SINKHOLE

A very normal podcast about data restoration, wireless neural interfacing, and why you really shouldn’t bring your tapes anywhere near the Hole. Season three when it's good and ready.  

[vosling]

audio drama sunday July 5 2026

Happy Disability Pride

I have made a little disability pride flag calendar out of audio fiction to celebrate. This is the first of three. Yep yep yep, with some help I've found enough pods to release three of these through July, isn't that exciting? Plus templates if you want to build your own or play BINGO

Information (= sometimes spoilers) below

1. SINKHOLE - MC has a physical condition; societal ableism and institutional barriers are central to the narrative.

2. Eeler’s Choice - Merry, Nama and Prin are all disabled (vision impaired, amputee, and neurodivergent respectively); canes as mobility aids

3. Station Blue - Panic attack, bipolar disorder, psychosis. Central to the narrative.

4. Dustwalker - Arius is autistic and uses a cane for his chronic pain. Mental disorders unrevealed as of July 2026. 

5. Seen and not Heard - Bet is HoH and has OCD. Central to the narrative.

6. Hello from the Hallowoods - Danielle uses a wheelchair and other means to help her stand and walk. There are characters with dementia and brain fog. Various supernatural disabilities. 

7. Hellside - Jeremiah has schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia. Another character in S1 has schizoaffective disorder (confirmed by creator but not yet revealed in work as of July 2026) 

8. Small Victories - Addiction is central to the narrative. Bipolar Disorder, Psychosis

9. Ghost Wax - Charlotte has ADHD and Pip gets permanently blinded

10. The Kingmaker Histories - Colette is autistic and suffers from migraines. Eisen Iyer uses a brace after a leg injury. 

11. Where The Stars Fell - Dyslexia and ADHD. One episode is entirely in sign language 

12. Valence -  Liam Alden has depression and PTSD. 

13. Mayfair Watchers Society - Morgan in Water Damage is physically disabled and uses crutches as mobility aids. Wren in Lost Media has severe memory issues. 

14. Inn Between - Protagonists with anxiety, autism, adhd, narcissism. Phoebe has a physical disability and uses crutches as mobility aids

15. Killjam X X X - Faustina Fetamine is autistic, has narcissistic personality disorder, and PTSD. Bellamy Pink has ASPD and a prosthetic arm. Various other characters use prosthetics and mobility aids. 

16. Our Wars Have Ended - A few characters with physical disabilities. 

17. Camlann - Dai Thomas has Bipolar Disorder

18. Knightfall - Ben is an ambulatory wheelchair/crutch user with chronic pain. Juno has anxiety

19. Slowly Unspooling - Mental health, memory loss, paranoia, disordered eating, depersonalization, chronic pain

20. Afflicted: A Horror Thriller Audio Drama - Wheelchair user. Kelly has auditory hallucinations (some of which are supernatural in origin) 

21. Mystic Prairie - The main characters have disabilities caused by a supernatural event, which roughly map to anemia and chronic fatigue, tinnitus and HoH, a sensory disability affecting taste/causing ARFID. Living with disabilities long term is central to the narrative.

22. Wallpaper - Felicity has rapid cycling bipolar 2 with psychotic features, autism, and hypermobility. John has ADHD. Living with disability is central to the narrative.

23. Monsters of Bureaucracy - MC has chronic pain. Living with disability, institutional barriers, and ableism are central to the narrative. 

24. Red Valley - Warren and Gordon both have PTSD. Bryony is missing an arm. Clive Schill has damaged kneecaps and walks with a cane

25. SPACE SPECKS - Nora is an amputee with a cane as a mobility aid

26. WOE.BEGONE - Mike Walters has face blindness, misophonia. Various injuries and trauma end up giving him chronic pain, physical disabilities, and night terrors/insomnia. Some characters lose one of their legs and use prosthetics. Alcoholism and substance abuse are recurring elements in the show, as are depersonalization, self harm, and (passive) suicidality. 

27. Your Bloodline Dies Here - Harvey Neroson is autistic and uses stim toys. Willow communicates with sign language (BSL), Harvey and Lo both know BSL.

28. The Godshead Incidental - Tervis has anxiety/agoraphobia 

29. The Heresies of Radulf Burntwine - Several characters with chronic illnesses and genetic disorders. Illnesses and disabilities are central to the narrative. 

