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Episode 159: Spice8Rack Delivers the Mail
523 Plays2 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Here it is y'all!! The collaboration the Ravnica Post called "The Worst Idea in the Multiverse" and the Shivan Times proclaimed "Oh God, no... we're all going to die!! That's right The Worlds of Goblins collide when we pair up with Spice8Rack and talk Goblin things... kind of... This is is part 3 so if you missed part 1 and part 2 you should go listen now...
Today the three Goblins (well mainly Spice) answer mailbag questions from our listeners!! We don't know what else to say other than we did finally let Spice out of the Warrens to allow it roam the wider world once again.
Not much else to say but go throw money at Spice so it can continue to produce the Lore Content that makes the rest of us feel like Impostors... delicious, tasty Impostors!
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 including the fact that Hobbes is now a Brand Amabassador for Quiver
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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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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at@HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Series Conclusion
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to a part three. It has been a very long time since we have had a guest. So just amazing and prolific that they have given us content for our entire month, basically. We normally, because we did our fourth year anniversary, Alex and I talked about, we do hit about 75% of weeks. Our goal is always 100%, but we aim for it. We don't have should statements around it anymore.
00:00:53
Speaker
And so we are lucky enough to be back with a part three with Spice 8-Rack. Yeah. Welcome back, Spice. Wow. It's, it's, oh, as I said last time, it's been a whole series of minutes since last we spoke in the, again, seconds too long. I didn't even get my, damn it, I didn't even get my quote right. See, this is the problem. That's why you, that's why you can't copyright it or add it to your brand is you're just not going to remember. Exactly. You're quite correct. Yeah.
00:01:22
Speaker
But spice is back. In the meantime, we all use the restroom.
Acknowledgment of Sponsors
00:01:26
Speaker
We talk to people that we might need to to make sure we could put off plans. And we are coming back for finally the mailbag portion of the episode. Thanks for letting everybody know that I did a big weave between now and then.
00:01:42
Speaker
Last time I made a cuppa, this time it was the Wii. I did mention on the last episode the idea of pissing on the third rail, so we are still on brand and topic. Sweet, I love this. This is the line of feeling. It's goblins, it's communism, it's piss. Let's go.
00:02:00
Speaker
So let's do our first couple of just quick beginning of the episode notes to get them out of the way. Spice is probably like, I know these by heart now. I am never going to purchase anything that these group might want for sponsors or to advertise because I've had to listen to the spiel three times.
00:02:17
Speaker
But we're going to thank Grinding Coffee Company, the LGBT minority-led coffee company that has just been fantastic to work with for us. We do a lot of the charity events. We mentioned that kind of in week one, if you're now listening to these in actual chronological order and not us recording them. We had finished off another charity event the cast was involved in, and as soon as I reached out to Grinding Coffee Company, for like the third time in three months,
00:02:42
Speaker
They just jumped up and said, yes, what do you need offering us those? And so we just love working with them. So we also want to notice that if you want a quiver, we now have goblin
Host Introductions
00:02:55
Speaker
lore. It's under me, but it's the goblin lore. You can use that at checkout to get a deal on your my favorite way to display your goblin lore sticker.
00:03:05
Speaker
And I am Hobbs Q. I realize at this point we're getting a little punchy and not even properly introducing anything. So if you're a new person, I guess part three wouldn't be the best place to jump in anyway, but I will still let you know I am Hobbs Q, he him, and I will throw it over to my co-host Alex.
00:03:22
Speaker
I'm Alex. Alex, I've been phoned on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are also he, him. And just quick shout out to the fireside Alliance. It's a community that we, the Dublin, the podcast, we are a part of.
Fireside Alliance and Podcast Involvement
00:03:35
Speaker
They're a progressive community of progressive communities, a lot of different content creators who have their own little communities, little pockets throughout the internet and decided
00:03:44
Speaker
a couple years ago that it would be nice to have sort of a shared space for all of them to kind of come together and build something a little bit bigger than each of the individual little siloed communities.
Discussion Recap
00:03:56
Speaker
So there is a Discord server as part of the Fireside Alliance. Everyone is welcome to join it. We approached them about joining the community. We thought that would be a good fit, and they were gracious enough to bring us in as a partner in this community. We're the only magic content creators,
00:04:13
Speaker
There's a lot of great podcasts and other sorts of content just throughout all sorts of topics of movies and shows and such. If that's something you're interested in, please check them out. Great. So we've now talked, as Spice was nice enough to tell us, we've talked about communism. We've talked about piston on the third rail. We've talked goblins. We've talked story design, story space for goblins and just story space in general for wizards.
Mailbag Introduction
00:04:40
Speaker
Part three, we get to do mailbag. We're hoping, we have some interesting questions here. We got some that are a little more serious, some that people want to get to know spice a little bit better, and we're going to find out how much spice is willing to talk about. So in the continued vein of me being the worst
Spice 8-Rack Introduction
00:04:58
Speaker
host of all times when it comes to how we treat our guests,
00:05:01
Speaker
I am going to introduce Spice and let you come up with a third intro question because you got to do the work around here. That's how goblins function. Sweet, excellent. I already had one planned because I knew that this tomfoolery, this chicanery was going to continue. Absolutely. The beatings were going to continue until morale improves.
00:05:27
Speaker
Hello, everybody. My name is Spice Ape-Rack. My pronouns are it and him. And I love me a little goblin. I love
Goblin Art Discussion
00:05:34
Speaker
me a little goblin. I love them with their silly little eyes, little funny smiles. Oh, big fan of them. And I love talking about them. I make YouTube videos as well. But if you're listening to part three, why would you need to know who I am if you're listening to part three out of order?
