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Episode 17: Tilting like Windmills with Erin Campbell, Part I
112 Plays6 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to the Goblin Lore Podcast!
In our seventeenth episode, Erin Campbell (@OriginalOestrus on Twitter) of the Magic Mics Cast joins the guys to talk about her own experiences in competitive Magic: the Gathering, what it truly means to "tilt", and how emotions are not only not a weakness – they are a strategic and social strength that need to be embraced.
Alex and Joe highlight the contrast between pyromancer-planeswalkers Jaya Ballard and Chandra Nalaar in this episode, and Erin explains how Chandra's own emotional development presents a well-designed blueprint for others' internal journeys.
This is Part I of a two-part series with Erin that will be completed next week, October 5th. Stay tuned for more!
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Remember: we've reached 300 followers on Twitter, so we'll do our next giveaway soon! Keep the word of mouth going; another is up at 400!
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Joe Redemann at @Fyndhorn, Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @AlexanderNewm. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Goblin Lore is proud to be a member of the Geek Therapy Network (on Twitter at @GeekTherapy).
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art courtesy of Greg Staples, design by Joe Redemann.
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Transcript
Interview with Erin Campbell: Emotions and Tilt in Magic
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Goblin Lore. In this episode, we get a chance to talk to Erin Campbell, Queen Supreme of Dredge in all sorts of formats of competitive magic, about her own journey and struggles with emotions and tilt in the game of magic.
00:00:29
Speaker
This is a really compelling topic I think to us because it's that part of Magic the Gathering where not just the story element of the Vorthos can live and exist. We talk about story emotions and how emotions are portrayed in the magic storyline.
00:00:48
Speaker
But we also get a chance to talk about some of the elements of competitive magic and how playing the game does factor into our enjoyment of the game, our feeling of that atmosphere. There can still be frustration, there can still be joy, there can still be sorrow, there can still be surprise.
00:01:05
Speaker
even when we get into story elements.
Holistic Approach to Magic Community
00:01:08
Speaker
And so even though a lot of what we talk about is playing the game of magic and competitive magic, a lot of this does tie into our own perceptions of magic story, of announcements by the creative team. This is part of goblin lore trying to present a holistic approach to
00:01:27
Speaker
the entire community of magic. And aside from that, Erin is an outstanding guest. We actually had to break this up into two episodes. This is part one of two, because Erin had so many people interested in her episode that we have an entire mailbag full of questions for her. So without any further ado, let's get to the show.
Impact of Tilt on Gameplay
00:02:00
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of Goblin Lore. This week we are joined by the legendary dredge queen, Eren Campbell. Eren is joining us to talk about how tilt can affect gameplay and also how overcoming this does not mean losing your passion.
00:02:14
Speaker
We'll also be diving into a discussion about emotions and how they are expressed, along with our typical real-world examples. We actually had talked to Erin about doing this episode back when we saw her at GP Minneapolis, and just with things that have happened recently, especially with the shooting at the Madden tournament, felt that this could be a very timely episode to do. But before we get too deep, I want to give my lovely co-hosts time to introduce themselves, tell our listeners where they can find you on Twitter,
00:02:43
Speaker
and share a character magic lore that exemplifies your current emotional state.
Erin's Personal Connections to Magic Characters
00:02:48
Speaker
So I'm Erin Campbell. You can find me on Twitter at original estrus. That's O-R-I-G-I-N-A-L-O-E-S-T-R-U-S. My Twitter account is protected, so you would have to send me a request to follow. But assuming you're not a creeper and you appear to be a real person, I will probably accept. So definitely go ahead and do that. I do screen. It's the thing I do. So I'd love to have you. You're welcome to my little crazy world.
00:03:09
Speaker
You know, it's funny, if I had to choose a character that exemplifies my current state, you know, I fancied myself a Liliana because of the sultriness and the dead things. But the older I get, the more I realize that I am such a Chandra. And so I would probably say I'm closer to Chandra right now than I'd like to admit. But I'm also really into Virasca's kind of grown in sexy phase that we're seeing in Guilds of Ravnica. So I could be, I'm so here for it. So I could be moving more towards Virasca, but right now I'd say I'm a Chandra.
00:03:39
Speaker
I would say that art that we had spoiled this week for Nebraska was just absolutely amazing. You don't understand. Magali, I can't with her. I can't. I was at work. I was at work. I was on a phone call. I was talking to an investor. I happened to glance over at my phone. I saw that art. I couldn't. You don't understand. I literally like
Admiration for Magic Art and Artists
00:03:58
Speaker
hit my desk. I was like, damn, it's like I just Magali is one of those artists that like when you think when you think it can't get any better than this, like you see the hunt master, you see
00:04:07
Speaker
you know, whatever comes out and you're like, you know, this is it. Maybe she's peaked, you know, maybe maybe. And then Magali is like, hold my beer. And then she comes. And I just that she's literally the definition of I can't even like I look at her art every single time that our P.T.Q. play. Matt, I don't know if you saw that. There was the verasca sitting in the throne of like the stone throne with like the heads. I literally just like clutch my chest because I'm like, how are you like this? I just can't. And so
00:04:33
Speaker
So God bless Magali because she just turns it out every time and I just don't know what to do with myself.
00:04:58
Speaker
I don't have anything to add to this. It's just, it's sleepy.
Identifying with Magic Characters
00:05:02
Speaker
I did find a good card sick and tired too, but I'm not feeling ill.
00:05:08
Speaker
doesn't have any characters on it other than a weird like vomiting goblin. Whoa. Apropos. I'm Alex Newman. I can be phoned on Twitter at Alexander Newem. And right now, I'm thinking Gideon is kind of a character that fits for me a little bit less emotion state. But he and the story is kind of going through this journey of figuring out who he is, after kind of having lost a lot of things on Amonkhet. And, and I kind of I'm feeling that I'm kind of in that place myself.
