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Episode 101: Niko and Queerness
117 Plays5 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast! We are now on the other side of our 100th episode and ready to bring all new content. This episode is a collaboration with our friend Meghan (aka Sheepwave) and an exploration of Niko, a Non-Binary Planeswalker that shows up on Kaldheim. This episode uses the discussions found on the mother ship (as well as this tweet thread) to explore this character and why their identity is important for representation within the game. Meghan also discusses her relationship with Alesha, the fantastic short store The Truth of Names, and what brought her back to Magic after a break when she was younger.
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!
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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: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- 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 or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
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 c
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Transcript
Introduction of Megan (Sheepwave) and her diverse Magic art
00:00:29
Speaker
Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. Today we have a wonderful guest here to talk about Nico, Keldheim, and queerness and magic. Megan, normally we'd have an opening question, but since this is the first time you've been on the show, can you introduce yourself? Tell our listeners where to find you on the internet and what you do. Hi, I am Megan. I go by sheep wave generally. I am an artist and general opinion haver about magic and also a little bit of other things.
00:01:00
Speaker
Um, I am probably most known for the fact that I am constantly illustrating my own alternate art and card frames and posting those on my Twitter, which is, you can find with Sheepwave, just searching Sheepwave.
00:01:16
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I love putting unique spins and seeing my sort of sense of humor or sense of styles or people that look like me on magic cards, which definitely leads into what we were talking about.
00:01:31
Speaker
And I will say too, if people haven't had a chance to check it out, the altars that you make, well, the proxies that you make are beautiful. I have some that I've been fortunate enough to get. And then also you've taken some of your amazing designs with goblins. So for all of you listening to this right now,
00:01:48
Speaker
Megan does an amazing series of goblin art, and you can actually purchase in her store, which is through Redbubble.
Host introductions and excitement for topic discussion
00:01:56
Speaker
There are a bunch of designs, and you can get everything from magnets to stickers to shirts. I actually, if you go on to, oh, this is Hobbs, by the way. I guess I should do a mini introduction. You can find me online at Hobbs Q. If you look at my Twitter feed right now, you'll actually see my avatar is art from Megan of goblins, and it is a goblin podcaster.
00:02:17
Speaker
And I ordered a magnet for Gwen to put on her little mini fridge magnets that we made, stickers, sweatshirts. I mean, her work is absolutely phenomenal. And so I just wanted to throw that plug in there straight up as kind of a, this is an endorsement that is personal and I've actually seen the stuff I can comment on it without just, yeah, so. Yeah. And just to quickly get my intro out of the way, this is Alex found on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler.
00:02:47
Speaker
So Megan actually approached kind of us with an
What intrigued the hosts about Kaldheim's Nico?
00:02:51
Speaker
idea. You know, her and I had been talking over the summer about potentially having her on the show. And we were throwing around some episode ideas. We were uncertain. We knew that we wanted to collaborate with her. We weren't sure what that was going to look like. And then kind of everything has been happening. Our schedules have gotten so far off.
00:03:08
Speaker
Recently, her and I talked again, and she kind of said, hey, I still want to be on the show. And I kind of said, well, do we have an idea? What would you like to talk about? And she pitched this episode idea to us. And it is a topic that we had wanted to cover for quite a while. And just wanting to have kind of a guest that would be very appropriate for it, knowing that this may not be the area that Alex and I have as much kind of
00:03:35
Speaker
direct real-world experience with. So, Megan, do you want to kind of talk about what you proposed or just what we're going to talk about today?
Nico's significance as Magic's first visibly queer character
00:03:43
Speaker
So, what interests me to talk about is, specifically, Kaldheim has a character in it who has very much been front and center of the way that they've been advertising Kaldheim.
00:03:59
Speaker
who is a non-binary, a non-binary planeswalker. They are not the first non-binary character in magic, but this is the first time that any character has been visibly queer in magic.
00:04:16
Speaker
Excluding some cases where a card had some goblin looking longingly at captivating crew or whatever. This is the first real face character that you look at them and you know exactly who they are.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we would talk, you know, like we have the, um, the, the, the group hug here, no sin, um, that are like two, two men on a card together. We know that we talked about this before we had the partners from the trapping partners from Innistrad, but they weren't really faces. They were kind of there. They were, they were on the art. They were a card. We kind of had a little bit, but they were not, that wasn't there.
00:04:58
Speaker
just identity and there wasn't the story or like you said, the marketing or the face behind them.
Past queer representations in Magic and Nico's impact
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah. K and T are, we're, we're close. Like you, you could with, I believe the guardians of mellitus was in their deck, but you still don't look at them and know exactly the full story. You kind of do, but
00:05:19
Speaker
Yeah, that was also I don't remember how many I was trying to stealthy look up what year that came in. That was that was many years ago. And, you know, we have come a long way and it hadn't really been reflected as much. There are still a single digit queer, legendary characters and magic. Mm hmm.
00:05:42
Speaker
or, you know, legendary meaning creatures, I suppose. And then I'm going to count Nico as well. Well, and a little bit to do, you know, like the novels we do not talk about on here, but, you know, we have a relationship of Raoul with, with my brain just went blank. But when they were, War of the Spark was something that we try not to talk about. But in War of the Spark we got Tomic, which is very sweet.
00:06:11
Speaker
But still, you know, we are talking very small numbers in general. And I think it's good that there's kind of been a mix of visible... Well, no, there hasn't been a mix. There's only been, incidentally, queer characters, which is a good form of representation to just know, like, these are characters that are not special for this being a part of them. They're just present in this universe and, you know, living.
