30 KiB
[RT] [FF] r!Animorphs: The Reckoning - Chapter 30 - Tobias
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Author: u/4t0m Chaos Legion*
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URL: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5627803/chapters/27014076
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Score: 43
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Created: 2017-08-30T09:25:56
Post:
Comments:
u/CouteauBleu [+12] We are the Empire. (an hour later)
...
...
...
Dammit, you murder one highly-ranked intelligence officer and suddenly everything gets complicated.
(why am I typing this in an airport? it's like I'm trying to get on a watchlist)
u/None [+9] (7 hours later)
None of this would be a problem if they had only given that dog the morphing power.
Anyone else find themselves kind of agreeing with Tyagi? Like, I'm expecting plot developments may save us because I know we're reading a story but from her perspective, a rock at 13/14ths of c is def a motivating reason to start playing nice with the yeerks.
u/LieGroupE8 [+9] ** (11 hours later)
Great chapter, keep it up! TK17, you're awesome and you should feel awesome, woop woop!
Lots of setup and exposition in this one. I still love the feeling that this story invokes of peering through a window into vast, nonstop world where characters don't pause to wait for the story to catch up. That said, I do think the story would benefit from showing more stuff onscreen - like all the things Jake described to Tobias. Also, it's been a while since we've had deep character moments between the Animorphs. I want another chapter like the one where they all morphed each other.
His eyes flickered toward Thàn. “Those’re the Yeerks in Ax and Marco’s heads,” he added.
Whoa whoa whoa, that's a typo, right? It should say "in Ax and Marco's dad's heads", right?
the weird bracelet weapon that Rachel had lifted off Visser Three’s host at the high school
Yessssss. Don't think I didn't notice.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (12 hours later)
Yes, typo ... will fix when at a real computer.
u/TooShortToBeStarbuck [+9] (2 hours later)
Hang on... velociraptor? Did I miss the entirety of Megamorphs 2 getting squeezed in here somewhere?
Excellent chapter; I made the most ungodly noise of delight when I saw the email signifying an update.
u/philh [+11] (2 hours later)
That was Cassie having ridiculous control over the morphing process, I haven't been able to find where in the fic it was though.
u/TooShortToBeStarbuck [+6] (2 hours later)
Savvy. I was mostly just doing a double take of, "Hang on... was there a sario rip event that somehow Cassie 'survived' and retained a morph from, and then explained it away as a cassowary + morph control? Because this absolutely has not been mentioned in any prior chapter."
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (22 hours later)
They use the morph in the chapter where they take out the truck, and it's referenced again in the broadcast chapter (Rachel's using it to guard them all while they're in the house).
u/TooShortToBeStarbuck [+9] (a day later)
Huh. Was that retroactively added in, or did my brain just completely fail to notice the word velociraptor on multiple occasions? If it's the latter, then my attention span needs a serious tune-up.
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Never said "velociraptor" explicitly. That's Tobias's take on what it looks like. Did say "dinosaur" in the broadcast chapter, and "stiff tail" and "talons" and "scales" in the truck chapter.
u/TooShortToBeStarbuck [+4] (a day later)
Gotcha', thanks. (Seriously, thank you for clearing that up; my 'how did I miss that?!' factor was off the charts.)
u/DaystarEld [+4] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
I'm with you, completely missed those references, or my memory somehow dropped them. I think what might have happened is that I interpreted them in my head as them referring to aliens they acquired somewhere that LOOK like dinosaurs, since maybe they hadn't heard what they're actually called by that point.
u/TooShortToBeStarbuck [+8] (a day later)
BINGO, that's exactly what happened. I would've assumed Hork-Bajir morphs; at no point would actual velociraptors have occurred to me. Talons, scales, stiff tail, looks dinosaurisch? That spells Hork-Bajir.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Except then they just would've said Hork-Bajir.
u/TooShortToBeStarbuck [+2] (a day later)
Not necessarily, in the broadcast; a lot of the way that scene was depicted had a "this is what it looks like to the viewer, who is not already an insider to this alien knowledge" quality to it. My mind glossed over it as, "Oh, that's a Hork-Bajir, and the language being used is allowing the reader to occupy the viewer's perspective, regarding this broadcast."
