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Episode 149: The Reflection of a Mirror Breaker with the Gruulboss
406 Plays2 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Today we return with a Goblin Profile! But for this Goblin we are doing things a little different. This Goblin is so amazing that they needed 2 parts! The Goblin? Kiki-Jiki, the Mirror-Breaker. For part one we were joined by the Queen (Mab the Queen that is) to discuss a community that has embraced Kiki-Jiki. This specifically grew out of the cEDH Community and the trans-femme community. Part 2 delves a little deeper into the lore with the Gruulboss (aka Skylar) and look at Kiki through the lens of Autism!
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter (with a link to where you can offer support both monetary and not).
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
On another new note we continue our partnership with The Fireside Alliance. From their main page: "An independent media network and a progressive community of progressive communities". Please check them out!
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As promised, we plan to keep these Mental Health Links available moving forward too. For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988, and Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com.
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Transcript
Introduction & Grinding Coffee Company
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. We are, we've got a special episode here. We just want to get some plugs out of the way first.
00:00:43
Speaker
Cobs, do you want to talk about grinding coffee company? And that can… the next one. Yes, of course I want to talk about grinding coffee company. When do I not want to talk about grinding coffee company? I love coffee. So grinding coffee company is a black owned LGBT ran coffee company that developed coffee for gamers, really partnering with gamers.
00:01:02
Speaker
and to kind of have that mission of social justice and so we were lucky enough to get in working with them very early on and they've just been very supportive of the cast considering most of their support is for streams it's for people you know that do a lot different content than what we do but they've been very willing to support especially knowing that we do
00:01:20
Speaker
Kind of charity events they we have the one coming up at the end of the month for reproductive rights. So July 30th and 31st There'll be a two-day stream for the National Abortion Federation this was kind of a follow-up to the the Roe vs Wade kind of being overturned and reached out to Grinding coffee company and as per usual immediately just said what do you need and it's just one of the reasons that we really like to work with them and
00:01:48
Speaker
So yeah, so that would be the Grinding Coffee Company.
Podcast & Self-care Discussion
00:01:54
Speaker
And we also, Alex, we still have this partnership that we do with the Fireside Alliance.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah, I can talk about that. The Fireside Alliance is a progressive community of progressive communities that's basically a bunch of content creators on the internet all had their own little pockets of Discord servers or other places where they sort of had their small communities and decided that they wanted to.
00:02:22
Speaker
try to build something bigger together and have a good place for people to gather on the internet and talk and exchange stories and things. That's where the name Fireside Alliance came from. And so we asked to join six months or a year or so after they formed and they were gracious enough to allow us to join as members of that.
00:02:44
Speaker
So Fireside Alliance, I believe the link to the website is in our show notes that has all the different partners, just different podcasts and other forms of content creators. We actually are the only magic focused content in there. There's a lot of other geekdom, nerdery folks in there. A lot of great folks is part of that community. The website also has a link to their Discord server if you'd like to come check that out and join that community as well.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah, so as you said, Alex, you know, we're back with a kind of a we're back with the second half of an episode that was part of Pride Month in June. We were ready to release that episode prior to the end of June until life happened multiple times. Yes, kept happening.
00:03:30
Speaker
as life tends to, it just kind of keeps happening. And yeah, you just you deal with it. We deal with it is bad. And we've been very, you know, we're transparent about that. And, you know, it's very much in line with our mission, self care and kind of just recognizing limits. But
00:03:46
Speaker
it meant that we had to delay kind of this. So this is the second part of our Kiki Jiki episode. So people want to go back and check it out. Episode 149, right before our fourth anniversary, we recorded with Mab.
Planeswalker Sparks & Personal Stories
00:04:01
Speaker
And Mab came on and talked about Kiki Jiki within kind of the trans femme community, kind of how there had been a rise of that meme.
00:04:09
Speaker
in the CEDH community as well. Yes, in particular, yes. But and we had talked at that point that we were going to get more into Kiki's story. And we kind of set this episode up to be the second half of the reflection. We you know, Kiki Jiki is a mirror breaker with reflections. We saw Kiki come back with, you know, a saga about them being so good at reflecting. And we had had plans to come have have
00:04:39
Speaker
Skylar, come on, so we'll get to introductions in a second, but Skylar, come on and talk about more of the lore aspect, do a little bit deeper dive into Kiki's actual lore. So we should go around and do introductions, and I did bring a question. It's an older one, but this conversation resurfaced a little bit on Twitter recently, and I always think it's a fun one to return back to.
00:05:02
Speaker
I am HobbsQ. I can be found on Twitter at HobbsQ. My pronouns are he him. The topic for today is if you were a planeswalker, how did you spark? And we've talked a lot on the show that, you know, this is a topic that's very interesting to me because Wizards has given us enough indication that there are many ways to spark and not enough ways for goblins, apparently, because we're still doing very poorly in that category.
00:05:29
Speaker
Or we get our like we spark and then immediately give it up or something and then get killed off screen like poor slow bad, but I always am interested in this in in sparking from like a non tragic.
