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Episode 194: The 5th Anniversary is Upon Us
315 Plays1 year ago
Hello Podwalkers welcome back to the show. And can you believe it?? It's our 5th Anniversary (in typical Goblin Fashion we turned 5 in June but then you know... chaos). Today we have a special episode for you. The hosts discuss what the show means to them and then we have clips from listeners, guests, and most importantly our Discord Members! There is so much community that is fostered with this show and we want you all to come along! Thank you from the bottom of the Warrens for all the love and support these 5 years. We are excited for the future of the cast and we hope you all are too!
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. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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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
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Anniversary Reflections
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to finally getting around to the epic extravaganza five year anniversary of the podcast, which actually happened in the middle of June. But as people who listen to the show may know, we have not consistently been putting out anything as a complete cast for, well, since the magic gone. So we've
00:00:52
Speaker
been waiting to go and do our fifth anniversary episode for you all. One of the things that we have done is we've solicited clips from some of our former guests, some of our Discord members, people on Twitter, whoever wanted to. We opened this up. Those are going to be at the end of the episode today. We kind of stitched them all together. We're going to let you all listen to that as kind of the second half of the episode. The first half, though,
00:01:19
Speaker
We want to talk about some of the themes that we heard that came up in those clips that we think are important to us as the host of this show.
00:01:28
Speaker
Before we get too much further along, this is Hobbskew. My pronouns are he him. I want to make sure that we are giving a shout out to all of the great people that we work with historically on the show that have allowed us to keep putting this out. So all of our patrons, everybody who's in our Discord, these are the people that we want to just from the top really thank for all of their support over the last five years.
Humorous Takes and Sponsor Acknowledgments
00:01:54
Speaker
Those who follow us on Twitter where we are kind of the most active I would say and then also quiver time Hobbs breaking news. It's not Twitter anymore. Oh Well, yeah, oh man, it's not yeah It's an unpronounceable symbol as far as I could tell Yeah, it's the one that I use to close out websites Yeah, that's ironic leave
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, like that's one out close the door. Right by clicking the little X in the top corner of X. Unicode X two for their placeholder, which is just perfect for branding, you throw a placeholder up when you make a major shift in your brand, you throw out a branding where your name is a verb that has become synonymous with social messaging, right?
00:02:41
Speaker
That's what you do. Hey, you know, they're just trying to get in there and do better than Max for rebranding and losing one of the most recognizable names in their industry. That's true. They've done it. They're successful. Number one in that field now. You did it, Elon. You did it.
00:03:05
Speaker
I saw it, I think, on Twittix, whatever, earlier today, so I can't take credit for that. But as soon as I saw it, I was like, yep, absolutely. I did make a joke, I had seen plays on it, but I made a joke that Blue Sky, which is one of the other, the main one that I've been posting on, that there are new invites that you get rolled out, should be called X-Gun, give it to you. So, you know, there's a lot of humor to be found in this situation, I guess.
00:03:40
Speaker
So yes, X or Twitter or whatever it's going to be called for. I'm sorry. We have sponsors and that's all important too. But in the spirit of the Goblin Lore podcast on our fifth anniversary, I need to continue this and just highlight the fact that Hobbs, you just made a reference to the heat death of the universe. And yesterday I had to explain that to a coworker because I just sort of offhandedly made that reference. And I appreciate that.
00:04:00
Speaker
We just continue to laugh at the heat death of the universe.
00:04:07
Speaker
I noticed it, Hobbs, and I appreciate you. Thank you. So we were going to thank the amazing people at Quiver Time who have given us multiple Quivers to give out as giveaways and who we have a, well, I have a code that I am an ambassador, technically Hobbs Q ambassador to the stars, I think is what they called it.
00:04:31
Speaker
Um, but we have them, we have grinding coffee company who always has given us stuff to give away, always kind of has partnered with us, been supportive of us, willing to retweet our work. Um, and we have rote runner who when we, Alex and I did Alex, I actually started reusing my rote runner, by the way, buddy, like two weeks ago. Um,
00:04:53
Speaker
But I reached back out to Irfan who had been on the show with Alex and I and he sent me more Roadrunners to give out. You know, original magic art. Technically, you get a discount there if you want one. I've done a lot of kickstarters with them, but we have just a general goblin lore. Go buy stuff. We've had these people that have been very willing to work with us. Am I missing anybody that I should be thanking?
00:05:17
Speaker
Granting coffee company. Did I miss it? Yeah. Or did you say that one? I got that one. Okay, good. Because I'm like, that's the one that I've always like, try to remember what I do episodes and I tend to forget them because I don't drink coffee, but they are very important. Yeah, I try to remember because they were like the first people we really partnered with that have just been amazing.
Mental Health and Podcast Evolution
00:05:36
Speaker
Like, considering that most of their work is streaming and like video and everything else, they're still very willing.
00:05:43
Speaker
give a discount to our listeners and to supply coffee at times for giveaways. So yeah, that was a yeah.
00:05:53
Speaker
Hipsters of the Coast! Yeah, we should say Hipsters of the Coast for, you know, they do like put our episodes out there. They were willing to host us kind of early on. They helped pay our hosting fees. They have kept us in new and upgraded materials, which is why Goblin Lore has one of the best sounds out on the market, they say. I don't even know.