u/KnickersInAKnit [+2] (3 days later)
Did they know what Hork-Bajir were at that point? Jake1 had seen them at the pool, but I don't think they interacted with them much afterwards.
u/philh [+2] (a day later)
I wonder if it was clarified in the reddit thread for the truck chapter? Rereading the chapter, I don't think I would have picked up on the dinosaur just from the text. But clearly I picked it up from somewhere.
u/TooShortToBeStarbuck [+3] (a day later)
I've no idea; I don't usually view the accompanying reddit threads, since I'm subscribed on AO3, and don't have to come here to get the link when a new chapter goes up.
u/CoolGuy54 [+2] (2 days later)
I did pick that up just from the text IIRC, but it wasn't obvious.
u/daytodave [+1] an altruistic conversion of calories to hedons (5 months later)
There was also a line in an early chapter where someone says, "So do we know why Cassie's the only one who can do this."
And someone replies, "No, but who cares? We can all pick up the morphs from her."
Which I thought was about combining two morphs of the same species, but maybe that was where she learned to pull dinosaurs out of bird DNA?
u/KnickersInAKnit [+9] (12 hours later)
I'm actually surprised no one besides Tyagi has mixed up Thàn and Tom yet considering how similar the two sound. This is interesting:
“This Tom person you arrived with?”
Does Thàn and Tom sound different in thought-speech?
Also...Thàn is apparently Vietnamese for 'God'. Atlas Labs. Suoros doesn't return any direct translations, but Suor does - Portugese for 'sweat'. The god that sweats holding up the sky? Appropriate, considering his vigil with Serenity.
u/LazarusRises [+8] (13 hours later)
I think Thàn Suoros = Nate Soares. Nate works on AI alignment and Thàn works on observational astrophysics, but the fields share the distinction of being (according to the relevant parties) "absolutely the most important thing to be studying right now."
u/TK17Studios [+8] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (22 hours later)
Correct. Closest thing in r!Animorphs to a real person being dropped straight in, largely thanks to the role he's played in making this story exist (he's maybe 30% responsible for the plot).
u/philh [+7] (4 hours later)
I've come up with two explanations for the ebay listing.
One is that Garrett hid it in a construction site somewhere and someone found it. "Dracon" is a coincidental typo; "double a batteries" is probably just a silly assumption.
The other is that it's a honeypot. "Dracon" is to get someone's attention; "double a batteries" is for extra deniability, to make it look like the seller has no idea what they're holding.
If so, who's it a trap for, and by? Won't work on the animorphs, unless you've actually found the box, and even then they'd need to find the listing and figure out how to track the seller. Maybe Tyagi's group? They know what the box looks like thanks to morphing Tobias. And V3 would be totally capable of setting this up, even if he doesn't know what Tyagi's group knows. Maybe just to help figure out who knows what, more likely to turn a human-in-the-know into a Controller.
I think this is my dominant hypothesis, but I'm not confident.
u/Slapdash17 [+20] (8 hours later)
"dracon"
"and a lite"
"elf and gore"
"out of this world"
Whoever listed it knows exactly what it is.
u/philh [+10] (a day later)
That's it, I'm taking "ability to notice things" off my resumé.
u/CouteauBleu [+5] We are the Empire. (13 hours later)
Ah ah, I missed 2 and 3 there!
u/Alphanos [+13] The Bright Powers (8 hours later)
Garrett from a few chapters back:
And so I decided that I was not going to take it to the CHEE, and I was also not going to tell the rest of the ANIMORPHS what I had done with it, except that I would maybe give them some CLUES in case something happened to me because I wasn’t STUPID, I didn’t want them to lose it forever if I caught a random DRACON BEAM or something. And I guess if they found out and tried to argue with me, I would try to explain to them those REASONS I had thought of and any other ones I could come up with, but in fact it wasn’t because of those REASONS, not really.
I just had a FEELING, and I hoped TOBIAS wouldn’t be MAD AT ME.