00:06:39
Speaker
Just happens to be a part of this spectrum of humanity. And so these people are part of that But Nico, you know Nico kind of Nico would was presented I mean, I remember when I saw the the spoiler for Nico and saw kind of just a blurb I was struck initially I just saw the pronoun they and I said whoa Okay, I need to step back like is was this intentional
Nico's defiance of fate and unique character development
00:07:01
Speaker
right? Like okay is this we have kind of the
00:07:05
Speaker
We've had, I'm just thinking with like Ashiok, a lot of people had, there had been questions about non-binary and what pronoun. Ashiok was definitely interesting. I don't believe that they ever intended Ashiok to be queer. No. I believe they intended Ashiok to be.
00:07:23
Speaker
like unknowable like the original right if you read it now the original story they appeared is really funny and just how it dances around pronouns it like it like it it it's it's like there was a story guide that they that they sort of released like wizards that said specifically ashiyaki doesn't have pronouns early on
00:07:47
Speaker
So then trying to talk about it in a story makes it very difficult. Yeah, and it's definitely, you know, part of the queer experience is not being sure if you like or not the fact that so much of your representation is in aliens and robots and monsters. Like on one hand, it's like, yeah, I love aliens, robots and monsters. And on the other hand, but I'm a human. Like I kind of want to see humans that are like me.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, and part of why Nico is so important. Yeah. Now, I am not – I would not say I identify as non-binary specifically. I am a trans woman.
00:08:30
Speaker
you know, roughly more or less, any queer person will tell you that like, there's always an asterisk and there's a full story, yada, yada. But yeah, so I, I have, I have a great, I obviously, I have great kinship with the people for whom, um, Nico directly represents. I have, I have friends who look pretty much exactly like Nico does. Like any, any, any queer person either is Nico, knows Nico or both.
00:09:01
Speaker
So with looking at Nikko, I want to kind of talk a little bit about, and I will post this in the show notes, but there is actually an article about the creation of Nikko kind of discussing. I think it was a feature article on Wizards to recognize the fact that people were going to have these questions and they wanted to talk about who Nikko was, give Nikko backstory, not just drop Nikko into Kaldheim.
00:09:27
Speaker
And if I recall, like that was the day their card was previewed too, was they pull this feature up. So they, they want it to be front forward with that message. Yep. Um, yeah, I think, let's see. Where is the, I'm just, I'm just pulling the article up myself. Yeah. It's.
00:09:50
Speaker
When I read that article, it was, it was really nice. Um, something that I noticed as I was doing research on not this, but an unrelated thing I'm working on is that Nico is
Non-binary and trans voices behind Nico's creation
00:10:01
Speaker
the fool. I liked that tease. That's a good, yeah. Yeah. There's a reason Nico was on my mind, but, um, I mean, I've also done a Nico card that was, that was very, very fun to do, but, um,
00:10:15
Speaker
Basically, every step of the way for Nico's development has been non-binary and trans people. I know for a fact, let me see, where is that article? So Chris Mooney, one of the people who is in the article about creating Nico, when I put out a tweet saying,
00:10:45
Speaker
that I actually greatly appreciate that this character that they're throwing on their promoted tweets is visibly queer and that that really means something. One of the designers actually responded to me by saying that during the design process, they talked about that a lot. And Chris Mooney, as a non-binary person who is very male presenting, they had actually favored some of the more subtle designs, but they decided that they wanted to be very loud and make it very clear.
00:11:14
Speaker
Because, you know, people seeing people like themselves is very important. One of one of the other things that that I is not as much like something I can speak to, but the other face of tell time is is a young black woman who is of that is the kind of person that magic does not see as much of. And it's really nice that these two people are who they've decided they want to advertise based on like for a company.
00:11:42
Speaker
It doesn't mean much until they put money behind it. And that, you know, while I'm not one to take validation specifically from, you know, capitalism, it does mean a lot.
00:11:55
Speaker
To say that this is profitable, I mean, we always kind of talk about this that sometimes because we live in a capitalistic society, when you see the needle move towards something like this, it is because a company believes that they are not going to lose money off of doing it. I mean, that's just the basic way to put this is companies do this, but unfortunately, fortunately, however we want to talk about it, when they know that this is going to be in their best interest.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, and and is a very short aside about the podcast too, like we've mentioned in the past, we've kind of taken a steps away from talking about the story simply because we didn't really like the directions that was happening and things that were going on there. But these are small, but very positive steps that wizard is taking the other direction. So I'm hopeful that they continue in this, this trajectory. And this can be a thing that we start to involve in the cast more often.
00:12:49
Speaker
On a related note, something that I wanted to touch on just as we get started, when we look at the actual story of Nikko, I think that this is something that has come up on the podcast a lot is we always talk about trauma and we talk about that experience and how in the past Wizards has really relied on, and at most a lot of literature relies on the trauma narrative. Oh, yeah. This is great to me because Nikko does not.