00:06:18
Speaker
Try to get us introduced. I mean, this is, this is a perfect episode for us already. And we're, we're not through introductions yet. We're giving people exactly what to expect. We have exactly one third of our cast that has introduced themselves so far. It's perfect. Perfectly on brand. Lots of voices are talking. So if you're just finding this on our fifth anniversary, this is not me, Hobbs, doing multiple other voices.
00:06:48
Speaker
At least that's what I claim. Um, so, Hey, let's just do introductions of the host first and then we'll do our question. All right. Well, since I started talking, I guess I'll continue. I'm Alex found on X. Yeah. Really? You're not always found on Twitter either. So I'm going to be like,
00:07:16
Speaker
Elon with trans people and refuse to call it X and just keep using Twitter. I saw a bunch of posts about this like, Oh, now you want people to respect the name. I saw somebody, it was something like, yeah, now Elon's gonna find out what it's like when someone starts to continue to use your dead name. Yeah. Yep.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yup. Oh, and my pronouns are him. Milner short protocol. I don't even know if I said that. That's where I'm at on there for now. I honestly don't know if I slash what I'm going to quit and what I'm going to do after that. I'm not on any other social media. We'll see. I mean, is Discord social media? Kind of, but it's not really like community. We're going to be talking.
Favorite Episodes and Personal Impacts
00:08:05
Speaker
We're going to be talking Discord. Yeah, we'll save you.
00:08:08
Speaker
Hi, I'm Taya. Taya transcends on Twitter. She, her, they, them pronouns. Also Taya transcends on blue sky. I've been posting a bit more there, but not super active. Can
00:08:25
Speaker
find me there, though, and I'll probably be more active there as I continue or I've started my quest to get banned from Twitter by telling Elon Musk to go at himself. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say I have said a lot of non family friendly stuff about Elon Musk today.
00:08:47
Speaker
I mean, might as well at this point. I even flat out named other other social media sites, especially because they were trending for me. What you're doing is you're getting trends to be your competition. You're doing well. You're doing. Oh, my God. So all right. Yeah. Question of the week.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah? Alex proposed it. I like how I was like, Alex, you could go last. And then I'm like, well, you proposed it, so you at least have to say what it is. Okay, so in the spirit of doing our fifth anniversary, I figured it'd be fun just to talk, you know, one of our, you know, favorite things or something we're thinking about from the cast, something that we really like. Wait, what? Wait, wait.
00:09:38
Speaker
What? Oh, not food, rocks or explosions. Yeah, outside of those. Those are three favorite things. Outside of those. Like, what's everything about the cast? I mean, did
00:09:54
Speaker
No, wait, you just said not not food, rock and explosions, though, from the cast either. No, no. OK, OK. We do not have any goblin lore branded fireworks. Glad you can't pick tangents either. That actually reminds me of something that happened the other day.
00:10:22
Speaker
Well, I think you go first there, Alex. All right. Oh, I promised Alex that you have an answer. You can go last. Because that gets up, I can say. I've got an answer. Go for it.
00:10:37
Speaker
It actually is the food episodes. We haven't done one in a while, but the color pie of food is one of my favorite, less serious things about the cast. I think that's what I love. The fact that we are laughing that we have non-serious things while we also do very serious heavy.
00:10:57
Speaker
topics and episodes. And to me, it's that willingness to do those topics is just like my overall main reason that I'm going to get into more when we're talking down the road. But just thinking about that, the fact that we've been able to intersperse these whole Malthus and color pie and other kind of fun discussions, like,
00:11:17
Speaker
Alex I got to have on this show the discussion of like is a hot dog a sandwich before we even got into color pie in that episode of sandwiches we had to establish what a sandwich was.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, and those have been so much fun to just, it's one of those things I love when you can take a very silly thing, but take it seriously. Like that's one of my favorite forms of comedy, and that's what those are. We get to very, get into the nitty gritty about the color pie, but we're talking about Thanksgiving food or whatever. Like we're talking about snacks, we're talking about food. This all started off as sauces. This was a Patreon request episode.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, from from Zach, who no longer actually plays magic, really. So but but Zach, who was one of the early patrons suggested this as a topic. And we just ran with it after doing sauces just to even start. Yeah, it's it's been great and a lot of fun. Yeah, that's a good pick. So that's mine. All right, Ted, you have one or should I go? Um,
00:12:25
Speaker
I'm going to limit mine to the time since I've joined the show because I could go and pick Pliny from beforehand and just fangirl over things that I was interested in. Why are there going to be some of the interviews that we've done with the authors like Seanan McGuire and K. Arshin and Rivero?
00:12:44
Speaker
really get to hear from them about you know what they put into their work and not just you know the discussion on the story themselves, but how they kind of put in their own or brought in their own mental health issues or Concerns and brought that into their story like you know Kay talking a lot about how fear shaped a bunch of that storyline and
00:13:12
Speaker
I'd like being able to bring these people in and talk to them about their experiences. And I hope that our listeners enjoy hearing that as much as I do talking to these people.
00:13:28
Speaker
And I think that's to be, yeah, the ones that we've had with other creatives, and I'll use that term broadly, but it makes me think of the artists that we've had on the show too. So this is a little bit of a content warning because we're talking mental health because that's what we do. But if you go back and listen to the episode with Ant Waters,
00:13:51
Speaker
Ant talks about suicide in that episode, actually very clearly the suicide of his father, which was not something that he had even told Alex and I was a potential to come up during that episode.