Edit: Foreknowledge aside, the structure and phrasing of the listing certainly sounds like the way Garrett thinks.
u/LazarusRises [+11] (13 hours later)
So... Garrett set up an auto-poster to put the listing on ebay in case he doesn't reset it every day. If something happens to him, the Animorphs find the posting because ???someone they know set up a webcrawler???
And then how do they find where the box actually is? Maybe there's a steganographic code for Tobias in there that we can't read alongside the ones we can?
EDIT: the Chee might be the webcrawler. But the whole point of this is that Garrett doesn't trust them.
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (6 hours later)
"and a lite" blue box
u/philh [+8] (7 hours later)
Doh, missed that. First hypothesis becomes still less plausible.
Though, I think the tap idea also loses credibility. It only works as a trap if it could plausibly not be one. "Dracon" might be a risk the tap setter chose to take, but "and a lite" now sounds like steganography; "I know what this is, and if you can read this message, I want you to know that I know".
I don't know why anyone would be doing this, but I'm not ruling it out.
u/avtrisal [+10] (9 hours later)
Maybe if they want to sell it. My theory: David selling them out to the Yeerks.
u/LieGroupE8 [+8] ** (11 hours later)
I second your theory. I don't think Garrett would do this, and I don't see a good reason why the yeerks would use this specific thing to contact or trap the Animorphs. David, on the other hand, has been frightened by the talk of "going down with the ship" and wants a way out.
u/CouteauBleu [+6] We are the Empire. (13 hours later)
Considering that's what he did in canon, and he's having second thoughts in this chapter, I'd say it's pretty likely.
u/None [+4] (7 hours later)
What are the odds that there is an Andalite sleeper agent a la the vecols in that one book who are posting this, or that someone thinks there might be one and wants to fish them out?
(Probably low. Trying to think of innocuous explanations.)
u/4t0m [+8] Chaos Legion (10 minutes later)
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (11 minutes later)
<3
u/LazarusRises [+7] (a day later)
One of the things I like best about this story is how it just.doesn't.stop. I really felt for Jake there in the woods--even with morphs to keep exhaustion at bay, he's running on empty. Throughout the story, and especially in this chapter, you don't forget for a single moment how high the stakes are and how quickly time is running out.
I'm also happy to see Tyagi seriously considering a voluntary cooperation program. The transhumanist in me very much wants to see human-Yeerk collaboration, especially given the firsthand testimony from the existing cooperative Controllers and the fact that Yeerks seem to evolve extremely quickly when exposed to new brains. The fact that it's literally a last-resort gambit to avoid extinction is unfortunate, but well within expected behavior for humanity. I would love to see what a fully human-integrated Yeerk pool looks like, as well as the community of their Controllers.
u/CoolGuy54 [+3] (2 days later)
Shit, think of the direct mind-to-mind sharing the huma controllers could do via Yeerks if everyone was cooperating. Can you learn skills etc. from a Yeerk in a way that stays after it leaves? I guess if they're going full symbiosis then even having it rely on the Yeerk would be helpful.
u/LazarusRises [+3] (2 days later)
Exactly! You probably couldn't directly import skills, but definitely memory and knowledge, which go a long way. You could build a whole memory economy by temporarily trading Yeerks with valuable skills (though probably not permanently as I imagine pairs would get attached.)
u/CoolGuy54 [+2] (3 days later)
Ignoring the fact that morphing now gives the same ability, just imagine even the ability to do marital counselling or interventions or similar by swapping a Yeerk back and forth and using it to directly share perspectives and emotions. Friggin' revolutionary.
u/LazarusRises [+3] (3 days later)
That crossed my mind too! Beyond marriage, think of how this could improve friendship or even creative collaboration.
Wait just a minute. If humans are given both Yeerks and morphing, they could develop a telepathic ecosystem like the eib and dhain. Goddamn I hope we get to see a peacefully integrated society.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
<3 for Jake
u/None [+6] (4 days later)
Right now the thing I'm excited for the most is when the Ellimist's and the Crayak's involvement become common knowledge among the human command structure, and all of a sudden the President and all of her advisers have start seriously considering the possibility that the Animorph's continued insights, decisions, and general involvement might actually be crucial for any kind of human victory.