00:05:37
Speaker
I thought it just meant that you were working out more,
Jaya Ballard and Chandra Nalaar's Storylines
00:05:39
Speaker
like you were just feeling beefy. I am HobSkew. I can be found at HobSkew on Twitter. And I'm actually going with not a legendary creature, Phrenetic Afreet. So it's a great card. It's a lot of fun because they also made it where you can basically just keep flipping coins. So in coin flipping decks, it's great because they re-arratted that you could just keep activating the zero ability.
00:06:00
Speaker
But I just feel like with my new job, the fact that Jen and I are going to be having a baby, you know, we moved into a house, we got married in the last year. We just had all of these transitions that at times I just feel very frenetic, like that I'm just kind of off kilter, kind of. Yeah. So I saw this card and was like, yep, that's me. Is this the first reveal of Baby Hobbs on the cast?
00:06:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it probably is. Oh, my gosh. I'm so happy for you and I'm so happy for me because that means I have more baby pictures to ogle over. We always start with a magic history and story component. So today the theme is talking about Jaya and Chandra and their very red dealings with emotions and how that relates to us.
00:06:42
Speaker
Jaya Ballard is one of our earlier planeswalkers that we find out about in the magic story. She was around in the saga of the ice age, was involved with helping Jota stop a ton of necromancers and evil sorcerers early on in magic. But specifically, Jaya is a pyromancer. She deals with fire.
00:07:04
Speaker
kind of one of the most notable flavor text characters in early magic i i still love her cart i think it's burnout is the the flavor text is just gotcha quote giant ballard during this whole time she had to deal with
00:07:20
Speaker
Basically it was a long storyline that was all these issues that Jota was getting into and Jaya was helping him fix until The Shattered Alliance which was the story that coincided with Alliance's The Set. Jaya has gotten possessed by the spirit of Marisol the Pretender who is a
00:07:36
Speaker
a former sorcerer that Joda helped to kill, and in order to help her rid herself of this spirit, Joda smashed a mirror of his over her head, which is one of the most ridiculous parts of Magic Story, by the way. I think it's just, that's bizarre. Hey friend, here, I know what's gonna solve your problems. Smash.
00:07:55
Speaker
It turns out the mirror was enchanted by Freya, at least one of the other planeswalkers that had been involved in the story. It sparks Jaya's planeswalker spark. And through this like blazing inferno, she becomes a planeswalker and essentially just burns this possessive spirit soul. That's where she sparked. I kind of just briefly want to go back because talking about her development, she basically started out as a thief. I mean, she was kind of she was actually
00:08:20
Speaker
She tried to steal from Joda, and he noticed that she had the magical ability. And she became a task mage. I mean, she wasn't like really, I mean, there's actually a discussion about the fact that in the early storylines that she had a lot in the flavor text, but was really a secondary character for storylines. But she was so popular. I mean, there was so much love for her. I mean, we get her card in the time spiral block specifically not because of the storyline, but because fans loved her. I mean, they really wanted her to be
00:08:51
Speaker
this, which was a move from secondary, and then now it's much higher. Now we're seeing her a lot because we're seeing her with the return to Dominaria when she's actually basically old. And we know very little about what happened in between, other than the fact that she basically kind of went and worked, well, she inspired, she inspired the whole religion.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of my favorite parts of this, is we found this out in the Dominaria storyline, I believe, if I remember right. We found out that Jaya was Mother Luti, who is this older protector of this monk enclave of pyromancers, of firemages, on the faraway plain of Raghatha.
00:09:34
Speaker
And this is one of the bigger reveals that had been sort of building up over a couple of years and Chandra had no idea how she got there, how Jaya had gotten there because, you know, Chandra didn't understand that Jaya was a planeswalker originally and all this, you know, all these things in here. So Chandra's questioning Jaya and trying to figure all this out and it's like, but you're worshipped in this religion on Rhaegatha and, you know,
00:09:58
Speaker
What how did all this happen and Jaya essentially says like oh yeah I got really drunk one night with a bunch of monks on regatha and told them about all of my super cool exploits and Then I came back a hundred years later, and they started a religion based on me
00:10:12
Speaker
Chandra kind of has become the protege of Jaya and as you were hinting at before Erin, she learns a lot about how to control her powers and control her emotions and process things through her mentorship with Jaya. Both of them are pyromancers. Both of them use fire. Both of them are highly emotional and highly incendiary people. But Chandra comes from the plane of Kaladesh where she was
00:10:40
Speaker
persecuted as a child. When Chandra was discovered to have magical fire abilities, that became a huge taboo because fire magic is strictly outlawed on Kaladesh. And so as a young girl, Chandra was captured and subsequently almost executed.
00:10:59
Speaker
you know understandably she's had a lot of problems with controlling her emotions with lashing out with not really i think knowing how to relate to people a ton you know there's there's been a lot of stuff she's had to go through and and really has had to grow up really fast and that in my mind plays a lot into her
00:11:19
Speaker
process of, you know, this rocky up and down points that she's had to do, you know, as she's gotten close to the Gatewatch and as she's learned how to be essentially a hero. And then in meeting up with Jaya in training with the monks on Raghatha, where she, you know, ended up in the Purifying Fire novel, she's really had to learn about how to be reflective and how to, you know, process things in a healthy way.
00:11:49
Speaker
And then we see that especially in the Dominaria storyline where Jaya takes her under her wing and helps her focus her energy, focus her powers, and focus her mind. I think a part of that too, a piece that was interesting to me was at first Shandra's plan during Dominaria was I'm gonna go find Jaya so she can teach me to be better at fire.
