to historically marginalized communities. This community will always make space for that kind of feedback, and the mods will always work to support players who speak up about this type of behavior. This includes calling out/calling in of the mods.
Code of Conduct for Mods Mods will not delete any words by players from our Discord unless those words violate our anti-harassment policy and their deletion is requested by the affected community members. In case of deletion, we will keep screencaps of the unedited conversation for accountability reasons. If necessary, we encourage participants to hold us accountable to our own actions. We aim to mod this event from within the community, not above it. We will always be open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in our anti-oppression work and our work on making Voiceteam a fun and healthy community.
FAQ
I don’t have a pre-made group and don’t like the idea of being matched to a group of total strangers. What can I do? While Voiceteam is a great place to make new friends, we also know there are lots of reasons someone might not feel comfortable being thrown into a social situation with a group of strangers. To address this, we have the option for “sign-up buddies”! People who sign up in individual sign-ups can choose one sign-up buddy, who will be guaranteed to be on the same team with them. Please note that to keep matching from becoming overly complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
What if I have one or more people I’d like to privately request to NOT be on a team with? If you sign up without a pre-arranged team, there will be a field in the sign-up form where you can tell us who, if anyone, you would like to request to NOT be on a team with. Nobody except the mods will see what you type here.
What if my team is not a good fit for me? Switching teams is a possibility—please reach out to us if you would like to request a team change and we will let you know about other teams you could switch to! If a player chooses to switch teams after the challenges have begun, we will have an individual discussion with them about their options for how to handle previous points and points going forward, since those options will vary from player to player based on the specifics of their situation. However, one rule of thumb is that when a player switches out of a team, it will never negatively impact the score of that team. If you want to discuss team switches or any other concerns or feedback, feel free to message mods at any time via Discord or email. We will also invite anyone who wants to do an optional check-in on Airtable before Day 3 challenges are revealed.
What is Discord?/Tell me more about how the Discord server is going to work. Discord is a text-based chat platform. Every server (like the Voiceteam server) can host multiple text and voice chat channels. Some of the channels will be open to the entire Voiceteam community and some will be visible only to members of your team.
Voiceteam players will be emailed an invitation to the Voiceteam Discord server on December 23rd. You can spend the first days saying hi and getting to know your team—we’ll provide some optional icebreaker questions you can answer for each other—and then the first list of challenges will be posted at 12:01 AM UTC on December 27th.
We hope this event can be an opportunity for participants to get to know each other better and form lasting connections! However, in the interests of facilitating moderation we'd encourage you to keep to the Voiceteam Mystery Box Discord for coordinating Voiceteam projects with your team, rather than creating a separate team Discord for yourselves. If you do decide to create a separate Discord for your team, we highly recommend you add one or more of the event moderators so it's easier for us to get caught up in the case of issues - you can always remove us after all of the challenges have closed.
Players will also have the opportunity to assign themselves the roles “DMs Open,” “Ask to DM,” or “DMs Closed.” Please respect the DM preferences that players show through these roles.
Are minors allowed to participate? Yes, minors (and over-18 folk who prefer to avoid mature content) are welcome to participate in Voiceteam! To accommodate these participants, NSFW content in the Discord server is kept in separate age-restricted channels. The only exception to this is in team-specific channels, and only if all members of that team have expressed comfort with NSFW content not being separated.
How do I keep track of when drops and deadlines will happen each day? We know this can be confusing! We will have a time zone converter set up in Discord in a prominent location to help players keep track of when the next drop or deadline is coming up.
We're also maintaining a Google Calendar with these dates and deadlines that you can subscribe to. (If you just view it, it will show up in GMT (UTC+0), but if you add it to your own Google Calendar, which you can do by clicking the + in the bottom right corner, it will convert to your local timezone.)
Are there limits or requirements for crossposting creations I make for Voiceteam? Nope! You may crosspost any works made for Voiceteam whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to not crosspost at all and only share with the mods, or only share within the Voiceteam Discord. One reminder, though, is that since many Voiceteam works are collaborations, all collaborators should discuss and be on the same page about when/where a work will be crossposted.
I observe Shabbat in a way that makes me not able to participate (or have a similar situation that means I’d need to take a certain day each week off from playing), but I still want to compete for points! Is there a way for me to do that? Absolutely! If you will need to take off a specific day each week but still want to play for points, let us know in advance and we will make your deadline later than everyone else’s to make up for it.