Also I'm starting to really like the idea of a Human - Yeerk aliance, even if it kind of creeped me out at first. It does seem to be the best solution. From what happened with Ax when he bonded with his yeerk, a yeerk doesn't have to fully dominate a human it bonds with. And that got me wondering; in this new partnership, would the unit of Yeerk inserted into individual humans actually have to be its own independent sentient being?
From what I've understood of Yeerk culture and biology, the true individual among their species is the greater Yeerk pool, to the point where killing sentient Controllers isn't truly considered murder. What the main characters have interacted with are essentially just fragments of that greater whole. So here's my idea:
If we're going full integration, only put enough Yeerk into the average individual human to act as a vaguely sentient 'third hemisphere' of the brain. We already have two hemispheres that can act more or less on their own when the connection between them is severed. If I (an average Joe) was given the choice, I would definitely sign up for having a third over implanting another voice into my head.
That way, the greater Yeerk Hive Mind could enjoy the memories it wanted without significantly compromising humanity's agency, or causing intolerable human suffering. And perhaps humanity could fully donate the brain dead to the Yeerks, if the Hive Mind wanted it's own individual, fully controlled bodies, so that no living minds have to be truly enslaved.
And if this fic ever goes full transhumanist and implements some genetic engineering a la the Iskoort from canon, it seems to me to be most plausible way Humans and Yeerks could ever become one species. Two human brain hemispheres, like we have now, and third, detachable Yeerk hemisphere.
TL: DR - Only put a little Yeerk in individual humans, so that the Hive Mind can have the memories and experiences it desires without having to take slaves.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (4 days later)
Imagine if this has already happened, but with hostile/manipulative third hemispheres...
u/None [+3] (5 days later)
Is this your way at hinting at the Ellimist's / Crayak's involvement?
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (9 days later)
Maybe I should stop posting reviews this long? In a way, I'm putting pressure on myself to not review anything unless it's super long and detailed and thought-out.
But yeah, regular long-form review time!
Overall, I'm kinda impressed that the writing still has the same... I dunno, abstract quality. Things are getting increasingly complicated, the protagonists are becoming less relevant, but there's still a sense that their actions make sense, serve their goals; and actually have an impact on the story.
I like Thàn, and I hope he doesn't completely disappear from the story. It's nice to have non-main-characters be shown doing smart/useful things, and Thàn fills the "systemically rationalist" role, in a way that tells us "look, Marco isn't the only nerd in the world!".
Which reminds me, we still haven't seen the military do any heavy lifting in the story. They've done a lot of gun-pointing and preparing, but most of the ass-kicking was Rachel and Tobias. Even Tidwell (rip) was only doing consulting.
The bits of information theory are still some of the story's best parts. Eliezer Yudkowksy said something in his writing series, about how to teach a concept at level N, you need to understand it at level N+1 so you can be flexible in how you explain the concept, and deliver an explanation adapted to the setting that doesn't feel ripped from a textbook. Thàn lecturing Tobias about information theory, and Tobias thinking about what he can afford to tell Thàn, well, the whole scene feels like it nails that part.
Also, nice story recap.
I'm kind of disturbed by the implication that Garrett used the morphing power to get a live grenade past airport security. That's... um... I hope they don't make an habit of doing that?
Another canon reference! Flying is awesome! Tobias loves flying! Also, has this fic talked about thermals yet?
DaystarEld complained about Jake telling about Marco and Rachel's offscreen adventures; I had the opposite reaction. First, there's a lot going on, with the Telor rendez-vous and the Andalite threat and Visser 3's secret plans, so at that point I don't really care about the other subplots, and I'm okay with mostly skipping them (especially since nothing major really changed since last chapter). Second, I really love the scenes where Rachel does something badass offscreen (like the tiger fight outside the yeerk pool). It makes her look cool, like the badass-ery is a constant part of a character, I guess.
The more the story progresses, the more I think having someone impersonate Tyagi is a horrible, horrible idea. It means that there can be no screening method in place to show the outside world (and the US population in general) that Tyagi isn't compromised, since, well, she is. I'd think this would cause a ton of problems, at least somewhere down the line.
