:(){ :|:& };:

this is good enough to move forward with. something's still missing, though, clearly... and also, there's an issue where any edge site neighbors the zeroth site??? so i'm just sidestepping that.

the full rewrite can't happen until i have a chance to rest... because after eight months of working with no days off and (most likely) long covid, my brain is well and truly cooked; i just can't make it fully grok this :(