00:12:09
Speaker
And eventually Jaya got her to figure out it's not being better at fire, it's learning how to manage yourself, learning how to manage your emotions can help you learn that, but the first step isn't just learning to make better fire. Well, and Alex, weren't you talking a little bit about attempts that Chandra has made previously to shut herself off from her abilities because of it being more out of control or being more unbridled?
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think in this story previously, she was more... I think her philosophy was that she needed to shut off her emotions as opposed to learning how to work with them, learning how to channel them. So I think that's why she wasn't as successful to begin with and then working with Chayes when she learned how to channel emotions as opposed to trying to shut them off and then have things bottle up.
00:12:57
Speaker
And that's one of those things too that we see with red mages in particular in the story or red characters in the story is they do seem to be more frenetic, they do seem to be more explosive, they do seem to be more out of control. But it's fascinating to me that we have that mentor character, that Jaya character in this story to provide that guideline, that map of, I mean she is almost the one-to-one
00:13:22
Speaker
photo Chandra, and how, you know, showing that there is a meditative and a contemplative side to read is really cool. And that's, that's an interesting point too, Joel, I think before this recent storyline that included Jaya and Chandra, there was talk that Chandra was just, you know, Jaya light up. I've heard that before. But I think this was a really good way to show how they're different people and can learn from each other, even if they've had a similar path in life.
Erin's Emotional Journey in Magic
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I really relate to the storyline because I my biggest weakness as a Magic player has always been my emotions and specifically with dealing with loss. I have not I'm still not to be completely honest. I have never really been a good loser. And, you know, when I first I used to be really, really bad. Like years ago, I was I was really bad. And I remember this was something I had never really experienced before in any other game. And so I would turn to
00:14:14
Speaker
you know, articles and resources and try to get some assistance with this because again, this was something I never really experienced before. And one article after another, it was just it was always very to the point. It was like, well, just don't do it. Just just don't tell. It's that simple. Just just don't do it. And I was like, well, that that's that's not really how emotions work. You know, like we we feel things all the time that we don't necessarily want to feel. You know, when somebody passes away, you feel sad and you don't want to be sad. No one wants to be sad.
00:14:38
Speaker
when, you know, someone breaks up with you, you know, you have those feelings. And so, you know, nobody wants to be doing a lot of these things that no one wants to be feeling a lot of these things that we feel, but we do feel them. And, and we need to find a way to manage it and process it and channel it rather than simply just flipping a switch and turning it off. And so when I was really going through it, you know, years ago, I really didn't know where to turn because for everybody around me, it was to them, it was as simple as we'll just don't do it. And so the evolution from Chandra to Jaya,
00:15:05
Speaker
to me is a really good example of how to deal with things like that, where instead of looking at emotions as a weakness or as a flaw, I'm better because I have emotions. I look at having emotions as an asset. And so you're looking at Chandra, who's sort of unbridled and could be seen as even dangerous or unpredictable. And Jaya is sort of the end game of where you want to be, where Jaya still has her spark, no pun intended.
00:15:28
Speaker
You know, Jai is still sassy and Jai still has that fire, but it's more controlled, it's more refined. And I really think in terms of your, in terms of an emotional journey, that's a really good blueprint for how it should be. It's not about, you know, lobotomizing Chandra or making her boring or taking away any of that. She can still have a lot of those traits that we love. It's just a matter of how you choose to, how you choose to process it and how you choose to channel it. And so I really look up to those two because I feel like I'm kind of on that journey myself.
00:15:56
Speaker
And it was such a relief to see the giant character and see that you can still have all of these things, you know, that your passion doesn't necessarily have to be your downside and that, you know, you can still have some spice to you and you can still have some unpredictability and it doesn't have to be, you know, kind of an either or proposition. And I know that for me in the past, I've struggled with how to still be a passionate, emotional person because I am. I mean, that's kind of part of who my identity is. It's coupled with the empathy that's led me to be a psychologist to begin with.
00:16:23
Speaker
But still be able to let this affect my playing ability or just even having fun with playing magic and I think that We're going to talk about you know, like I had dreams that I was going to be a competitive player at times I did some of the grind but I found that like I really struggled with losing and I struggled with variance in particular and kind of trying to overcome that emotion when I would lose to something that
00:16:46
Speaker
My logical side would say, well, this person got lucky because there was a mathematical odds of them drawing. They had to top deck basically a one in 15 chance to be able to do that. You know, we've talked about this with probability. Well, that still happens. And my brain only remembers the times that the opponent would do that. And it was really tough for me because I'm a competitive person by nature. I mean, as a runner, right? Even now, when I'm out of shape, if I'm out for a run and I see somebody, like I get really offended by getting passed by somebody.
00:17:14
Speaker
Like, I feel like I have to catch them, even though I am not in the shape I was at 22. So my journey for this has been kind of that, Aaron, is that how to manage my emotions and also just have fun still playing magic.
Managing Emotions in Gameplay
00:17:31
Speaker
Yeah. So for me, you know, I've spent a number of years really looking at, you know, why, you know, I was the way that I was. And to be clear, I'm still not there yet. You know, I still have a game or two.
00:17:41
Speaker
where I will slip and I will say something I shouldn't, but I catch it and I apologize immediately afterwards. And so I just want to be clear, I'm still not there yet. And I think it's really important to emphasize that, that you don't necessarily have to be, there's no endgame. I think of it in a lot of ways, and maybe this is problematic, but I'm going to say it anyways.
00:18:00
Speaker
It's almost kind of like an addiction where it's like, you know, somebody who's an alcoholic, you are always an alcoholic. Like you're going to your meetings and you may not have had a drink, but that's a label that that person will always carry with them. And a lot of times by choice. And so I tend to think of it in a similar vein of like, am I, can I say that I will be a great winner at some point in my life? I don't know that, you know, I've certainly made some great strides, but, you know, I hesitate to say that there's ever going to be like an end game to that journey.