00:14:06
Speaker
Like, I still remember sitting there recording with somebody whose art that I admired. And I think of this, Taya, when you're mentioning the writers, because that's how I felt when we recorded with them, too. It's just these people I'm in awe of who then all of a sudden share these pieces that they felt comfortable sharing with us. And I just, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:14:34
Speaker
Okay, so with that, I'll go with a little more broad, a little bit bigger than even what Hobbs is saying, and I can kind of narrow in a little more specific about myself. But honestly, the mental health focus that we didn't really start with, it wasn't outside of our original remit, but it became something that kind of when we hit that first mental health topic, those first sort of topics, it's like this is something we could keep talking about. I think it was a good topic for us that
00:15:01
Speaker
well, even early on like those were episodes two and three we were talking about Gideon and and some of the stuff going on with with him and trauma but like that sort of became a thing that we came back to and for myself
00:15:16
Speaker
that became, that helped me to see in my own life, like outside of just the podcast and talking about it, these were important conversations and I was really glad that we were bringing them here and we were having these conversations and I'm glad we continue to do so and that we have wonderful guests who come in to join us for some of those conversations too to
00:15:37
Speaker
to make a big emphasis of that. Because it's an easy thing to not want to talk about. They can be uncomfortable. They can be difficult. But that's part of why it's so important. But that helped me start to bring those conversations in other places. I'm much more open at work.
00:15:57
Speaker
talking about mental health things. I started to advocate at my work to do some mental health stuff. And in the last couple of years, my work actually does stuff for Mental Health Awareness Month in May now, every year. They have topics, they do things, and some of them are smaller stuff. But some of it is bigger stuff. A couple of years ago, they had the Veterans Group and the Pride Group together had a talk about suicidal ideation.
00:16:27
Speaker
in an office because these are important conversations to have. I love being part of those conversations and bringing them here in the cast, but doing that here in the cast has helped me realize that's something I want to do in other places in my life outside of it as well.
Podcast in Professional Contexts
00:16:48
Speaker
So I'm curious for either of you, and I don't know how relevant it would be in your work, but has the cast come up in a work setting for either of you?
00:16:58
Speaker
a little bit. I've mostly talked to folks about it. We've had some smaller things, especially when everyone was working from home during the last few years. People are still mostly working from home, but during the first couple of years of the COVID pandemic and things, my
00:17:21
Speaker
my department, specifically 30-ish, 40-ish people, started to do weekly meetings. And part of that, they wanted to do, they did actual business talky things, but then we would do smaller things at the end. And some of it was just a quick question. We did that through sometimes, but they'd also went through and had people kind of share stuff about themselves. And not even specific questions. I think they just called it five things. Just tell us five things about you. And be like, my favorite food is shrimp. That's a thing.
00:17:50
Speaker
You know, I have two dogs or whatever. But so when I did that, I talked about the podcast specifically and specifically talked about mental health advocacy, talked about the fact that I have social anxiety, talk about some of that stuff. I did that intentionally. In fact, most of those people would create their list and submit it to one of the people on our fund committee who did most of the talking. I think I'm the only person who actually
00:18:16
Speaker
Like talk through their own set of things and I even told her because she's on my actual team too And I'm like, I'll go through this myself just and especially I think with the experience of the podcast I'm used to being in front of a microphone sometimes talking to people Outside of that it hasn't come up much for me Yeah, I'd say, you know, I brought it up a little bit when
00:18:41
Speaker
Especially like when we did the panel episode, I brought it into as an example of things that were going on for Mental Health Awareness Week and our mental health channel at work and showed off a little bit about what we were doing and talked a little bit about the podcast. So I've shown us off a little and linked us in our very small magic channel that has maybe four people in it. But
00:19:11
Speaker
I definitely had shared some stuff from episodes in my previous employer, which had a much larger magic community and had occasionally shared some episodes in there and brought some work stuff in on that. But yeah, I was happy to share the panel as part of Mental Health Awareness Month content.
00:19:38
Speaker
So the panel, I think, was the main thing I brought up. So we have a psychology staff meeting. And during the pandemic, again, I think we see a lot of these things that have changed. But one of them was to start talking about what people were doing, even just related to more social issues in general.
00:19:58
Speaker
And it was kind of funny because this was at the era when Trump had basically said like, you know, like places were not supposed to even talk about this stuff. Like there was a whole issue where we're a psychology training program, and we have requirements by like the American Psychological Association of things we have to like train our our our interns and stuff in the VA is one of the largest organizations in training in the in the nation. And
00:20:26
Speaker
Then the president said, you can't teach diversity and have trainings on diversity. And all of our staff is like, we can't legally be an accredited program if you take that away. And there was an interesting thing where our staff was basically like,
00:20:45
Speaker
Great, so we're going to devote part of our staff meetings almost in like, I don't know, civil disobedience in some ways, I guess, which is weird. Being that we're federal government, I hope I'm not going to get fired for just even saying this on. I'm not on work hours right now, so I'm allowed to say this. But like, we started sharing things that we were doing in the wake of…
00:21:04
Speaker
George Floyd in Minnesota in particular, at a time when Alex and I actually at that point had entered the pandemic, we were kind of doing the cast just by ourselves at that point before Taya had come on, Taya had been guesting.
