"I was originally going to get a normal cat, but then Cricket was - basically offered to me as a free to a good home thing, he was not sustaining a great relationship with the agency folks, but - probably you read the post."

“I for sure did! And it was great, and if a monster wanted to be roommates with me I would be delighted, but anything I could make a cat do to put on the YouTube channel, Cricket could decide to do on his own recognizance. —Definitely get one or more volunteers with their own pets, starting a relationship with a cat just to exploit them would be non-ideal. Ooh, or I could do videos that double as ads for shelters!”

"Will the cats be dancing to Caramelldansen?"

“I’m not that one note. And I’d want to be sure it was something that wouldn’t hurt them. Actually there was this cartoon I saw when I was a kid, about cats who did calligraphy with their tails, I might try something like that.”

"Ooh, that seems like it might be interesting as a control exercise... can you control just part of an animal, if you just grab the tail is the rest of the cat going to try to attack the alien tail?"

“I have no idea! Or, I mean, yes I can control just part of an animal, but I have no idea what being controlled feels like.”

"There's an esper who gets alien hand syndrome as backlash!"

“Huh! I wonder how compatible we’d be. That’s probably my first thought forever, now, when I hear about someone‘a backlash.”

"I mostly-successfully perpetuated a standard of fistbumps as a compat check mechanism so if somebody makes you want to throw up you don't have to yank out of a handshake."

“Well, if somebody makes me want to throw up, probably I make them want to throw up, so at least it wouldn’t offend them. But yes, better to avoid it.”

"Agencies throw meetups, and there's some that are just kind of open invite for espers, you can see about loading up on partners at those. Toronto's a good city but if you want to bop around a bit more obviously check parties in other cities."

“Oh, I’m so going to need an agent, d’you have any tips for what I should look out for, while I’m doing research on that?”

"I picked mine mostly on the basis that she answers the phone really fast, which has not yet literally saved my life but it's not out of the question that it could. I'm not sure what strategy you want yours to take with you."

“Be willing to navigate the arcane communication needs I’m going to have while backlashed, I think. Like, using first-person instead of second-person pronouns, and talking around whatever concepts I’m missing, and stuff.”

"Seems tricky to screen for while you can keep track of the fact that you're doing that..."

“Hard to screen for how well they’ll do in practice, but I can at least ask, like, ‘how are you at bizarre and labyrinthine communication requirements,’ and expect that some people will say ‘what are you fucking talking about’ and some people will say ‘I don’t know but I’m willing to try,’ and some people will say, ‘I’ve never done that specifically but I’m good at bizarre and labyrinthine other stuff’ and if I’m lucky someone will say ‘I have reason to expect to be really good at that.’”

"I don't think they're likely to say 'fucking' in a job interview. - hey, I just realized I think you do not know my name."

“—I swear your mom called you by name at some point while I was in the room but I think I was too backlashed to care and now I don’t remember.”

"I go by Haru."

“Hi, Haru! Ooh, I should pick a code name. I wonder if Marionette is taken.”

"I don't immediately recognize it!"

“It occurred to me to go for something leaning more on the sensory aspect, de-emphasize the control bit, but then I decided that if I wanted to do that then the YouTube channel was a bad idea, so.”

"It might still be a good idea namewise. Like... Eavesdrop."

“I mean the other thing is that sensors are already, like, a thing, and have been picking over that share of namespace for years now.”

"Yeah, I don't know of an Eavesdrop but probably there's been one."