I kinda feel like Tobias shouldn't be talking to Tyagi alone? Like, he's important, but maybe not important enough to have the undivided attention of the POTUS in a time of crisis. Although if Tobias's stunt had every Animorphs and friends disappear from the US radars, maybe she wanted to talk to him because she desperately needed to convince him to turn Marco's dad over. Still, maybe she should introduce Tobias to someone lower in the chain of command who can serve as a liaison. Then again, conservation of details.
In the same vein, Tyagi is being very accommodating with Tobias. His group is sheltering a murderer, blackmailed the US president to help said murderer escape, is withholding major military intel, etc. I'd have expected her to insist a bit more on the "stop playing superheroes" angle. Also, I was surprised she wasn't a bit more annoyed when Tobias started questioning her grand strategy; obviously the version she gave him was a simplified version of the United States' plan. It's not like Tobias is a major advisor with access to all the data the US has been considering.
The whole Tobias-Tyagi scene is really well written, overall. It's both tense, and rational; Tyagi isn't making unreasonable demands or being a jerk for no reason. Again, if anything, she's giving the kids a surprising amount of leeway. Her offer to join up as advisors feels really tempting, even though narratively we know that it won't happen.
The "these kids are important because a prophecy said so" card is getting overplayed a bit. They're not putting ridiculous weight into it, but at some point the "they're important" part is becoming... um, abstract? Like, it's a show-don't-tell thing. We need to see them do more important stuff that couldn't be done by someone else at some point.
I liked the "if not in the United States itself, then at least with U.S. backing" touch, by the way. It reminds the audience that this isn't Stargate, and the US isn't somehow representative of everyone on Earth.
Bit of a dick move from Tobias, telling Tyagi about the supplies cache without telling them it's a trap. Although I'm glad they're finally picking up that thread. What's the point of having expendable minions if you don't send them trigger obvious traps for you?
Nice Harry Potter reference. I'm liking Thàn more and more. (did these kids even read Harry Potter? Damn, I feel old)
I feel like this is the point they should hand David over to the government. He's been useless so far, he's clearly not very motivated, he murdered his father, and he's a growing liability. They're not his babysitters, and they've already ditched most of the people they gave the morphing power to.
It sounds like a pretty major scene is coming up in a few chapters. Things are coming to a... a something! Awesome!
Yeah, and I'd like to reiterate my first point: this was a nice chapter, and this is a cool fic. Keep going!
Let's talk about the Tyagi plan, and Yeerk integration. This is clearly the main plot point right now.
There are a lot of major questions to answer. I covered a few of them in the AMA interlude, but now I have more.
First off, what are the yeerks going to infest? There's nothing stopping them from infesting animals; they want to infest humans because the intelligence and the sentience means they can actually work towards their goals with them, but they might still decide to infest birds just for the fun of flying.
Who are the yeerks going to infest? There's only one major yeerk coalescion, for 7 billion humans. Yeerk infestation might become a super-expensive service for the extremely wealthy, unless some sort of lottery program is put into place. Even then, different countries might compete for the opportunity to house the program. Of course, there's also the matter of clearance and influence; the host government might want to avoid having too many powerful / influential people be infested.
How does yeerk breeding work? Do they expand to fill the space available? At this point their pools are all artificial, so I guess there will be some eugenics involved. The coalescions are basically free to make as many or as few of themselves as they want. Is there some sort of overshooting risk, where the yeerks might breed and produce more coalescions as long as there's enough humans to infest, until they breed too many coalescions and there's not enough hosts to go around again? (probably not; I don't think overshooting applies to yeerks)
Then there's the whole question of power dynamics. The host government would probably demand that Telor (or whichever coalescion takes part in the program) settle in a land-based pool, where they would be vulnerable to human attacks; this pool would probably require a mix of yeerk and human airport-style security, lest activists decide to blow it up. But it would be a form of mutually-assured destruction: don't fuck with us, because we can murder you if we need to.
Speaking of mutually-assured destruction, at some point USA (or other) engineers will be able to produce their own warp-drive. From then on, they'll be able to blow up the yeerk homeworld if they need to, assuming Ax or Elfangor can give them the coordinates. At that point, yeerks will have very little direct leverage.
