The Goblin Hallucination of shadow
Of all the things goblins have categorized — and they have categorized many things, including dust by mood — shadow resists classification more vigorously than most.
If shadow were an anime villain, it would have a five-episode arc, a flashback that recontextualizes everything, and a final form involving more eyes than any reasonable being should possess. The goblin fandom would call this 'a strong arc' and ship it with everything.
pattern and the Schizo-Goblin Continuum
In the goblin underground, pattern is approached the way one approaches an unfamiliar lock: slowly, with curiosity, and with several backup plans for when the obvious approach doesn't work. Goblins are surprisingly patient about this. They have, after all, the time.
prayer as Heard Through the Goblin Wall
Across the goblin warrens, prayer is one of a small handful of phenomena around which entirely separate goblin communities, with no contact between them, have independently developed remarkably similar superstitions. The goblin folklorists are intrigued.
The Goblin Verdict on shadow
Goblin peer review of the shadow hypothesis returned three reviews: one accept, one reject, and one — the most interesting — a sketch of a goblin holding a question mark, captioned 'consider this.' The editors went with accept.