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Episode 182: Marching with K Arsenault Rivera
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! The goblins want to remind you that we have a very active and open Discord and love the oppurtinity for you all to join! On today's episode Taya and Hobbes sit down with K Arsenault Rivera (the writer for March of the Machines) to talk about process, the consequences, and why she loves Innistrad. Also if you like black oil and women falling in love you should check out her book The Tiger's Daughter!
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter
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.
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
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- 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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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Podcast Name Change Clarification
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome back to the Goblin Lore Pod. The Sliver Lore Podcast. I want to emphasize in case people are confused after seeing our name change. I'm going to make sure there's plenty of Sliver talk in the future though. Okay. They'll be around. That's fair. But we did have, I think we did at least throw off one of our actual people. One of our Discord members actually was a little confused by this.
00:00:57
Speaker
you know, mess them up too bad that we are still the Goblin Lore podcast. Yeah. And welcome, Paul Roberts. We have a very special guest for you this week. But before I get to that, I'd like to introduce myself.
Introductions and Sponsor Acknowledgment
00:01:09
Speaker
I'm Taya, pronouns are she, her, they, them. I would like to thank the Grinding Coffee Company for their support of the podcast. They're a minority owned LGBTQ run company that provides plenty of caffeinated goods for everything you need.
00:01:25
Speaker
Um, info and links are in our link tree and, uh, Hobbs, why don't you introduce yourself? Yeah. So I am Hobbs. I can be found on Twitter at Hobbs Q. My pronouns are he, him, and that that's basically all I have for so far. We haven't done any questions yet. So let's get it. Let's let's get to our guests. The most important part today. Yeah. Why don't you introduce yourself? Uh, hi.
00:01:53
Speaker
My name's Kira, probably better known as K. Arsenault Rivera. That's two last names there, not a first name and middle names. I get that a lot. It's two last names, first name Kira. I wrote the March of the Machine story. I also wrote Innistrad Midnight Hunt and Crimson Bow, as well as a short story for the new Kepenna arc. My pronouns are she, her.
00:02:19
Speaker
Great. It's so good to have you here.
Guest's Favorite Legendary Character
00:02:21
Speaker
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about the story. And like we start every episode off, we're going to start with a basic question. And this one's going to be pretty simple, mostly because Hobbs and I both forgot to think of one. So this is goblin brain going already at this time. But we're just going to start with who's your favorite legendary character?
00:02:47
Speaker
That could include a planeswalker or a regular legendary. See, you said legendary character and immediately my mind went to Olivia Voltaren.
00:02:57
Speaker
But if you're including planeswalkers, then it's going to be Liliana Best. I have the $2,000 statue, the Liliana Best statue right behind me as I'm recording this. I've got a whole Liliana wall. The first thing I bought myself with one of my Wizards of the Coast paychecks was actually the Yoshitaka Amano Liliana.
00:03:18
Speaker
So I do not go around. No, no, you know, I have awesome. Yeah, I have the the Chandra statue. So that's just kind of much how I feel about Chandra. I have a stuffed Nicol Bolas.
00:03:33
Speaker
That's pretty cute. Yeah, I guess you can go next Hobbs, although I think we all know what you're gonna say. So, you know, you would think that it was Nicol Bolas, but I'm gonna go lately. I have been going hard for Squeak. Squeak getting story has like done so much. I always loved Squeak and the biggest complaint I always had about Squeak was we really had
00:03:57
Speaker
no lore about Squee. We had kind of cards, we had very little actual story, even from long novels. There really wasn't a ton about Squee, but we knew that he was immortal. There was like all this cool stuff that could be done with him and we finally got
Exploring Character Development and Lore
00:04:12
Speaker
that.
00:04:12
Speaker
And it really has pushed him to the front and then adding him onto a card with slime foot. So we have like the two cabin boys of the, you know, the sky ship weather light that I don't know, squeeze doing it. His his story by Dan really this thoughtful kind of goblin with intention that made an active decision for himself about mortality is just really been pushing him up to the top for me. That was a really good story. That was an incredible one. I read that one too. And like,
00:04:42
Speaker
I might break some hearts here. Goblins have never been my first pick of archetype. I really love that one. I also thought that having a goblin, especially an immortal one, confront his mortality and make a decision like that was really good. It felt kind of similar to the Rankle story, but like,
00:05:02
Speaker
maybe in a different direction. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because like, so I have to laugh because I had been I'd been harping on the no squeeze story for a very long time enough so that we had Jay and Ellie on the show. And he knew that the story was humming because of one of the books that he had been written on. And I was just like ranting again, as I normally do about squee. And so when when when the squee story finally came out, Jay was like, Yeah, it was really difficult to be on a show with you and kind of not be like, Hobbs, you're gonna get it.
00:05:32
Speaker
It's coming finally. I know what you think. But I had always thought that an immortal goblin to confront that. It was my biggest complaint the first time we went back to Dominaria after the long absence was that he got a card but no story. And here we have this goblin who's been living on Dominaria this entire time. Not knowing what he was up to was just, to me, an area where story could just really be developed. And then Dan did it.
00:06:03
Speaker
Did I surprise you at least a little bit, Taya? A little bit, yeah. I mean, it's ball as to link. I've said that enough. Yeah, I mean, I could I could say Chandra too, but I think people have heard me talk enough about her. So I'm going to go with my.
00:06:24
Speaker
What has become a favorite of mine, another fiery planeswalker, but tying it back to the story, Ren has jumped up in my list of planeswalkers I really enjoyed. And just, I know we'll talk more about it, but the scenes with Chandra trying to teach Ren how to control her fire were just so perfect for me.
