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
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.
Small Victories is so good. IT IS SO GOOD!!!! An absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking, glorious exploration of addiction, grief, and the ups and downs of recovery as a road, not a destination. I've just started Season 3 and I feel so lucky to come into this story as that season has been freshly released.
A recently recovered drug addict tries to start her new lease on life, too bad life has it out for her. This drama follows Marisol through the ups and downs of a year in her life.
Highly recommend this show. It's interpersonal and psychological, almost slice of life at times. Marisol is Black bisexual woman in her early twenties with a girlfriend she loves but also puts on a pedestal and struggles to be honest with. The exploration of the ups/downs/rock bottom is when you stop digging is really difficult to hear but also incredibly loving. There's a lot of understanding and gentleness for what drives people with addictive personalities, without making excuses for the hurt they cause. Just... yeah, loving.
Best references I have for the exploration of the addiction and grief are The Wire (crime tv series) and The Grotto (horror audio drama). But this show is a lot warmer, slower paced, and an a psychological/interpersonal drama at heart. Along with the CW within the show, I'll add CW for violence/traumatic injury and infidelity.
Small Victories is so good. IT IS SO GOOD!!!! An absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking, glorious exploration of addiction, grief, and the ups and downs of recovery as a road, not a destination. I've just started Season 3 and I feel so lucky to come into this story as that season has been freshly released.
A recently recovered drug addict tries to start her new lease on life, too bad life has it out for her. This drama follows Marisol through the ups and downs of a year in her life.
Highly recommend this show. It's interpersonal and psychological, almost slice of life at times. Marisol is Black bisexual woman in her early twenties with a girlfriend she loves but also puts on a pedestal and struggles to be honest with. The exploration of the ups/downs/rock bottom is when you stop digging is really difficult to hear but also incredibly loving. There's a lot of understanding and gentleness for what drives people with addictive personalities, without making excuses for the hurt they cause. Just... yeah, loving.
Best references I have for the exploration of the addiction and grief are The Wire (crime tv series) and The Grotto (horror audio drama). But this show is a lot warmer, slower paced, and an a psychological/interpersonal drama at heart. Along with the CW within the show, I'll add CW for violence/traumatic injury and infidelity.
Now that Small Victories is over (I teared up while making dinner listening to the finale) I wanted to mention how struck I was by the way the show used listeners' expectations to portray Marisol's psychosis. The show had supernatural elements from the very start, and plenty of audio fiction has speculative/fantastical elements, so viewers were primed to take those elements at face value. Which means her father revealing his bipolar diagnosis and confronting Marisol about how she's spiraling was just as much of a gut punch to the listeners, because we - like her - fully believed that everything (the time travel, the waves, etc.) were real.
Now that Small Victories is over (I teared up while making dinner listening to the finale) I wanted to mention how struck I was by the way the show used listeners' expectations to portray Marisol's psychosis. The show had supernatural elements from the very start, and plenty of audio fiction has speculative/fantastical elements, so viewers were primed to take those elements at face value. Which means her father revealing his bipolar diagnosis and confronting Marisol about how she's spiraling was just as much of a gut punch to the listeners, because we - like her - fully believed that everything (the time travel, the waves, etc.) were real.
I didn’t have time to listen to much this week, but what I caught was absolute gold!! 🎧
🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (205) Hooo boy, I love it when HFTH dives deeper into the horror genre! That scene in the Wicker house was genuinely awful!! And oh, poor Hope, what a terrible symbol of her forced growing-up that she had to leave Nighty the Nightgaunt in the dust 😭 You know I love the writing in this show, but obsessed with the fact that eating the bread made her thirstier - as though any comfort she might have now is only going to lead to further pain in the future!! They really leant into the Nikignik as a dog in this ep, but: “After all, what is a watchdog for, if not to bite once he has proclaimed the danger?” What a banger line. And Mr ROUNDS? Is that YOU? Damn, I really love this show!!
👻 @tellnotalespod (S2E2) Aw the audio drama fan episode!! I love the way Leon writes about audio drama (READ LISTEN CLOSELY YOU COWARDS) and it’s so lovely to hear Leo remember their passion for chatting to ghosts.
🌞 Small Victories by @wgc-productions (6+7) I relistened to last week’s episode and was really hit with the fact that there was another future Marisol who also felt like she was living her best life. Maybe we can trust that there is no right way to live and she’s going to work out a life she loves!! But, oh, Marisol ❤️🩹 She has so much healing to do in the meantime. Getting Tiana’s perspective was so interesting because we (obvs) care about Marisol so much, it’s sometimes easy to overlook how much her actions affect the people around her as well. It astounds me how a show with time travelling multiple versions of a character feels more grounded in reality than so many other stories! It’s so gooood.
🧳 Travelling Light by @monstrousproductions (80) I CRIED. The ‘Oh, sweetheart’ just absolutely broke me 😭 Scarry has seen them so clearly throughout their entire relationship ☹️ I don’t think the outcome would have been different if they’d stopped fighting and started talking sooner, but it might have been gentler (on my heart!). Oh, man, what a beautiful and emotionally cathartic end to the season! Lou Sutcliffe’s entry was gorgeous and the accompanying music was so beautiful. I also felt like I needed to sit with the music and process my feelings just like The Traveller! Thank you for another wonderful season, I’m going to miss this show SO MUCH.
