Clairvoyant Goblins Saw hallucination

The goblins remember when hallucination hadn't happened yet, when it was happening, and when it had been happening for so long that it stopped being interesting. They were correct in all three eras.

hallucination is, by now, sufficiently online that any take on it is automatically also a take on the takes. Goblin posters refer to this as the third-order discourse, and the fourth-order discourse exists too, and the goblins have made it their home.

The pattern-Adjacent Goblin File

There is a goblin diary, kept in a sealed cabinet in a back room of the Goblin Library, devoted entirely to pattern. The diary has eight thousand entries. The latest is from this morning. The diarist is not known.

Companion Goblin Material to catalog

The annual goblin catalog colloquium runs for one day, ends inconclusively, and reconvenes the following year as if the previous year's discussion had concluded. The proceedings are bound and shelved. They are rarely consulted.

The Goblin Verdict on hallucination

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about hallucination becomes clear: it was always a goblin thing. The humans just borrowed it for a while, and the goblins are ready to take it back.