00:05:54
Speaker
We don't know how people are going to find their way here. Who knows? That's very fair. All right. Well, OK, I do have my question. And I didn't anticipate we were going to be doing a part three. I thought we were going to be like a part one, part two. Let's do an inverse. But unfortunately, when you do question A and then question B is the inverse of question A, question C has to be something completely different. My question is, which artist draws the best goblins?
00:06:21
Speaker
Which artist, just artist in magic, which artist in magic do you think captures that goblin feel the best? Because I know what mine is, absolutely, and I can even say specifically what piece of art I think is the best piece of goblin art. For me, it is Wayne Reynolds.
00:06:40
Speaker
Now, Wayne Reynolds was... Damn it! I finally was ready to go! Yeah, you're gonna have me ask the question and then, oh, I guess I'll just have to answer it quickly. Yeah, I know something. I know what I'm about. Wayne Reynolds, beautiful goblin artist. Genuinely phenomenal. The angles, the sharpness in all of his pieces, the lighting that he uses as phenomenal, the feeling of motion in everything.
00:07:10
Speaker
incredible. Wayne has been producing art that has goblins in it since, in fact, let me just quickly double check that because I don't want to say something incorrect because Scripal actually has a wonderful art tagger where you can, oh wow, so Wayne Reynolds has drawn 35 pieces of art allegedly that have goblins in it and the the oldest one being actually from original Ravnica
00:07:39
Speaker
But I think from my perspective, the piece of art that really sells goblins and really like catches it the best is his interpretation of Goblin Sharpshooter. For those who don't know, Goblin Sharpshooter originally was printed in onslaught and it just had, I think it was by Greg Staples, and it had, you know, little tin hat on and one of those old timey sort of like World War I crank handle machine guns on it, sort of a Gatling gun.
00:08:07
Speaker
And you know, it's a fine piece of art. It looks very silly seeing a goblin with a big gun like that. But Wayne Reynolds' interpretation of Goblin Sharpshooter, rather than that, has a goblin holding a multi-scoped... Imagine a high-tech sniper rifle with multiple scopes on it, all kinds of gizmos to ensure accuracy, different levels of scope. You've got iron sights, you've got normal scopes, you've got scopes on top of those scopes.
00:08:33
Speaker
and at the end of the gun, instead of a barrel, you have a massive hammer with a sprint on it, and the goblin is standing aiming down the sights directly at the back of the head of a human that doesn't realise there's a goblin behind him. That, to me, is the perfect piece of goblin art by Wayne Reynolds. That's my perspective.
00:08:54
Speaker
So Hobbs, do you need a moment to think because I have God, no, I was ranting with the the I put the mute on so that it wouldn't come across because like I really was Wayne Reynolds. So if people somehow for the love of God
Ideal Plane for Goblin Comic
00:09:09
Speaker
do not know I have a all artists proof goblin deck. So it is an EDH deck that is a hundred artists proofs.
00:09:18
Speaker
And and some tokens so there was like a lot of directions to go here because I have some some magic artists that I just really like Wayne is Obviously kind of high up on the list Yeah, I'm gonna give some shout outs because one it not done a ton of goblin art But it is one of our favorite cards on here the flavor text and the artist is we're gonna throw out some more shouts to the UK and
00:09:38
Speaker
like Wayne Reynolds in looking at Carl Critchlow who does Goblin offensive with the flavor text of they sure are. So I love that card but you know Carl hasn't done a ton of goblins. I am still gonna go with somebody who it's kind of cheating which is very on brand for this show.
00:09:59
Speaker
Jeff Laubenstein, who is a guest on the show, actually did a ton of goblins early on. More things like Goblin Festival and Incendiary, where they were groups of goblins in cards that weren't specifically a goblin card.
00:10:16
Speaker
Well, the cheating part comes in is because we had Jeff on the show, and one of the things that Jeff did during this pandemic was doing a goblin token a day, taking people's photos and goblinizing them. And he would go through people's feeds and not even tell, you could submit and he might get to you, he might not. He would also look through and find people's photos that he really liked. And I am fortunate enough to have
00:10:41
Speaker
both my daughter and I done in the form of Jeff's Goblins as part of that project. And he talked about it on the show, just kind of like wanting, I think, Spice, you were talking about this a little bit in a previous episode, the joy, the happiness, almost like the kind of the that piece. And I said, the whimsy of goblins. And it was really kind of trying to bring that to Twitter every day. It just started this kind of we talked about, like, Paddington, where
00:11:08
Speaker
Jeff Palmer, who Jeffrey Palmer, who was just on the show, is now doing a like Paddington in a magic art a day. And it doesn't rock. And Jeff kind of started out the same way. He just was like, dude, doing these goblin tokens as a way to like, you know, during the pandemic, and then saw that people had this
00:11:25
Speaker
Positive reaction and it seemed to be putting something out there of joy during the pandemic and continued it for quite a while I don't remember where the final number ended So I it's it is I like what he has done on magic art He also did altar sleeves in the zebecs one that was spice rack also did with Titus did some sleeves but yeah, yes you did and he did a version of a
00:11:51
Speaker
Um, of Grenzo with like tattoos on his fingers where he really, and he also did a, uh, like a mob boss. He did Cranko with like the whole really like a dapper suit. So he has just done some amazing goblins, even if they're not specific cards. That's a very fair answer.