00:21:22
Speaker
Alex and I were like, we need to – we want to do this. And so I brought it up in those contexts of just like, hey, we're doing this. And it's not just like, yes, we're psychologists. Yes, there's mental health. But there's like a lot of other social things that I think that we're willing to discuss that – yeah, I brought up in work settings. That's why I was curious. Sorry. I don't know how we ended up here. We're talking about the cast.
Community Feedback and Discord Dynamics
00:21:49
Speaker
So I think that's introductions. We're only 20 minutes in. It's a pretty good start. So that's all of us. So yeah, like, let's just wrap this up and we'll be out of here.
00:22:06
Speaker
So yeah, so we wanted to talk kind of about, I think, and some of that hits, at least for me, like one of the big things that, what this cast has meant to me. And I think there's going to be more of that conversation coming from the three of us as we go. But we also kind of wanted to talk about some of what we got from these recordings that some folks in the community and former guests have sent us.
00:22:29
Speaker
To put it I guess but community was a big was a big topic that a lot of people hit Yeah, I was not surprised as these were rolling in I so we when we put out this call
00:22:46
Speaker
Basically saying, like, hey, share something about goblin lore that's either important to you, share some of what you do, however you want to do it. It was pretty open-ended, but we did want people to say just a little bit about, you know, what about goblin lore pulls them in, keeps them listening? Because, you know, I, I will say, you know, like we could be shouting into the void. Um, I don't believe that is what's going on though. I do, you know, Alex and I for a long time had to talk about the fact that we almost pretended like that's what happened, especially, um,
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, especially early on when I started with my social, I literally was just pretending I was just talking to my two friends and no one would listen to this. And I mean, early on, that wasn't untrue. Well beyond when it was no longer true. Yeah, there are definitely blinders on people who are definitely downloading this cast. So what do you mean?
00:23:37
Speaker
Wait, you actually did put this out there? But I mean, like we are here at five years. That is not a number that is. Is that typical for a magic cast? That's a long time. I expected to hear a lot about community. I'm glad to have heard a lot about community. Yeah, yeah, it's.
00:24:02
Speaker
It was very nice to hear that. Like you say, Hobbes, it's a thing, a little facetiously, a little true, that sort of is how I mentally sort of set it up for myself. But also, even later, as it was obvious, people were actually listening to the show.
00:24:21
Speaker
It's one thing to say, this is kind of what we're trying to do, but it's another to actually get the feedback and say, Oh, this is what you're hitting. And that it was very nice to hear. Yeah, it was, uh, was really good to hear how many people appreciated the, especially our discord community that we fostered, um, you know, which.
00:24:47
Speaker
really does not talk a lot about the show. We have one channel that talks about the show and it's not a very active channel. We really do have a community of people who talk more about what's going on in their lives than they do about magic.
00:25:10
Speaker
which in a lot of ways feels appropriate as one of the recordings that we have points out that our cast doesn't talk a whole lot about magic, some, but not a ton. And I think it feels kind of appropriate that our discord is less about our cast and more about just the community and the people who are there. And not none about the cast, but it is not the main thing, that topic of conversation there for sure. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't think it's,
00:25:38
Speaker
There is stuff about magic. There is a lot of magic discussion of different formats and you know the various Stories just like a conversation about story at certain points not a lot of story lately Yeah, there are some when there's some significant story goings on there's some conversation back and forth. I Actually think it's a cool microcosm of what the show does like our channels are a lot of times um
00:26:04
Speaker
They have everything
Identity and Community Beyond Hobbies
00:26:06
Speaker
from like art to people with people showing off their own art showing off their own promos the story Things that people do outside of magic their pets their food. It's on this idea that it's beyond magic
00:26:20
Speaker
Uh, so Alex, one of the things that you have said for a long time, that's always stuck with me is that idea that, right? Like it's when, when, when, when your identity becomes only this one thing, how difficult that is. Right. Especially if you're not having a good engagement with that hobby or that, that thing. Right. And if that's so much of your identity is wrapped up in it, um, that's where we can struggle. That's why I've seen it on online. I think a lot where we're.
00:26:47
Speaker
Magic is a person or it seems that way and we don't get to know a lot more about them. And that's why our discord I find is like it's not. It's all the aspects of people's lives. The things that we want to highlight on the show are coming through in that discord. And I'm not like active in a lot of discords. I'll be very honest.
00:27:06
Speaker
I try, I like, I want to be, I would like to be more and I just, I'm not good at doing it. I come back to ours because of the people who are in that and are talking daily. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. And it's like, I'm not, I'll be a perfect man. I say I'm not terribly active even in ours, but it's.
00:27:27
Speaker
It's such a great community for that. And yeah, it goes to that point that it allows, we're not just a magic podcast, though we kind of fit in there. We talk about magic, we talk about the game, but we talk about a lot of different aspects of the game. And that holds true for the Discord.
00:27:45
Speaker
There's magic stuff in there, there's podcast stuff in there, but there's a lot of other things. And, you know, we're kind of making channels as we go a little bit. It's a small community that kind of grows as we come to a different topic, like relatively recent. We just have the Games That Aren't Magic channel that at some point maybe we have to split that into more granular things. But it's just been nice to have
00:28:08
Speaker
places to have those conversations and to be more, to have more points to your identity, to have more where you can kind of share that with this community and you don't have to just be about magic with these magic folks and then go find some other place to be about just this other thing with them. You can kind of come to this space and be about multiple things and share all of that.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's, you know, it's been a really good place to hang out. Even before I joined the cast, I like being a member of the community and the discord and being there, you know, especially the, the mental health related channels or people post their struggles and you know, what they're celebrating today and just having the camaraderie around that is.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really good place. And I would say too, like the respective that people have for each other and for what the channel kind of represents, like we literally have a yelling to the void channel and people are very clear at times, do I need something or, you know, like it's like, you know, people aren't just like trying to like minimize the yelling.