Writing Challenges and Approaches
00:06:50
Speaker
Yes, I love them getting a team up in the storyline is You know that they had to go and kill off my my girl Jaya so seeing Chandra kind of pick up that that literal torch of And Try to try to be Jaya for somebody else I was really touched by that and
00:07:16
Speaker
I'm not going to lie to see where you're talking about that. That initial moment between Ren and Chandra was literally when this specific story hooked me. And I think it's it was seeing Chandra actually with some emotion regulation around her own fire and like move towards impulsivity and being able to try to have that discussion with Ren was what initially hooked me in the story. So I don't know if that's a good jumping off point or not. However,
00:07:46
Speaker
That was the moment that drew me in. I think that's a great one, especially if you want to talk about creative processes and stuff like that, because that touches back on what was maybe the biggest decision I had to make when I was approaching March of the Machines, which was how do we tell this story and how do we hook people into this story? Where are we going to zoom in? What scenes are going to
00:08:13
Speaker
compel the reader to keep going. Because obviously, you've got a whole bunch of stuff happening in a whole bunch of different planes. If I wanted to, I could have probably just done one episode on each plane, you know, people are suffering here, people are suffering there, sometimes they overcome, sometimes they don't. And that would have gotten across just as well, the issues and the struggles of new phyrexia. But what I thought was more impactful and what had always
00:08:43
Speaker
put me back to magic as a magic fan are the characters and the planeswalkers. So I very purposely chose to have that scene with Chandra and with everybody having these like very human reactions to everything that had happened because we as the audience also need to take that step. We need to take that, you know, that moment to breathe, just as Chandra is telling us to, to process what's going on before we rush headlong back into the invasion.
00:09:14
Speaker
So one thing that I kept in mind throughout was that every single chapter needed to have a human element. And I needed to zoom into that human element of what does the invasion mean for this person at this time? So I will say that, you know, we're kind of talking a little bit about process. And one of the things I want to discuss is kind of this idea that, you know, this is web fiction. And as you're saying, yes, you could have had
00:09:41
Speaker
Forget you know a story for each of these Planes or these characters or any of this like you could have had literal full book chapters I mean this this easily could have been a novel I mean this is one of the things that Were actually I think hearing people say for the first time that I can say in a while as they want the books back because it It's a very different thing to get a story in 10 pieces with some side stories over a two-week span
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah. And it was how this is for you. Yeah, sorry. I'm glad that this was a two week or 20 to excuse me, 10 episode storyline, because this would have been so hard to do in five stores. It just was so much to tell. I'm going to go ahead and posit that I it's probably impossible to do it in five. Like, even with 10, there were still moments where I had to
00:10:40
Speaker
just abbreviate things for the sake of getting them going. In terms of how I approached it, so March of the Machines, we did story first, and we did story way before we did anything else. So two years ago, basically, we started working on this. And I knew that I had 10 episodes, and I knew that the word count is about 5,000 words for each of those. For those of you who aren't really familiar with
00:11:08
Speaker
short story length or anything like that. Most of your typical literary short stories that you were forced to read in high school are around 5,000 words tops. An average adult novel is around 60,000 to about 80,000. And a fantasy novel, which is what our audience is probably most familiar with, would be about 120,000 to 160,000. Now, my backing is that I came from fantasy novels.
00:11:36
Speaker
My first novel, The Tiger's Daughter, available at all fine retailers nationwide and internationally. Nice. That's what we like to see. We always want people promoting themselves. Do it. Yes.
Character Vulnerability and Representation
00:11:48
Speaker
Please buy my book, The Tiger's Daughter. I really want to earn out. That book is 160,000 words. So that is triple the length of the main story that I had to work with here.
00:12:01
Speaker
As a writer, I like to take my time. You know, I like to tell very leisurely stories, long descriptive passages, and I like to spend chapters and chapters just doing characters talking to one another. Those are my favorite kinds of chapters. I actually really hate doing fight scenes and battle scenes, and March of the Machine is like nothing but those. So, you know, it was intimidating. It was intimidating sitting down, seeing the scope of the story both as a magic fan and as a writer.
00:12:29
Speaker
and realizing I only had 50,000 words to tell it all. And I think that's where that decision of, okay, I'm going to have to sacrifice a lot of stuff. What is it most important for the reader to get from this? What does the reader most want to see? And then zoom in on that. The other question was, of course, how to structure it.
00:12:52
Speaker
And the way that March of the Machines is done, the first five episodes are kind of the invasion section, if you will, where, you know, we pick up right from where all will be one ended. We see the invasion on several different planes. We see the planeswalkers react to that. We see stuff go kind of left for Tomio. You know, we get our vignette episode. We check back in with Chandra. You know, stuff's going left.
00:13:20
Speaker
in the first five episodes. Things are looking kind of dicey. But then, episode six comes along, and I purposely use that as kind of a fulcrum in the story to pivot us from the, you know, things are going bad section to the we have some hope section. So I think in terms of approach,
00:13:43
Speaker
the biggest consideration for me was how to structure these 10 episodes, you know, uh, such that they didn't, it felt like there was momentum to them. And, uh, to do that, I just, uh, I decided to mirror the characters. So you get the mirrored vignettes at the beginning and the end, you get, you know,
00:14:06
Speaker
Chandra coming back, you get Elspeth in the middle there and you get Elspeth at the end with Koth. Yeah, it was tough, I believe it was tough, but the main thing I chose to focus on was character.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, and there is a lot of characterization in these stories, too, which I really enjoyed, especially, as you said, with how much of a focus there was on battle in these episodes, that we still got these really good story moments between characters, especially going into the kind of the epilogue, episode 10, which was almost all interpersonal
00:14:47
Speaker
points or story beats. And I thought that was really good for being able to tell these character stories while in a major battle story arc. Yeah, it's like I could have done episodes seven, eight, nine, and half of episode 10 as battles, right? With the last part of episode 10 being a bit of a countdown from that.