30. Power Trip - MC is chronically ill, and a transplant patient; she uses a cane as a mobility aid. Cluster B. Central to the narrative. CW vomiting, diet culture (pushed on a child), alcohol abuse

31. The Far Meridian - Agoraphobia, central to the narrative.

[sinkholepodcast]

Oh yeah. By the way. This happened.

[theonion]

Following a Florida man’s sudden death last week after his bedroom collapsed into a 20-foot-wide sinkhole, the possibility of a giant cavity in the earth opening up and swallowing your entire house has now reportedly been added to the list of things one must worry about on a day-to-day basis. “Well, on top of everything else, it looks as though I now have to be legitimately afraid of the earth itself suddenly consuming my house, my family, and everything I own,” said local man Jared Palmer, 38, who noted that his usual list of everyday financial, parenting, social, and mortality-based phobias was only compounded by the prospect of being helplessly sucked into a subterranean cavern.

Full Story

[haveyoulistenedtothispodcast]

Have you listened to SINKHOLE (2022-2022)?

Yes

Partially

No

Never heard of it

Voting ended onSep 23, 2025

Summary:

SINKHOLE is a short-form audio fiction podcast presented as a collection of audio posts from a member of a community of data restoration hobbyists in a sometimes-unfamiliar future.

[re-dracula]

What character from Dracula would make the best hockey player?

Jonathan Harker

Mina Murray

John Seward

Van Helsing

Quincey Morris

Lucy Westenra

Arthur Holmwood

Count Dracula

Mr. Swales

Captain of the Demeter

Voting ended onAug 28, 2025

Inspired by this (apparently quite controversial) poll.

[pocketfullofarchivists]

just finished s2 of Sinkhole podcast. No notes, perfect world building, perfectly written, I love everything about it including rants about imaginary fiIe format

Also I’m at work and doodle main character, kinda. What its like to live with stars in your head, when parts of your body are holes to who knows where

[sinkholepodcast]

This is so striking! What a cool use of materials. Thank you for listening!

[vosling]

Head full of stars.

I listened to Sinkhole S1 two days in a row, and then S2 today. The way it depicted physical disability, ableism, and institutional betrayal - it meant a lot.

[vosling]

After a day of people reblogging this piece and most of the reblogs not tagging at all or only tagging #SINKHOLE… Wow that feels kinda bad, actually. Did not expect that (it has not happened with other fanart I've shared)

I guess it's because it was a piece about disability and the commodification of the body, and then, welp. I felt like the art was extracted. I know that was not the intend of the people who shared my work, and I'm not calling anyone out :) It's a new interesting layer of the art and SINKHOLE experience to me. I want to add it to this piece.

In SINKHOLE Season 1, there is the Narrator, looking for connection to their past and yearning for human connection in the present. Which they find (as best as they can) through data restoration and the online forum they post in. Connecting with the people there, in a genuine honest way, is a double-edged sword. You need to show yourself and be vulnerable in order to truly connect with people. Because of their rare medical status/disability/history, that obviously means safety (doxxing) risks in the long term. But in the short term, there's a more emotional risk, the compounded trauma of being treated as a novelty, an interesting thing, and no longer fully human of with their own agency. I've been there. It's happened in real life and in digital spaces. People notice signs of my disabilities, or I choose to share bits and pieces, and -> now they are talking about me with each other. Speculating about my health. Speculating about how I'm able to do XYZ when my disabilities are reported to be a severe case of ABC. All of this often while I'm present in the space. My medical status a topic of conversation without my involvement nor my consent.

I have a lot of disabilities. Part of me wants to listen them here to highlight aspects of what I'm trying to communicate here. Part of me has the experience of SINKHOLE's Narrator: talking about it puts me at risk. And I can't trust the anonymous blob of people reading this to all treat me with respect, and not like an interesting novelty. "A visual artist with VIP? How does that even work?"

Anyway. Back to the head full of stars art piece and my experience sharing it. I noticed that conversely, even just a quick "Fuck yeah", exclamation mark, or "wow" in the tags helped to make me feel that I was in conversation with fellow fans. So I'm going to take that lesson moving forward, and make sure I am in conversation with the artist in the hashtags when I share art. Talk with them. Not about them.

Finally. I want to put some of the hashtags of when I first shared it here in this post.

