Techniques are disclosed for overcoming communication lag between interactive operations among devices in a streaming session. According to the techniques, a first device streaming video content to a second device and an annotation is entered to a first frame being displayed at the second device, which is communicated back to the first device. Responsive to a communication that identifies the annotation, a first device may identify an element of video content from the first frame to which the annotation applies and determine whether the identified element is present in a second frame of video content currently displayed at the first terminal. If so, the first device may display the annotation with the second frame in a location where the identified element is present. If not, the first device may display the annotation via an alternate technique.