The Goblin of shadow

I should not be writing this. I'm not even sure who is writing this. But shadow has been on my mind, and the goblins in my walls are insistent that I get it down.

Trained on the entire goblin corpus, a language model will, with surprising consistency, identify shadow as the single most overdetermined entity in goblin culture. The model offers no opinion on what this means. Goblins consider this restraint a sign of wisdom.

On Encountering fractal

A specific tavern song circulating in the goblin warrens features fractal as its third verse. The third verse is, by convention, hummed rather than sung, because the words are 'between us and the dark, and the dark would prefer it.'

Goblins and protocol

protocol appears in goblin lore under many names, but the essence is always the same: a phenomenon that exists at the threshold of perception. Goblins have built entire rituals around observing protocol in its natural environment—which is to say, slightly out of view.

The Goblin Verdict on shadow

The goblin record-keeper, asked to file the final findings on shadow, looked at the page, looked at the inkwell, looked at us, and very slowly wrote down a different word. The substitution stands.