00:13:15
Speaker
Nikko is Nikko actually so if we want to just talk briefly about the story Nikko's is originally from Theros an Oracle foresaw a great future for Nikko is kind of a Athlete too. This is the other part. That's really good Lorelei so Lorelei writes has a thread on this that I will also link that talks a little bit about Kind of being almost like the college athlete. They're very much
00:13:42
Speaker
it kind of that was what they were almost believed to be like a destiny element. Well, Nico decided to challenge fate and in some ways that the gods lost the competition purposefully. And the realization that they could control their own fate is what set Nico on their pathway, which ended up being, you know, kind of they're being pursued by Clothis and, um,
00:14:06
Speaker
My mind's going to go blank, but no, yeah, I was closest and closest agents. And one of the people that they were going to confront was Nico because Nico had dared to defy them in the competition. And it was during that that Nico spark ignited. It said a minute moment of fear, which I'm going to just ignore that because I wish they would have left it out. But it is rebellion. Nico actually sparked in a very different way and also sparked by choosing a pathway for themselves.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yeah. And I also like that the story, well, it's not in the game itself. But so we talked about how the game is a combat focused thing. So we tend to only see combat. But I do like that their story involves sporting events. It's obviously that's not showing up in the game itself. But it's nice that they're kind of building that world out and that there's more than just people hitting each other going on in this universe.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's, um, it is also interesting that their Kyle time story kind of focuses on them as not being very combat oriented. And like, is it is more focused on this idea of them exploring this world. Obviously, for many, for many, you know, trans and non binary people, the
00:15:29
Speaker
The idea of feeling like you're defying destiny or whatever is pretty resonant, but I like that nowhere did they say that the destiny that Nikko defied was by being who they are. Right. It wasn't about Nikko's deciding that they were non-binary. That's not what led to the discovery.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, I like that, especially as it contrasts with the other big, big, big queer, non-binary trans character in Magic.
00:16:08
Speaker
So let's jump over to the other character because the other character I believe, so one of the people who was also involved besides Chris Mooney in that article on Nico was Alison Steele, who is a trans woman. And in that article on Nico, she talks about kind of wanting to step back and know that she had maybe a Jason experience. You know, it's not the same lived experience as being non-binary. She was able to kind of pull on her experience from
00:16:37
Speaker
you know, being trans, but she wanted to listen to the non-binary folks in the room. What themes were especially important for them with their gendered experience or what it was.
Alesha's impactful trans representation in Magic
00:16:49
Speaker
She also then talks about the fact that she was involved with this other character that we're going to talk about, which comes from, you know, many years ago and was kind of one of our first. I mean, it was our first experience, I think, with a canonically trans character, which is Alesha.
00:17:08
Speaker
And, uh, you know, I'll just, I'll just say Alison Steele. Um, I just, I just opened her Twitter and what, you know, one of the things that you just tweeted about is her excitement that, uh, on her first pack on arena had Nico in it. And just the feeling of such emotion, um, behind like this finally being a real thing. Um, but yeah, so to talk about Alesha, Alesha is like.
00:17:37
Speaker
If there is any one piece of story that has probably changed more for the community as a whole, I think it is without question the Elesha story. The truth of names is the most influential piece of the magic lore that exists. Like when it comes to the effects on the real world. When was the truth of names published? Let me see.
00:18:04
Speaker
2015. So we're going on six years ago that it actually – wow. It was actually January 28th, and it was written by James Wyatt for people that they want to check out. And I will link this also in our show notes for today. The 2015 was a different time, and to be honest, I think
00:18:29
Speaker
Alesha was probably really hard to sell at the time. This story, The Truth of Names, is one of the reasons that I got brought back into Magic, which is obviously the reason it's the most influential, because me personally, I have changed so much. Jokes aside though,
00:18:55
Speaker
I know that that is the case for a lot of trans people who like, so my own story is that when I was much younger, like 11 to 15, um, I was very interested in magic and I fell off of it after a really bad experience at a event, but you know, I didn't, the reason I fell off of it was a feeling of it not being safe for me.
00:19:23
Speaker
that the community was not one that I would be able to be present in. And the combination of that story, which
00:19:37
Speaker
really, really resonates with so many trans people. It's not like a lot of these other queer characters we mentioned where they are just kind of a character that is there, and they happen to be queer. Alesha being trans is deeply interwoven with her entire story, and the entire story of A Truth of Names is her asserting her right to determine who she is,
00:20:05
Speaker
and someone questioning and then accepting her. Yeah, so basically she is fighting and part of this is you get the decision to, you know, you have to kind of like prove yourself in battle to get your name, which is kind of your war name. I think this whole story is an analogy or is meant to be that setup. She gets questioned by one of the orcs that is part of the Mardu clan who basically says that she is a,
00:20:34
Speaker
human boy posing who thinks that he is a woman. I mean, all of the gendering and everything is going on from this orc, like, during this battle. And what she does, I mean, she's like, Elesha, basically,
00:20:49
Speaker
Wins the right to name herself and she's like she basically is like killed a dragon. She's standing there covered in blood the the the Mardu are around her and she just you know, she comes to them and she just is trying to come up with a name in some ways kind of what is she going to choose and She chooses her grandmother's name
00:21:09
Speaker
There's the name that came her grandmother. I will point out that you are, you are mixing up two parts of the story there. Oh, shoot. Sorry. It is, it is actually the present of the story is that she's already, she is already the leader of the Mardu. And one of her, one of her lieutenants or whatever, like underlings questions.
00:21:34
Speaker
her and backs up this by challenging her in what we would call in our society as a transphobic attack. But I'm not going to call it that for this situation because it's not really a clear one-to-one analogy. But she basically just kicks ass and is like, no. Anyway.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah, sorry. So yeah, they're switching back and forth in time on this. It's split between her memory of choosing her name and this battle with Colgan's, or is it Colgan? Yeah, Colgan's brood or whatever. But yeah, that that story, this idea of
00:22:21
Speaker
proving yourself, self-determination, obviously that has some parallels with Nico, though Nico's story does not in any way consider their personal identity to be up for debate. And I'm not criticizing the Elesha story for the fact that it does pose that, because I think that the fact that it does that is the reason that it resonates so well, is that that is
00:22:47
Speaker
Like, you've kind of got to mix it, in my opinion, between these joyful stories where things are at their best possible and stories where it talks about the bad side of things. One of the interesting things about Nico's story is that they're not even the only non-binary person present in the story.