00:05:43
Speaker
Because I think that we've had situations of pure joy. We've had just people in reflection. There's been more of this. But thinking about if you were a planeswalker, how did you spark? And I always joke that mine would be something really mundane. And with having kids now, it would be like stepping on a Lego. And just somehow stepping on a Lego just causes me to spark. So I'm still going to go with that one. Yeah.
00:06:07
Speaker
Okay, so I'll pass it to you, Alex. Yeah, I'll get my intro out of the way here and so we can get the wonderful guests going. But I'm Alex Newman, phoned on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he him. And my previous answer to this, which is one I would love to bring back, but I actually referenced the thing I referenced in an episode that's been recorded and not posted yet because podcasting is time travel. It's it's a strange thing. Don't worry about it. So I had to come up with a new answer to this question.
00:06:36
Speaker
that was thought up a while ago. And I forgot about it until about 30 seconds before the cast started recording. And so I kind of have two answers. One is the one that I wish or kind of hope would happen. And the other is what is probably more likely to happen. And that one is a little bit sad. So we'll go with that one first. So like, I talk a lot on the show about my my social anxiety and my anxiety disorder and kind of working on that. But like, I, unfortunately, I think that that would probably be the most realistic thing to happen is there would just be something that would happen, it would cause
00:07:06
Speaker
a spike of an anxiety and that would cause my body to think I'm in danger because somebody asked me a question I wasn't prepared for. Like if we're talking maybe a decade ago or some other thing happens in work where I have to go speak in front of a bunch of big wigs or something and then there's just that little bit of panic in my brain and start shooting adrenaline for no reason at all because anxiety is weird. And it ignites my spark and I end up, who knows, somewhere maybe a world built of board rooms and then panic a little more.
00:07:34
Speaker
The one that I think would be much better, and maybe fits a little bit with me too as well, would just be like,
00:07:43
Speaker
sparking because I got a really good interaction with somebody's dog. Because I grew up with dogs. I love dogs. I have lived in apartments for most of my adult life now and just have not had the opportunity to have dogs. I do remember one specific moment that was so significant and impactful. I had to message Hobbs about that.
00:08:05
Speaker
Remember the time I told you I was at a bus stop Hobbs. Yeah. Yeah, there was a car drove by the bus stop and there was a dog just sitting calmly in the backseat and being the dog made eye contact like we had a connection. Maybe would have been then it was a smart thing. You just don't realize it. Yeah. Well, what an answer. We've not been talking for a while. I would like to actually hear from you. Welcome to the show.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, my name is Skyler. My pronouns are she, her, and they, them, interchangeably. And I've kind of thought about it a little bit since, like, you know, the past few weeks. And, like, yeah, I have two answers, too. Like, one would be, like, you know, the one that I would want is, I've joked about, you know, I have made myself a meal that's so good, I gave myself a little bit of a God complex. So, you know, maybe the relation of that...
00:08:55
Speaker
That's a good answer. That is a really good answer. Yeah, I've been cooking since like, I was five, I cook multiple times, like a week, like, like, tomorrow, I'm supposed to make my best friend and roommate some steak beyond, which is like, a weird French recipe with like, a nice beef broth sauce with cognac, but instead of cognac, I mean, I think I'm really close. Oh, yeah, I'm really close to sparking right now, actually, especially the adding of the whiskey.
00:09:22
Speaker
yeah but like realistically probably you know something was traumatic it'd probably be like you know me getting like overwhelmed being an autistic person and just like having that sense of overwhelm and overstimulization or overstimulation you know similar to Narset where it's like oh i gotta get out of here
00:09:43
Speaker
in all timelines or just just the one time? All of them just all of them just got a nope out and just go to where there's nothing.
Kiki Jiki's Story & Goblin Identity
00:09:51
Speaker
Just a nice quiet space. Yeah, I like that. See, now you you both make me feel guilty about the fact that like I just gave like this answer about stepping on Legos. That's that's a good answer too. That's not garbage. Lego. I mean, D fours. Those are just built in caltrops. Any of those. Yeah.
00:10:14
Speaker
Well, Skyler, welcome to the show. You actually started to post a thread about this very topic.
00:10:22
Speaker
You kind of went a little bit deeper than we did on our last show. We kind of introduced Kiki's storyline. So we just kind of talked a little bit about what was on the game of Pedia. And you actually had written a thread about basically both autism and kind of, well, I think the trans femme piece of of Kiki and kind of finding some elements that you think were really resonated with you from story.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah, so do you want to kind of take us through what it is? Let's go through the Kiki story. Let's go a little bit deeper. So if people want, we're going to be making reference to the Dragon's Errand, which is a story that originally posted back in 2004. They did rerun it as part of Magic Story in 2015, and I will post a link to this.