00:12:09
Speaker
I'm going to continue the theme of cheating. And actually, in part, this is a thing that Spice may not be familiar with. But generally, when we do opening questions, a lot of times, I'll think up the question and then not answer that question. I'll answer it.
00:12:25
Speaker
different question and sort of shoehorn it in. This is my first opportunity. It is amazing when Alex does this, after Alex is literally the person who came up with the question. So I have to think of an answer and or just do and then Alex goes, well, actually, this is what I really wanted to answer. Amazing.
00:12:46
Speaker
So I'm going to answer Mike Bieric, who has, according to Scryfall, illustrated exactly one goblin card. And that's not even what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about the goblin token that Mike illustrated. Oh, that's fair. That's fair. That's very fair.
00:13:10
Speaker
I don't know. In the last week or two, time is weird. I can't remember exactly when. At some point, people were talking about what the best goblins were. Because as we mentioned in the last episode, we talked about there's a lot of different representations. You're the one who brought this up. Goblins have so many different representations and so many different planes, just even physically, way more than any other creature type in magic. And absolutely, hands down, my favorite are the Tarkir goblins, who are the little miniature Yetis.
00:13:40
Speaker
And yes, our buddy on goblin slide. Oh, yes. And but I think like, and that's a great art. I think that's Kev Walker. But like this particular goblin token by Mike, I believe Birkbeck is a B I E R E K
00:13:56
Speaker
could be how you pronounce that, but this is probably like the cleanest straight representation of that version. I mean, there's a lot of other goblins in Tarkir that are similarly like furred and things, but it's a lot darker colors for some of it. Like Mardu Scout by Zoltan Boros looks great. This is goblins surfing down the sand. But like these are
00:14:18
Speaker
this goblin token is the pure white looking like the yeti but i love this little tiny yetis because that's goblins they're little so that's good man i didn't say boros and that was also on my short list because also did ankle shanker um yeah and also um did conspicuous snoop with like the nose pressed up against the window and like the play on snow white uh did missex judge promo so
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah. My answer for card art, I'm going to go with Boros. Boros did two different arts for Hordling Outbursts, the promo and the pack and the margaret.
00:14:58
Speaker
That was a thought for me, but I gotta go with my yetis. Alex and I get this episode pretty easily. I'm sure we'll have something to say. But we asked for questions that people might want to ask our guests. Because people, we made some vague allusions to who was being on here that nobody could figure out. But people came up with questions that still somehow are relevant. We're going to just start it off pretty simply. At Hudnall56 wants to know which plane would be the perfect setting for a goblin-centered comic book?
00:15:28
Speaker
So taking this to a different medium. And I don't know your knowledge of comics or your interest in them. I'm reasonably interested in comics. I'm more of a graphic novel person per se than a comic, although I do have a few. I mean, some of the graphic novels on my shelves are like
00:15:47
Speaker
comic collections compiled into graphic novels. Yeah, that's fair too. We get, you know, we get a Sandman series with goblins or something would be okay. I mean, I've also got like Blackest Night and stuff like that, which I'm pretty sure was a comic series. Anyway, it's difficult. I think you, I think Ravnica might be the best simply because it has, as I think we've said a lot of the times, it has a very large diversity of goblins on the plane.
00:16:17
Speaker
And there's a level of sentience and of motive there that I don't think the, whilst I would say that there are certainly more sort of like physical diversity on the plane of Lorwyn, for example, I think that the diversity of thought, as it were, of motive and of allegiance on Ravnica, I think would lend itself better to a comic book series. I mean, you know,
00:16:44
Speaker
How many goblins do we have on Ravika that still survive? I'm pretty sure both of the Shatter gangs are dead. So that's a nonstop. There was three. So what we have is the story as the two, I believe, are still alive with just the one dead.
00:16:59
Speaker
No, so there were three, then one got killed. And that was the inciting incident for that narrative. And another one actually got another one got killed in the narrative. So maybe one of them does. Okay. Okay. But like, if we, but that's a place even right there. I mean, that that story, you know, the the rival gangs or whatever you mob families, if you say that between shatter gang and cranko, like, that's a great setting.
00:17:24
Speaker
You've still got Shattergangs, you've got Cranko, you've got Mizix. I don't know if there are many goblins that are a part of the wreck. Oh yeah, there are murder clowns. So, you know, you would have a reasonable enough level of conflict. And I think that would be a comic series that I think would maybe reignite people's interest in literally the small stories of these planes by like, you know, literally the opening
00:17:54
Speaker
quote unquote, shot of the comic is, I don't know, two planeswalkers duking it out and you've got narration, something along the lines of in Ravnica, whenever, whenever a plane, now that everyone knows that planeswalkers exist, whenever they turn up on the plane, they're a conflict, so a source of spectacle. You've got people, you know, taking pictures of them or like comments about the bet. And then the camera like pans down to a bunch of goblins stealing people's wallets whilst everyone's distracted. And then, but the real story of Ravnica has always been that of the goblins.
00:18:23
Speaker
And then you go, there are planeswalkers. Maybe they'll get involved. We're really going to be talking about goblins. And then we can shift it on to you've got Krenko who's running a bit to steal people's wallets during these kind of things. Maybe Krenko's paying off one of these planeswalkers in some way or another to fabricate these conflicts. And then they're working with physics or fighting against physics. Stuff like that I think would be a really interesting
00:18:52
Speaker
a place to explore smaller narrative. It's even interesting, you brought up a plane that we have met multiple legendary goblins, which in some ways does lend itself to a comic book series, right? Yeah. And this also from last episode brings us a really good opportunity to bring in our Boros
Strixhaven's Goblin Grux
00:19:07
Speaker
goblin legend, right? Because I think that is a narrative we didn't, I mean, we haven't talked a ton about this, I don't even know where it would have come in.