00:18:24
Speaker
For me, just realizing what a lot of things were that set me off. The first thing was that I was just doing a lot of things I didn't want to be doing. You had mentioned, Hobbs, that one of the reasons you were getting upset was because you had wanted to be on the Pro Tour. For me, it was the opposite. I was doing all of these things and then going, I don't even want to be on the Pro Tour. What am I doing? I'm going to these events. I'm playing events I really don't want to be playing in, quite honestly. I'm playing decks I really don't like, but someone's told me that they were good decks, so I'm going to pick them up, and then they don't work, and then I'm upset about that.
00:18:54
Speaker
You know, I was playing formats I didn't enjoy. I was playing decks I didn't enjoy. I was playing in events because I felt almost obligated to do so. I was just doing a lot of things I just didn't want to be doing. And, you know, I get a lot of flack for sort of being the dredge girl or sort of being the graveyard girl. But when I really started playing decks I loved, I just started enjoying the game more, you know. And so, you know, I don't play standard because I don't like standard. But there were years I was just dragging myself through it because my local game, I didn't really get many events here.
00:19:20
Speaker
I felt obligated to like support my local community. And so, you know, when I just stopped doing things I didn't want to do, I just noticed that that really turned my attitude around where, you know, if I'm playing a deck, it's because I really want to play this deck and no one's told me to do it and no one's. And if there's an event, there's an event in Detroit right now that I would have felt obligated to go to years ago because it's closest by.
00:19:43
Speaker
I don't want to go. I don't want to play team constructed. And so, you know, I, you know, when I stopped, when I stopped doing things I didn't really want to do, I felt like my attitude improved. And when I just started getting my, my, my expectations in line where it's like, I'm not trying to get on the pro tour. I'm not trying to get a pro point. Like, you know, just sitting here and going, you know, and that's, maybe that's one of the reasons why I enjoy vintage so much is because it is so low EV where it's like, you know, there's nothing really on the line. And so.
00:20:07
Speaker
When I just started stripping away all of these things and really just got real about what I enjoy and why I'm playing, I felt like my attitude improved significantly. The thing I really want to stress because I feel like this is the biggest misconception. It rarely has to do with the other person. I can honestly say that when I
00:20:23
Speaker
When I was at my worst, it never had to do with the other person. I was never mad at them. It was never anything. Well, I mean, don't get me wrong. There were some opponents who talk crazy to you and then you got to shut it down. That's a different story. But, you know, we can go there. That's fine. But what I'm saying is when I was when I was the most of the time when I was was losing my cool.
00:20:43
Speaker
It was because of something I did. It was either me going, why did you play this card? Why did you sideboard this way? Why are you playing this deck? Why are you even here? And me taking it out on the other person. It rarely has anything to do with the other person. And I know that's certainly not a justification for it. That's certainly not an excuse for it. But I feel like it often gets seen as you're hotheaded or you're looking for a fight. Most of the time, you're mad at yourself. That's really what it is. And you don't know how to deal with that.
00:21:08
Speaker
You don't know how to process it. You feel you feel like everyone's watching you. You feel like, you know, you start to get really flushed. You know, I can honestly say that my worst outbursts had nothing to do with the other person. Like they did nothing wrong. It was purely just me. My inadequacy is me feeling stupid, me making a mistake and just having no idea how to deal with that. And so that to me was that that to me is the biggest
00:21:29
Speaker
you know, surprise out of all of this is people assume that you're mad at other people or people assume, no, it's usually just you did it. You did something and you don't know how to get yourself out of it and your only way of dealing with it is to freak out. Well, I mean, I think this comes back to kind of, you mentioned earlier, like the concept of mourning. So you don't want to feel sad when somebody dies. However, that's exactly a very natural, easy piece.
00:21:56
Speaker
So and that's the other thing I want to talk about too is it never felt good, you know Like I remember when I was you know years ago There was this misconception that like I and like people enjoy it, you know There's this misconception when people when people get upset or when people have and you're not even limited to me But there's this misconception that like you like doing it. They're like, oh, yeah, you like being hot You're like, no, it never felt good. Like like I can distinctly remember
00:22:19
Speaker
you know, events I went to years ago and the car ride home and knowing I'd screwed up, knowing I had gone too far and feeling terrible about it. And again, that's no justification and there's no excuse, but it was never something anybody who tilts or anybody who lashes out doesn't enjoy it. No one wants to be doing it. No one feels good about it. You just, and again, you don't know what to do. You know you've screwed up and all you can do is kind of beat yourself up over it. And it never, I just want to stress that it never feels good. No one's ever like, I just tore someone's head off today. No, you walk out of the vent and you feel terrible about yourself.
00:22:48
Speaker
Well, I think that gets back to, you know, there's a misconception when it comes to anger, especially this idea that like, oh, yes, if I just go like a board game or I mean, like a punching bag or if I throw a pillow or I throw something across the room that that's going to, you know, it releases that anger. You know, you think of the boiling top coming off. There's this idea that like, yeah, if you do that, you're going to kind of have this cathartic moment. The research actually shows this is not true.
00:23:16
Speaker
So what it does is it teaches you that you need to do something when you get angry. So all it does is reinforce this idea that if I get angry, I have to throw something, yell, scream. It doesn't actually work as a catharsis as much as people do. I mean, I've actually seen people go into these cathartic parties where it's like they get to go places and break stuff, which is great.
