Yeah that's really valid, to be honest.  Except to the extent that it would be much, much cooler to befriend a dragon and become its rider than to kill one, but.  Practicalities.  Tragic practicalities.

What next.  Actually - "Is there any material written for an audience of new espers?"  (He's back to English.  It's the language he's been reading in and he forgot they were practicing until it was too late to change course.  Probably Haru will judge him for this and then also speak to him in surprise French and Julien will have a panic attack and spiral into doing and being something horrible.  So he should simply Not Be Surprised when there is French.)

Haru switches to English too. "Some, yes. On my link sidebar if you go to 'Extrasensory' and then search the site for 'newbie' then there's a halfway decent link roundup."

"What?  - Got it, nevermind."  Well, not entirely, but hopefully the important bits.  Ctrlf extrasensory.

There it is in the blogroll. Searching "newbie" leads to the promised link roundup masterpost, including:

- Use It Or Lose It: Espers are super-healthy and fit but can still benefit from exercise, here's links to recommended regimens for dungeon-readiness or just plain aging gracefully because espers do still age.
- Getting an Esper Passport
- Codename conflict checker
- Attempts to quantify what forms of guiding are the most effective, in clinical yet considerable detail
- Links to regular esper mixers and meetups
- Powers testing advice
- How to update civilian ID with new hair and eye colors
- Miscarriage coping resources
- Therapists with special interests in psychological backlash
- How to tell your doctor about your physical backlash and find a new doctor if they can't cope
- Steering psychological backlash into various shapes: thirty case studies
- Finding an agent
- Form letter for sending to school/work/etcetera apologizing that you did not show up because you were awakening
- Some twenty different esper FAQs
- Non-Dungeoneering Esper Careers
- Esper Partnerships For Fun And Profit

Thirty case studies!

This person has depression with visual disturbances (the world literally loses color and definition for her as she gets sadder). For her the thing she needs to lean away from is hopelessness and to a lesser extent self-worth issues, and it's relatively safe and self-limiting to just be unmotivated and want to flop in her silo with her partner and not do anything while said partner (hyperactivity and mania) gives her a massage and kisses her till the colors come back. Sometimes this means she quits a dungeon even before red (the last color to go) is gone, but better to quit early than to hold out too late and commit suicide by monster.

This one has what at first looked like paralysis but turned out to be that thing where you form the delusion that a limb doesn't belong to you and has been attached to you by some sort of mistake. If he tries really hard he can believe that the limbs have been loaned to him or are cyborg prosthetics and are thus still usable, though this stops working at high levels of backlash and makes him pretty clumsy. Sometimes he can disbelieve in his non-dominant arm really hard and keep his legs and other arm reporting for duty as normal.

This guy has binge eating compulsions and sometimes manages to drink a lot of water and eat raw low-calorie vegetables instead of chowing down on whatever's around. He also manages what's around to some extent but his partner has loss of appetite and they have to have emergency highly palatable things around in the silo.

This woman has nymphomania and has managed with years of effort to have it manifest reliably as specifically a kink for being guided.

This guy's backlash of clinical lycanthropy became a lot more manageable when he managed to believe he was turning into a dog instead of a wolf. He has almost entirely stopped biting people.

This person becomes a hoarder and still has a lot of hoarding problems - she gets so upset with herself, and with her partner for letting her which is a more serious problem because it interferes with guiding, when she realizes she's thrown stuff out between backlash episodes; so she's trying not to rely on it for anything that isn't a clear health hazard. But she's had some luck with becoming more of a digital packrat.

There are totally thirty of these.

The first couple is really really cute.  Who does the nymphomaniac usually get guided by, does it say?

She's anonymous and presumably based on the description has a partner but they're anonymous even by way of gender.

Seems rough if they have a sex repulsion backlash or something but he supposes it's none of his business.  The lycanthropy one is so much; he rereads that a few times to absorb it.

Time to eat all the FAQs, he guesses.

If he was not previously fully informed about the difference between acute and chronic backlash, what guiding is and does and if it's inherently sexual, whether awakening has automatically conscripted him into the skeleton war dungeoneering profession, what the difference is between an agency and a guild, or the medical advisability of doing powers testing before you find someone compatible and willing to guide you, the FAQs are here for him.