00:19:16
Speaker
did a little bit with the Boros, but having a goblin who is part of a Legion, or you know, part of the like soldier class is very different. And if that little recruit has risen to the level of becoming a legend, you've got so many different angles you could go with. I mean, you've got, you know, like the goblin trying to prove that, you know, like being almost like a pick me goblin, I'm not like other goblins, see, I'm going to prove to the Boros that I'm better than quote unquote, normal goblins by taking down Krenko,
00:19:45
Speaker
You've got goblins who don't necessarily fit in with that. Maybe a concept of a nervous goblin who wants to be part of the Rakdos, but keeps getting teased by the imps and devils and stuff like that, and ends up falling in with the growl. You can have so many different topic of allegiances in this world.
00:20:01
Speaker
And you talk about, you know, the planes walkers and maybe there's people like trying to take selfies or whatever the, you know, the magic Ravnik equivalent is. It's more like a very quick sketches. Well, yeah, but it reminded me like of probably one of my favorite just
00:20:16
Speaker
Common-ish, oh, I guess it's not common, but just little sort of throwaway cards just fill in a set, but it builds flavor and is a great representation for a goblin from Battlebond is cheering fanatic. There's this goblin who's cosplaying as his favorite, like, you know, person in the, in these fights and the Battlebond duels or whatever.
00:20:37
Speaker
called them. And so it's like, I love the idea of maybe you have like these goblins who are fans, you know, if you have planeswalkers that operate as sort of celebrities, in some ways, you could have, you know, these fanatical fans who who ones could fit into that narrative as well. I like I like the idea of like a little Grohl Domery fan club run by popular goblins. That sounds delightful.
00:21:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah. But yeah, that'll be my answer to that question. I mean, the issue is that Ravica in of itself has so much potential. And I think that exploring it in a medium outside of a set is really where Wizards needs to go if they want to keep sort of plugging that IP without, you know, getting people tired of it. We will have to return back to Ravica in like maybe like five or six years. We can't go back at any time before then. Please, at least not in main story. Okay.
00:21:33
Speaker
at noir underscore fake would like to know and ask you specifically, Spice, what happened with glob the Strixhaven goblin?
Personal Story: Glomp
00:21:41
Speaker
I didn't know the Strixhaven goblin had a name. So if people do not know, I believe this is the only goblin we do get to see. We have a school world with like every imaginable race getting to go to it, except the goblin who is listed as a reject. Yes. So let me just quickly, because the character's name was Blom. That was my character's name, but the character's name
00:22:03
Speaker
The character in, I don't know if this person's referring to, I think it's the Knight entry of the card. Let me just. Oh, yes. What was it? Actually, it's just reject, right? It's just reject. Oh, and that's Grux. That's Grux, I guess. Oh, I thought we were talking about Grux. So no, so Grux, I mean, Grux the goblin is literally just the, like,
00:22:30
Speaker
narrowest fishing line thin straw by which I was clutching on to force a goblin character into the plane. The looks of things, Grux is a pretty goblin name, it doesn't look like any of the dwarves on the plane.
00:22:52
Speaker
You know, it's a goblin anyway. Yeah, it clearly is a goblin who just keeps saying you don't you have to do and I do like once again, we get this is where the whimsy we get the flavor text grucks for the last time, you have to do more than simply shout apply at the administrators. Yeah, the Michael Scott version of yelling just I declare bankruptcy. Yeah, like the but that was what we saw. So I did not know about the cook said that I decided not see that video. So yeah, so that was a character that
00:23:20
Speaker
It was a part of a D&D campaign that I was running. And I think that, unfortunately, I think I became sick the last few days it was supposed to run, and I just couldn't make it. Or I think I was out of town for one or more reasons. But anyway, the arc that was supposed to be happening, or the arc that I had envisioned happening with Glomp, who was my character, was there was a bitter rivalry between me and this prissy, stuck-up actor type.
00:23:50
Speaker
And I was trying to like take that character down a notch. And I think the arc that I was going to eventually get to was even defeating my sort of narrative rival, or, and this would have been completely born out in the role play and depending on sort of how it felt, like the most satisfying angle that the role play could have gone in that moment. Cause obviously, you know, if you're doing an RPG as part of a stream, it's all about performance and it's all about
00:24:17
Speaker
narrative building and not just your own personal idea for what you want your character to do, you've got to really consider narrative. I think for that it was it was either going to be completely best my narrative rival and becomes like the new head of theatre in the school or in some fittingly dramatic moment realize that actually
00:24:39
Speaker
We're not so different, you and I, you know, that kind of stuff. I mean, like, OK, we'll put this petty rivalry behind us so that we can resolve the larger conflict at school. And then who knows? Maybe you develop a burgeoning, friendly competition between our
Pronoun Choice and Personal Journey
00:24:56
Speaker
art forms. So that was the arc for Glom.
00:24:59
Speaker
That's what I had envisioned. So we didn't have to let anybody know that was following that, that maybe, I guess it was a cliffhanger since you had to step out. Unfortunately, it was a very like, I didn't, just one day I was there and the next day I didn't turn up to any of them, which was very sad. So that's my fault, unfortunately.
00:25:21
Speaker
So I'm going to get serious for a second, or at least more serious than we had been. Um, I, I did get asked a question about if you're comfortable, like I said, that's why I said your pronouns, um, wanting to know how you came to the pronoun at him. And if that is way too long of one, I understand, but that was asked. I think like, um, now I've had a, uh, a comment of mine asked me about that. And I think.