00:29:19
Speaker
You know, like, I think we have other places where people are going to offer support and help and jump to more of that role. A lot of times the yelm of the void is literally just like allowing that to be done and have people like acknowledge that they saw it like nothing more than that. Yeah, I love I love the emote game on the server. That's a couple of Discord servers I'm on who are good at that. But I love that support that isn't
00:29:47
Speaker
We just get to put that little emote and we're like, we saw, we acknowledge, you know, the hearts, the color, there's, and other things in other places too. You know, I always, as a, as a, as a melthos, as a, as a big Mel, I enjoy the putting a emote of a cat under a picture of a cat and such. That's always feels resonant for me.
Personal Updates and Core Focus
00:30:10
Speaker
I don't know. It's something, there's something in my brain or that just is very satisfied by, oh, someone posted a picture of a turtle. Is there a turtle in here? Yeah, there it is. I'm happy there's a hedgehog emoji. That's what I was thinking that one too. Yep. Yeah. Congrats on the hedgehog by the way. Has that been announced on the show? We talked so much about Callie. No, we haven't enough of the show. I got a hedgehog named Selena. She's adorable, very spiky, and
00:30:40
Speaker
just getting her acclimated to living in a house and a new place, posting lots of pictures of her to the Discord and also to my social media. So outside of community, the other things that I think I heard the most kind of in these clips that you're going to be hearing just as a precursor is mental health. To the surprise, I think once again of no one. As Alex said, it started out as, you know,
00:31:11
Speaker
Magic lore meets the real world. And that was pretty broad at that point, too. Like we hit Mental Health right out the gate when we talked about this. Our second episode was PTSD and Gideon. It wasn't like we were shying away from this stuff. Yeah. But it took a little while for it to be a main pillar. But yeah, it was there right away. It was in the mix early on. And I think it's been one of those, as time's gone on, it's just become like,
00:31:39
Speaker
Mental health encompasses health or encompasses like so many areas and permeate so many areas. I feel like even if we're not specifically doing mental health, we're doing mental health, which to me is the point.
00:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a topic that works really well for all of us, like all the hosts who've been on the cast. It fits well there. And also, I say that's probably the main thing part of why I think we've been going as long as we have is because we kind of just we record what we want to record and we do what we want to do and it works. So then, but there's also not a lot of
00:32:17
Speaker
that specific niche. We're pretty niche, but that means there isn't a lot of other conversations. Those conversations aren't happening in a lot of other places. The fact that we're talking about them here gives people who want to hear about that stuff and be part of those conversations, gives them a place here.
00:32:36
Speaker
which I love. Well, I'll say the willingness of all of us to share personal experiences, to share personal anecdotes. It's not just completely removed from who we are. It's not just, oh, I'm going to talk about this through the lens of another person in an academic sort of way. It's also like, no, this is also how it specifically is me.
00:33:01
Speaker
that I think our host and I think the guests that we've had on have had a willingness to do. And willingness is always a big topic for me.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and there can be a place for that. But that works really well for us to have that specific and that personal. And to go into writing, one of the things that I tend to bring in here and there throughout our whole run, that is a sometimes seemingly contradictory thing. But if you're trying to write broadly to broad things, to broad people, it doesn't really engage.
00:33:37
Speaker
More often if you are very specific and personal about a personal experience and specific things and circumstances that will actually have broader appeal because even people for whom Even for people who did not have those specific experiences and don't touch on that there can still be more resonance and it feels more personal it feels more engaging because I think it feels more real there's a person in that and as
00:34:07
Speaker
you know, a species who's big on community and being grouped together. I don't know. I kind of lost the thread there. But that having that personal connection, even if it's to someone very different, is has more appeal, has more stickiness than a story or a conversation that's just laden in generalities.
00:34:32
Speaker
I know that for me, a lot of times I struggle. I'm an analogy person. A lot of the therapy that I do is very analogy-based, which is actually what's very helpful for me. Why I like the show and why I like doing the type of therapy that I do is it's very analogy-based because that's how my brain works.
00:34:53
Speaker
It's finding what works for each person, but I think that having something that I can tie it back to while still being specific, because it's easier for me if I'm not just trying to, you know, almost like spout platitudes or these concepts to actually give it something, some meat to it. Um, it's just more, it just, for me, it helps to make that connection a lot stronger.
Podcast as Social Connection
00:35:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:19
Speaker
that I had something to add there, but I've lost thread somewhere. So, I mean, the thread was mental health. I don't know. I felt like I had something else to relate to that or build off of that, but I can't relate it. I would say for me, it's one of the things that made me want to be a part of this show and join the cast was how important it is as part of the cast. And I'm happy to be here.