00:23:37
Speaker
I would have fun doing that if I was, if I'm in a good mood to begin with, but if I'm going in there because I'm angry and I don't have a way to express that and I go in there and do that, it really just reinforces that idea that. Yeah. How else are you supposed to express your anger? You have to do something in order to release it, or you're just never going to be able to express anger or you're never going to get rid of it. It's just going to build and build and build and build. And yeah, sorry. No, go ahead.
00:24:05
Speaker
No, I think I think that's just another form of escape. You know, some people escape through, you know, drugs or alcohol. I think that the breaking things is an escape where it's like, you know, you you think you're dealing with it, but you really need to like sit in those feelings and like it's it's ugly and it's messy and you have to deal with it. But I think the only way to really do it is just kind of look with it and be like, you know, this is the deal. And
00:24:25
Speaker
And kind of having that bottom, if you will, that moment of like, you know, it just can't get any worse than this, or just really realizing what's going on. And so I think the breaking things that you mentioned is just another kind of escape that is fine temporarily, but you're not even really, you're not really dealing with the root of the problem.
Misconceptions About Emotion Management
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned addiction, and I think that's a really nice tie in too, because I mean, the concepts for these emotions and kind of behaviors are very tied together, we know this. And one of the things that we talk a lot about is,
00:24:54
Speaker
The reasons that substances can be very appealing and why they're difficult to give up is they are very very good at working in the short term They will immediately for a lot of them get you out of whatever emotional state that you're not wanting to feel The suppression that you guys we've talked about them for the avoidance of a social situation. It works really well We've talked about this numerous times on the cast
00:25:17
Speaker
avoidance is a great strategy in the very short term. As you said, Aaron, if you don't ever learn, though, it's okay to feel angry, it's what I do in response to it, that becomes problematic or what my behavior is, then yeah, you may have solved it in the 1520 minutes, then comes the guilt, the not feeling great about yourself, like you said, the the kind of the letdown and the hangover.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yeah. And then there's also the possibility for a buildup. You know, if you do, you know, if we do, if we do follow what everyone's telling us to do and just, we'll flip a switch and don't do it, you know, it's going to bottle up and you know, worst case scenario, you end up with somebody who doesn't take a loss very well and it does, it does get physical or it does get whatever. And so it's very important that you do deal with it early on and you do, you know, look inside and confront it with yourself early on because you don't want it exploding into something much worse. And, and I don't think,
00:26:10
Speaker
I don't think it's a coincidence that we play a game comprised primarily of men, and we're having conversations about holding in your emotions. I don't think that's a coincidence. And so it's very convenient for people to say, well, just don't do it. But I feel like holding in your emotions only leads to worse outbursts. And so I think if we don't want it to go there, then we need to be allowed. And that was something I really rebelled against, too. When I was going through it and I was trying to look for all this help, I really rebelled against the idea. I think there should be room to express
00:26:39
Speaker
some emotion. I think if my opponent drops three ley lines, I should be able to say something like, gross. I should be able to say something. I don't think I should be able to flip the table or anything. But to say that, I can't say nothing. I can't. What? Yeah, I don't understand that. And likewise, I'm really fascinated that the conversation now recently has turned into positive emotions. I remember when Ari Lacks won that Pro Tour, there were literal blog posts, literal headlines that said, has Ari Lacks gone too far? Is Ari Lacks a monster?
00:27:08
Speaker
because he dared to get excited at a pro tour. And so not only are we having, you know, we've moved on from having conversations about anger, now we've had this ludicrous discussion of whether or not you can even show excited emotions or, I remember Paulo, Paulo won a pro tour recently and people were like, really? You just sat there and fixed your sideboard. You're not gonna do anything. And it's like, what do you want us to do? Like, if we're mad, you don't like it. If we're happy, you don't like it. If we do nothing, you don't like it. And Aaron Forsythe the other day, it was even just like, so why are we watching if we're not,
00:27:38
Speaker
If no one's going to be expressive, then what's the point? And so I find it very fascinating, number one, that we're having conversations about guys and their emotions, because Lord knows it's always been women for so long. And number two, I find it fascinating that now we're discussing if even positive emotions are if there's even room for those two. And so I'm just like, how did we get here?
00:27:56
Speaker
This is exactly where we start getting into the toxic masculinity idea of, you know, and I think there's a lot of this too, Hobbs, even though you're a transplant, all of us are Midwesterners now, there's that weird emotional suppression thing that everyone does here.
Gender and Cultural Dynamics in Emotional Expression
00:28:11
Speaker
It's the, no, if I feel something, then I'm going to bottle it up and store it in my belly where it will grow and fester and boil until I die, and then it'll not be a problem.
00:28:22
Speaker
But even more so, it's that way in our society for men. And I've mentioned on the cast before that I'm into sports. I write about sports as one of my other jobs. And this is a discussion that has been going on all across athletic sports as well as professional gaming. That suppression not only leads to greater explosions and outbursts
00:28:47
Speaker
Later on the in-between part is that is that guilt and that fear well It doesn't help that we live in sort of this this call-out culture now where like it's not really about helping people be better It's all about being the one to identify the thing So you can get the likes and so you can get the upvotes and so it's given me a bit of a complex in terms of you know after every event I go to and I've never really admitted this publicly I go to reddit after every event because it's to the point now where I'm so worried that every look every sigh and
00:29:15
Speaker
You know, did I flip my card the right way? Did I ask for a judge call the right way? Because that can be front page news. And you know, you can't do this, but if you do this, that's bad. And that's not right. And like, you know, I just wasn't really given an opportunity to lay and a lot of people aren't know they don't they don't know what they want you to do. And that's how I really felt at the time. It was like I was being told that I couldn't do X and I agreed that I couldn't do X. But then it was like, well, what should I do next? Well, we don't know. And I feel like in the larger conversation of emotions, we haven't really given people that.