00:25:44
Speaker
I'll give the sort of short answer because I'm still doing a lot of reading around. I'm reading xenofeminism, like Helen Hester, and sort of coming around to the idea of doing very well, technomaterialism and the like. But I think for me, from a purely superficial basis, I had always considered myself to be a cis person. I had a whole ton of non-binary and trans friends. And I would regularly sort of check in with myself, like,
00:26:14
Speaker
How am I feeling about gender and sort of like trying out different pronouns for myself? How does that feel? And all of the time I was like, none of them really work. So I just stick with him. I met two friends who went by it and its pronouns. And that was the first time I'd ever met anybody who used those pronouns up until that point. I thought no one used that. It's incredibly dehumanizing. Why would anyone like, you know,
00:26:42
Speaker
you know, it's a parody of people who use pronouns to think, oh, I'm just identifying, you know, that kind of like hyper reactionary didn't actually understand and know that people actually use them. And then when I met these people, and so I'm like having a conversation with them, and I started using the pronoun for myself, I realized two things. First off, I realized that it was a pronoun that for the first time, I actually identified with it. And in doing that, I also realized that I didn't actually truly that heavily identify with he and him.
00:27:11
Speaker
It was simply the pronouns that had always been used for me, and it was only until I came across that pronoun study using it for myself that I realized, huh, something's clicking here that wasn't before, and nothing has actually clicked before. The only reason why I wasn't going by they or them, or she or her, or anything like that, or any other neo pronoun, was because it didn't click with me, and because he and him had just been the baseline, and then it clicking with me, suddenly I realized that the
00:27:42
Speaker
the only thing that he and him was really calling on to me for was, was the fact that it had been my baseline. It was just the norm. That's what like, you know, obviously, I'm at some point, and I do the default. Yeah, very much so. So yeah, on a very basic, I won't get into like, more philosophical stuff, because that's the exploration of myself. And I'm still coming to terms with that and sort of going through that. But that's sort of the, the hyper superficial
00:28:09
Speaker
someone, I just started using it and oh, it works.
YouTube Career Origin
00:28:12
Speaker
Badabing badaboo. And that's the thank you because I just, you know, it is a pronoun that I've seen rarely compared to others. And so, you know, it was using it was, you know, at first I was even compared to other neo pronouns or things that I've used felt a little bit off. And so I'm seeing that discussion is something that's been very illuminating for me.
00:28:37
Speaker
I think, yeah, from my perspective, it very much feels very normal and natural. And I think it comes to, I think it reaches a nice middle ground between my own personal, only view of gender, also of person, like view of selfhood in that, you know, the idea of self, in of itself is rooted in sort of the, what do you call it?
00:29:07
Speaker
So I'm stumbling over my words, but the long and short of it is that even the idea of self is just a figment of a series of electronic and sensory inputs into a very complicated bio machine. And I think that coming to terms with that in of myself and realizing that what I view as reality, what I view as myself is simply like mechanical processes. I feel that it links very heavily into that. And I think that makes me a lot more comfortable with that sort of understanding and that realization.
00:29:36
Speaker
as opposed to continuing on what I would perceive as an incorrect perception of what the self even is. But I'm not going to get any more teeth into philosophy. We're talking about funky goblins. Well, we are. A book ending. I'm doing the sandwich method where we kind of start out a little silly. Goblins, you know, your character, the plane, doing a little bit of personal. And then I had a plan.
00:30:01
Speaker
It's going to fall apart at some point, but I had one. Or explode, which might also be part of the plan. It's going to be hard to tell. Yeah, I very much consider myself personally an Izzet Goblin. If I'm having to choose an area, it's going to blow up, but that was the plan, or it became the plan.
00:30:21
Speaker
So we're going to continue with that vein real quick, which is questions of just more of a motivation, I guess, for you. And we talked about this with storytelling way back in episode one, that long time ago, feels like it of motivation. But what got you into making YouTube long format videos like that? And then similarly, kind of what's the inspiration for doing kind of the MTG crossovers?
00:30:45
Speaker
So it's actually incredibly boring. I did it. Yes. Great. That's perfect. Let's move on. No, I'm just kidding. I started making YouTube videos, not out of any kind of necessary passion. I did it so that...
00:31:06
Speaker
Time to tell a bit of backstory. When I graduated from my undergrad, I went on to do a master's in transnational writing. I developed pedagogy to teach spoken word poetry at university level. Funnily enough, not many places were hiring for that, so I ended up busing tables at a seafood restaurant, as well as other gigs by doing contracting, running bar work, retail, all that kind of stuff.
00:31:31
Speaker
And my brain was melting, and I wanted an out. And there's a games journalism place called PC Games M whose offices run out of my city van in Bath. And I applied for them previously, and they got back to me saying, like, you know, love the application, but unfortunately you don't have any kind of, like, showreel or work to send to us. So, you know, we can't, like, hire you for something. You need to show that, you know, you can edit, you can be in front of a camera, stuff like that. And so I started making YouTube videos
00:32:01
Speaker
to create a sizzle reel to send off to prospective employers like that so I could get out of this job. I also like, I chose Magic the Gathering and I also chose like some left-wing politics because those were the two things that I, A, felt comfortable talking about, like I had some kind of an understanding of it, but also because I really like Magic the Gathering and I kind of noticed that there wasn't many people talking about how flavour and gameplay intersected. Lots of people talking about lore and flavour, lots of people talking about
00:32:31
Speaker
gameplay, not so much how the two connected. And so I thought, eh, that's a niche. I'll throw myself in there. I also love Goblins. And then the Goblins video that I made massively blew up and suddenly it became a very, like, over the course of a week, I went from maybe like 200 subscribers, which was hundreds more than I thought I was going to get within, you know, a couple of months of making videos, to like well over a few thousand.