00:11:18
Speaker
as we actually have more story on Kiki than we do a lot of legendary goblins, which is kind of cool. Yeah, there's a lot of Kiki or a significant amount. Yeah, so starting off like with Kiki, we see him outcasted from his tribe from
00:11:37
Speaker
his antics and we go into those antics a little bit. One being using his sister as a rock for skip the rock across the lava. Teaching his siblings to chase the ogre and things of that nature which they seem whenever before this we get more background Kiki these seem malicious but then we hear you know his family all throws rocks at him and laugh. His father hits him, his mother hits him, his older siblings hit him.
00:12:06
Speaker
The entire tribe will be rude to him, call him names, kick him out of things. Really, I don't think this is Kiki being malicious. I think this is him kind of in mirror play, where he's like, all right, they're being mean to me. This is just kind of what happens.
00:12:23
Speaker
Right. I kind of was thinking like, you know, honestly, as you were saying, like, from thinking from the goblin perspective, and especially the Aki, like, I didn't wouldn't have thought really, that was bad enough to get yourself kicked out, right? Like, that seems kind of like what could be even typical goblin behavior. But, you know, Kiki was kicked out. So it makes it, you know, seem like this was seen as something different, even within his own community.
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's like really weird. So it seems like there has to be something particular with Kiki that is not seen amongst the Aki, like, and that's I think something a lot of autistic people or typically queer people of like a gender relation
00:13:06
Speaker
we'll get where there's like this pane of glass like the rules aren't the same for them. They're like not wanted outcasted. All of these things are it's like they're not playing by the same rules so that like sense of justice is just off and you don't understand it and you're just trying to do all the same things everyone else is but it's just not clicking. Yeah, it's like going through the motions is I think the mirroring example is a perfect one especially as we're talking about the mirror breaker and we're gonna be talking about reflections is
00:13:36
Speaker
It looks correct on the outside, but it seems that people are able to guess that it's not. Right. That it doesn't quite fit in, even though in Kiki's situation may have no clue why that is not understanding.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, and as an autistic person, like, I definitely understand that, because, like, I had a bunch of cousins and siblings and, like, just this big southern Appalachian family, and, like, there's a lot of, you know, things here and there. It's like, well, this doesn't seem fair. Like, they, like, a cousin would do something, and I would do the same thing, and I would get in trouble, whereas they got nothing, or I would receive a stricter punishment, whereas, say, they were just, like, made to stand in a corner.
00:14:18
Speaker
and it could be like i repeated or i mirrored and whatever or it could be personal bias but mostly it probably was just i was autistic and already hard to deal with so the family was just like oh well here's a harsher partnership
00:14:33
Speaker
So as you said, Kiki gets kicked out kind of from his community, kind of finds basically ends up finding an underground river, like basically going off on himself. It's kind of funny, Alex, it was making me think of just that idea again of we've had this a few times now, right? I think we talked about this a little bit when MAB was on, but slow bad was kind of a similar thing that was outcast from
00:14:59
Speaker
his own group, his own his own like group of goblins. Yeah, I think that's it's a it's a thing we see with a number of the goblin legends that we have some lore about that they're kind of the outcast from the tribe, as opposed to part of the community. That's not universal. But like, you know, we have warden things on lore when we're actually part of the community of cornerstone of it. But we're seeing in a number of places that that's, it's the outcasts who are kind of the ones who get the story.
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah, I would say particularly for goblins as well as like very tribal packed oriented beings that the removal from a tribe or group is very specifically traumatic because as we see them in all works of media they work well as a tribe they work well as groups and removing them from that where like that's the cornerstone of their identity and a lot of works like that
00:15:57
Speaker
probably very specifically traumatic for them. And that that's the thing that that Hobbs and I have kind of we talked about here and there a couple times in the in the in the podcast in the past, whereas we've kind of gotten deeper on goblins and that's become kind of more of our identity from there's the podcast it's we're starting to see we've both of us have started to kind of see that like how much community is a part of goblins identities and on on all of these different planes just it's it's a
00:16:26
Speaker
fairly universal thing in magic. I guess I don't know 100% of it is, but it's from what I can recall, it's pretty universal. All these different types of goblins and different types of places, community is such a cornerstone. And so being cut off from that, like you say, being cut off in ostrac from that is a huge
00:16:45
Speaker
Thank you that's a really big bad thing to happen to this character and it makes me wonder how much of that is simply cuz it's a convenience story time you know.
00:16:56
Speaker
arc, maybe it's a story hook, or maybe it's because for so long, and it was just coming around a little bit. But for so many places, goblins were mono red, goblins were chaotic, goblins were sort of an, quote unquote, evil group. And so in order to like tell stories about this character, they felt like they needed to pull them away from the group so that they could treat them as an individual who isn't like these others. And that kind of isn't great. Yeah.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, like to try to think of how you elevate a goblin in the mind, I think of what we've seen in the past, at least maybe from wizard, hopefully not as much now, but was was was forcing out the goblin who is either too smart or or isn't too different in a way.