00:15:17
Speaker
But as much as people sometimes like to say that they want to see huge battle scenes, it does get stale. And battle scenes can be very tense. A lot of stuff happens in a very short amount of time. You don't get as much space for characterization. And especially with something like this, that's the resolution of 30 years of story. I don't I think that it's more important that we get to see Teferi having that second
00:15:48
Speaker
to mourn for all of the things he's lost, caught having that second to mourn for all of the things he's lost and realizing that it's kind of unfair for him all the way that this is shaken out. And wondering what's gonna be next. Like I love him to get to be able to have that discussion of like, you know, he's known metal, right? That's the whole thing. He's known a plane with life that was metallic. I mean, there was
00:16:14
Speaker
Now he's on this, like, I loved the descriptions, like the earth giving way before him. It just feels weird, right? Like it's just not a natural feeling. And now what is he supposed to do? I mean, we have a planeswalker that really hasn't been planes walking as far as we've known them. We've seen them on Meredith.
00:16:32
Speaker
He hasn't had time to planeswalk, he's too busy trying to make sure people don't die. Cough is one of the hardest working planeswalkers in the multi-verse, man. He's like, War of the Spark, no. There's no way I'm going to Ravnica. vehicle bolus? I don't care about him. Another thing too, and I think it's important to touch on this as well, is that
00:17:00
Speaker
Coth especially, you know, he's a Black guy. And he is this big, strong dude who's had to bear a whole lot of weight. And it was important for me that we got space for him to be vulnerable, because that can so often be an issue with Black men in media, is they're not allowed to be vulnerable. It's a similar thing with Black women, too, where
00:17:25
Speaker
you're always expected to be the strong black character. But Cough has just put up with so much and he has lost so much. And he deserved the chance to be able to stop and mourn that. I think more than almost anybody in this story. The only one I would argue is Teferi. And even then, he's a different archetype, but he's still a black man. And we need to have those moments of vulnerability.
00:17:52
Speaker
Uh, we can't just have, you know, masculinity and stoicism be based on, yeah, you know, Coth worked for 20 years to save Mirrodin and he didn't save them, but he's mostly okay. He's just angry about it. Like, yeah, he's angry about it, but he's also, he's lost everything, you know? Yeah. He gets to keep the sons and that's pretty much it. Uh,
00:18:18
Speaker
Which was a nice touch, having the mirror and suns over the new Zalfir. Was that your idea or was that part of the story beats that you were handed? That was actually, it was not my idea and it was not part of the story beats, I would say. It was something that the story team came up with while we were iterating on March of the Machines because we did several rounds of revision and sometimes things change in between those rounds.
00:18:44
Speaker
And I think it, honestly, this is pure speculation for me, but I think it might have come from maybe some of the art or something like that that was coming out of the world building at the time. But they had a note in one of the revisions that was like, we think it would be cool if, you know, we could get some of Mirrodin's sons in there. So I did. And it was a really powerful image to work with. So.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, that is because that's one of the really unique defining things about Mirrodin, since it was introduced into the lore. So I really liked that touch. So just kind of going back a little bit, even to the end, as you mentioned, this is the wrap up of a lot of like almost 30 year long story, especially getting to like Zalfir and
Personal Connections to Magic Stories
00:19:30
Speaker
stuff. How long have you been involved with Magic Story? As a reader? Yeah, as a reader, even.
00:19:39
Speaker
So I first got into magic during the Innistrad block, specifically during Dark Ascension, because Avacyn Angel of Hope had just been spoiled. And a friend of mine who was in my tabletop group showed me a picture, you know, showed me the art and went, this reminds me of a tabletop character you would play. I think you would like this game.
00:20:00
Speaker
And they sent me the Geist of Saint Traft story. And they were like, there's story too. You'd really like it. This place is really cool. And sure enough, boy, did I like it. I got super duper into Magic the Gathering from then on. And I followed the story very closely. I want to say like I started falling off like around Kaladesh a little bit.
00:20:30
Speaker
Um, I, I remembered reading a few of the stories. I didn't finish that arc. Um, and then I came back when Eldritch Moon happened. If I'm not mistaken, I might be getting things wrong here, but basically since Innistrad is the short answer and, um, I actually have an Avicenter store tattoo. Oh, that is, that is really sweet.
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, it was the first tattoo I ever got. I was I had planned to get a half sleeve and I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to handle this pain well. So let me get another tattoo as a tester. Okay, what do I care about enough that I'm not going to regret this in like,
00:21:10
Speaker
10 years. I'll get a magic the gathering tattoo. I won't regret that. And in fact, it got me a job. So I was like, yeah, you don't seem to have regretted it yet. No, no, I don't. I'm going through a similar process where I just got my small tester tattoo, which was a trans symbol. And now I'm getting a half sleeve, which is Migali's Mountain from Dominaria United. Nice, nice. That's good.
00:21:40
Speaker
So I say small tester, but I should clarify that it is larger than a magic card. Yeah, mine is as well. There we go. Yeah, so you've been, you've kind of had Innistrad as a defining thing in your magic career. I have. Actually, when I applied to write for ROTC, you know, I had kind of forgotten about it, but I had included that I had an Avacyn restored tattoo there.
00:22:08
Speaker
I want to say like six to eight months later, I got an email from Wisdom to the Coast, which I already could not believe. But then the email is like, we're so sure that you're going to say yes to this assignment that we're just sending you the NDA in the first email. You know what? They were right because after that, they were like, oh yeah, you're working on Innistrad. I was like, I'm working on Innistrad. I was beside myself, beside myself.