00:33:00
Speaker
And I left the seafood restaurant job. I managed to use a couple of those videos to send to another editing place to get like a job, like working out of an office, doing like search engine optimization for a while. And all that time, I then eventually made the jump to make YouTube full-time, sort of like in the early autumn of that year. And in fact, I think the Yawgmoth video that I released was the first video that I released that I was like, okay, this is a full-time thing.
00:33:28
Speaker
let's treat it somewhat seriously. So yeah, like that's how I started getting into videos and the I guess the intersect between left wing politics and magic the gathering I think comes from a place of I know how unfortunately easy it is. I've seen this happen many, many times for people within sort of nerd consumer circles, gaming interests, communities become radicalized
00:33:56
Speaker
passively almost into holding hyper-reactionary views. And so I guess that stuff came from a place of I wanted to do what I can as someone who wasn't hoodwinked by the alt-right pipeline or anything like that, to try and provide some kind of active counterweight.
00:34:19
Speaker
And yeah, it's surprising how many comrades play Magic the Gathering, which is delightful. And also I've gotten many, many lovely comments and emails from people being like, hey, this spurred me away from, be it hyper-reaction or be it social democracy, which is sort of a hyper-reaction with a serial numbers firewall. So, interesting. I like that description a lot. Thank you very much. What is it, how was it?
00:34:47
Speaker
Social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism, which I fully and wholeheartedly agree. But anyway, yes, so that's how I started doing YouTube B and why I'm on this podcast. This is the funny part of it being, you know, we're at four years now doing this content and this is us having you on
Niche Communities in Magic
00:35:06
Speaker
the show. I mean, this was another reason why I am thankful that we were able to get as much time as we did, because as you said, there isn't a lot in this space necessarily.
00:35:16
Speaker
the Malthos or the social issues along with the gameplay or the social issues along with the lore and the story is much, it's still at this point, as long as you've been doing your videos, we've been doing this, it is small, right? It's not a large part, but magic. But as in, as into like the discussion of like flavor and lore and intersection and stuff like that, and also the left one stuff. Yeah, yeah.
00:35:44
Speaker
No, it is true. I find it nice because the fact that the intersect is so narrow, it does mean that you can find people who want to talk about this stuff a lot easier than... I want to absolutely make sure that this is understood. I'm not procuring anyone who only goes in to talk about law, or only goes in to talk about game-paying stuff like that, or prices, or the like.
00:36:14
Speaker
I just think that because it's a niche within a niche, Magic the Gathering Inn of itself is a niche, and to talk about a niche within that, a niche interest room, I think it allows people to connect a lot better and a lot easier for sure.
00:36:28
Speaker
Which is something I'm very thankful for. I'd say that's the thing that we've kind of run into too, like we do some of the mental health stuff, but also we talk a lot about mental health. That's a big part of our cast. The conversations about mental health within magic, it's popping up in other places too, but it's not as common to have
00:36:47
Speaker
that is a main cornerstone, as opposed to this is a conversation we have because it's important as part of a greater variety of things we do. For us, it's a cornerstone. It's a main pillar of what we do. And so we found that, like you say, it's a niche within a niche. And so at least for us, our community started out very small, but it's never really shrunk. Even when we take long breaks, we come back and our numbers are right back where we were because the
Hypothetical Goblin Scenarios
00:37:13
Speaker
folks who are interested in that
00:37:15
Speaker
that we're about it, unfortunately, at least for this stuff, that's kind of it. And so we have a good consistency of folks who keep coming back, who find our stuff, who engage with that, and that we keep going. So I thought we're at four years, and we love doing this, and it's...
00:37:31
Speaker
four more years. That's what I was thinking, Alex is piggybacking off of what Spice was saying, a niche within a niche is that's one of the things that is about magic, right? Like we talked about the community, you can find these things like you can you can approach this is why magic continues to be for us or for me, such an important game. Like, I don't get to play that much anymore. But I'm still engaged with different communities just because
00:37:56
Speaker
I have these common interests and magic was a part of that. And there's these communities of cosplayers, there's communities of podcasters, there's people doing gameplay, you can find it. Oh, yeah. I mean, I played my first game of magic since the beginning of the pandemic about two months ago. So it's like I went almost two years being on this podcast, not playing magic at all, because I was still engaged with the community. And that was a big part of what being on this cast is for me. Hmm. I think I mean,
00:38:25
Speaker
It is, you know, the, I mean, the gathering is the subtitle, you know, exactly. And the word does supposed to be capitalized as Aaron Forsythe likes to point out, but I still do it. Yeah. That's what he says. Yeah. I think it's cause the, the colon comes after magic.
00:38:46
Speaker
So, you know, like if you're spelling it out, so duh. God, I did creative writing, not English literature. I don't know if that's correct. I don't either, but they're the designers of the game. They claim it. Whatever. I'm still lower casing it. We're doing some quick hits as we're getting towards the end here. If Slobad and Squeak were forced to face off in gladiatorial combat by some diabolical force. I do appreciate whoever threw that piece in there. What would you envision happening? I can't envision Squeak fighting back.