How much leverage will they apply? I mentioned in the AMA interlude that eventually they will learn to cohabitate and respect humans, but I'm not so sure. There are many ways a coalescion could defect against humanity without being detected. Coalescions can analyze data from different hosts and draw connections without the hosts realizing. Theoretically, they might pull Lex-Luthor style nefarious plans where none of the pawns even realize they're doing anything unusual or nefarious. A Controller may feel like he's getting the same yeerk, but the coalescion might infest him with something subtly different every time; like Marco pointed out, they can influence them with subconscious rewards, without them realizing anything's amiss. Of course, all of that would change if the host government manages to get their hands on a Leeran, but that's another can of worms; also, morph-checking.
I have more questions, but those were the least vague I had.
The biggest remaining obstacle to Earth's safety is Visser 3. At that point he's like a bomb that needs to be defused.
The problem is, he might have any number of deadman switches ready, on unknown conditions. Maybe if his ship blows up, then a deadly Arn plague kills all humans on Earth and all Yeerks in the universe. Maybe if he stays unconscious for more than 20 minutes, then a bigger cloaked asteroid is launched towards Earth.
Killing him or stunning him might kill us all. Leaving him room to maneuver might kill us all. Also, just to keep things interesting, he can clone himself, and might even have set up clone back-ups (you know what, let's call them Horcruxes) somewhere on Earth in such a way that he doesn't actually know where they are and can't destroy, locate or deactivate them.
...
Yeah, we're fucked.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (10 days later)
(u/TK17Studios)
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (10 days later)
Am at AI conference/retreat for the next couple of weeks and may be slow to respond. But have read and am digesting and have experienced marginal increase of <3 <3 <3.
u/None [+1] (26 days later)
I don't think overshooting applies to yeerks
I don't see why not. Oscillatory dynamics are common in ecologies.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (26 days later)
My reasoning was "however yeerks reproduce, it's probably not directly tied to how many hosts they have"; my understanding is that overshooting happens when a species can eat more than enough to sustain larger numbers, until the food runs out. Yeerks don't consume hosts, or need them directly to survive.
Then again, I don't know much about real life parasites. Maybe overshooting applies to them too.
u/None [+1] (27 days later)
This, of course, opens up a very interesting ecological question. Hosts are obviously used to transport individual yeerk shards for the purposes of genetic and memetic mixing, and to protect and maintain pools. But they are apparently not the primary source of biological energy actually running their metabolism. I wonder where that comes from in the natural ecology.
u/DaystarEld [+10] Pokémon Professor (10 hours later)
Really enjoyed the chapter, but in the interest of actually having (hopefully constructive) criticism for once:
Tobias came off a bit too uncertain of himself when talking to Tyagi. I get that he was off kilter due to the stress of the circumstances, but as he mentioned, he's been through a lot at this point. Maybe I'm forgetting that this level of second guessing and being unsure of himself and having mental stutters is part of his character, and there was attention put on lampshading all this, which is good, but it still felt a bit much: I felt a bit annoyed with him. He also didn't even consider that he might not actually talking to the president, once he realized she was morphed.
There was a lot of "wait, what happened?" going on in the beginning, to the point where I actually went back a couple chapters to make sure I didn't miss one. For the first time I felt like too much had happened off screen between chapters. Not sure how reproducible this problem is if story is all read in one go, just thought I'd point it out.
Overall still enjoyed the chapter a lot: particularly Tobias's musings on flying :)
u/TK17Studios [+8] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (22 hours later)
Yeah, I'm starting to bump up against "it's hard to do chapter viewpoint switching." Ideally, I could've shown more of Rachel or Marco's perspective from inside the base, but it's been soooooo loooooong since a Tobias chapter, and I really don't want to crawl inside David's head, so this was the solution. Perhaps inelegant; I can foresee at least once more in the arcs plotted so far where you might be similarly sad that stuff happens off-screen, but mostly this was the high water mark (or low point, if you prefer).
u/KnickersInAKnit [+2] (3 days later)
crawl inside David's head
I see what you did there...