00:17:44
Speaker
And it fits a little bit with the Hero's Journey thing, which is kind of... it's a whole thing. Dr. Raine heard about it. That's a whole other thing. But that sort of fits the... in order to sort of have their own story, this character has to leave the community so then they can go do their own thing and take on the way to the world and all this.
00:18:04
Speaker
I think that may be where some of that comes from. But so in it, we have, you know, Kiki, leaving being being kicked out of the tribe, being kicked out of the tribes and then having to go find his own way and out in Kamigawa. Specifically for food. Three favorite things is
00:18:28
Speaker
He's like, ah, yes, worm. Oh, fish. And then all of a sudden, he's the fish talking to a dragon. Yeah, I really like that. Like the voice called me a fish. Wait a second. I'm not a fish. I'm eating the first. Right? It was like a very literal thing, right? Like I can't be the fish. Yeah.
00:18:48
Speaker
You know, I pulled a quote out that's a little bit further along in the story, and we can kind of talk about Kiki's story. But basically, you know, Kiki, from what we know – yes, one of the dragons – and my mind just went blank – is it Kaiga?
00:19:05
Speaker
basically pulls pulls Kiki wants Kiki to go run an errand to steal back like this this pearl that the that Miloku and the Wow, my brain's gonna just completely fry tonight. What is that the sword Tommy Tommy the moon folk? Yes, they're nice people. No, yeah, let's go
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah, Kiki is sent to retrieve a pearl, which is actually an egg. Yeah, it's Kaiga. It's definitely Kaiga. It's definitely Kaiga. It's the blue. I like had to go through which one. So yeah, so you know,
00:19:54
Speaker
Kiki gets there and is in Among the Moon Folk and is surrounded by mirrors, but these are not actually mirrors that aren't the mirrors that Kiki even would have thought about himself.
00:20:13
Speaker
He said that there were, you know, he'd heard about people in Kamigawa that had devised a way to freeze the surface of the water, put it on a wall, and then call that a mirror. But that was the first time he'd ever seen the real thing. It was really kind of this really, he like runs up because he doesn't really understand why there's 50 basically of him around this room. And imitating basically kind of the every move that he makes. So he kind of runs along.
00:20:44
Speaker
supposed to be finding this and then kind of like I'm sorry my brain is totally slipping through the story right now oh no you're all good so yeah like he's going through first he's like running down the hall he's trying to hide from Miloku and another of the other moon folk and he
00:21:06
Speaker
recognizes that Miloku is one of power because the way his robes are and he sees this mirror and he goes after he's picked up the pearl and specifically he goes to break one and he's interacting with it and before that he does see all the other mirrors and how they're mirroring him and he's like slowly realizes that it's him and after he breaks it his reflection just breaks out with him as well and they just start talking and
00:21:35
Speaker
mirroring each other even though they're like not in the um oh gosh the mirror anymore and they're just you know hanging out uh and it's so great uh just to see Kiki uh just talking with another Aki and experiencing another Aki that isn't trying to actively harm him
00:21:53
Speaker
and he's very happy but then he has to convince himself to do something else or like as they're trying to split up and be safe and Kiki's like oh well why don't you you go that way and I'll go this way you know you go pick us some more fruit so we'll have plenty to eat when we're done here and Kiki notices that he's very easily convinced and that plays well into the like
00:22:19
Speaker
trade of autistic people just believing people at face value where it's like why would someone lie they told me this I'm going to believe it because you know it's what someone said because whenever I say something I mean exactly what I'm saying so and he's like wow I should probably work on that and he ends up finding out that the magic that happened that created the mere reflection of him from the life of his own magic when Kaiga tells him
00:22:46
Speaker
and he doesn't believe it. He'll have to figure it out and everything, but he's more preoccupied with getting back down to the ground and just riding out. Kai goes transporting him.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah, like realizing that he's tired of being basically flying. Kiki does not really enjoy this. There was two quotes that really stood out kind of to me as I was going through this. When he first comes upon the pearl, he wonders if it's a trap. What if this was a trap? What if the Soratami had cast some horrible spell of transformation on this pearl? And when he grabbed it, he'd be turned into something, something worse than an Aki.
00:23:26
Speaker
what if this whole quest is a trick put on by my family to teach me a lesson? You know, yeah, that one like really jumped out at me as we were kind of reading through this, especially thinking about that, like even being separate from the tribe at this point, that is still where Kiki's mind is, is this idea that family is going to teach him a lesson for being different.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's really interesting to think about it specifically with the lens that we are now because all of it, it's not directly said, but if it walks like a goose and it talks like a duck and talks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably just a goose of autism. That's a good analogy right there. That's one of those abstract ones, right? Yeah.
00:24:21
Speaker
And like it, cause you know, that's all he's known. That's all he's known is retribution for his actions with no explanation. All he knows is I do this, I get a rock in my head. I do this, I get punched. I do this, I get kicked out. So he's just like, you know, what if, you know, somehow my family has done something to get a dragon to take you to a city in the sky to retrieve a pearl as a way of teaching me a lesson for some unknown slight.