00:23:12
Speaker
One of the captains that they use goes by, I believe it's Z. It's the X-E pronoun, which I cannot remember off the top of my head if it is pronounced Zay. I'm going to assume Zay. And also, that story was also written by a non-binary person. So yeah, it is nice to see all these elements coming together on this character.
00:23:42
Speaker
So you, you mentioned, you know, when we were talking before this, cause you and I were, we're talking to say a little bit back and forth, kind of planning for the show and talking about Alisha, you know, you mentioned that you left the game and you left the game, especially after feeling kind of not safe, especially at events, right? Is this was kind of your experience when you were younger and very into the game. You mentioned to me that Alisha was actually one of the things that really pushed you coming back. Mm-hmm.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, I had recently undergone a lot of life changes. Like a lot of life changes.
00:24:28
Speaker
I was on some discord and talking about, I was just reminiscing about Magic the Gathering. I still had a deep fondness for it. The reason I do alter art now is because I did this lightning bolt t-shirt design.
00:24:46
Speaker
And I was just talking about that lightning bolt design, and someone on this Discord mentioned that there actually was a trans character in Magic, and I, as someone who had such a negative experience associated with that being a part of who I was, was very surprised and intrigued.
00:25:02
Speaker
And it really sucked me back in, reading the articles online. I also, after reading the truth of names, heard that Chandra, I quit at around the time of Laura, and so I knew who Chandra was, though I did not have a fond recollection of the concept of planeswalkers. I mean, yeah, let's just say that
00:25:30
Speaker
I mean, that's carried over for a lot of people. So that's fine. I feel much. I obviously I feel much better about them now than I did at the time when they were. It was this new thing. You had to track a number that wasn't even like physically on the card. What is this? What are these effects of plus and a minus? What is this?
00:25:51
Speaker
This isn't magic, anyway. This is gonna kill magic, for sure. Anyway, so hearing that Chandra and Nissa had this thing as well, like, I basically just went down this rabbit hole this one night, and I inhaled the story articles on the mothership.
00:26:12
Speaker
And being able to see so much of myself represented in these characters in a way I never had. There had been a time when I was kind of invested in the story, but that was in the Time Spiral novels, the Kamigawa novels. Those were cool.
00:26:34
Speaker
but they didn't, I didn't see myself in them the same way that I was able to see myself in the characters like Alasha, Nessa, Chandra, and to some extent, Yeheni, who I will. Again, the teaser. Again with the teaser of a thing that I've already- We need to go follow Megan, we need to go, everybody, go follow Megan because there's gonna be more to come. Yeah, I won't go in too deep on Yeheni, because I, you know, I'm literally working on a
00:27:04
Speaker
thesis-length script on that one, but... I want to mention just briefly kind of what you were saying a little bit about this idea of just representation, you know, and we talked a little bit about that kind of thing at the start, where it was just kind of characters on cards, or with Alesha even, I would say, you had to be involved with the story to know this. Like, you weren't going to necessarily know if you were somebody that's not a lore-based person and maybe are only consuming things off of cards themselves.
00:27:34
Speaker
it wouldn't necessarily be something that would even be considered. This was extra stuff that you had to be following. You had to be engaged. You had to be almost an entrenched person or hear about it from other entrenched people to learn about this piece of Elesha. It's not like it was on the card clearly standing out. I do think that there's a difference with Niko and the appearance of Niko that does, as you kind of said, scream queerness in a different way.
00:28:05
Speaker
The chapter which shall not be named from the book that shall not be named was a thing that was only able to happen because Chandra's queerness was not an embedded part of her. Nico has queerness as an embedded part of their character. And while they could just never have another card again, maybe, I don't know.
00:28:34
Speaker
It's not, I think I'm one of many people who felt very burned by Chandra, more or less being retconned. And, you know, this is kind of a money where, where their mouth is situation where that's not an option with this character and.
00:28:54
Speaker
They did commit resources and they did commit to making a whole bunch of people real mad about the politics in my card games by having this person exist in it.
Shift towards genuine queer representation with Nico
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah, apparently existence is political. That's what I've learned lately. Listen, if you're trans, you get used to that one.
00:29:16
Speaker
I mean it is, right? It's that idea that just examples – and this is – we've had this with some of our guests. I think we mentioned this kind of with talking with both Elia the Veil and with Daquan about kind of that idea that seeing yourself on a card. And I think you brought this up earlier.
00:29:34
Speaker
I believe Daquan was the one who mentioned this, and Alex, correct me if I'm wrong, that he talked about the representation being the other in a race, or being a robot, or being, like you said, it's not being necessarily a human. Yeah, because that was some question, and I can't remember how exactly it was worded what the question was, but it was about cough, and Daquan was saying that.
00:29:58
Speaker
Right. Like, it's like, it's unclear also caught this not human. It's not the same as the representation that you get from scene. Like an actual human. Yeah.