00:22:35
Speaker
Oh, that's, I was gonna say, are you, did you feel okay then not getting to write Innistrad in the middle of this? Oh, god. Is it hard for you to like, pass that over? Oh, man, it was tough. It was tough, because like, there was a list of planes that I could have gone to and
00:22:54
Speaker
I wanted to do Innistrad really badly just because I love Innistrad so much, but I was like, I was just there. It's not super relevant to the story. I can't justify it. It's more important to see other stuff. I have to be a big bean and I have to not go back to Innistrad, but then it worked out very well because Shannon got that story and she knocked it out of the park. Yeah, Shannon got to write Yusa and it was amazing. Yeah.
00:23:23
Speaker
Anytime Shawna gets to write Giza is a good time. I'm curious how much, you know, especially for this arc, how much you got to be, you know, in contact about the side stories? Were you aware what was going on with them at all? Or was it all kind of kept pretty separate? I had no idea. Okay, cool. I mean, it's like, I would say that I had vague ideas of what
00:23:47
Speaker
the big story beats of the set itself would be. And so I knew that there was stuff that I wasn't saying, but I didn't know what the stories themselves would be. Like I knew the vibes of what was roughly missing and maybe where some of them would be set, but even then I didn't know all of them.
00:24:10
Speaker
I was just saying, you sent some people off, right? You sent people off on their jobs and then...
00:24:18
Speaker
from there had to kind of, well, at least see how that turned out. I mean, I'm sure you probably, like you said, you had some structure to know whether, you know, a track. So it was coming back or something, but yeah, it's a, it's a bit of a trust fall sometimes with a set like this, because, uh, let's say that first chapter where Norn sending people out, right. I knew then that I wanted to focus on Tomio as one of them.
00:24:41
Speaker
And I knew I certainly did not want to focus on Luca. If you only have a limited amount of space, you're going to make some decisions there. And I thought that also not for nothing. People really care about Tomio.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, she's an important character. She's a mom. She runs a book club. It's horrific that she got completed. I was so sad. Her completion and then story in this was some of the toughest on me personally, so yes. Yeah, I'm a huge Tamio fan, so I
00:25:23
Speaker
Just her whole magic style and everything was so unique that I was in shock when she got completed. It really was. I was too. I was angry. I was angry. Flat out. I mean, I couldn't tell anybody about it for two years. That would be really hard for me to do.
00:25:53
Speaker
any sort of these like storytelling stuff I just can't imagine. Yeah, there's even like, occasionally I'll do like the play tests they have here in Seattle. So I'll be under NDA for some minor thing for a year and a half or so. And then when you know, I finally get to talk about it, like the
00:26:09
Speaker
Um, the plane's chase commander was one where I play tested that over a year ago and just even having to keep quiet about something that small was hard for me. Not quite the completion of Tamio level is what you're saying. I mean, imagine having to keep quiet about girl friends. Oh yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker
It was like that meme, you know, of the party with the guy in the corner and everybody's just like, you know, partying and minding their own business. And there's me, you know, with my apple cider going, they don't know girlfriend's canon. So do you get to write the story when Chandra brings Nissa to awkwardly meet Adeline?
00:26:55
Speaker
I can't comment on future stories Yeah, that's I mean I know you can't and it reminds me of when I Talked to Dan about squee like he basically said there was also that element of he doesn't even know right like he had to end with squee there and then somebody else is likely gonna pick it up and I think of that with the the outcome of this like you left and
00:27:21
Speaker
doors open for a lot of directions. And I'm assuming you're not going to get to write all of them. Who knows? Maybe you are speculating wildly. At some point, me and Seanan will just be writing everything, I'm sure. But until that point, right, you have to trust that others are going to take characters now that you're pretty
00:27:46
Speaker
This is a weird thing to me, thinking about so many writers writing the same character.
00:27:52
Speaker
It's kind of fun, honestly, especially if it's a writer that you're friends with and that you trust. Like I trust Seanan with pretty much whatever at this point. And she trusts me as well with a lot of her meow meows. So when you have that sense of community, it's awesome to do and to interact with work by people that you like.
00:28:17
Speaker
Like, um, uh, episode six of this arc drew really heavily from the work that Martha Wells had done, um, in her Dominaria stories and her stories about how angels are formed on Dominaria as well. Um, that was like top of my mind while I was writing this and being able to interact with her work was awesome for me. And it felt really special, even if like, I didn't reach out to Martha at the time, but being able to follow up with that and to use some of those vibes.
00:28:46
Speaker
it felt really cool. Similarly, being able to bring back the Chandra Liliana friendship from the Kaladesh stories that I loved so much was also something that I really appreciated. So, you know, even though there's a future maybe where somebody's writing Adeline being very sad about this whole situation,
00:29:07
Speaker
You know what i'm just happy to see her another good case of this is there was a new kapana story featuring on hello who got completed and i was so sad i was gonna i yeah your story for that was my favorite of the new kapana stories and um
00:29:25
Speaker
I was going to ask about that because they kind of pick up right where the story leaves off with the wedding bit. And how did it feel to have that, you know, taken in that direction for something that you had written? Oh, I was so sad. But in another sense, like it was really rewarding and fulfilling to see Arrington Parness interacting.
00:29:49
Speaker
and to see them getting to have that kind of relationship and thriving in spite of the stuff that's going on. Like all of their cute little back and forth, I love you till all the canvases are full. You know, it was just, it felt good to have that for them. And even though I'm very sad about Auntie Lo, I'm so sad you guys have no idea. I am happy that Arendt and Parnes get to live off. And I think that's what something like,
00:30:17
Speaker
you know, working in a shared universe is about, it's about leaving stuff that other people can work with, working with stuff that came before you. It's about creating this fabric of what is magic. And that's something that matters so much to me as a longtime fan before I became a writer of magic stories. We just got an errant card previewed today too, so yay on her getting a card.
00:30:43
Speaker
Oh, it should have been with her wife. Yeah, that's my only complaint. Yeah, I know. Yeah, the team up cards are doing kind of odd couples. So that was that was a little disappointing, but she did get a card. Talya and Gittrog is great. John and Livala are great. I love those. Slimefoot and Squee are amazing. Yeah.