00:24:51
Speaker
Right. And not being able to figure out what that is, right? Like the theory of mind piece, like not being able to understand what that what that could even be. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's very sad. And like, it's, you know, like, it's not so sad to Kiki, because, you know, he's like, Ah, you know, it's whatever. My family doesn't like me. It's fine. Blah, blah, blah, blah. He just goes on about his day. But like, everything else is like, Wow, poor Kiki. He just always worried about his family. And
00:25:22
Speaker
all of this, but realistically, he just wants something to eat. He wants something to eat and not to be in the sky. He has very simple pleasures, but he can't get around those pleasures and those ideas because of what he's experienced in life. It was interesting too, because, you know, when he gets back and he's trying to kind of understand what happened to the reflection, right? Like he knows that it ran off, it was like separate.
00:25:49
Speaker
And kind of mentions it to Ryu, and Ryu's like, yeah, your reflection's now the prisoner. And Kiki's like upset. He's like, I kind of feel bad about leaving him behind. I mean, family is one thing, but he's me. There's even a sense of like leaving himself when he did this.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Cause he's just like, Oh no, that's, that's me. That's me. Like I've got to go and fix this. I've got to do something about it. And before he can, obviously the reflections magic dissipates. But even in that moment, it's a very powerful like desire for him, even though like he's like tired, he's like losing consciousness. This is his second time in flight.
00:26:30
Speaker
he was starting, he fell down a giant hole that he dug trying to find food, a dragon came and picked him up, like so many things have happened to Kiki and even as he's barely holding on to his consciousness after this ordeal, he's like, I should go rescue myself. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:51
Speaker
I also really like this. He has the thought of dozens of himself running a muck in the caves made his body quiver with the light. He could almost see his father mouth wide open and horrified astonishment buried under a swarm of Kiki-Jikis and kind of shouts out, I should have grabbed more of those mirrors. This is kind of where, you know, Ryu was like, you don't need the mirrors. Like you actually have this magical ability.
00:27:19
Speaker
Um, which that idea that it would be like going back and the village, the Warrens would then be overrun with more like him. Yes. Yeah. It's so great to think about Laura Kiki is like, I should go and make sure I'm well taken care of that. I will have more of myself because if there's more of me, there's less I have to worry about.
00:27:41
Speaker
And like, that's probably like the cutest part of the entire story. He's like, I should get more of me. I should have gotten more of those heavy mirrors. So there could be more of me. And then I wouldn't be so lonely. Right, right. I mean, it makes sense. Find find found family in some ways, like a found goblin Warren's versus the one you were born into. I mean, most definitely.
00:28:07
Speaker
So looking at this, you know, you kind of, the side of it that we're taking, I do want to kind of talk about, too, what we talked about kind of within the trans femme community. And, you know, map went through kind of a lot of where that had kind of grown out of. But I know that that has been something that is another element of Kiki that you kind of had identified with, especially in that thread talking about, right, you know, like, it could be coded that there are some of these elements there for that.
00:28:33
Speaker
But you really brought out kind of this, the autism piece, kind of in your notes and kind of just what you were starting to say in that thread. And I just want to know kind of like, is this something that's been more recent for you to be drawn to Kiki or?
Kiki Jiki and Community Resonance
00:28:50
Speaker
So the first time that I had ever discovered or seen the card Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker, I was playing at my LGS CM games and my now friend Howie was playing a Zakama deck that didn't need Zakama, it was just an IFC, the H deck where Zakama was an outlet and a grind. But the deck went through Kiki-Jiki Bellringer and that was the first time I ever saw Kiki-Jiki.
00:29:16
Speaker
and fast forward a few years, you know, I'm getting to the C.D.H. myself, and my friend has a Xenogos deck that also wins through Kiki conscripts, and I start playing Snoopdar, and it also wins through Kiki Jiki lines, and just, I really just like Kiki, because it's like this feedback loop, there's all these things where like, Kiki will combo with a piece of paper if it has enough words on it, like...
00:29:45
Speaker
I mean, that's one of the things that's great about Kiki. There are so many ways to do this. The redundancy, and especially when you're talking maybe that pool towards something like CDH, redundancy can oftentimes be an important piece. Yeah, like having multiple of these things.
00:30:02
Speaker
If you have Kiki, you can make another Dockside Extortionist, which is another really cool goblin that makes a lot of resources. And that's why wouldn't you want to make a Dockside or a coercive recruiter, which gets you more friends and the more coercive recruiters you have, the more friends you have. And it's just Kiki creates these nice feedback loops.
00:30:21
Speaker
And I personally find feedback moves very comforting because it's the same thing at Infinidome, even to an ad nauseam where it's just there. It just happens until you decide that it stops. And that's very comforting for me sometimes because arguably that's just stimming with a magic mechanic. Is it doing the same thing over and over and over until you're sued, i.e. you win the game? It's so funny because like even just the kid of the so I
00:30:51
Speaker
I kind of talk about this for myself with more, I have a lot of psychomotor agitation with my anxiety. It's just, but even then, my entire life, I've been a very bouncy person. I mean, to the point where my family calls that, like, if they see somebody shaking their leg, they call it Thomas-ing, because that's what I have done my entire life. And I've noticed webcam magic has really made me realize, like, I am literally touching cards and moving them around because I have to be doing something.