00:39:16
Speaker
I, you know what, I imagine if like Slowbad, if he's forced to, forced to defend his friends, probably like cobbles together some kind of engine of destruction, destroys Squeak, Squeak comes back, Slowbad keeps trying, eventually Slowbad just looks up to the demon and shrugs and the demon goes, we've been here for five hours, five, you both, you both get to go away. Wait, so they had a war? They had a war is what you're saying.
00:39:38
Speaker
They knocked over a vase, it's the War of the Goblins. It's the War of the Goblins, yeah. Okay, do you think goblins, aside from those on Mercadia, which this person made a reference to, this is again from Marcos2 underscore backup, represent proletariat or lupemproletariat, which is not going to be a word that I know, or none?
00:40:03
Speaker
This is the thing, it completely depends on the answer as quickly as possible. And this is something that comes up in my streams as well whenever I play a fantasy game and people still go, oh, these are the these are the proletariat. It's like, OK, so the proletariat are a specific class that arise through capitalism.
00:40:18
Speaker
So if goblins represent the proletariat or the lupine, I can never say this right, lupine proletariat, which was... I feel much better about myself right now. Oh yeah, so the long shot, the difference between the two, the proletariat, the working class, the lupine proletariat are either the class unconscious working class, so those are facets of the working class who actively
00:40:45
Speaker
work against or have no understanding or interesting class struggle, or as other people have labeled them, you know, some like the criminal element or some like the working class, but the term itself is used so, frankly, uselessly, but I don't think there's much, much worth in like discussing it more than a moment of time. But regardless,
00:41:08
Speaker
Goblins can only represent the working class, the proletariat, if they exist under a mode of production that is equivalent to our understanding of capitalism.
Goblins and Social Structures
00:41:17
Speaker
If our understanding of capitalism is not achieved, which I would argue is only present in one plane where there is simultaneously that mode of production and goblins, which
00:41:29
Speaker
Again, I would argue is the goblin explosion is of Babylovia, where we have commodity production, where we have mechanized production, where we have industry, where we have mass industry, where we obviously have an owning class. And even then we can see old Buzzbark, who is allegedly, I would see as the leader of the goblin explosion is a worker in of themselves, representative of what we might argue would be a syndicalist mode of production.
00:41:57
Speaker
wherein the proletariat have seized power, owned the means of their own production, and are being self-managed by the proletariat. So you have a dictatorship of the proletariat within the goblin explosion areas. Every other goblin only represents the proletariat if the mode of production of that plane is that of capitalism.
Communism in Magic Lore
00:42:17
Speaker
That was it quickly. I feared we were going back to Ravnica. So, but you know, I do appreciate the old buzz bark because I would accept that. The thing about Ravnica is that guild production, workshop production was a feature of feudalism and the process by which feudalism became capitalism, bourgeois arose from the old guilds. And so as such, Ravnica cannot be a capitalism production because it still has guild and workshop production, which was a feature of
00:42:48
Speaker
So maybe we were heading that way unless Cranko can stop it, basically. Unless Cranko stops the coming of capitalism. It makes sense.
00:43:04
Speaker
i know what i'd get i'd get involved in that narrative that seems like a rollicking good time yeah and i can see the the hasbro really approving this yeah right on board with this right on board uh we're gonna do at wobbles what card do you want to see in unfinity i'm gonna steal an answer because i don't know if you if you were expecting this we do know there's goblins on unfinity uh we have this kind of uh
00:43:30
Speaker
carousel or I guess what's the word I'm looking for? Fair carnival type world? Yeah, festival carnival playgrounds type thing. There's already a goblin family that was spoiled in one of the arts that is like a dad and a mom pulling two kids. So I feel represented on a card and I'm good for infinity. So anything that either of you are looking for from infinity or nothing.
00:43:57
Speaker
I would, I would say I am interested because I actually own a deck that has a goblin as a commander on it. And I don't think that we're going to get a legendary, I'm still not sold on the, the, was it the, the family, goblin son, goblin family, goblin son or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm not really sold on them as a like a concept for a, for a commander. But what I would love to see would be a,
00:44:23
Speaker
a goblin tutor that is legally playable in the Black Border. Obviously, if you watch my Silver Border video, the arguments are made there that, you know, you can use Silver Border in Commander. It's just a matter of negotiating. Vigality is a matter of negotiation in Magic the Gathering casual format. And especially with an EDH. Especially with an EDH. But I would say I'd love to see a red tutor that is more goblin-y than gamble, but not quite as
00:44:51
Speaker
Goblin he has got the goblin tutor from okay. I was gonna say we have it. We have it Goblin a red tutor that captures that feeling of goblins which doesn't have the anchor on a fall that I would love to see I was gonna I was just laughing because to me goblin tutor is completely Especially when you know, obviously card was made had no clue that commander would be a thing But you know you have like one
00:45:18
Speaker
produces no result. But one is number two on there is search for any goblin tutor. So in a format where you can only have one of you now have a third of your options do nothing. Brilliant. Goblin like but as you said not a black bordered. I would I would love to see something like I don't know when you cost a spell flip a coin and roll a dice and I don't know if you win the flip do this if you roll higher than three do that that kind of stuff.