What if I was already working on something before Voiceteam started? Is there a way to get points for it? Any creation can earn points for a Voiceteam challenge as long as it is completed during the time that challenge is active. This includes WIPs you were already working on that happen to align with one of the challenges.
What are your content moderation rules and how do they work? We have put in place two content moderation rules. If someone finds a fanwork that they think may violate one of the rules, they can report it privately (and anonymously if they want) to the mod team.
We have designed our response plan to prevent this system from being used to harass fanwork creators. We will never publicly share information about any reports, and we will only contact the creator about a report if we are sure the fanwork really is against one of these rules. If it’s unclear to us whether the fanwork violates the rule, the mod team will privately consult with one or more members of the marginalized group impacted, or as close as possible to that group, to assess if harm is being caused to the impacted community by the fanwork. If harm is being caused, we will move forward in private conversation with the creator of the fanwork to discuss the situation together and figure out possible next steps.
If the work is in violation of one of the rules and the fanwork’s creator cannot or does not wish to alter it, any points previously earned by the work will be removed and the work will be removed from our Voiceteam AO3 collection.
What plans does Voiceteam have in place to address racism within fandom and our community? At the start of Voiceteam, players will have the option to opt into a section of channels intended to be a safe space for creators of color. This space is run by a mod of color, and none of the white mods will have access, nor will any white player in Voiceteam. Most importantly, we ask that everyone - whether you're a person of color or not - respect that space.
We will also continue with the universal bonus of +10 points for any Voiceteam fanwork that centers one or more characters of color. This includes racebent characters.
We are continuing to reflect as a mod team about our anti-racism practices within fandom, which we recognize to be a space deeply shaped by racism. We remain open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in this area.
What if I want to make a change to my sign-up form after I've submitted it? Unfortunately, you will not be able to edit your sign-up form directly, but if you contact one of the mods or email voiceteammods@gmail.com, we will be happy to edit your sign-up for you.
I have more questions! Please ask them in the comments, or email us at voiceteammods@gmail.com, and we will get back to you as quickly as we can.
SUPERLATIVES [35 points]: Podfic a work that is, in your opinion, the Most Something. Could be serious (most effective in converting me to a new ship, best use of canon element X in an AU) or silly (most different droid noises, best ice cream flavor puns) - whatever you would put in the Voiceteam yearbook.
SEA WITCH [35 points]: Create an audio fanwork that includes no spoken words. It must include some element of character and/or plot. No follow-up questions allowed.
GIFT BOX [30 points]: Curate a rec list of at least 5 existing audio fanworks for someone else based on their favorite fandoms/interests.
IN THE MOOD [20 points]: Listen to someone else's audio fanwork and create a moodboard for it.
PRIDE OF PLACE [35 points, +10 if the setting of the story matches the setting it is recorded in]: Record outdoors or next to an open window. Bonus points if the setting of the story matches the setting you are in.
TALK BACK [40 points]: 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. The audio response must be at least 5 minutes long and could be a discussion of the story, a notfic prequel/sequel/story that happens between scenes, a reaction to the podfic itself, or something else.
FRESH COAT OF PAINT [35 points]: Redo an old audio fanwork of yours and put a new spin on it. This could be a new technique you have learned for performance or editing, a new interpretation, new knowledge you have gained, or new emotional resonance the story has for you. Or record your own version of an audio fanwork in another Voiceteam player’s back catalogue and put your spin on that! (For this challenge, anything posted before May 1, 2023 qualifies as back catalogue.)
CAST ON [35 points]: Create a podcast episode with at least one other Voiceteam player about whatever you want. If you make multiple episodes in a podcast series, each one counts for points!
PILLAR TO POST-PRODUCTION [45 points]: Individually or as a group, write a fic and then record it. Minimum length 1K.
FINISH LINE [40 points]: Finish an old or aspirational project that is in some way connected to audio fanworks. This could be a WIP you’ve been working on, something you’ve been stuck on, or an idea you’ve had but haven’t acted on yet. Finishing a chapter of a multichapter work counts!