00:31:20
Speaker
Tapping and untapping Kiki is actually an action, right? It is. Usually you don't actually have to do it, but you can. Yeah, like if you have high-rise power scout or bell ringer, you'll just like, you know, take two fingers and turn.
00:31:36
Speaker
your rips like hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
00:31:55
Speaker
they repeat themselves a lot because that's kind of what goblins do but like HIKI-JIKI's name is like almost a mirror of itself like if it was KIKI-KIKI it would you know be the mirror but like mirrors have a somewhat amount of degradation to them like if you're in a like mirror hall where they infinitely reflect eventually the image loses quality because you know you make a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy
00:32:19
Speaker
But even then, Kiki's great. Thankfully in Magic we don't run into that duplicator problem like we do with Calvin and Hobbs where it burns out after the sixth copy. One other thing that I think is really cool that we learned from Mab with the naming component is that Kiki is a social gathering
00:32:43
Speaker
that grew out of the black LGBTQ American social culture. That was mind-blowing to me, just when we think about, right, we don't know, we kind of talked about trying to, and I've still been trying to track down who worked on this set. But that's actually just, even if it's not intentional, is a synchronicity that is amazing.
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah, I'm definitely compelled to agree there. Yeah, there's so many things about Kiki where like, and even just the magic in general, where like, there's just so many little things that are coded that, you know, are like little flavors from like the creators or set designers or artists or just the lore writers. And it's so interesting. Magic is so enjoyable and has all these like idiosyncrasies that just, the more you know, the more you see.
00:33:35
Speaker
So we asked Mab this, you kind of started to answer a little bit about why Kiki, for you, was there a moment of kind of, how did you come across, I think Mab took us through a little bit of the joke history of kind of like,
00:33:51
Speaker
You know, even with with with Nathan just kind of being like all all the trans women play Kiki basically and then like Starting to edit Kiki's and send them out and you know kind of grew Like how did you become aware of that? Because part of what map described was literally what you were talking about was like even just the play lines of it seemed to speak to a lot of women like so I think mostly specifically with that is
00:34:22
Speaker
So there is a lot of disproportionate amount of autistic people tend to be some shade of queer as compared to neurotypical counterparts.
00:34:38
Speaker
And we see this because typically, you know, autistic people aren't aware of, are not so much aware of or don't put so much as stalk into a lot of social mores. So, you know, like they'll live their life, they'll be non binary or some other flavor of genderqueer though.
00:34:54
Speaker
be pansexual, bisexual, and it's not like to a massive disproportionate amount, but still a disproportionate amount of autistic people compared are queer as compared to the neurotypical community.
00:35:09
Speaker
So I think the feedback loops of that and then also a lot of autistic people enjoying goblins because we relate to these things that are these simple creatures that are driven upon impulse, their desires, the need for food, the need for shelter, the need for comfort, the need for family, and just shiny things or things that we enjoy as we're seeking dopamine because our dopamine receptor is a little bit fried or not making enough.
00:35:38
Speaker
and then as you're clear you still relate to like the whole goblin thing as you know
00:35:43
Speaker
There's a joke amongst trans women of just being a goblin girl, you know, being a little bit messy, being impulsive, all of these things. So I think Kiki is, why not, may not be coded or exactly this. It just happened, just happens to be at the eye of a storm of neurodivergence and freedom that just happened to compel a lot of magic players throughout the years. And he still does lie his play patterns and just two years and within magic and the war.
00:36:12
Speaker
There's a lot of good resonance there, just familiarity, even if it's – whether it was intentional or not. Exactly. I'm not trying to get too far out there. It is making me think of that idea of – within this specific version of goblins and specifically with Kiki is seeking out the same.
00:36:35
Speaker
Like it just is like finding your, it's finding your own goblin clan instead of being born into it, which is something that, you know, just within the magic community in general, I've seen a lot more discussion of found family. And I think that really within kind of the queer community, that has always been an important element.
00:36:55
Speaker
Oh, it most certainly has. Oh, if you read any queer theory, there's so many things that have found family and like, even to the point where one of the most common things of likeness within a queer is known as a tribe.
Kiki's Cultural Significance & Magic Art
00:37:09
Speaker
That line about wanting to just make a lot more Kiki's it makes this stand out even more to me just it is because it's similar goblins like they're they are goblins with similar backgrounds and histories.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and in the residency, like that is one of the great things about fiction too. I mean, it's obviously it's great to have, you know, overt representation. It's very important as well. But just any stories where you can see yourself, any stories where you can feel some connection or games or anything,
00:37:41
Speaker
That's why art is so important. That's why art is so good and it just is important to cultural development and individuals development within cultures and their own lives and things. That's why people have been making art for so long. We still find cave drawings and carvings and things going back longer than we have history.
