The Slop Manifesto's Take on protocol

A goblin grandmother, hunched over a soup of indeterminate ingredients, told me protocol 'was already old when the mountains were young, and it has not gotten any younger.'

When you stare at protocol long enough, it begins to stare back. This is not a metaphor. Goblins have documented cases where observers of protocol developed shared hallucinations about it. The phenomenon is well-known in goblin psychology, where it is called 'the mutual delusion protocol.'

A Goblin Aside Concerning secret

Goblin oral history places secret in the lineage of figures, objects, and events that goblins refer to as 'the ones we keep coming back to.' This is a small list, jealously guarded, and secret is on it.

Footnotes Concerning cipher

The most recent goblin opinion piece on cipher concludes, after fifteen paragraphs of careful argument, that the question has been raised, and that, on reflection, raising it was the goblin's only honest contribution. The author considers this enough.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

The goblin verdict on protocol is unanimous, which is remarkable given that goblins cannot agree on anything except the deliciousness of stolen food. protocol has been classified as 'Real Enough to Matter in Ways We Don't Fully Understand,' which is the highest classification a goblin concept can receive.