🦋 @remnantspod (48) ooooh the long awaited Aunt Pearl POV!! It was so interesting to see the same scenes of Eliza’s through Pearl’s POV. She clearly loved her sister, but in such a constraining way that Eliza would never be able to please her whilst living a life of her own choosing. What Remnants has consistently done so well is take a character who has mistreated others and put you right inside their history and their mind until you can understand what led to those behaviours. It always makes for such a fascinating, and sometimes ethically uncomfortable listen - I love it! And FINALLY we know for a fact that EP was never trying to steal from SG. I don’t know how many eps are left but it really feels like we’re leading up to a huge finale!
VERY excited for new @twelvelms this week - I’m so ready to dissect the next instalment!! Two behemoths of audio drama have released new shows recently too which I am looking forward to catching - Our Wars Have Ended and Don’t Tell Alice! How lucky we are to have such art to put in our ears!
👻 @tellnotalespod (S2E1+1.5) Such an absolute treat to be back in this world! I had forgotten just how far Leo and Frank’s relationship had come along since the start of S2! And I’d forgotten that there was ever a time that Leo couldn’t talk to the ghosts directly. This relisten has already reminded me of so many things! Also Julia pining!!! Wah!! They’re my endgame 🥲. TNT, I love you and I’m so excited for your return!
🌞 Small Victories by @wgc-productions (6) The famous chef friend finally makes an appearance!! Last episode I wished for Marisol to have someone she can trust to point out that she’s not doing okay and I was so glad to hear him bring it up this ep!! I thought we all (including Marisol) knew that the Narrator was Sam!! I was so surprised by her shock! To be fair, the realisation killed me off when I worked it out too.
🧳 Travelling Light by @monstrousproductions (79) ‘DO YOU?’ !! Oh, just stab me in the heart why don’t you???? Don’t worry about me!! In all seriousness, it is such a skill to have a main character who is so empathetic and curious and loveable but who also clearly is a bit of a nightmare to people who love them! I loved hearing from Annaliese and she did talk a LOT of sense!! The botanical conservationist has my entire heart. So funny!
🦋 @remnantspod (47) Ah, I really thought I was going to make it through this ep without crying but the ‘you had already left by the time he did’ KILLED ME. And the fact that the statue was inside the furnace 😭😭
📓The Night Road by @dom-guilfoyle (3) Yesss, more Night Road!! I am LOVING this show so far and was so happy to see a new episode pop up. I loved how thoughtful all the details around the Aulan, it made it all seem so real! The mirroring between the creature and its baby and Melody and her Mum was such a good jumping off point to learn more about this sadly absent figure who colours so much of the father-daughter relationship we hear. I was also so endeared to Herschel this ep!! Please listen to the show if you aren’t already!
I actually remember the post you made when you figured out the Host twist and I was shook, because you got it about a season too early. You were moving faster than I thought anyone else would. I'm glad we're now all on the same page. And shout out to Mickey, Marisol's only trusted adult. -JMS
Happy Audio Drama Sunday! I have a lot to do today but I am really excited that a new episode of Hemophobia went up last night to accompany me. Let’s talk about audio drama!
📱 I just can’t handle how good @strangekindstudio’s Mercy is. Every time we hear from a new character’s perspective, I find myself thinking that I want to be as good of a writer as Jae-in Hwan when I grow up. This episode took the character I most suspected to be a joke, Paxton Cross, and lovingly and thoroughly dissected him down to the marrow. What a character study. It is a significant feat to explain a character who chose to be cold and scornful and skeptical and make you like him. And I really like Paxton Cross. (Maybe not as much as Wayne does…)
🕯️ Small Victories ( @wgc-productions’ own) has been subtly and optimistically using Judaism as a sort of marker of stability throughout season 3 (maybe longer, but this is where I’ve noticed it). In this episode we find out why—Mickey, a guy whose reputation far proceeds him in this show, has made an appearance, and now it’s clear to me the parallel between future!Marisol and present Mickey. What’s less clear is the absolute bombshell that alternatefuture!Marisol dropped about the narrator! What in the heck—
🫖 Calling All Adventurers by @thetowerarray is setting up a delicious mystery this season as we continue to follow the host through his early adventures. I love this dude grappling with early adventurer things—is it actually wrong to kill these guys? Why am I suddenly a big deal? Should I be disguising my identity?—while being an absolute BEAST of a fighter. Shout out to writer/creator Gray Smith for letting me as Tessa visit!
Oddly enough, I always conceived of Marisol as Jewish, but I started to drop the seeds in episode 110, and then this season is where it becomes much more explicit. And yeah, that ending is a biggie!
Small Victories Season 3 was conceived as a ghost story. From the onset, Marisol has been haunted by her past (namely her family) and the future (the debate of who she could become)
The parlytic effect of these hauntings lead to the self-destructive relief she chased in seasons 1 and 2. In the third and final season there is no more running.
Marisol must find a way to live with her ghosts or become a ghost herself.
Small Victories returns March 3, 2026 wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thinking about how reviewers are an important part of any healthy artistic ecosystem and I'm thankful for the folks who have decided to take on that role in the audio fiction community.