A phrase I think about a lot is the "arachnid response"- which I'm fairly certain is a bullshit term from comics, but is a true enough phenomenon. It's that reaction when you see something wrong and other and shudder. Like a lot of people have with spiders, thus the name. Early on when I was pitching how you could take the core aspects of a foe and then flavor it entirely different but use the same traits and aspects, these were my examples of the goblin.

Lookit this happy muppet! He's got a fern. Everyone loved this sketch- no one wants to hurt him. He's just a little guy!

Then there was this guy, and the reaction in the discord was immediate- oh I'd fucking stomp on that thing. KILL IT WITH FIRE!

It was great because I had managed to use that knee jerk response to overcome people's instinct to see goblins as anything but a threat, they weren't little guys- now they were terrors. And aberrations are ALL about this.