#but tma just has a lot more structure the whole time w both the epistolary kind of format and the world.eskew gets. abstract .

[divorcemotif]

"oh hey a real person followed me, I should look at their blog"

soon

"...perhaps I should listen to Eskew."

oh boy you caught my blog after an exciting weekend lmao

I absolutely recommend eskew! I don't have a lot of coherent thoughts, since I got into it over a very physically and mentally draining summer job and have yet to relisten, but it left an impression for sure. I will say what there is of an overarching narrative felt a bit jolty to me in places, for lack of a better term— I think you get the vibe of a show that’s figuring itself out somewhat as it goes, however the ideas are very interesting and I could make a long list of moments that really really affected me. my recent posts probably give a good sense of what I liked most abt it; david ward is just. endlessly interesting as a character imo. the writing’s good— there's a kind of.. ironically humorous edge to a lot of my favourite episodes, something I’d have to relisten to properly articulate. there's a tic of referring to one-off characters by a title instead of a name— the correspondence editor, the architect, the witness— that scratches something in my brain. in contrast with the slimy fleshiness of much of the horror, the sound design is just nice, actually— the rain never stops in eskew and the tone of the narration stays pretty level no matter what’s being described. there are only two narrators and I found both of their voices pleasant enough to close my eyes to on the subway after a long day. very solid show

#ask #eskew #I don’t usually post this much abt eskew but that jonathan sims vs david ward most sopping wet podcast man poll awakened smth in me . #got me itching to write like 1000 words abt how it’s ultimately an unfair comparison #but I havent listened to either podcast in A While so I don’t trust myself to be like. right. abt anything #I’ll just say. #eskew has its narrator in the middle of the horror right off the bat. it’s more immediately immersive and far less grounded— #early episodes you have rlly no guarantee that anything david is perceiving is real or what ‘real’ even means within the rules of his world. #even later on it’s p ambiguous how many of the people he interacts with are actually people and this uncertainty gets exploited a lot #basically. in tma the world looks broadly like our own and is being affected by outside forces where in eskew the setting IS the horror #if I were writing an essay abt this I might make it abt the ways each show plays w humour and absurdity— #the caricature of jon’s initial presentation is a grounding force at the start #where eskew consistently uses absurdity to unground you and keep you uncertain #ofc the initial security to this divide between jon and the statements gradually dissolves #but tma just has a lot more structure the whole time w both the epistolary kind of format and the world.eskew gets. abstract . #what I’m saying is david is infinitely wetter and more miserable bc his story both requires and allows for it. tonally. #and because the rain literally and metaphorically never stops. #david never gets a fucking break even when he gets a fucking break bc he can never KNOW if he’s really getting a fucking break #or if the city that loves him soso much is about to turn on him #(also hes far more chaotic morally I think on account of just being. further out of touch). #at least tma has enough supporting characters who are definitively real people by the rules of its universe #for you to have found family expectations it can repeatedly subvert. #david is a half drowned rat. #. however jonathan sims has more fans and could never lose 😔