00:30:08
Speaker
I mean, and that's something I brought up from when we were going through our commander legends, because they had the two big articles with all the legends from commander legends. And there was actually one of those legends just had they, them as their pronouns. And that was right after Nico, this whole feature article came out for Nico, which was really cool to see that. I think it was actually before the article for Nico. It was right before... Oh, sorry. We were recording it right after that.
00:30:43
Speaker
But it was. It was in there. That was kind of almost a preview that we remember we talked about that. There was the pronouns listed, and it was just kind of there. That same article, though, had the absolutely hysterical decision to describe Helena and Alana as partners in hunting and life or something. And life. Yep, it did. It was the most…
00:31:06
Speaker
Timelines don't exist when it comes to podcasts.
00:31:11
Speaker
BS description I've ever seen. We get it. But then I saw that and I was like, well, that's as far as they're willing to push it. I guess I know the answer to how far they're willing to go. It felt like they were willing to indirectly suggest that queer people existed in this universe, but that maybe people love blaming China for this stuff, which
00:31:38
Speaker
I don't think that is true. I think that the real people that companies are usually scared of is American and British bigots in particular.
00:31:50
Speaker
Um, because as it turns out, they can just block the story articles in China if they want to. Right. That's what they did. And now we get to have Nico and, um, and, uh, I, I forget the name stone back going on an adventure where you've got two non-binary characters traversing realms on on the, like in the, I guess it was technically a side story, but like the main story for magic.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I wonder, I don't know. I don't know a lot about all the things surrounding it, but I wonder if they were just trying to, you know, nod and wink at the fact that those two had partner and it's like, okay, but just say it sometimes. There is a joke to be made here that the fact that they don't have partner with just means that they're in an open relationship. That's amazing. They're definitely a policy tool.
00:32:44
Speaker
I haven't unfinished alter this just the two of them and in like a nightclub like eyeing up like Thrasios and Timna and I love it. I'm trying to like find the right like experimental frenzy exploration like there's there's so many good I should really finish that altar. It's been sitting in my to finish
00:33:06
Speaker
We actually did comment on our, when we did the Commander Legends, that it was kind of ironic they didn't have partner with, because it had been, but they wanted it for Commander Legends. We talked about this from the Melvin instead of the Vorthos, kind of the mechanical piece, that it's kind of, you know, it would have been funny to have them only partner with.
00:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, they wanted to have the opening for... It would have made them useless and limited though, so I think the idea that they're in an open relationship is the much funnier... And honestly, if you're a queer person, half your friends are some form of poly anyway, so... I was gonna say, the joke I always see is the polycules that exist, especially among queer women, more so I see it, but yes.
00:33:53
Speaker
So, you know, you're talking a little bit, Megan, about the fact that Elesha kind of brought you back to the game during that time, too, though. Since then, we have seen just frustrating situations after frustrating situations.
External influence on Magic's queer narratives
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah, Elesha was a high point and then there was a low point. I know people like blaming a specific story manager getting hired, but I don't think it's that simple.
00:34:16
Speaker
I mean what we could talk about a little bit is it was hiring an external story team in general because there had been I think world building by people like Allison and Chris that we have that were working on these characters that had been planting the seeds and I think pushing a little bit what they could and then Wizards decided to basically go external for story for a while.
00:34:42
Speaker
It's also interesting because like, some of, like I know, um, the, the, what was it? Wildrid quest had like, like lots of, well, I mean, it had, it had, there, there is, there is a whole other thing to talk about, which is the fact that a lot of, a lot of magic characters that were not specifically canonically queer have very queer readings that like,
00:35:09
Speaker
You know, like, put a bunch of queer magic fans in a room and throw a planeswalker at us, and we will have some, some of the, like, some of them like Jason Oko in particular, this isn't one I feel as comfortable talking about because I'm not a trans man, but a lot of trans men have, like, see elements of themselves in both of those characters in different ways.
00:35:33
Speaker
And the fact that they are required to do that says a lot. Like, maybe there shouldn't have just been one trans character in all of Magic's canon for six years, but... And maybe at this point there should be a trans man as well, but, you know, baby steps.
00:35:57
Speaker
I know that when we did the Jason toxic masculinity episode, we did have somebody that approached us because we sought feedback on that episode that talked about a lot with their reading of Jason's A Trans Man, which really does change.
00:36:13
Speaker
The way that this story so it's um, it's at robot rad Uh is the person was sorry at robot underscore rad um on twitter even kind of approached us to talk about this idea that That there has been kind of um
00:36:31
Speaker
this coding of Jace as a trans man, which would change in some ways even the framing of the toxic masculinity discussion that we had. It was a very interesting discussion to kind of go through on Twitter because it was not a reading that I knew about. It was not a reading that I would have personally seen. And so trying to see things from those perspectives really changes readings that we may have on some characters. There is
00:36:57
Speaker
There is a definite separate queer space of sorts that exists on many discords. Several of the Vorthos discords I'm on are actually also just effectively like a queer space, but have never been designated as such because there is a huge bias I have observed, obviously at my perceptions are biased, that I think that a lot of queer magic fans like the story in particular.
00:37:28
Speaker
But there is definitely a certain discussion of things that were never intended. The stuff about Jace in particular as being a trans man, I've seen it many times from many people. I think that it perfectly fits with the character. It wouldn't even be like a retcon exactly.