#the way the narrator said (paraphrased) “There are people out there who wish we had never come out of the hole” #I felt that in my bones #I'm glad I've worked through enough of my pandemic trauma to engage with media like this because it's so meaningful #But yeah #the way we were discarded like acceptable deaths at the bottomline #because only the elderly and disabled (the weak) would die from this catastrophic pandemic that turned out to be a mass disabling event #and it happens over and over again #this ongoing / recurring / never-ending grief of being betrayed by society and being told it's time to move on #anyway

#what did you do to deserve your eyes today?

[sinkholepodcast]

Ah, I missed this reblog! I did read your original tags, but it's good to say the quiet part loud.

Yes, the balancing act of wanting to be seen and known and cared for versus not wanting to become an object of curiosity is a very real part of why the narrator's relationship with their community can feel so tense at times.

There's no malice in the way their community treats them, but there doesn't need to be. You can make a person feel less than human without ever wishing them ill. You can make them feel less than human while having a very positive opinion of them- while feeling parasocially attached to them.

When you're the only person with a condition that someone has met, you can become effectively the ambassador for that condition to them, whether or not you want to be. You are expected to represent every single person with that condition. You're expected to be an expert, an educator, and a poster child- none of which make it easy to be a flawed person with limited knowledge who might not like being in the limelight.

And if you're not being that person, the Representative Of The Condition, speaking up about your experiences is often responded to as a sort of imposition.

Which is to say: thank you for engaging so deeply and meaningfully with my work. Yours is beautiful, and I'm honoured to have been found worthy of it.

[vosling]

Head full of stars.

I listened to Sinkhole S1 two days in a row, and then S2 today. The way it depicted physical disability, ableism, and institutional betrayal - it meant a lot.

[sinkholepodcast]

Thank you so much for listening! This is stunning!

And I'm so glad the show spoke to you. I never expected it to reach as many people as it has, but I can never regret it has when so many people have found such meaning and connection with what it has to say.

[podkeeper]

Here I bring some more recs!

I can’t explain enough how some of these have a solid grip on me

[ghostsandmermaids]

It's the first Audio Drama Sunday of Disability Pride Month, so here are some shows with disabled main characters I'm (re)listening to this month:

Where The Stars Fell

Seen and Not Heard

Killjam XXX

Waiting For October

Camp Here & There

Eeler's Choice

Does anyone else have more recs?

[vosling]

SINKHOLE has a disabled main character and a story that really showcases societal ableism. I felt seen by the way it shows disability is created by inaccessible design and institutional barriers. How alienating and isolating it feels when society "moves on" from you while you're still here. It's a great story. I highly recommend it.

[sinkholepodcast]

Thank you so much for mentioning SINKHOLE! Yes, the show is explicitly about the nature of living with a poorly-understood chronic condition and how that changes your relationship with the world around you, framed through the lens of weird, near-future cyberpunk stuff. (Because cyberpunk is also fundamentally about what it means to be human, and being human is about being part of a human society, at the end of the day.)

We've got the classics:

People claiming you're lying about your condition because it's rare enough that it's easier for them to believe you're faking it rather than actually one of the few affected

Well-meaning people offering solutions that may work for other affected people but are not a viable treatment for your specific form of the condition

Being incapable of getting a non-exploitative job unrelated to your condition because the majority of workplaces consider you either deeply inconvenient and actively dangerous

References to superstitions about your poorly-understood condition that imply it must be something either moral or spiritual rather than a medical issue

A strong implication that strangers on the internet will not stop asking you weird and invasive questions about your poorly-understood condition

Parasociality from strangers who have evolved from viewing you as a curiosity to feeling as though, because they are familiar with your struggle, they know you and have a right to you

SINKHOLE has transcripts available for all episodes on the website (though I'd like to go through and improve my formatting in the future to improve readability), and all art is posted on the website with alt text available.

On the main page of the website, there is an expandable list of potential content warning which includes a list of subject the listener will not have to worry about appearing the future episodes of the podcast.

[sinkholepodcast]

Ah, shit, I forgot maybe the most important one for the context of the show itself:

Everyone (including some members of the listening audience) assuming you have special insight into the cause of your condition and refusing to believe otherwise despite the fact that you are a random person with no relevant medical or scientific background and your only qualification is being disabled in that specific way

Going to break my "tell them nothing" rule for just a second: this is why the show is called SINKHOLE.

[ghostsandmermaids]

It's the first Audio Drama Sunday of Disability Pride Month, so here are some shows with disabled main characters I'm (re)listening to this month:

Where The Stars Fell

Seen and Not Heard

Killjam XXX

Waiting For October

Camp Here & There

Eeler's Choice

Does anyone else have more recs?

