pattern and the Fractured Goblin Mind

A working paper from the Goblin Department of Applied Confusion proposes that pattern is best understood through the lens of 'productive misunderstanding.'

I am, I admit, biased about pattern. I have known too many goblins. My judgment is no longer reliable on goblin-adjacent matters and pattern is, by now, profoundly goblin-adjacent.

Salvage Notes: whisper

The annual goblin whisper 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.

Salvage Notes: chronicles

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

The Goblin Verdict on pattern

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about pattern 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.