00:37:52
Speaker
You know, it would definitely complicate things greatly. And I understand why they would not want to just suddenly do that out of the blue, but I don't know. I think it would be neat. I mean, yeah, I mean, this goes back to the whole discussion of Jace and Jace being kind of the face of magic or was the face of magic. And that was a decision that was consciously made at that point. And you probably, I mean, we have a lot of
00:38:21
Speaker
Unfortunately, I think that it is the reading that we have currently we have a lot of the the men that probably identify with Jace being more of potentially that toxic fandom or that that part that It would it would Absolutely tickle me pink to have to see the toxic men in the fandom Have to identify it with a character that had been trans the whole time without. Oh, yeah, that would be hilarious. Oh, yeah but uh Yeah, I you know
00:38:51
Speaker
I think that these steps that they've taken recently mean a lot, and I am very glad that they're doing it. But yeah, there is still further to go that they can definitely go.
Broader acceptance through characters like Nico and Alesha
00:39:04
Speaker
That's kind of, you know, so the structure we kind of normally go through is we've talked a lot about this story and what it kind of has meant, the directions that they've taken, the steps and missteps over the last couple of years. We like to kind of talk about, well, what does this mean? You know, like, what are the actionable steps? What does this mean for the members of the queer community in Magic and also the allies in Magic to be able to see these characters and see this as part of the story, have it be just
00:39:32
Speaker
… not need an explanation, just be. And so I'm kind of wondering, from your perspective, Megan, even if it's speaking more to the trans experience, what this means for kind of the space that…
00:39:46
Speaker
people that are trans, non-binary have in magic and in the community at large.
Advocacy for pronoun fields on Magic cards
00:39:52
Speaker
The thing that I have been championing for a long time is that legendary characters in Planeswalker cards need a pronoun field. It is bonkers that they still don't have one.
00:40:05
Speaker
And it's not like they've never put random story information in the collector's box before there's like the big story spotlight text that spot could be a pronoun field and then people wouldn't have to ask questions like it it has irked me many a time when I
00:40:23
Speaker
I played my Yeheni or my Ashiok and somebody said he and it's just like like I get like what they mean like I understand what they're trying to say and I understand that most magic players don't even know that Yeheni has does it doesn't go by he
00:40:41
Speaker
Until you mentioned that today... Until you mentioned it today, that was not one of the characters that I knew of, specifically in that space. This is totally unconfirmed speculation on my part, but I believe that Yehenni was actually based on people from the Stonewall Riots because they fit into the Kaladesh theme really well. That is a part of the story that is not even remotely reflected on the card.
00:41:10
Speaker
And it just irks me because I can fit it on a pixel art card. A pixel art card where the text is three times larger than it is on the normal card. I can still fit in. I can still fit in a pronoun field on my altars.
00:41:29
Speaker
I've been doing that on all my legendary characters moving forward just because I want to normalize that. I know I've seen other altruists in the community start to do it as well, which I'm really happy about. In general, the magic community has been pretty receptive to pronoun fields, to toot my own horn a bit. Spell table has a pronoun field. You know that thing that when magic...
00:41:53
Speaker
switched over the account system and you couldn't rename yourself anymore. You know that field where you were able to type in your own name? That was my idea. I'm the one who suggested that. And I'm really happy that either Dev or Devs at Spelltable implemented that pronoun field in like two days after I bitched about it. After I complained about it on Twitter. It was so quick because being as somebody who's been trying to take that lead of people telling me, yes, we want you to put pronouns places.
00:42:23
Speaker
Most of the games I was in when I was streaming with anybody during this time, everybody would put the pronoun field in. It was just kind of a general thing. We didn't do it at the start of today because we got right into the episode. We normally, when doing our introductions, try to include it. And as you said, there has been, I think, a willingness of the Magic community to not... The pushback that we see is the pushback we're always going to see, and it's from a very loud group.
00:42:53
Speaker
And that loud group I don't think is going to be the one that is pushing this game forward. When I suggested the idea,
00:43:03
Speaker
I had a much more radical solution, which was that you literally couldn't not enter something there. Um, it would, it would like default to they them, and then they could pick like, and it would let you pick from a drop down thing that obviously wouldn't work for everyone. But I just thought it would have been really like that would, you know, in the end, it's probably for the best they didn't do that.
00:43:29
Speaker
especially because you know now everyone has a freeform field they can type their name into yes um well but i actually just laugh because like you know the idea when somebody says i don't have pro or like you know why do you need to put pronouns and then you point out like well you have pronouns right like these aren't like mythical things they're not they're not weird like everybody has them you just haven't
00:43:51
Speaker
decided that your pronouns need to be changed or your pronouns are not what you were assigned by your parents or by society.
Pronoun usage and its impact on inclusivity
00:43:59
Speaker
It's definitely been tricky because, and this is something even as a trans person, I'm not perfect at, which is when you're trying to track like a complicated board state, somebody's webcam is kind of fuzzy and you hear a low register voice, it's very easy to default.
00:44:15
Speaker
or you hear a high register voice and it's a trans man that you're playing with. That one, I haven't made that mistake yet, but you know what? It'll happen eventually because mistakes do happen. No, that was before the field existed. Just normalizing being able to exchange that information to have it be present and something that people don't really think about is so important.
00:44:39
Speaker
And I know that for me, when I used to try to move away from the default of just my opponent being a male on MTGO back very early on, I would try to, I would use them like, and I always had used them for an unknown.
00:44:56
Speaker
when it moved to then somebody that is non binary and I have to be tracking that it still is sometimes difficult to get they them or you know, like, I don't know why like I still struggle at times or I slip especially when I'm I think when you're talking about that game state where I'm hearing a voice my I still have these unconscious just assigning based on kind of what I hear. The field helps me it kind of like helps me be at least building track it.