00:35:54
Speaker
I'm getting close to tearing up myself. Like honestly today, like I just there's I don't know doing this has been a heavy emotions for me just kind of um
00:36:04
Speaker
sitting down with friends and people that I consider so important in my life to talk about a show that's then going to be put out there for others. One of the things that's been during the pandemic was this show was a way to just continue having some social connections. I mean, we keep coming back to this. I mean, it's the community, it's a social connection. But I mean, there was even a couple of people that mentioned like,
00:36:28
Speaker
Like the cast in some ways, they didn't have necessarily as much of a community, especially during the pandemic. And so I think it's a lot of what Alex and I talked about and then having the guests that we did and bringing in people like Taya just to begin with was because it was like, these were the people I wanted to talk to on a week in, week out basis. And the show gave a like,
00:36:50
Speaker
Pretense because I'm not just good about like just it's hard for me to carve out time To just have conversations. It's harder for me. Yeah, but a show
00:37:02
Speaker
That's the way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just the folks that we've gotten to talk to over the years from just people immediately in our community and up to people who are in wider magic things and to people who are outside of the magic community who we've gotten to talk to sometimes. It's just really kind of incredible.
00:37:26
Speaker
I think it's funny that there was a couple of people from like the Minnesota community we just had on because like, we hadn't even talked to them a year longer could see them. Oh, that was Eric, like, I'm trying to think who was Ryan, Ryan for sure. recording. That was during when I was when I broke my leg and I was staying with my parents. I was like, not only was that early 2021. Yeah, was that 21?
00:37:56
Speaker
or 20, I think it was 21, regardless. Like not only was it pandemic things, we're trying not to see people, but then I'm like, I'm up north. I'm not even in my own home. I'm not anywhere near where I'm not going to work. I'm up just hanging out with my parents because I broke my leg and have a hard time getting around and I've been old. That's the whole thing. And so it was just like, I've been talking to Eric for a while.
00:38:21
Speaker
Let's talk about music and magic and record with Eric because that would be great. And so yeah, just as a way to connect with friends, reconnect with friends, talk to them who we haven't seen for a while, or to connect with people for the first time. Like, I talked to you on the cast for the first time ever. It's just, it's been a great vehicle to have for social stuff, community things. That's what we're talking about.
Anniversary Celebrations and Community Support
00:38:50
Speaker
So I, you know, we have these clips that we're going to be playing for you. We don't we have actual now that we are back. And by say back is that we actually have guest scheduled again and more of a look at change in our schedule so that we are
00:39:07
Speaker
Hopefully gonna be back now from where we were kind of pre-may where things kind of did fall off a little bit just in terms of just Consistency for well, we were getting episodes out but for the three of us to be able to sit down and to get guest on I'm just excited like going into year six now of this cast Is there anything either of you wanted to kind of share or talk about before we kind of like play the clips and
00:39:34
Speaker
Get one more. Yeah, I was just going to say we need to make sure that we give a special thanks to Jay for his clip.
00:39:51
Speaker
Our wonderful competitors over at the Vorthos cast were nice enough to chime in and wish us a happy fifth anniversary. Yeah. Thanks, Jay. And I just want to say, and this is a thing I know you and I have talked about Hobbs, but I want to mention something Paul said in his recording.
00:40:14
Speaker
before coming into the community and being part of this, didn't really consider himself a goblin person. I think it's a similar thing for you and I. For me, I thought Goblin Lore was a fun name. It was a cool play on the card and the fact that we were going to be talking about
00:40:30
Speaker
more net you we didn't have like specific stuff we're going to be talking about lower but maybe more weird and more random and some of that I mean even our first episode is literally what a joke call it like our favorite garbage lower or something our favorite coverage lower that's the name in the thing um and so I didn't have a lot of identity to goblins but I thought oh it's a cool name it's that's fine that's cool
00:40:52
Speaker
But then over the years have really started to feel that strong community. And that's a thing that we've realized that there's a lot of strong community elements to goblins in magic and really feel a good resonance there, a good fit there. And so I did want to give a shout out to that as well. Because goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.
00:41:19
Speaker
Hello, I am Jay Anelli, Magic's lore master and co-host of the Vorthos Cast podcast. In honor of five years of the Goblin Lore podcast, I'd like to share one of my favorite flavor texts in Magic. They're still here? The cockroach may have finally met its match. Thank you, and congratulations. Goblin Lore podcast to me is something that's found its own special niche within the MTG community.
00:41:48
Speaker
Episodes are fantastic guests that they've brought on, have been willing to share some actually incredibly tough stories. And it's something that everybody should actually just give a watch or listen to.
00:42:01
Speaker
As far as the community that they built, Hobbs, Taya, and Alex have fostered an incredible community. It's full of people. We're there to support each other through all the hard times, and even more than that, we're also there to help celebrate each other with all the victories that we're willing to share with each other. It's a fantastic place. It's just welcoming, inclusive, meant to be special to everybody who's willing to come in.
00:42:28
Speaker
What's up? It's Jeffrey Palmer, Living Cards MTG. Heard it's the fifth anniversary for Goblin Lore Pod. First of all, congratulations. Me, myself, I'm a big fan. I was on the show and it went pretty well. They asked me about lore and goblins and what the heck I was doing, which is all I ever want out of a conversation. So,
00:42:54
Speaker
you know, congrats on five years of doing that. And I hope you do five more. And then after that, we'll maybe do some more. I don't know, I'm not making the rules here, but anyway, cheers. Kyle from Florida here, wanting to give all of Goblin Lore a congratulations on five years. I may not be able to listen to every episode, but there are a couple of things I know I can always count on Goblin Lore for.