00:45:49
Speaker
Alex, anything for you for Unfinity? Because I don't know how much you've been paying attention. I've really not been paying attention. I am reminded every time it comes up that, oh, yeah, that was delayed. And now I have no idea what it's coming out. But between, as I mentioned in a previous episode, back in because of time travel, I
00:46:10
Speaker
actively not engaging with magic story like I'm going out of my way to not be involved to not see what's going on and not be part of that. So I'm really not paying attention to the the day to day you know moment to moment releases of which magic set came out this week and which one's coming out next week. So I
00:46:31
Speaker
And no, I have no idea. I'm sorry. I got no answer. We talked, uh, uh, you know, um, like four or five up a field to go. Cause I have no concept of where we are really. Uh, but you tried to talk yourself into something sometimes, Alex, and that one didn't go anywhere. So we're okay. Yeah. Um, let's go with finally, uh, Oh, who is the most commie in all of MTG lore?
00:46:57
Speaker
that's, that's what we're gonna end with. Because I want to know if there is somebody that you consider most. Oh, Tommy. Tommy is in your dynasty. And then I realized that it could have sounded like Carney and we're just coming off of discussing the festival, like world. I mean, this is the interesting thing. And the writer near from actually like talks about this
00:47:22
Speaker
very, very definitely in the switch or the swerve or something like that. But effectively what she posits is that within entertainment media, when the concept was like, you know, the system is broken, revolution is needed, that kind of stuff is broach, which is a very popular piece of a popular narrative to go down because, you know, the system is broken and stuff like that. What exists in that is this switch where effectively
00:47:52
Speaker
The answer always points towards communism. The answer always points towards the democratic ownership of the means of production by the working class, a genuinely democratic mode of government. If you look at it from a socialist perspective or an anarchist perspective, where obviously there is no government or if there were a government, it is more of a local administration and stuff like that. If there is a government store, if there is any kind of structure there whatsoever, organisation, what have you.
00:48:20
Speaker
And so what exists is because the answer to the questions posed by the post by that piece of media point towards communism, there must always be at the last moment, a hard left turn away from it. And for some reason, like, I don't know, you know, like the sort of like the underground resistance leader in the Hunger Games suddenly at the last second becomes a child murdering monster.
00:48:48
Speaker
who wants to redo the evils that the ruling class did to hurt people right back to their children. And so it has to take a hard left turn from questioning and showcasing what new structure can be built through these revolutionary forces to, oh, it turns out everybody's evil, or these were just evil people seeking power all the time and stuff like that. So the question of who is the most communist within magic
00:49:15
Speaker
Unfortunately, the people who demonstrate the most like communist ideals when it comes to like revolution, like PNR, again, at that last moment, it goes from the very core of our world is rotten, and we need to resolve it. At the last moment, it becomes, and we have a better president. So like, even things like that. So I'd say like, if we're looking at the pure ideal of communism, it's got to be the goblins of law.
00:49:40
Speaker
But that is a form of communism which exists in a pre-capitalist understanding of the world and not a post, which is a very, very different way of looking at it, because we can very easily point to a pre-capitalist society and go, look how good everything is there. But the question then becomes, well, how do we get there? And then large corporations that have millions and millions of dollars of revenue stop ringing their hands and go, well, we can't exactly have a character that's actually a communist.
Final Thoughts on Content Creation
00:50:07
Speaker
Vote with your wallet, I guess, and then do that. Well, thank you so much, Spice, for sitting with us for over two and a half hours. I mean, doing three separate recording sessions with us on different days and times accounting for zones and everything. This has been a labor of love that you've poured months of your life into. And there is always value in labor.
00:50:35
Speaker
Yes, there is. There is value in labor. Value in labor and nobility in labor. Anything you want to end with or just final parting thoughts? I think this is something actually I do want to I don't understand. It doesn't really have much to do with government or communism. But it's more to do with because the question of how I started making videos came up. And I, I get that question. I get that question a reasonable amount in my you know, like
00:50:58
Speaker
Twitter DMs when I remember to check the ones that come to me from people who I don't follow, and then emails and then comments and stuff like that on my YouTube videos. And the question is like, well, how do I start? And I really want to like, if anyone's listening to this, who wants to make videos, do it, but don't do it with the aim of making this your thing. Do it with the aim of I want to have a good time. I want to put something out into the world that I want to see in the world, because that's what I did.
00:51:25
Speaker
And it worked for me, but I'm not saying do that because it worked for me. I'm saying do that because if it didn't work for me, if my government video never kicked off, if I stayed at 200 subscribers, I would have been perfectly, perfectly happy just making my occasional funny little video. And it would have been a really nice thing for me to do. I would have felt great about that. But if I'd have gone into it wanting to be like, and this is going to be my full time gig, there's
00:51:48
Speaker
I would have gone about it in completely different ways. I would have tried to game an algorithm or something like that, and I would have had a miserable time with it. So if you do want to make Magic the Gathering stuff, Magic the Gathering content, do it for the love of it, or any kind of content. Do it for the love of it and not for the eventual aim. Because at that point, you are engaging in commodity production without the actual material benefits of engaging in commodity production. You are self-alienating yourself from the fruits of your labor
00:52:18
Speaker
before you even have fruits from that labor. Um, so that would be my, that would be my advice. And that's the kind of thing I'm going to end on. Do stuff for the love of it. Um, balls to the value. And that's our show for today. You can find both of the hosts on Twitter. Hobbs can be found at Hobbs Q and Alex can be found at Mel underscore. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams.
00:52:45
Speaker
to Goblin Lore Pod on Twitter or email us at goblinlorpodcast at gmail.com. If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood gobslugs to our Linktree on our Twitter account and listed in our show notes. This has everything from our discounts for the Grinding Coffee Company to our Patreon.
00:53:05
Speaker
The music for today's show was by Vindergotten, who can be found at Vindergotten at badcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve Raffel on Twitter. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing 4thos content. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmpg or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening. And remember, goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.