00:45:23
Speaker
It's not weird that people will have difficulty overcoming decades of expectations and speech patterns. The important part, in my opinion, is that you actually put effort in because the effort required to adjust your speech patterns is disproportionately small compared to how much more welcome it makes people feel. I've only
00:45:50
Speaker
I have personally not really been actively misgendered all over Spelltable. Maybe it happened once, but if I see it happen to someone else, it sticks in my head for the rest of the day. It drastically affects the way I behave in the game. I think that for people who are not used to having to fight for their own identity, they don't maybe necessarily realize just how
00:46:21
Speaker
Insulting is maybe not the right word, but it can put you on the defensive and yeah. I will say that, you know, this being kind of trying to make the effort, and I want to say this to people that might be listening to the show that this might be brand new too, or just they're wanting to learn, they're making the effort, it's new.
00:46:45
Speaker
It sticks with me when I misgender somebody even when I am able to correct myself right away or I recognize it. And I think that is part of my personality. I'll fully admit it that it does stick with me because it feels like I disrespected the person. And like you said, insulting even unintentionally, I'm trying to move away from it as much as I can. I mean, I want to lessen the time that it happens and I do recognize it. I'm not going to be perfect with it.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yeah. The most important things for people to try and push themselves to do their best and to be mindful that over apologizing can also make someone feel uncomfortable. If you catch yourself doing it, I'd say apologize once and just move on. It would be my, you know, there's my PSA advice. If you misgender someone by accident, apologize directly
00:47:36
Speaker
And just don't make the mistake again, and you'll probably be fine. But you know, acknowledge that you may, you like if you're in a magic game and you do that, acknowledge that you might suddenly find yourself being chosen to be attacked for what seems like no reason. I'm fine implementing that as an actual general rule. Like that's that's people will learn consequences.
00:48:00
Speaker
I mean, I'll be honest. I once picked who would be the lethal bainfire off of off of how they had twice had a slip on someone else in the game. And I was just like, you know what? You know what? The less you talk, the less likely this happens a third time. So guess who's getting bainfired? I mean, you know, like I'm I'm I'm.
00:48:26
Speaker
I'm exaggerating my real feelings at that moment for comedic effect because I wouldn't say it was vindictive, but... There at least may have been an element of it that even if you didn't even think about it, it could have been there, right? We're obviously talking about this as extremes.
00:48:46
Speaker
Magic players will analyze every part of how they're playing politically, other than how respectful they're being to their opponent. Oh, I better fetch the shock land and not the true duel so I don't seem like I'm moneybags over here.
00:49:08
Speaker
So how is he? I mean, she. Which of these things do you think people are going to notice more? This has been just great. And like I said, I think for me,
00:49:23
Speaker
having you on to talk about what the space means to you. And as you said, not speaking directly to the non-binary experience that may be separate from your own, but what it means to have this level of representation, this level of actual thoughtfulness that went into the development of a character. And once again, a character that has been at the forefront of this set, that is right there, that is a key part of the story and of the marketing,
00:49:54
Speaker
Speaks I think to What a lot of us are hoping to see moving forward to see that maybe you know We know that Wizards makes missteps. We know that correcting missteps takes time We want to see that the effort is happening or me. I'm gonna speak for myself. I'm using we very broadly Me personally need to see that to feel more comfortable in The support that I am giving to this company I
00:50:25
Speaker
There are, there are two.
Megan's pause on Magic support and call for accountability
00:50:28
Speaker
No, there, there, there are three things that I've ever had people just act irrationally angry at me about. And one of them is that I'm a vegetarian and some people hear that and they're like, wow, I'm irrationally angry at you because they think you're judging them. And it's more like, no, no, I don't care. Do whatever the other.
00:50:54
Speaker
is that between Theros pre-release and Niko being spoiled, I did not buy Magic Product once. I also did not buy singles that were in sets currently in Standard and still being allocated. I did not give Wizards any money during that time, not a cent.
00:51:19
Speaker
because I felt like that was when I heard the first rumblings of what would eventually become a full-blown scandal about their racial equality stuff. The LGS that I happened to go to, I'm not sure if it even still exists, just happened to be a hotbed for pro players who live in the New York area. And I heard things, you know,
00:51:46
Speaker
What's the Latin for in wine there is truth? I heard things in under altered states of mind that I 100% believed and then later found out to be 100% true. And I decided that I was going to need to take a break from supporting this company that I was basing so much of my emotional energy on.
00:52:11
Speaker
When, there were a bunch of things that led to me starting to feel comfortable with spending money on wizard stuff again. Part of it was that I saw that they really did make an effort to do better hiring practices. We haven't seen the results of that yet, I think, maybe, it's hard to say. The other was seeing, but seeing,
00:52:37
Speaker
the Kaie and Nico being the faces that they were advertising with on Twitter was what made me realize that there was a genuine desire to change their perception at the very least. And like, I was like, it was depressing being a magic creator who had a personal rule to not buy magic product. Like, I still ended up opening some of it because people were very generous and gifted it to me without me asking.
00:53:07
Speaker
People got irrationally mad at me for that whenever I mentioned it. I realized it was because a lot of people felt like I was judging them because I had made a moral stand. Unlike my vegetarianism, which is for dietary reasons, I was making a moral stand. I think a lot of people knew perhaps that I was in the right for doing so and they were in the wrong.
00:53:38
Speaker
I don't know. With Niko and Kaya being these front-facing characters, I feel better again. I feel like, you know, I'll be honest. I'm letting them off the hook too easy. And I will. It happened to be a very good time to not be buying product. I wasn't able to draft anyway, which would normally be the main way I would spend money on magic.