00:43:21
Speaker
One is a safe place if things are going wrong. I know that it is a safe and welcoming place to either talk with the cast or listen. I know it's going to be good things for me. I want to thank you all for the laughs over the years.
00:43:41
Speaker
but also despite all the laughs using magic as a common ground to talk about really big and weighty things as well. Whether it be grief and loss or parenting or what it means to be a man. Like it's just it's a lot of very things that most people shy away from but Goblin Lore takes the the common ground and common language of magic and really talks about it and I appreciate that.
00:44:12
Speaker
Thank you. Here's hoping for another five years. Hi, this is Michelle Rapp here to celebrate the five year anniversary of Goblin Lore podcast.
Listener Reflections and Impact
00:44:21
Speaker
I can't believe it's been five years, five years since we created the idea of Ravnica the musical. I really hope that one day we actually get to put it on because I would love to see what a theater kid can make of a shark toe crap costume. That would simply be stupendous and it would be wonderful.
00:44:41
Speaker
On the other hand, we have reality and the reality is that, you know, we have had this podcast for so long. It's been amazing. Um, you certainly lasted longer than many things in the magic community, but that makes this podcast even more wonderful and more precious. It's just an incredible educational, thoughtful, wonderfully compassionate part of this community.
00:45:05
Speaker
I feel very lucky to have been part of this community and this podcast on several occasions, not least of which has been the Minneapolis Magic Con panel that we did on mental health with Hobbs and Taya, other hosts. It's been an incredible time and an incredible ride. I look forward to
00:45:27
Speaker
So many more years of engaging with this community, engaging with this podcast wonderfully, talking with its hosts. And I've been also happy to consider all of them my dear, dear friends. It's been a real comfort in the past couple of years since I've moved cross country to Boston from San Francisco and also become a mother to a chubby-cheeked six-month-old who loves to make noises that sound like an 80-year-old chain smoker.
00:45:56
Speaker
Well that's me and I guess I will see you around next time and hopefully maybe by that point I will have penned a song or two for this musical that really just needs to happen. Okay take care see you on mastodon at kiln fiend potter or I'm still on twitter a little bit at kiln fiend potter and on instagram at kiln fiend pottery. Take care and see ya bye!
00:46:25
Speaker
Finally, months later, a little bit of peace and quiet, boys are outside, and I can do this very belatedly, which seems in character. What does Goblin Lore podcast and the group mean to me? Twofold. The Goblin Lore podcast itself is, it's often said that
00:46:55
Speaker
Magic the Gathering is more about the gathering than the magic, particularly with Commander and Social Gaming. Not so much the competitive or tournament scene.
00:47:08
Speaker
It's like magic is a vehicle to facilitate interacting with people that you enjoy. So only a third of what you're there for when magicking is the game itself. The other two thirds is just the people that you want to hang out with.
00:47:28
Speaker
And the podcast hits that perfectly because maybe a third of the content is actually about magic. The rest of it is human rights, social justice, and a huge focus on mental health. And those are things that matter very much to me. Those are things that matter very much to people and
00:47:52
Speaker
gaming spaces. And the fact that the podcast doesn't just stick to magic, but instead is about the gathering is perfect. Personally, the other part of this is that this crew itself, the community created by and around the hosts,
00:48:22
Speaker
You know, the goblin or crew, the discord, um, the people who sometimes get to meet up at events and whatnot. Boy, is there, there's a lot of shared value there.
00:48:39
Speaker
when you have unabashedly bumbling, rambling, neurodivergent, dorky hosts just being their authentic selves and talking about things that matter and
00:48:54
Speaker
really making it clear that people matter more than anything else. And that it's okay to be flawed. It's okay to work towards bettering yourself and to give yourself space when that doesn't go smoothly. It attracts a particular type of person, a particular mindset. And the goblin war crew hosts and community is
00:49:24
Speaker
Those are my people.
00:49:27
Speaker
You know, goblins ride together. The very first episode that I listened to was actually Hobbs doing a solo about Angraff and being a father. And it hit me, you know, right when I was coming to terms with a lot of realities about being a father and whether I was good enough or not. I have two disabled children. I'm a disabled parent and knowing
00:49:56
Speaker
how we are going to fit into this world when it's explicitly not made for us and whether I'll ever be good enough. He might as well have been speaking straight to me and it hooked me from day one.
00:50:11
Speaker
the willingness of people to be vulnerable and to talk about the challenges in our lives to, I don't know, to celebrate even the small victories in each other's lives. That's a community.
00:50:30
Speaker
And you don't get that kind of community. You don't get that kind of group. You don't get that kind of space without fostering it, without nurturing it. And the goblin war crew.
00:50:47
Speaker
has definitely created that. And it has been monumentally important for me when I feel that I don't fit in many other spaces to have this one. So thank you for everything that you've done, for the place you've created, and for just being your wonderful dorky selves. This is Mike Wild Speaker, friend and fan of Goblin Lore.