What is the difference between an agency and a guild, precisely?

Mostly it's that agencies are the done thing in the West (with a few guilds trying to make it work) and vice versa in Asia. They're structurally distinct, though. There's a lot of things that need to line up for an esper to do their best work - they need to find (a) partner(s), they need training and gear and recon and not to trip over each other, the way that dungeon materials and taxpayer dollars turn into these resources depends on whether they're represented by an agency or working for a guild. The guilds are businesses that employ espers, with pay, benefits, perks, and resources laid out for them to do their jobs; many of the things espers need, a guild does in-house. The agencies are services hired by espers, to coordinate with governments, R&D departments, private bounty and insurance interests, would-be gig employers for civilian-side work, partners, and any other services the esper wants to hire. Agencies are buffets and guilds are prix fixe. Some agencies are drifting toward a more guild-shaped thing and some guilds sort of devolve into an agency-like thing.

Huh.  Really good to know.

He's going to message his mom about the guitar and also could she bring him a bunch of clothes, please, he loves her thanks.

"I think I ought to be safe to take a quick shower.  And - should?"

"Sure, uh, how quick do you expect to be and after how long should I assume you're having a crisis in there and break in?"

"Uh, ten minutes or fewer and...... forty?  Respectively?  Really I expect to be quick enough that it won't be a problem."

"Sure. I'll set a timer. The clock in there is a little slow."

"Thanks."  He - leans forward to break skin contact, with an incredible force of will, and heads for the bathroom.

- And then immediately returns.  "Sorry, uh, which towel should I use?"

"The ones in the cupboard above the toilet are clean, take one of those."

"Thanks."

Okay.  Shower time.  The mechanism for turning it on is not one he's familiar with, but he already just asked a question about the incredibly simple process of how to take a shower, and - he should ask over having a panic attack, obviously, that's the only safe thing, but also he doesn't.  Need.  To have a panic attack.  He can just poke around until the correct temperature of water comes out and everything is draining properly and it will be fine.  Nothing bad is going to happen if he tries various things.  (Unless something is broken, and Haru didn't tell him because he's so used to it that he didn't think of it.  If that's true it might be something that's convenient to fix because Haru's done it half a dozen times, but also what if it isn't.  ....Then he will just have to deal with that.  And it will be horrible, but it will be what he does.)  - There.  Water, hopefully coming to temperature.

He takes a moment to congratulate himself, entirely without joy, for successfully taking the steps to prevent himself from panicking about the fact that he's become really gross, and the spiral of Haru-might-hate-him that might lead to.  And also for doing it alone.  Even suggesting the idea of doing otherwise would be sexual harassment.  ....Maybe they could do it in swim trunks.  He can raise the idea and then text his mom to bring his too, but later.  It's too late for this one.

The water's warm on his hand, and warm again a few seconds later, and again a few seconds later, and probably isn't suddenly going to get scalding.  Julien - he - Julien gets in.

It doesn't really compare to guiding.  But it's nice in its own way.

It's - hard to be alone like this.  But he can do it for a few minutes, and he can make sure the shower only lasts that long.  He'll skip shampoo under the circumstances; conditioner:  on.  Scrunch scrunch.  This isn't so bad, see?  If something goes really horrible Haru will bust in and - do something horrible to him.  But appropriate.  And also it'll be sexual harassment on Julien's part.  But he's not going to die alone in his room of dehydration.  Haru will - force him.  Hold him down, esper-strong and selectively intangible, and pour water down his throat, and......

Oh god.  What was he thinking.  What the fuck was he thinking, asking for that.

Well, he can sob very quietly, or try, because he has to, because otherwise Haru will hear him and come in and do terrible horrible things to him for having the audacity to have a bad time.  And he has twenty minutes to get himself under control, othewise et cetera.

He manages it in ten, finishes up and dries off, and gets back into the sweated-in pajama pants Haru lent him.

And emerges.  Here he is.

"Hey. - I should've gotten you a change of pants, my bad, one sec.". He brushes past him in the hall on his way to the stairs.