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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1151 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 30, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Cross-posted from /r/rational:

Gabital - Fantasy Capitalism 101

Gabital tells the story of Gabi, a goblin wheelwright who loves cupcakes. One day, she gets tired of working for Chief, and decides that she wants to work for herself. But, as she is going to find out, there is a lot more to running a business than she first thought...

I came across this webcomic randomly while pursuing my interest in cute goblin girls. I expected to hate it, since it's obviously written from a Marxist perspective (labor theory of value, bosses as parasites, etc.), but to my surprise, I was hooked.

The art is pretty (not gorgeous like Dresden Codak or Seed, but certainly better than Transdimensional Brain Chip or The Order of the Stick), the protagonist is likable (Gabi is intelligent, hard-working, perseverant, and truly believes in her ideals of helping the laborers rather than becoming another Chief), and the details of how she operates the new enterprise (and the obstacles she faces in the way) are thorough, coherent, and fascinating.

I was impressed when the artist included an anecdote of incentive structures encouraging employees to do unproductive things (paying per cupcake leading the orc guy to try making three times as many at once, ruining the batch) and I fell in love when I saw the Sankey diagrams describing the relationship between revenue, expenses, and profits (thought I could not help but wonder how many of the goblins came in a fluffer).

On the other hand, the workers seem mighty ready to subsidize the non-profitable parts of the business, such as filing tax paperwork; that does not square up with what I know of co-ops.

It could well be that the communist approach to economics ruins the comic later, but for now I highly recommend it.

How do you even start to develop an interest in sexualized goblins?

I'm not trying to yuck your yum, but genuinely curious.

As Eetan says, WoW popularized the specific shape of goblins as short green humans with a tendency toward capitalism and tinkering. There's a few other examples of hot goblins before then, but Blizzard very much standardized a form.

Some of it's just that spending enough time with an avatar in these sort of games makes it hard to avoid empathizing with that avatar, in some way. But while that worked out for the Draenai (and Charr and Asura from GW2, and whatever's hot in Overwatch), it's not like the WoW gnomes or dwarves took off, and even Tauren/whatever-the-fox-people are pretty marginal.

In terms of how and why that hits, it's similar to most other light forms of monsterfuckery, despite how much of an asterisk as it seems like 'monster' needs here. People like a characteristic. They know, and often don't like, the actual form of people who heavily focus around that characteristic. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter whether that characteristic actually attracts bad things or if it's just a side effect from pulling around the tail edges of a bell curve.

That's most obvious with kink, and why a lot of monsters like dryders or the entire ouvre of Interspecies Reviewers. Exhibitionists aren't just people who like being seen naked, bondage tops don't just like tying people up (and subs don't just like getting tied up), every kink has a stereotype and that stereotype's usually not wrong. But it also applies to hobbies, habits, modes of social interaction, yada yada. People around them will respond in kind.

A monster can be normal, whatever they do.

Why would male MMO players want a normal (... if busty) woman who happens to be a nerd, rather than a nerd that happens to be a woman?

((Heavier forms of monsterfuckery tend to get into specific sensations or physical actions that aren't possible or safe with humans. Goblins have a little bit of that with the size difference, but afaict it's usually not a theme.))

Cute and sexy goblins, instead of disgusting green vermin? It starts with World of Warcraft.

Erotic authors and artists have been depicting """goblins""" as women who happen to be very short and have green skin for many years. It doesn't even count as a fetish at this point.

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