00:38:06
Speaker
that you know records that we understand that what people were doing or exactly how they were living then art is what gives us early art is what gives us some of our best glimpses of how those people lived because that's what's what we have left they were making art at that time of their experiences and what they were doing in their lives
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah art is definitely one of those things like as you're saying where if it's explicitly there or it's subtly there what matters ultimately is it's there and people find it and they resonate with it.
00:38:39
Speaker
The idea is that once it even leaves the creator's hand, we don't know what was intended. We could try to find out. We could. We've talked about that. Is there any elements of this that the original creator of Kiki and the storyline was thinking of? It doesn't matter at this point.
00:38:57
Speaker
I mean, there's intent and things can be interesting, it can be helpful or can be, but they are definitely not the entire picture. And like you say, once it leaves, it leaves that it's in the community's hands and what the community finds, that's real too. Like that's, to be honest, that's more real than intent. There can be stuff there, but what the community gets out of it, that's the realest part of the art. That's the realest
00:39:24
Speaker
realization of it. I'm using the same word over and over again, and I'm starting to feel like it's losing meaning, but I hope my intention is coming through to be ironic or something on accident. Yeah. You talk your way through that one, Alex. You did a well. You did a good job. I'm very proud of you. Sometimes I don't know how to get through something, so I throw words at it and hope that it makes sense. Sometimes it's all you got to do is just throw enough words at something and hope you have something salvageable. Right, right.
00:39:52
Speaker
or hope the other person just thinks that you do, and then you can just play it off. Yeah, as long as people think you know what you're talking about, that's really how it matters. Yup, absolutely.
00:40:05
Speaker
So the biggest things kind of for me, I was looking at the actionable advice. We didn't really come up with anything specific. On the show, we sometimes like to think about it. With this topic, the thing I keep coming back to is the mirror, especially for this autism piece of it. And I work with
00:40:23
Speaker
I work with people, people I tend to work with are people with schizophrenia. And this is another element that does pop up kind of when it comes to social skills and trying to learn how to mimic them more so than actually kind of experiencing them is, you know, like, I think it's an overlap that I've seen. And I've had this, like discussion with kind of the, with the autism and schizophrenia kind of realm, there's some, there's some, there's some similar pieces of neurodivergence. And it gets talked about actually, with
00:40:52
Speaker
should schizophrenia be considered a neurocognitive disorder. So the mirror and the continual returning to that imagery in this story is still just something that is so, like I said, it's resonant, even if it wasn't meant to be for me, as I was reading through it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because, you know, like, a mirror has always been used as some sort of symbolism, even with, you know, like directly reflecting something,
00:41:22
Speaker
or as we see mirrors through folklore and writing where mirrors used to be like processed silver onto glass to reflect or mercury which was quickly not used or as we see like with Moloku and the Satami where they're freezing water or so you know Kiki thinks and doing all of these things that are just very very unique to the symbolism
00:41:52
Speaker
and all of the worlds with like, what is a mirror? How does a mirror work? What does a mirror symbolize? Well, the mirror symbolizes you. It symbolizes what a mirror would symbolize, whatever is in front of it. So Kiki seeing himself interacting with himself is mirroring. And we see that with autistic children where they'll mirror their playmates, their siblings, cousins, where they're just doing the things that kids do,
00:42:21
Speaker
But they do it better when they have someone there to copy because it just helps them. It's interesting when you're talking about that because at one point Kiki finally comes across that kind of that final mirror where it is a solitary one.
00:42:37
Speaker
And even kind of says, now this was a proper mirror. Like that is kind of the imagery that's used in the book versus when he saw himself splintered, you know, and that's the imagery that we get on the Return to Kamagawa with the saga is really that splintered view where it's all of the reflections, which is kind of when Kiki first sees himself in like 50 different ways.
00:43:00
Speaker
The final one is a single solitary and it's like goes into the fact of trying to say, you know, like in this frame Kiki's reflection looks pretty damn good, you know it Except there is that one thing like like the interesting part with the magical is that there the the pearls not there and in his hands but you know, it was this idea that like this was a mirror now versus this like fractured identity that Kiki got in the Hall of Mirrors and
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So with like, specifically the fable of the mayor breaker, we follow the story as like, what is the difference between Neon Dynasty and the original block like one to 2000 years? Yeah, I think that's about right. Yeah. So we see the like degradation of Kiki's story with that because
00:43:51
Speaker
It's been told over and over, and mirrored, and told, and lost, and reflected, and seen again, and we see Kiki within the art of where it is fractured, where he seems himself reflected after he has cracked the mirror. So he has assaulted his own image.
00:44:12
Speaker
either because it was mocking him or he didn't like it or because he was given duress by the reflection. It doesn't matter the causes of what became the breaking of the mirror, but it matters that the mirror was broken by the mirror breaker.