00:29:41
Speaker
something we're telling a lot of people what they can't do but no one's giving people a window to do anything if that makes sense yeah i mean so i work primarily with veterans i mean i think people know that that i work in the va and and that does mean i work you know 80 to 90 of my people that i work with are men and even the non-men being that they are veterans in that environment talk a lot about anger is an acceptable emotion
00:30:06
Speaker
Um, especially in the military, but I would say in men in general, anger is seen as an acceptable emotion. We actually usually talk about anger, not as being a, um, we talk about anger as a secondary emotion. It's not a primary. Um, so we talk about the fact that anger itself generally comes with other things and it's those other things that we are not talking about.
00:30:29
Speaker
whether it's guilt or it's, um, you know, feeling anxiety or we're feeling scared or, but I mean, it's the idea that usually there's things, embarrassment. There's things that are underlying anger, but anger is seen in some ways as acceptable, especially with men. I mean, it's got, oh yeah, he, yep. That's how guys are. They're going to get pissed at each other and then they'll be fine because they exploded.
00:30:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's also seen as it's also considered to be an anger and competition or being competitive. Those are seen as unattractive traits in women. If Emma goes to an event or if I go to an event and and I'm in my zone and I'm and I'm not able to to address something, you know, we're seen as aloof. We're seen as whatever. But if Sam Black says, oh, hey, I'm in the zone, I can't really talk right now or Jeff Hoagland does it, it makes them edgy. It makes them
00:31:20
Speaker
Focused it makes them whatever, you know when a man asserts himself, you know, there's that old cliche, you know when a man asserts himself He's seen as as a powerhouse and he's seen as whatever but when we do it, you know We're bitches if you will and so so that's definitely an angle to that too is like there were times where So one of my one of my bottom moments was there was a thread on reddit which I've never read and it was basically a thread of like
00:31:44
Speaker
Who the worst people in magic were or something like that. And somebody had started or the thread eventually branched off into me. And again, I've never read it. And I had friends who did. And there were some of the things there that did in fact happen. And then there were some things that were simply me just not taking your crap. And so, you know, I really felt like if it had been anybody else, it would have been because we do have some assertive pros in this community where
00:32:06
Speaker
And they happen to be men though, and that is celebrated, and that makes them pistols, and that makes them whatever. And that was something else I really resented, was it was like, would I be getting this sort of backlash if I was a man? Where, you know, if Utah crazy made an event and I stand up to you, that's just not happening, and I'm not apologizing for that, you know? Were there things I could have handled better? Absolutely. But were there times where you thought I wasn't gonna say anything because that was visible? Yeah, that too. And, but I, you know, there were situations that I really feel like I wouldn't have been painted with that brush had I been male. Had I been male, it would have been,
00:32:36
Speaker
Oh, you know such a firecracker such whatever but because I was a woman it was she's gone too far And so I do think gender is a very very important aspect of this conversation that you know doesn't get enough Discussion enough talk time and and frankly I'm kind of relieved to see that guys are being roped into this because for so long we've always been sort of the emotional lens and so, you know, I do appreciate that now the guys are kind of having to answer for that and having to
00:32:58
Speaker
Nothing to have this discussion because Lord knows women have had it long enough. I mean, what I run into is when I start teaching emotions and teaching expression of emotions is part of my job, people are really bad at identifying their emotions. Now I'm saying, once again, this is mainly men, but people suck at it. I mean, literally, like, and the other interesting thing that I do, so we'll do exercises where we go around the room and everybody has to name kind of emotions, right? And I start writing them up on the board.
00:33:27
Speaker
Without fail, I don't have to do a lot to direct this. It ends up being that one side of the board has a lot more emotions listed than the other side of the board. And so you mentioned a positive and negative. I move away from that definition a little bit, the same with good and bad. Good and bad too broad. Like good could be
00:33:48
Speaker
I feel horny or I feel excited or good could just mean I'm very peaceful right now. I know, I was just trying to think of extreme examples. Joe can change those if he needs to. But bad could be everything from murderous
00:34:04
Speaker
too depressed. And those are very different. And same with positive and negative. And this goes along with the idea that emotions are natural. Emotions are things that happen. So labeling them positive and negative kind of puts spins on them. When I know for a fact that even something like
00:34:20
Speaker
feeling threatened can actually lead to positive behavior on my part, or feeling depressed or mournful. If I don't just wallow in that, but I choose to use that as a way to remember, say, a loved one who died, so I choose to do something to remember them. As most people maybe on this cast know, but at least on Twitter know, two years ago I lost my dog, Bean, who, I lost him very quickly to cancer, and he was the dog I'd had the longest, he was mine,
00:34:49
Speaker
And I made the decision when I found that out. I was incredibly sad. I had trouble going to work, but I also decided to spend a week doing things for him. And so I actually usually talk about healthy and unhealthy emotions in the sense of, or helpful or unhelpful, because those tend to be the emotions, pleasant, unpleasant, because it's
The Role of Emotions in Decision-Making
00:35:11
Speaker
what those tend to lead to in terms of our behavior. If we don't do anything about them, Aaron, like you're saying,
00:35:16
Speaker
If we don't do something to try to express them in a healthier way, because the behavior is what gets us into trouble. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think it doesn't help that. And maybe this is taboo, but I'm going to go there. It doesn't help either that having emotions has been weaponized at the highest levels to be a bad thing. I remember recently the the immigration thing was going off politically when they were talking about the kids were being in prison.
00:35:45
Speaker
And our own president had basically implied that, like, we need to stop feeling things for these kids. And it's like, what? What? And so and you see that in that we've reached a point now where we at the highest levels of our society, having emotions is seen as a bad thing. Look at the culture wars that have been going on in gaming. A lot of that centers around. They like to say facts over feelings, you know, as again, implying that feelings are bad, implying that if you have feelings, you are less than.
