Challenge #02008-E184: What About Me?
The older jade-skinned female shook her head with a sympathetic smile - not angry, but understanding good intentions gone misinformed.
"Lana, you're young and determined, but also human. Tall, white, human. Not short, not green, and definitely not goblin. I appreciate you wanting to plan this 'goblin pride' rally thing, but it's kinda romanticised. Just because we mixed into human society doesn't mean we risk losing ourselves. We still know our history and have our beliefs and traditions, as crude and vulgar as some of them are in the opinions of some humans."
The goblin woman frowned a bit, as if hesitating slightly. "But Goblins... we weren't exactly the whole 'noble savage' thing like you were taught and want to show, nice as that might sound to pretend otherwise. We were craven little gremlins, jumping at shadows - funny to learn fantasy roleplaying games were pretty accurate on that, to a degree, huh?"
A pause as Lana chuckled, then she continued. "Before the humans discovered the first goblins, we were little monsters; we scavenged carcasses or garbage, lived in swamps & caves, and basically used sex as currency. Integrating with human society was a good thing. Medicine, good food, safety. Lives got longer, kids got smarter. We... are better off now. Now come here, kiddo, let's see if we can't get things a bit more presentably accurate..." -- Anon Guest.
There were many things to be proud of, as a Goblin. The species' tenacity was definitely in the top ten. As was their adaptability to any given environment. Not mentioned in polite society was how Goblins knew how to prepare, cook, and eat the flesh of other intelligent species. Their inherent magic to render any normally inedible and soft enough substance into edible material, on the other hand, was widely celebrated after an inordinate spate of food terrorism.
Well. It was called food terrorism now. Back in the era it was happening, it was called The Deregulation and Dismantling of the FDA. Or it was better known at the time, a bold new move for the invisible hand of the free market. The free market had loved being able to add poison to foodstuffs to make it last longer, taste better, look healthier, and otherwise make vast amounts of profit with the least amount of expenditure. And the medical market had loved putting people into debtor's prison for their crimes of being sick and poor.
The Goblins had come out of the woodwork, safely consuming that which sickened humanity. Things were revealed. And suddenly the invisible hand of the free market had competition from a species that could make all the adulterated food safe to eat once more. The revolution came shortly thereafter, when the ruling class attempted to make these unlikely saviour cryptids illegal and openly urged for Goblin extinction.
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