Hmm, fair enough. I suppose this could be on me; I'd already sort of internalized the idea that Nall, underneath the whole cat/cute boy thing, has some dark shit lurking in his cultural background. But Umi and Co. don't exactly have a readers-eye view, do they?

>This installment is interesting to me mainly because not everything
>that gets raised in that way is immediately dealt with, but if I
>had immediately dealt with them (as feels like my more usual
>custom),

Not only that, the thing feels like a one-off. It could almost be an episode of Brave and the Bold, even. There are things in it that I expect will come up in the future, but not precisely in the same way that, say, unresolved threads and revelation in the Symphony proper usually end up returning with a vengeance.

>I'd have people - possibly the same people, ironically
>enough - gigging me for everything being all pat and handled before
>the last commercial.

Maybe. I'm not renowned for my sterling consistency, after all. :) But, you know, not everything has to be one microscopic cog in a catastrophic plan. Sometimes things just happen and then they're over with without being part of a giant grand tapestry. That time Gryphon missed a whole Kilrathi War to go fight in the Beast Wars springs to mind; that was basically all pat and handled before the last commercial.

That said, there are times when rushing to wrap up everything up might be a poor stylistic choice. But you take things as they come.

-Merc
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