00:31:09
Speaker
that's probably the least expected one really well i mean i guess we the other the other least expected i think is only not up there because of uh morrow's thing but bori barigmos and uh fibblethup yeah i don't know kari zev and brawl is also uh well yeah
00:31:32
Speaker
There's been some, there's been some. I mean, I actually really like this idea of a take on like the commander partners, but it was an interesting way to get story without getting story. Yeah. Like we know almost nothing. Like I know that Slimefoot and Squee are like fighting. I don't know anything else.
00:31:51
Speaker
Well, that's another aspect of the Trust Vault, too, is that some of the stuff that's really cool, that's happening in March of the Machines, we don't have room for in either the side stories or the main story. So that's just gonna have to be on a cart. Yeah, and that's what's making this such an exciting preview, season two, is there's just so much going on in this set. There is, and it's exciting for me, and I wrote the story. I was still getting surprised.
00:32:21
Speaker
So, you know, one thing I wanted to ask you about when we're talking about like processes, I know you mentioned kind of a little bit.
Emotional Themes and Personal Influences
00:32:28
Speaker
I asked you before we had started if this was okay to kind of break up. I saw a tweet talking about like this concept of, you know, your own kind of struggles with like either panic attacks with kind of the mental health concerns and kind of how that came about and like influence the story, which
00:32:43
Speaker
For me personally, so as a psychologist, and like half of the thing we do on this cast is talk a lot about mental health. And when I mentioned, you know, even the chapter one of Chandra, the emotion regulation and just her trying to pass on the giant knowledge while still not being the greatest at it herself. I'm wondering, you know, how that impacted your process or how that impacted like,
00:33:09
Speaker
the personal touches that you added to the story, because I know you've talked online a lot of personal touches went into this. Tributes to family, tributes to just so many things in your life. Yeah, so March of the Machines, despite being an event set, is actually a deeply personal one for me. I really did try to cram pretty much everything I love about magic into it. And when it comes to
00:33:36
Speaker
my anxieties and my panic attacks. A lot of that does come out, especially in that scene with Chandra. A lot of the advice that Chandra, you know, at one point she talks about breathing being important and then Ren's like, I don't have lungs. That's not very helpful for me. But like, it's something that was helpful for me, right? When you're having a panic attack, one of the
00:34:01
Speaker
More effective things you can do is try to just focus on your breathing to isolate that and to work on that and then from there to branch out to other stuff to try and manage it and That Chandra interacting with her fire and having to you know
00:34:21
Speaker
learn to deal with this thing that's always there and always threatening her. Definitely I drew on my panic attacks for that because I've basically been afraid at all times, almost, since I was like 15 or so. Like it comes and goes. There's like a volume to it, right? But I just have to accept that at certain points, I'm going to get very afraid of dying. It's going to come out of nowhere. And I just have to deal with that. Oh, yeah.
00:34:51
Speaker
Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Go on. Death. I was just going to say that we're all talking over each other, but it's a little too real. Sorry to be all. Yeah. Your tweet about the story really being about fear resonated a lot with me and it let me know. And I went back and looked at the story again with that kind of lens and could really see how that was reflected in the writing. Yeah, it's
00:35:20
Speaker
It's funny, Tor did this campaign, Tor being my first publisher, when my books were coming out about fearless women authors that they had, right? And I told my partners about it and they were like, have they met you? Because I'm always afraid, right? Like a good example of this is on the train home today. For those who don't know, the New York City subway is in a state of complete disrepair. A lot of the tunnels have not been updated since like,
00:35:48
Speaker
the 30s, and a lot of the signals haven't been updated since the 60s. So there's this spot when you're crossing the Brooklyn Bridge where the train will always stop in the tunnel. And being trapped in the subway train is one of my... It's huge. I cannot stand it. Every single time this train stops for more than one minute, I just start losing my mind.
00:36:12
Speaker
I have to get out my little paint by numbers app to try and calm myself down. But like, that's a daily fear, right? That's something that I face every single day. In a similar way, Chandra has to deal with this encroaching fire that's within her knowing that she's hurt people with it before.
00:36:30
Speaker
knowing that at any point, you know, if she does lose control too much, she's gonna hurt people again. In the same way, you know, Elspeth has been afraid of Phyrexians for her entire life. Yeah, I mean, she kills the crap out of them. She's the Doomguy of Phyrexia. But, you know, she's also afraid of them. She did have a horrific childhood with them. And a lot of that, even though she's forgotten it, is just this impression of fear.
00:37:00
Speaker
We have Tamio, who's afraid of hurting her family, afraid of hurting her son in specific, afraid of leaving him behind. We have Teferi moving through the multiverse to try and make something happen, to atone for his mistakes. We have Karn having to face the fact that this thing that he thought was great, he's going to have to kill Elish Norn at the end.
00:37:28
Speaker
And he hates that. He hates what it might make him become. He hates what, you know, he hates so much of it, but he does it anyway. And of course we have Ren who has to do something that's absolutely horrifying that terrifies her and, you know, ends up burning her out. And she does that even though she's afraid. And that was what was most important to me is that, you know, I'm,
00:37:57
Speaker
I'm just a regular bean. I'm a very small bean. And I go about my day afraid all the time. And I still have to make things happen. I still have to write these books. I still have to do my chores. I still have to look after my partners, you know, all of these mundane things. But what if all of my fears were so much bigger? What if I'm Elizabeth and I have to make a decision upon which the entire multiverse rests?
00:38:22
Speaker
What if I'm Chandra and if I mess up, I'm going to blow up my loved ones. I wanted to examine that and I wanted to have everybody kind of make that choice to push through no matter how afraid they were, not to disregard fear, as is so often the case, but to acknowledge that it's there and try to move past it.