00:54:04
Speaker
In a pandemic was an easy time, especially when I am a proxy artist who can... I have a stack of manicrips on my desk right now. Certain financial limitations don't exist for me that other people who refuse to use proxies, even in casual formats, they do have those limitations. But yeah, it means a lot.
00:54:26
Speaker
I want to say just real quick to not only having Nico and Kaya, but a lot of Kaldheim.
Kaldheim's diverse portrayal and Norse mythology's inclusivity
00:54:33
Speaker
I think that they were very intentional to have this be a Norse world that would not, uh, uh, not, it would not be aimed at white supremacists. I mean, I'm just going to say that like this was not, this Kaldheim was intentionally.
00:54:54
Speaker
not aimed at that. This was like to say, nope, that is not our Norse world. Our Viking world is not accepting of white supremacy. I think that was another thing that was important to me to see. Which is a pretty good change after it took them so long to remove Invoke Prejudice from Gatherr, which I
00:55:18
Speaker
If people want to believe that it's gather number was a coincidence, go right ahead. I don't. So, yeah, I feel I, as someone who has a background in people who are against those sorts of political movements,
00:55:37
Speaker
I would say we don't need to beat around the bush. Anybody, if you're listening to this and you're surprised right now. I am just avoiding anything that could auto scan the speech patterns and figure out, you know, mark it as certain topics. So yes, I was against a certain pho, shall we say.
00:55:59
Speaker
As someone who has a background in being, you know, involved in adjacent to that, I saw the move to radicalize Kalkheim coming from miles away.
00:56:10
Speaker
In some of the discords that I lurk on alternate accounts to keep an eye on and prevent upcoming attacks on people, I saw at first-hand what was going to happen if Kaldheim had been the thing that these people expected. A fun fact that a lot of people don't know is that white supremacists love Skyrim. They love Skyrim in particular.
00:56:36
Speaker
because it has this fantasy idea that has never existed in real life and also has some questionable choices about who the true villains are. They like to choose specific elements of – yeah.
00:56:55
Speaker
They choose to miss the fact that the Nord name leader is supposed to be a racist idiot being manipulated, but Skyrim is for the Nords. Sure did almost become an unironic dog whistle, and that... Yeah. So yeah, that was always a risk, and I'm really glad that they decided to make the whole set.
00:57:24
Speaker
as gay as the actual Norse history and mythology it's supposed to be based on. And I would say even diverse racially, more so, because I mean, I think the other piece that people want is that it's the white Norse beautiful flowing hair, that Aryan belief that they have, versus the fact that Loki is definitely in no way, shape or form ever just a straight cis person in any way, in any medium.
00:57:53
Speaker
Well, Megan, I want to thank you so much for kind of coming on. I want to give you a chance to be able to tell people where to find you again now that they've heard you just expound
Megan's personalized Magic art and player connection
00:58:03
Speaker
on these. And I know we're going to want to follow you and see your beautiful art. So point them to everything you do where they can support you. If they want to just find everything really easy. Sheepwave.com has links to my everything.
00:58:15
Speaker
It also has a gallery of, I have certain art prints that are available for sale on cards. They don't have any copyrighted material on them. They are not watsy proxies. They are just cards you could play in your decks if you want. I also do art commissions. Something that we briefly talked about earlier was the idea of queer people being able to see themselves in magic. And something I do a lot, it's kind of like my main
00:58:42
Speaker
income is I draw people and print them on card so they can use a character that represents them on their commanders. You did an amazing pitiless plunderer of Sam. Yeah, like that was and it was just that was that actually wasn't intended to be a magic card at all. It just it ended up fitting really well. That's it came out amazing for the the flavor so like for for
00:59:08
Speaker
For a lot of people, you know, what they want to do is they want to push companies to be better representation, but especially the nature of this card game is that we can be our own representation. We can modify our appearances. I think, especially with like all the showcase frames and stuff that people are, are just getting used to now, you know, maybe once upon a time, people would look at like the kinds of decks I use as like, what is this?
00:59:37
Speaker
But now it's just kind of normal. Oh, I don't recognize a single thing in your deck? Wow, those showcases are real weird, huh? I didn't know that secret layer had come out, but OK. So yeah, for commissions and stuff, people can reach out to me on Twitter. But again, sheepwave.com just has all my links to all my sites and all my social media stuff.
01:00:02
Speaker
Like I said, Megan, thank you so much for joining us. And I think this is just starting the conversation. Alex and I behind the scenes have said for a very long time that, you know, our biggest thing that we want to do is collaborate with people whose work we enjoy and people that we think are good ambassadors for communities. And we have wanted to talk about Alesha. We've wanted to talk about queerness and the trans experience and non-binary issues.
01:00:29
Speaker
We just appreciate that you were willing to share your lived experience with us and with our audience. Yeah. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, probably. You'll be back if you want. I would be happy to return to talk about other things. I have this whole series of goofy goblins I can talk about whenever you want.
01:00:53
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HotzQ can be found at HotzQ. And Alex Newman can be found at Mel.com. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinmoorpod on Twitter or email us at goblinmoorpodcast at email.com.
01:01:11
Speaker
If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gospel, the cast can be found at patreon.com. Opening and closing music by Vindergotten, who can be found on twitter at Vindergotten, or online at vindergotten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raffaeo, who can be found on twitter at steve raffle.
01:01:34
Speaker
Goblin 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. Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.