00:36:10
Speaker
You know, the people who are leading these attacks on people, whether it be politically or culturally or gaming wise, the people leading these attacks are the ones who think they are so brave because they've turned these emotions off. They're like, I feel nothing. I don't care what gender you call me. I don't care if this character has cleavage. I feel nothing. And like, it's that they think that empowers them somehow. And the opposite is true. It's so easy to do that. It's so easy to, you know, to pretend that things don't matter and to do all these things.
00:36:37
Speaker
Like I said earlier, my emotions are my strength. And while they have certainly got me in the trouble at times and still kind of do, I don't feel that way at all. And I think it's really a shame that it's become such a powerful mantra and such a weapon to be used against people. I never would have guessed that in 2018 we would be dealing with such of a pushback against emotions and that it somehow makes you seen as less than. And I think that's really, really scary and just really not true.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's a lot of people will say things like I am so you know, logical and irrational as if emotions have no part in that emotions aren't part of being human being alive, right? It's kind of confounding. Or Yeah, it's like saying, you know, you get out of a relationship and you're like, I am never gonna love again. And it's like, well,
00:37:27
Speaker
cool, I guess, you know, like, you know, so you're gonna take up knitting or something that's fine. But like, that's what you, you gain, you have to let people in to even get the really good things. And so, you know, it's always a fascinating thing when people just say, well, I'm just gonna cut off this side of me and it just doesn't work. And so, you know, you have to, you know, it does hurt sometimes, you know, when your heart gets broken or when you make a mistake, but, you know, the things that you get out of it are so much worth the trouble and it really, you are stronger for feeling ultimately.
00:37:57
Speaker
I think too it's fascinating is that people don't often think about not only that emotions aren't weak or less than, but emotions are an important part of strategic decision making. You can't have logic without emotion because emotion is an evolutionary process. It's something that was created so that you know what the difference between the safe thing and the thing that should make you feel afraid is.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah. And they're a bridge in communities too. Having emotions are how we can relate to each other and things cooperatively. Yeah.
00:38:31
Speaker
So I definitely, for my journey at least, it's been just finding that balance of not losing my spark, again, pun intended, and channeling my passion. And so that's why now, that's why you nine times out of 10 will hear me talk about the things I love. And that's kind of a funny thing too, that one of the criticisms I get as a content creator is that I talk about what I love too much. And if that's a criticism, then I'll totally be that. Because years ago, I would have never done that. Years ago, it would have been just unhappiness.
00:39:00
Speaker
You know, so I try to just kind of do that dance of, you know, having emotions without, you know, consuming me or consuming other people. And, you know, I'd like to think that I've come a really long way and I still have a lot more ways to go. And, but for me, the Jaya Chandra, you know, evolution or the dichotomy is sort of my blueprint of like, yes, you can still have that spark and you can still be feisty and you can still feel, and that's sort of what you want to aspire to of, you know, just learning how to control it and learning how to channel it and temper it. And I love that storyline so much.
00:39:31
Speaker
If we couldn't make content about things that we love, we wouldn't have this podcast. This is about love and passion for the game and the community between the three of us. We just wouldn't be here. Even GP Minneapolis, that was the first GP I can honestly say. I played in maybe one side event. I played Commander all weekend and I would have never done that before. I would have played in the sealed. I hate sealed.
00:39:52
Speaker
I would have sat through and just bitched and moaned and you know, but this was the first time I ever went to a GP and I was like, you know what? I am not playing in the main. I'm probably not playing inside and I'm gonna have a great
Finding Joy and Balance in Magic
00:40:02
Speaker
time. And so again, just doing what you love to do. You know, I woke up that Saturday morning and I looked at the event list and I was like, what do I want to do?
00:40:08
Speaker
None of these things. And I brought my commander deck and I was like, we're going to have fun. And that's what I did all weekend. And that was why I had such a good time at Minneapolis was I asked myself, what do I want to do? And that's what I did. Well, that recognition piece is huge. It's a series of events, actually. I lost a really, really good friend largely because of my nonsense. I had a friend of mine who I'd been friends with for years.
00:40:28
Speaker
who basically was like, I just can't deal with your ass anymore. Like I can't, I can't do it. And so that was a huge impetus to, you know, want to be better. The Reddit thread obviously was huge. I had a local game store who was like, we like you and all, but we can't keep having you chewing people out of F&M because we're going to lose people. So you either got to fix that or you're just not coming back. And so, so losing a really good friend facing, you know, the potential for being kicked out of a game store and obviously
00:40:51
Speaker
You know, kind of seeing the impact that I have through that Reddit thread, you know, those were all kind of moments that led to just a really big heart to heart of like, I got to turn this thing around. And so so that was the moment where the ship really turned around. And a lot of it was just getting older. You know, I was I was twenty seven when I first started playing magic again. I'm thirty five now. And so a lot of it is just getting older, just kind of realizing the impact that you have on people and.
00:41:14
Speaker
Um, yeah, I just, I just kind of had to hit bottom to do that, which is unfortunate. But, um, yeah, I think I've made it, but you know, I'm not there yet. You know, I still have moments, but I try to make it funny if anything, you know, like if I, if I'm on stream, I try to, I try to bless your heart as a thing I like to do now because it's a way of showing, it's a way of showing displeasure without necessarily cause a lot of people don't know what it means. And so now, so now if people drop lay lines on me, I'll just be like, bless your heart. And they're like, I know, right? And I'm like, that's not.
