Fine-Tuning a Goblin on tome

'You have to ask tome the right way,' the cave-mother goblin warned me, 'and the right way changes every Tuesday.'

If tome 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.

Marginalia: manifesto

Visiting goblin dignitaries are, by protocol, never asked directly about manifesto. The protocol exists for reasons nobody remembers, which the goblins consider the best kind of reason to maintain a protocol.

Subterranean Goblin Notes on prayer

prayer pairs naturally with goblin culture the way certain wines pair with certain cheeses: not because of an inherent harmony, but because somebody, sometime, decided they go together, and now nobody can imagine them apart.

The Goblin Verdict on tome

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