How To Have A Conversation About A Topic Youre Not Interested In Or Dont Know Anything About:

How to have a conversation about a topic you’re not interested in or don’t know anything about:

Listen to what the other person has to say about the topic.

Ask a question about what they said. Asking them to clarify or explain something you don’t understand is great, but any question will do. All else fails, ask them to explain what they like about some part of the topic.

Listen to their responses and go back to step 2.

Do this until 5-15 minutes has passed, then change the subject to a topic of your interest, unless you are actually interested in learning more on this subject, in which case, go on for as long as you like.

Sometimes, they will say something like “I’m sorry to blather on about [topic].” This is an attempt at a conversational dismount. You can either say “no, it was fascinating, thanks” and then bring up your own topic, or you can say “no, it’s fascinating, please keep going” if you want to keep hearing about their topic. Note the tense difference (past -> moving on, present -> keep going).

I just thought I’d write a script for this, because someone who can’t / won’t do this came up in a Captain Awkward column, and listening about topics you have no interest in is a really useful skill to have and not often explicitly taught, particularly to boys and men.

another rec list for those of you seeking more audio drama for your ears!! this one is made up of audio dramas that made me want to make audio dramas, and which i reference in the show I make.

The White Vault still holds the title for the only show to ever make me yelp in terror. I fell asleep in the middle of an episode and woke up at the worst possible moment. This show has spectacular writing and performance and is definitely one for those people who find the vast expanse of nothingness at the poles of our planet equally fascinating and terrifying. This show has some queer rep but it's very quiet; everyone is too busy shitting their pants to talk much about their personal lives most of the time. There are five seasons, each with something unique to offer, and it reached it's spectacular conclusion earlier this year. It's available across platforms.

Limetown begins as a sort of fake true-crime documentary about the titular Limetown. If you like your horror with a side of conspiracy, this is the show for you. It's short at just two seasons, and fun fact: I accidentally listened to season two before I listened to season one and had a very wild time. I have since listened to it beginning to end and yes it did make more sense in order. I cannot recall whether it had any queer rep. It also had a facebook visual adaptation, but I have never watched it so I cannot comment on its quality. This show has been around for some time, but it's still a gem, and you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome to Night Vale, a true titan of the audio fiction space, Night Vale has had an influence on so many newer shows that you can feel its echoes everywhere. Queer at heart, and offering a soft, mundane sort of horror, for me what makes Night Vale special is the way that it highlights one of the most terrifying traits of the human race; our capacity to get used to pretty much anything and accept it as ordinary. After ten years, the show is still going, and has over two hundred episodes. You can listen beginning to where the story has reached so far, or take a more eclectic approach and dip in and out as you please. Both listening methods have something to offer. I've listened to Night Vale on and off since about six months after it originally started airing, and it's available in all the places you might expect to find it.

The Magnus Archives, another giant of the audio fiction space, much beloved by many listeners and inspiration for countless fanworks still despite the fact the show has now finished. The show begins as an anthology of horror stories told as reports of sinister happenings to the Magnus Institute, but quickly it becomes much more. The show is a shining example of what can be done with the framing device of a character sitting down and recording himself in semi-private. By the end of its run, the show accumulates a fair amount of queer representation, and all five seasons of the show are available across platforms, ending at the spectacular MAG 200.

I Am In Eskew. I love a story about a world just out of sight. This show has an abundance of subtle weird horror done right, shot through with more straight-forward horrors. It moves slowly, the horrors at hand growing and changing as you listen. There's a quiet calm to the delivery throughout this show which really emphasises the strangeness of the story. The folks who made this show went on to create the Silt Verses, which is another absolutely spectacular ride. It's a fun, unsettling time, and a complete story you can find wherever you listen to podcasts.

The ways these shows influenced the way I made @spiritboxradio are massive. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I loved about each of them and learning what I could about how each of them is put together. There are references to them all scattered through the show, but most frequently I end up making references to the Magnus Archives, mostly because I had severe TMA brainrot at the time of the show's conception in August 2020. It cannot be helped. If you end up tuning into the show, I shall answer you in advance: yes the Tim thing is deliberate, and so are the other the ones. Have fun reference spotting!!

Been meaning to make this for a while and finally found round to doing examples when the the power was out last week so here we go.

(Currently all text and a couple photos at the end but if someone wants a video just let me know)

Basics of hand sewing!

First things first: what to use when learning.

When starting out you're gonna want things easy to use so no fabrics that are too tough, stretchy or liable to fraying, basically cotton or denim from old clothes or sheets should be great.

Thread wise will depend a little on your dexterity, if you're going to struggle with smaller thread try something thicker possibly embriodery thread, there are also things that will help you to thread your needle but I haven't used them so I don't have much advice there.

Otherwise just give your thread a little tug to make sure it won't snap under the slightest pressure and you should be good.

Unless you're going straight onto you're project and want to hide the stitching I'd recommend using a different colour to the fabric so that it's easier to see where you've sewn.

Needle wise again if you don't have the dexterity and don't mind bigger holes embroidery needles are slightly bigger and have bigger holes so they may be a little easier.

For non embriodery needles there's some that are a little thinner than others I don't like them much but if they're all you can find they work (I've got poundland ones before and they tend to be the thickness I like.

Threading the needle and securing the thread:

Again there are devices to help you thread needles but can't provide much more on that.

The other two ways I tend to thread needles is by

1) Bend the thread in and the point made tends to go through the hole a bit easier.

2) Dampen your thumb and next finger and twist the end so that the fibers stick tother instead of fraying as it goes through the hole.

Now when securing the thread there's three options I know of.

1) Starting with the easiest: once your needle is threaded double over the thread (make sure you've got double the length you need) and tie the ends together, this method means your needle won't become unthreaded and may be a little more secure however does require more thread.

2) This is what I tend to use, have a bit of thread one side of the hole so it hopefully doesn't come undone and knot one end. This means you're using less thread than method 1 but the needle may unthread.

3) Make sure you keep the end of your thread from going through the hole while you do a couple stitches and it should secure itself.

Pictures below show method 1 on the top left, 2 bottom left and 3 on the right.

I dont want this to get too long so I'll make another post soon with different stitches, feel free to ask any questions.

"It’s often unhealthy to hyper-analyze your sexuality to the point where how you experience it changes where you belong. This is why the idea that broader terms are somehow more restrictive is baffling. Continuously breaking labels down and creating terminology for each facet of one’s identity shrinks communities until it’s just one person convinced that they’re the only one who relates to their experiences. It isolates people and ignores the importance of individuality within a collective identity."

On Hyperpersonalized Sexual Identity

i have a few resources i look to consistently but i'm gonna plug anatomy for sculptors as One Of The Most Useful. great if you're a 3D artist, INVALUABLE if you're a 2D artist. gives you turnarounds of specific limbs/fiddly body parts like ears. great especially if you're referencing a photo and start looking at an individual part like 'wait, what the hell is going on in there'

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?