00:51:17
Speaker
I want to give a big congratulations to the five-year milestone of the podcast and to thank you for your presence in the magic community, being spokespeople, spokescoblins, for a whole litany of important topics and being so intentionally, purely, and consistently positive. Fostering a positive community is what I do too. I've been running my game club in the Milwaukee Public High School that I teach at for 12 years now. It started with my own bulk magic and game collection
00:51:47
Speaker
And with generous support from the community donating to the club, it has blossomed into a huge after-school crew full of commander pods, D&D campaigns, and sprawling tabletop gaming library that gets pulled out and played on the big science lab benches in my classroom. A classroom that I've lovingly adorned with fantasy art that is as diverse as my students are. The popularity of the club coincides with its two most popular games, Magic and D&D,
00:52:17
Speaker
making conscious choices to be more inclusive in their representation. And every week I get to see why this matters as kids make their first impressions of these games and worlds and decide more and more often that this is for me. This game club is one of the things that really buoyed my community through the pandemic. I did curbside pickup of gaming supplies that just gave away everything I could for kids to use at home. And we met virtually just like we held class.
00:52:47
Speaker
but this was full of student-led, unstructured time with no educational agenda. We just gamed and laughed and kept the gathering going. Once school resumed, the club immediately popped off as popular as ever. Everything I do there is to try and shape the formative experience of the next generation of gamers for the better, which is why I feel such resonance with what Goblin Lore does. Thanks for the community you've helped build and make better,
00:53:15
Speaker
and inspire me to encourage the next generation to connect with and benefit from as well. Thanks for giving me the space to talk about what the gathering has meant to me. This was at Mike Wildspeaker on Twitter. Hi, this is Scott Massey.
00:53:33
Speaker
you might know me as Darth Massey on Discord. The Goblin Lore podcast means a lot to me. It's a great way to learn more about feelings through the lens of magic. It's a great way to learn a little bit more about yourself while still enjoying the game that we all love. And the best part about it to me is honestly the online community of being able to chat with everybody else that also enjoys the show.
00:54:03
Speaker
Hi, my name is Paul. My pronouns are he, him, and what the Goblin Lore podcast really means to me is it is honestly my community for Magic the Gathering. I started playing when I was much, much younger.
00:54:20
Speaker
My first pack was way back in Ice Age. I still remember pulling out Tinder Wall and just I was so enchanted by the whole story that was being told through the art, through the car. There was this idea of like you could be this person
00:54:39
Speaker
doing things, stopping people, making decisions. And I just found it really, really engrossing and interesting when I was much younger. But after playing for several years, getting into high school and then later college, I just didn't have the time or didn't make the time to continue going out to my LGS and playing there.
00:55:01
Speaker
about five years ago I stumbled across Arena and remembered all the great times that I used to have playing Magic at my LGS and it was really able to kind of bring me back into Magic again. But as a father, as a husband, as someone who lives in a place where it's just geographically difficult for me to get out to an LGS and play in person with other people in paper,
00:55:30
Speaker
arena was really the way that I found that I could engage with the game, but that kind of left this gap. There wasn't any gathering for me. I started checking out different content creators, getting into Limited, which I'd never really played when I was younger, and finding different podcasts with strategy and tips to be a better player, be a little spiky, but eventually I wound up going through
00:55:57
Speaker
certain other content creators, and I think it was actually Sheevum and Casual Magic that brought me to the Goblin Lore podcast. I'm pretty sure there was a recommendation to check out an episode about coping with social anxiety, which was a couple years old at the time that I discovered it.
00:56:16
Speaker
And I was absolutely hooked at that point. I can't believe honestly that it's been less than a year since I discovered it because within listening to the first few episodes, hearing that shout out for the link tree, I was going to check out just the different discounts and ways to support the show. But what caught my eye was the fact that there was a discord.
00:56:40
Speaker
I'm not a big social media user, I'm not a very outgoing person, I'm very introverted, so I don't do the Facebooks and Twitter and stuff like that, but happened to already have Discord for playing Pokemon Go with people in my community. And in joining that Discord community, I was just blown away at how awesome it was to have like-minded people there at my disposal.
00:57:06
Speaker
you know, kind of whenever I needed them, whenever I was able to engage on so many different topics that meant so much to me as well. There was silliness, there was venting, there were people talking about politics, but in a meaningful way and from perspectives that I shared. I just can't imagine not having access to that at this point. So,
00:57:33
Speaker
I guess in a roundabout way, like maybe I engage with the Discord even more than I do with the podcast at this point, but really it gives me that other half of what Magic the Gathering is or was when I was younger in finding like-minded people. We all have this common point of reference, but we can come together and support each other and be so much more in so many different ways than what I was expecting.
00:58:01
Speaker
I was a little nervous at first joining that discord because I don't consider myself to be a terribly goblin-like person. I tend to be, in the real world, a little more Azorius, leaning into Esper maybe, but
00:58:17
Speaker
Because everyone has been so awesome, so open, so kind, I never felt excluded or unwelcome for a moment. So that's really what the show and the community means to me.
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
00:58:33
Speaker
The most amazing thing about the Goblin Lore podcast is the hosts who do a phenomenal job of being open and honest while crisscrossing mental health, Magic the Gathering, and their personal experiences.
00:58:47
Speaker
One of the few podcasts that I can say has regularly made me cry. Their interviews also just absolutely stand out for their ability to be informative and fun. Highly recommend. Goblin Lore is definitely a podcast. 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 Tayatranscendence, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore Chronicler.
00:59:17
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 at gmail.com.
00:59:27
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood gobsugs, 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 Vintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Cob and Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
00:59:55
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.