1. You are welcome to comment anonymously on the kink meme or to attach your username.
2. All comments must adhere to the Voiceteam code of conduct, content moderation rules, and anti-harassment policy.
3. Please include warnings in the comment subject line for any of AO3's blanket warnings: major character death, non-consent or dubious-consent, graphic depictions of violence, and underage. Also feel free to include other warnings or content notes that you think other players might prefer a heads up about.
4. Please link to NSFW images or videos and label them appropriately—do not embed them in comments.
5. This kink meme was created for Voiceteam. People who are not Voiceteam players may fill prompts, but keep in mind that any fic fills on the kink meme will have automatic blanket permission for podficcing. If you do not want to give blanket permission for podfic of your written work to be created, please do not post it here!
Leaving Prompts
1. Reply to this post to make a top-level comment naming a fandom. You may only use fandoms that have roles in the Voiceteam Discord.
2. Reply to the name of a fandom to leave a prompt for that fandom. The subject line should be a quick summary of the prompt. For example, "Steve/Bucky, 5+1 anniversaries," or "Gen, modern AU, Stede hosts a game night." Give more info about the prompt in the text of the comment—you can be as vague or detailed as you like.
3. Please leave only one prompt per comment. You may leave as many prompts per fandom as you want.
Filling Prompts
1. Post your fill (or a link to your fill) by replying to the comment that prompted it. You can fill a prompt with written or audio work.
2. Edit the title of the comment to include the title of your fill (if it's titled) and a rating on AO3's G, T, M, or E scale.
3. Multiple people can fill the same prompt!
Note: credit to the afc-richmond-kinkmeme for inspiring some of the wording and structure of this post!
BLORBO-IN-LAW [35 points]: 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.
ANOTHER!!! [35 points per work, +5 if you have already submitted 3 works by the same author for this challenge]: Podfic multiple works by the same author.
TECH SUPPORT [35 points]: Create an audio fanwork where you alter the voice of at least one character during the editing stage. This may include altering pitch, speed, reverb, or any other vocal effect.
TEAM SPIRIT [35 points]: Create an audio fanwork related to your team color, directly or thematically (example: a red team might record something with scarlet in the title, or that's very bloody, or is all about love). Multiple teams with the same color can collaborate.
GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY [15 points]: Create something non-digital, like a drawing, collage, sculpture, or craft, and take a photo as cover art for an audio fanwork. This could be an existing audio fanwork that doesn't yet have a cover, a future audio fanwork you plan to create, or an audio fanwork you helped create (in some way other than contributing cover art) for a different challenge.
KINK MEME [10 points to prompt, 35 points to fill]: We have created a Voiceteam kink meme! (For those unfamiliar with kink memes, this is a place for people to make and fill prompts. Prompts and fills do not need to actually be kinky or NSFW!) You can prompt as many times as you want but only get the points for prompting once. You can also fill any prompt, either with a text fanwork or with an audio fanwork, and you get points for each fill. Any fic fills on the kink meme will have automatic blanket permission—keep that in mind when writing!—and podfic of a fic fill also counts for points.
ROAD LESS TRAVELED [35 points]: Use AO3’s filter view to look at most popular characters or relationships for a fandom. To do this, go to the AO3 works tag for that fandom (example: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Star%20Wars%20Sequel%20Trilogy/works) and select Characters or Relationships in the dropdown menu on the right side of the screen. Then create an audio fanwork in that fandom with a main character or relationship that is not on that list.
I SEE YOU [10 points per comment]: Find an audio fanwork that was posted at least seven days ago and has zero comments. Listen and leave a comment! (If someone else comments while you are still in the middle of listening and commenting, you’re still within the spirit of the challenge and you still get the points!) Remember to check #opt-out before leaving feedback for a challenge!
CLOSET COSPLAY [35 points]: Create an audio fanwork in costume as the POV character! The costume can be as minimal or as involved as you want, depending on your cosplay skills and what you have available! Share a picture of the outfit with the Discord, along with the completed podfic. The picture does not need to show your face!
DO IT [35 points for each player who contributes, +10 to anyone doing something they have been nervous about or avoiding]: Think of something you've been interested in trying re: audio fanwork, but have been nervous about or avoiding. (This might be tackling a specific fandom/character/fic but could also be something else related to the process of creating audio fanworks.) Do it.
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klb