00:44:32
Speaker
This is the idea of this episode even was to take this. I mean, that was my initial thought when, you know, I'd talked to both you and Mab kind of separately about doing a Kiki episode. And right like to me the entire time, I just kept thinking about this fact that we're talking about reflections and having different perspectives on even the same story and even people from similar communities or from some of the same communities.
00:44:58
Speaker
To get that is, you know, I want to thank you so much because this was like such an important for me. Absolutely. Like series or a part two part to do. We had never done like, well, we've returned to characters, but that's to look at them completely different, not from like different, same, same different people's lenses. They've been Alex and I's lenses with different purposes to them versus Kiki, which seemed to be just like a much bigger,
00:45:25
Speaker
I don't know this this is more story as you were kind of even say this is more lore than we get for like squee like let's be honest here like yeah like what's sweet doing who knows he's probably on a boat in the air oh he can't die that's sweet and he has like five to six paragraphs of good paragraphs
00:45:42
Speaker
Not only describing who he is, but describing his family, Aki's social structures, his interaction with a dragon, his deep personal feelings of how the dragon interacts with him, his fear of being inside of Maloku's castle. Yeah, just all these things. It's like, why is there so much specifically for Kiki?
00:46:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's nice to see at least some goblin. It's a thing we tried to start early on with this cast was to do goblin profiles. We admittedly missed a little while. We kind of fell off it and forgot. It took a while for us to get back to them. But as we've been trying to get back to these goblin profiles, it's been tough because so many goblins have very little story. Well, and we have to overcome my continual
00:46:37
Speaker
beliefs that the two that I want to do, well, we've done, but would be to return to talk about Cranko, who got done dirty, and Squee, who continually has been done dirty, enough so that they had to reprint the art of his lifeless body in Double Masters, in Phyrexian Tyranny, being killed over and over again. That's what Squee was. Sorry. It just popped back up into my mind that this was reprinted.
00:47:07
Speaker
But put that aside for now. Thank you so much for coming to talk about Kiki. This is great that we got to do this and a very different way too. I've really appreciated finding different ways to approach similar topics like this. And I love this mirror episode sort of thing with Kiki. And so it's
00:47:31
Speaker
Whenever we're able to find a good way to do a goblin profile makes me happy, but this one even more so than others recently because this was a really great way to approach for us to, for Cobbs and I to learn about a community that we haven't really been a part of. And so we get to hear your experiences, two different people's experiences within this community speaking about this topic.
00:47:55
Speaker
But then also, we get a nice Catholic profile out of it. We get to represent more legendary goblins as well. Exactly. I just love Kiki. He's so great. The story is just there.
00:48:10
Speaker
the mechanic is there, the play patterns is there. The art is there. Oh my gosh, the two different arts for Kiki just as the mirror breaker. Yeah. And the showcase art and the normal art for this table of mirror breaker. Yeah, the saga. All of that art is so well done.
00:48:32
Speaker
Okay, so no, I'm just putting this together because I knew what Kiki's original art was and all this and I just never put it together. Now it's taken two full episodes about Iggy Iggy for me to realize why his original art had a dragon in the picture.
Final Thoughts & Community Acknowledgments
00:48:48
Speaker
What he is is like that's not even Kaiga.
00:48:53
Speaker
No, you're right. Oh, you're right. That's just some random dragon. What's going on? That's just some random dragon. So what it is, I believe, because I read the artist notes on it, because there's also a Kiki sculpture that you can buy because I've annotated one. So I know about it. Is that Kiki, the artist was talking about how Kiki is reflecting like the magic of dragons because
00:49:22
Speaker
there's dragons and they have magic inherently within Kamigawa. So there's just, that's just part of it is that Kiki is just doing his thing. And the reason why there's a dragon is because he's supposed to be taking his mirror magic and reflecting Kaiga within his magic. Okay. So Alex, you want one more before we then leave?
00:49:49
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. The Howard Leone art from Modern Horizons 2 for Imperial Recruiter, calling a creature with power two or less into the to put in your hand is is basically very strongly implied to be Kiki is who the Imperial Recruiter is going to grab. Yes, yes, because he's even having a similar pose as Kiki and like art has like a same like flow. Yeah.
00:50:18
Speaker
That's why I have that copy. That's what I was just gonna say. The other is like this fireball and you have this Aki shadow silhouette in the background. Yeah. Yeah, look at that. That's really cool. And now Kiki has come full mirror circle.
00:50:40
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HopsQ can be found at HopsQ, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel underscore comical. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinmoorpod on Twitter, or email us at goblinmoorpodcast at email dot com. If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gospel, the cast can be found at patreon dot com slash goblinmoorpod.
00:51:05
Speaker
Opening and closing music by Vindergotten, who can be found on Twitter at Vindergotten, or online at vindergotten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raffaele, who can be found on Twitter at Steve Raffaele. Babylon Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content, as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmtg, or online at hipstersofthecoast.com.
00:51:35
Speaker
Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.