[vosling]

SINKHOLE has a disabled main character and a story that really showcases societal ableism. I felt seen by the way it shows disability is created by inaccessible design and institutional barriers. How alienating and isolating it feels when society "moves on" from you while you're still here. It's a great story. I highly recommend it.

[sinkholepodcast]

Thank you so much for mentioning SINKHOLE! Yes, the show is explicitly about the nature of living with a poorly-understood chronic condition and how that changes your relationship with the world around you, framed through the lens of weird, near-future cyberpunk stuff. (Because cyberpunk is also fundamentally about what it means to be human, and being human is about being part of a human society, at the end of the day.)

We've got the classics:

People claiming you're lying about your condition because it's rare enough that it's easier for them to believe you're faking it rather than actually one of the few affected

Well-meaning people offering solutions that may work for other affected people but are not a viable treatment for your specific form of the condition

Being incapable of getting a non-exploitative job unrelated to your condition because the majority of workplaces consider you either deeply inconvenient and actively dangerous

References to superstitions about your poorly-understood condition that imply it must be something either moral or spiritual rather than a medical issue

A strong implication that strangers on the internet will not stop asking you weird and invasive questions about your poorly-understood condition

Parasociality from strangers who have evolved from viewing you as a curiosity to feeling as though, because they are familiar with your struggle, they know you and have a right to you

SINKHOLE has transcripts available for all episodes on the website (though I'd like to go through and improve my formatting in the future to improve readability), and all art is posted on the website with alt text available.

On the main page of the website, there is an expandable list of potential content warning which includes a list of subject the listener will not have to worry about appearing the future episodes of the podcast.

[quasi-normalcy]

One field that badly needs to be purged of "Great Man-ism" is architecture.

[noctumsolis]

In my hometown there's a hospital that won awards for the brilliant architectural vision of the great man who designed it.

The fact that even before it opened they'd begun building the extension, because it was too small to accommodate the number of patients, and even then too small to accommodate visitors, apparently didn't matter.

[quasi-normalcy]

Standard "visionary design"

[terriwriting]

I've worked in multiple award-winning buildings, and every one of them was a terrible work environment. Confusing internal layouts, bad HVAC, inaccessible spaces, lacking basic amenities, horrible acoustics, just bad places to work all around.

But hey, the lines of the buildings look great from the outside.

[eilooxara]

there was an award-winning building at my college that, due to its oddly-curved roof, every year, produced icicles that could kill people

[normalbroadcast]

slightly shoddy SINKHOLE-inspired sunk arm sleeve thing i did for last halloween :⟩ didn't have any eel-themed shirts so swordfish was the next best thing !!!

I didn't end up having enough time to completely perfect it BUT! i did have an excuse to tell people about the podcast all night when they asked what my costume was. so i count that as a definite win

[sinkholepodcast]

I have no idea why SINKHOLE occasionally experiences strange little renaissances where several people seemingly binge the entire show in a single day, sometimes completely independently of each other, but hello and welcome.

[roach-works]

speculative fiction writers i am going to give you a really urgent piece of advice: don't say numbers. don't give your readers any numbers. how heavy is the sword? lots. how old is that city? plenty. how big is the fort? massive. how fast is the spaceship? not very, it's secondhand.

the minute you say a number your readers can check your math and you cannot do math better than your most autistic critic. i guarantee. don't let your readers do any math. when did something happen? awhile ago. how many bullets can that gun fire? trick question, it shoots lasers, and it shoots em HARD.

you are lying to people for fun. if you let them do math at you the lie collapses and it's no fun anymore.

[roach-works]

YOU GET IT

[cobalt-knave]

Why you should listen to Sinkhole

I just finished season 2 of Sinkhole, and I really enjoyed it! It's weird! Here, in no particular order, are things I enjoyed in the podcast.

The format of basically reddit (audio) posts

Sometimes we hear reactions of our main character to Discourse, but we only hear stuff from the main character, not directed at them

Learning about best practices for magnetic tape handling. Teach me, Main Character. I love it.

Oh yeah. The Hole.

You know, the Hole.

We've alllll heard about the Hole.

I love how the worldbuilding is handled. What is normal is normal even if it is not for the main character.

Online privacy! We love to see it!

Sounds of the Sinkhole

[sinkholepodcast]

Y'know, the Hole. We all know about it.

[scottpaladin]

don't fall into any holes