00:38:44
Speaker
This makes me very much think of this concept of, in spite of, that I talk to a lot of people about when it comes to acceptance. Because I think for a long time the message that people think is this, I just need to push this emotion away. I need to get rid of this emotion and then I can move on or I can do something. It's not until I get rid of.
00:39:03
Speaker
that I'm going to be able to do anything, which in reality, it's the old adage of, well, just sit there and try not to think about X, Y, and Z. And I think any way that's ever dealt with fear has probably been down the spiral. I've had a fear of death from my childhood where I would literally have insomnia because my brain would start
00:39:24
Speaker
thinking of the concept of nothingness or thinking of the concept of alive one minute dead the next and what that would mean. And if I sit there telling myself, don't think about death, don't think about death, don't think about death. Well, all I'm going to be doing is thinking about death. And so, you know, the idea isn't that I'm going to get rid of that. It isn't that I'm going to ever be able to stop it, kind of the fire with Chandra. It's living with it or being able to
00:39:54
Speaker
do things in spite of it. It's going to be there. But then what are the choices that I'm making? And that's why I think that this was really starting to resonate with me. I also found it amazing to see Chandra who kind of took all of this from Jaya. And I loved that moment with Ren. And that's why I keep coming back to it. Because as you said, even the quote of the
00:40:14
Speaker
I don't have lungs, was because Chandra's trying to take something that she's learned, but she doesn't really even know how to pass it on or teach it, but she's doing what she can, right? She's passing on what she knows and what has been helpful to her.
00:40:29
Speaker
and trying to make it relevant to Ren. And it was just funny for Ren to come back with this idea of just like, I don't have lungs. What do you mean breathe? This whole approach that you're talking about, the whole thing of fear was everybody doing things even though they were afraid, which I think is the thing for me that really made it powerful.
00:40:51
Speaker
especially from a mental health practitioner standpoint and somebody who struggles then too with his own history of panic attacks and depression and everything else.
00:41:02
Speaker
Thank you. That does mean a lot to hear. It's always really rewarding for me as an author when something that I'm trying to communicate can resonate even across distances and across people I've never even met before. I think that one of the beautiful things about fiction is its ability to link people and to foster empathy within them. And if I can make people understand or
00:41:30
Speaker
if I can give one person the ability to think, well, you know, fear is always the last thing to leave, we're gonna go anyway. Yeah, that would mean a lot to me. Yeah, that's a good line, really, that if you're the last thing to leave, that was, I don't know, the whole discussion is really hitting home with me.
00:41:56
Speaker
And, yeah, as also somebody who suffers from constant anxiety, being afraid of things that aren't likely to happen statistically is just something that I deal with every day. Being trans on top of that and having everything to be scared of that actually is happening makes it even less fun. But, you know, try to do a can and, you know,
00:42:24
Speaker
in spite of that fear and keep moving forward.
Story Stakes and Narrative Consequences
00:42:27
Speaker
And I think we saw that with the storyline and even going back to the ending of the story is people still paid a big cost even if they faced their fear and got through it. The ramifications of what happened are huge.
00:42:44
Speaker
Right. Like it's not always going to be an easy thing. Um, you know, sometimes the only way to deal with a panic attack is to get through it. And sometimes that means you're crying and screaming for a little bit and you know, you might puke, you lose a few hours of your day, you feel pathetic at the end of it. Um, but you got through it and you're able to keep going the next day and try to rebuild from there. Um, in the same way.
00:43:14
Speaker
even though everybody here did face their fears and we did have some good come out of it.
00:43:22
Speaker
wide-spanning ramifications. The multiverse is on the floor crying, you know, tears streaked, got those little pinpricks beneath the eyes and everything at this point. And, you know, we're entering the phase where we give the multiverse a blanket and we make a nice little person burrito with it and we offer it some hot chocolate and some space. But that doesn't change the fact that, you know, there was still a panic attack and we're still dealing with those ramifications.
00:43:52
Speaker
Um, you know, there's stuff like, um, cough, losing his only friend, uh, um, what's going on with the Johnny and with Nissa. Uh, obviously the more physical ramifications of this invasion across planes, like a lot of this stuff isn't just going away. We do have to deal with it, but in the same way that, you know, your panic attacks don't just go away. You have to pick up and keep going. Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
I've gone. This kind of brings me to one of the things that I wanted to bring up because I've just been seeing a lot of this whole idea that because we had Nissa and Ajani quote unquote saved or uncompleted, and there's indications that there may be more uncompletions or something coming with art we've seen for aftermath and other things.
00:44:46
Speaker
There are people who are feeling like this is like a cheat almost and that right like there isn't consequences or I keep seeing this kind of discussion and I know we talked about this with war the spark right like people talked about wanting stakes that felt like there were
00:45:01
Speaker
Like bigger ramifications and a lot of that does come to death because I think that is what we're tied to with media, right? Like, I mean, it was a big switch for us to get to a world of like George RR Martin where main characters got killed, right? Like, I mean, just like if people might just be killed out of nowhere.
00:45:18
Speaker
But it's almost not like we equate that with consequences have to be that because that's what I've seen a lot of is that people felt like that was like almost like a cop-out like we get girl friends, which is cool and like that's the thing people are really excited about but it's like but Nissa just came back and Ajani came back and you know, I'm sitting here personally being like Ajani came back, but we already know Ajani's history like Ajani now has to be told that he killed Jaya and
00:45:45
Speaker
like decimated his his like a plane that he is very tied to. And not for nothing, for Moz is completed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it was the planes walkers is the thing that we're. Yeah. Right. Like, because we're. Yeah, sorry. But in terms of the question of consequences, yeah, I see a lot of people saying that, you know, death is a big one and that's that's what they want to see.