00:41:41
Speaker
what you think it means. So I try to find just kind of subtle ways to voice my displeasure, or I just have a laugh, or I'll just be like, yeah, that's a lay line. That's a lay line. I wish I was mad. And so I just try to find new ways to voice my displeasure just to have fun with it. I try not to get too scary or bogged down, but I'm still working on it. And I don't know if I'll ever be there yet, but I think I've made some good progress.
00:42:02
Speaker
We're going to talk a little bit. So we did have kind of an outro question and kind of our ending. I don't know if people actually did a chance to research this one too. So we're moving away from characters and we're kind of, you know, we being that we love flavor text, I think we're probably one of the cast most obsessed with flavor text that I can think of.
00:42:19
Speaker
um we came up with kind of a question that can you think of now same with the one with the character in your emotional state a flavor text or or a card in general not necessarily with creatures on it or a character on it that really do match your emotional state right now so i have two can i have two you can have as many as you want aaron
00:42:42
Speaker
I didn't want to pull a ring here, but I'm having to. So the first one, the one I love the most is a phyrexian reclamation, which is death is no excuse to stop working. And that is, as you know, obviously, I'm a big dredge player. But just in terms of life, it's like, you know, you get people where it's like, you know, oh, God, I had this terrible day. That's nice. You got to work like that's you can feel those feelings and you can have your pity party, but this is no excuse to stop working. And so
00:43:06
Speaker
If I have a bad day at work or even just I had a really bad year, you know, I broke up with my boyfriend. My cat died. I quit my job. I was unemployed. You know, all of those things. I allowed myself to feel what I was going through in all of the situations. But ultimately, that's no excuse to stop working. And so you still got to get a man. You still got to work.
00:43:24
Speaker
or work in my case, you know, W-E-R-K, but that's sort of my motivation too. You know, it's just, it's just my motivation of you can't stay down. That's no excuse. You can be dead, but you still got to get up and work. And then another one I have, I can't remember what it is, but the flavor text is you'll never miss what you never had. And that's one of the early visions, tempest cards. I don't remember which one it is. Maybe even Mirage, it was in an artifact. But that's another thing I like to tell myself is that there are certain things that happen in life where I'll be like, you know,
00:43:50
Speaker
Oh, I really wish I could have done this. Oh, this would have been so great. It's like, yeah, but you never had that. Like, you know, what are you upset for? Like, you never had that guy. You never had that card. You never had that deck. Like, you can't mourn something you never really had. And so that's something I use to kind of check myself when I feel like I'm, again, getting too emotional where it's just I sometimes spend too much time thinking about what might have been or it could have been.
00:44:11
Speaker
Well, you never had it, so there's no use getting upset about it. And so that's something I use to pull myself out of the hole sometimes. Following, similar to my pick for the opening, I'm going to go with Gideon's reproach from Dominaria, because the flavor text is, on Amonkhet, Gideon lost both his soral and his faith in himself. But he can still throw a punch, and he still knows a bad guy when he sees one.
00:44:33
Speaker
And that, I think, speaks to he's lost a lot, but he has a place to start from. He's starting to rebuild himself and he has some ideals and a starting point and he knows where he's at and he's going to start building from there and kind of doing what he can.
00:44:50
Speaker
I'm going to stay on flavor with that. As somebody who has recently embraced the inner red mage in his heart, I'm going to go with Cathartic Reunion from Kaladesh. That is one of the most beautiful alternate representations of red that I've ever seen. It's Chandra embracing her mother, Pinalar.
00:45:14
Speaker
The flavor text itself says the chasm of years and worlds collapsed under the power of their embrace. That to me is just the most beautiful representation of red emotion. Talking about positive emotions made me think of I would go to my roots with Stormplain because I have never actually looked. I was just while we were going through this, I've been looking at cards that are important to me and seeing flavor texts.
00:45:39
Speaker
And I had not looked at the Flavor Tech before for Lion's Eye Diamond, which is one of my favorite cards ever in Magic just because of, we've established, I'm so not a Spike that I just like to play cards that are fun and need work to make them work, and Lion's Eye Diamond is one of those. And the Flavor Tech says, held in the Lion's Eye.
00:46:04
Speaker
which is a zeal of insane meaning caught in the moment of crisis. And why it's important to me is because I am not in a moment of crisis right now, but I talk a lot about mental health recovery. And with that, we talk about this idea of
00:46:20
Speaker
being able to recognize your emotions and recognize what's going on so that you can avoid hitting that crisis, that rock bottom. And I'm thinking with everything that's been going on in my life right now, not getting caught in the moment of crisis is very important to me. So I need to remember my lion's eye. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
00:46:40
Speaker
So I think we've hit on a lot of the points that we want to do, especially because we're going to be basically breaking Aaron up into a two parter because there's been just there's so much to talk about with you, Aaron. Is this going to be like a magicians thing where you're going to like saw me in half or something? I'm not saying that it isn't. I'm not opposed.
00:47:08
Speaker
That's our show. You can find Erin Campbell on Twitter at original estrus. That's original o-e-s-t-r-u-s. And you can find her on her own podcast, the Magic Mike's podcast. That's at magic m-i-c-s cast on Twitter. The show can be found on Twitter at goblinlurepod, or you can email us any questions, comments, or concerns at goblinlurepodcast at gmail.com.
00:47:38
Speaker
Joel Redman can be found on Twitter at Findhorn. That's F-Y-N-D Horn. Hobbs Q can be found at Hobbs Q. And Alex Newman can be found at Alexander New M.
00:47:50
Speaker
Goblin Lore is a member of the Geek Therapy Network. Geek Therapy celebrates how geek culture can save the world through podcasts, videos, blog posts, community outreach, education, and convention appearances. It's a network of like-minded creators who believe that all different facets of nerd culture are important to understanding how our minds and communities work. Check them out at geektherapy.com or at geektherapy on Twitter.
00:48:20
Speaker
Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.