00:46:11
Speaker
At the same time, there's two responses here. Firstly is that we have a whole set called Aftermath coming out, and to say that at this point there are no consequences is a bit like stopping reading Lord of the Rings before they get back to the Shire and everything's terrible. Yeah, when the movie's ended, so it's fine. Yeah, when the movie's ended, it's fine. It's in the West. Nothing's wrong. Everyone's happy. The other hobbits, don't worry about it.
00:46:38
Speaker
So firstly, there is a lot of stuff coming up in aftermath. And I think that, you know, it would be better to reserve judgment on consequences fully until after aftermath has dropped, because there's a lot of stuff in there. For example, we've already seen that the Kenrith's are dead.
00:46:59
Speaker
And that's not something that we had space for within the story, really. But that's something that's going to have huge ramifications, obviously. We know that the Kenrids are dead and that Iyar is dead. So obviously, stuff is about to happen on Eldraine, right? Yeah. We don't know what that is. We know that Rowan doesn't take things well.
00:47:16
Speaker
No, she does not. She very much does not. So I can only imagine what's going to happen there. But in terms of consequences that we've already seen, Johnny and Nissa getting uncompleted wasn't without its cost. We lost Malira, who again had spent her entire life trying to just save Mirrodin. And in the end, she wasn't even able to do that. She was able to save these two people
00:47:45
Speaker
who have both committed atrocities, but who she decided were worth trying to save. Yeah. Yeah. So, we lost Mirrodin. We lost several thousand people. Karn gave up VensorSpark. That's the one I want to talk to a lot about. Hamia literally lost her head. Yeah, sure. We can talk about VensorSpark, yeah. No, I think that's going to take a lot more. I need time.
00:48:13
Speaker
We did a whole series on carn and depression, literally spanning the story.
00:48:25
Speaker
from when we first meet Karn and his friendship with, well, friendship with Joyra, not friendship with Teferi, but later on. But I mean, like, Teferi was kind of a jerk. But anyway, like... He got better. He did. He did get better. But we did a whole thing on Karn and Karn's depression and to the point where Karn like, like leaves Mirrodin and just like, then comes back and what has happened to this one creation he made.
00:48:55
Speaker
Now he had to unmake the creation going back on the pacifism and also then has to give up the spark. I just, I still need time. Like I want to talk. This is why I want you back because story beats in particular, but it's just this idea that consequences.
00:49:13
Speaker
They're already there. Like you said, there's more. I'm like, I have seen so little discussion about Karn and Ventser's spark. And I'm like, do y'all that? Last time we saw Ventser, his body was just being like, not only that, we have to, I had to see Ventser's body be taken over afterwards too.
00:49:32
Speaker
One thing I want to note here is that I didn't know that card was coming. I saw that card and I was like, oh God, oh no. Oh no, card. What did I do? What did I do? I'm sorry, but yeah.
00:49:50
Speaker
I felt terrible. As soon as we saw Greven on Dominaria, I mean, no, Ertai, sorry. When we saw Ertai, I was like, we're going to get back there and we're going to have to see Venser. Yeah. Venser losing his spark is a big deal.
Character Burdens and Broader Impacts
00:50:10
Speaker
Malira dying is a big deal.
00:50:14
Speaker
Mirrodin getting yeeted into non-existence is a big deal. And not for nothing. As you said, Ajani is going to have to live with what he's done. Niss is going to have to live with what she's done, what she said to Chandra. Niss and Chandra now have to negotiate their relationship with this moment as part of it, and as the thing that ultimately brought them together. And that's-
00:50:43
Speaker
I was going to say, we've always said that planeswalkers need therapists, but they're going to need a lot of therapy. Oh, my God. So many group therapy. I'm willing to lead it. Yeah. Like Kaya's messed up, too. Like that was another thing in terms of mental health that I wanted to try and show with Kaya's chapter in Kamigawa is that she's under so much pressure right now. And she's somebody who's repeatedly been thrust into positions of power that she hasn't always asked for.
00:51:10
Speaker
and she doesn't know where Jace is. The multiverse is falling around her all over the place. She didn't necessarily ask to be part of the Gatewatch and now she has to manage all of this. Kamigawa isn't even her home plane. Yeah, she still has the broken sky to deal with on her home plane, the whole reason she went out into the multiverse to begin with.
00:51:31
Speaker
Yeah. And where is she? Cleaning up after other people's problems. And I did want to have that moment too, of Kaya being like, man, I don't know how I'm going to make it through this. I have to just keep going. And so that's why she has that encounter with the kid where it's like, okay, this is back to a personal scale. This is a good thing I can do. I can keep going. All comes back to personal scale. Yeah, I
00:52:00
Speaker
I know you didn't write this as one of the side stories, but the Ravnica one, you're talking about lack of consequences. There are like two guilds that were completely wiped out. What is that going to do to the power balance on Ravnica? Ravnica is like- I sure can lock it off. They always lock it off. They always lock it off. I mean, New Capella, they dropped New Capella on a trackside.
00:52:27
Speaker
New Capena was the biggest city on that plane by far and was the majority of that plane. What are all of those people going to do now? Yeah, they dropped the whole upper section on her, which making an angel pancake is one way to deal with all those keywords.
00:52:45
Speaker
Yeah, I just like I just like these riveters are just like, well, we'll undo it. Like a rivet, a rivet. Union strong, baby. Yeah, right. That's like straight out. Yes. See, you say that about Ravnica, whereas I'm like, this is it. This is Krenko's moment to shine. The guilds are the guilds are the guilds are gone. The guild lists are ready to rise up and there's a goblin there.
00:53:13
Speaker
ready to leave busy. He's too busy looting, dude. Oh, Ted knows Ted knows just how to get that knife into my back treatment of Franco. There's there's so much that we still haven't seen. And I think that one of the things that maybe
00:53:36
Speaker
people don't have entirely in their heads is that, firstly, we still have to see a whole lot of stuff, but also that, you know, there's thousands of people dead here. Like, even in that scene with Sehelia and with Pia, there were so many people dying there. The ships were falling left and right. Like, it was not an easy thing. That was just one plane. Yeah, we're talking across all the planes, we're talking probably billions dead.
00:54:05
Speaker
Yeah, like, Saheli made Dinobots, and those were not enough to defend Kaladesh. So, you know, some of- Oh, go on. Oh, I was saying, who knows what's going on in Sokovia? Lots of little 1-1 whales could have been destroyed. We just got Battle of Sokovia. Yeah, I was so excited. It's so good.
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah, in terms of consequences, I promise that there are consequences. Please trust me and wait a month. Yeah, I think we already have them and we're going to get even more, but it's just there's so much going on. And again, this undoing of completion is not something that's easily replicated. What happened with Nisa and with Ajani is something that's like
00:55:00
Speaker
You can't just replicate that. People died. Yeah, it required a sacrifice and a spark to do that. I'm sure they can just go back to Urza's rummage sale somewhere on Dominaria. He's probably got sparks lying around. Like, who knows? It would not surprise me. I mean, he left to fairies just hanging around in a puzzle book. Right.
00:55:31
Speaker
Whatever. God, Urs is the worst. As long as I could get him somewhere. He really is. I hate him so much.
Guest's Novels and Call to Action
00:55:41
Speaker
You created a go home with depression. He flat out did. That's what I did. He flat out even tells him this. There was that line about people pity things that can scream. That was terrible.
00:56:00
Speaker
Yes! It just says so much, doesn't it? Well, Cura, I know that we have
00:56:09
Speaker
way more that we want to talk to you about. So we would love to have you back. I would love to be back. This has been very fun. The time has flown by. I know it has. And that's the thing. It's because I thought this story was so to me, it was very gripping. And there's so many other things that I know, just specific story things tied to both your process as well as like a little bit of what you're able to say in terms of like wizards versus, you know, like, like,
00:56:35
Speaker
I know Tay and I had some questions about decisions. So we would like to schedule for you to come back. Before we do that, if you're willing to, and it sounds like you are, we wanted to just give you a chance to say anything that you want to on the way out. Tell people either where to find you, where to buy more of those books, ways to support you.
00:56:58
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Uh, so firstly, big ups to all my homies from Brooklyn. Uh, but following, uh, my name's K Arsenault Rivera. Again, that's two last names. Uh, my Twitter is at Arsenault Rivera. That's both of my last names. Um, I'm also on that handle on very many other websites. Uh, if you would like to follow me before Twitter implodes, my books are the tiger's daughter, the Phoenix Empress and the warrior moon.
00:57:27
Speaker
And if you like saphics and also original Kamigawa block and a disease that spread via black liquid, I swear I didn't plan this several years in advance. Please do check them out. They are very reasonably priced. I am very close to earning out. I would love if you picked them up. Aside from that, if you did like these stories, then I would really appreciate if you let Wizards know because I would love to keep writing for Magic the Gathering.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah, you know I hope that we have been vocal enough and I've had multiple discords that I'm in have been just devouring these stories as they've come out and yes, it has been a joy discussing them and just seeing how much excitement there is around them.
00:58:16
Speaker
even, you know, how excited I was to see Luca yeeted off with no expectations. You know, the whole of Shnarn is like, he's probably gonna fail. He's gonna fail, right? I love all my children equally. I don't care for this guy. One of the funniest things real quick about this whole thing is that I'm in a Discord server with a guy I went to high school with, his name is Stan, and it's completely unrelated. It's just like a regular general purpose Discord server.
00:58:45
Speaker
At some point, when Episode 6 dropped, he just posts a screencap from another server he's in, and he adds me. And this person, they made a Waffle House meme of Elspeth and Elish Nour. Like the throne chair? Yeah, with the throne chair. And it works because Nour does throw the chair at her. He does. She does. That's why I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah, it works. I need to find this.
00:59:14
Speaker
And Stan's just like, Kira, what did you do? So it's been funny seeing the spread that that has had, that even people far removed from me, it's found its way back to me. So that's been very fulfilling. Great. Well, thank you so much for spending the time with us. We really appreciate it. Of course. I really appreciate you having me. This has been a lot of fun.
00:59:40
Speaker
Yeah, we'll get her back as soon as we are able to. Before we go, Tae and I would also like to just thank all of our patrons and our Discord. They have become just so active, I think, especially with everything with Twitter going on. But this set, I feel like it's re-energized. Our previews, our story channels have been just going off since these stories have been dropping, these and the side stories. And I will say,
01:00:05
Speaker
Taylor just did the episode last week for those who have listened about the side stories, which I was bummed to not join because those were also just, there were some very, very strong stories. And I was so thankful to get one more Alison Lure's story, I will say. What a story! Yeah.
01:00:26
Speaker
As someone who's been involved with Magic Story one way or another for decades, it feels like we're in a golden age of Magic Story right now. We've got authors who are involved with the game and really care about the game and the characters.
01:00:44
Speaker
We're getting a wide variety of authors, we're getting samples, we're getting lesbians, so I'm always happy about that. I'm always happy to provide lesbians. So far, lesbians have been in everything I've written for Magic and I don't intend to stop. Yeah, I appreciate that a lot. Yeah, it's a great time to be a Vorthos. It is, and I would say too that this is one of those things that after the
01:01:11
Speaker
story that never happened that we can forget as a fever dream. We have been climbing the right direction and I am very happy with where we are right now. So thank you all for joining in. And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Tayatransense, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore Chronicler.
01:01:37
Speaker
Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lord Pod on Twitter or email us at goblinlordpodcast.com.
01:01:47
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood Gobstugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link for our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raff Hale, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
01:02:15
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.