"I....really don't want it to end up on Wikipedia...I'm...going to want to pick a codename very fast and be...strict about going by it in contexts where anything might end up in the media or something."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Easier to pick a codename when you know what your powers are. June draws monster attention and she's a speedster and your backlash presentation is loosely similar but that's no guarantee..." Looping around back to the house now.

"Yeah anything I could pick right now would be generic and probably taken. One day they're going to have to relax that rule unless they want entire sentences."

"They'll probably start letting people reuse dead espers' names in the next couple decades."

"Yeah, they have the rule in place so they don't have to require birthdates on the IDs, right?"

"That's among the reasons, yeah - it could also be legitimately confusing or harassing or something to let people get too duplicative, and you know there'd be trolls, and currently a troll who wanted to hassle Rhombus would have to call themselves Diamond or Romhack or something."

"Rhombus seems pretty cool, I mostly haven't followed esper celebrities as such but I've seen a few of the interviews she did. But I guess unfortunately being cool and popular just makes people a more temping target, for the kind of people that thing harassing people is funny."

"Rhombus is great, took me through my introductory dungeons."

"I did hear she likes to help newbies get onboard sometimes. Which is pretty cool for a high-power combat esper, I don't imagine introductory dungeons are that exciting for somebody like her on their own merits. Probably they mostly use ones that could be dealt with just fine by the SWAT teams?"

"Yeah, typically. It's like - untrained soldiers will break and run if horses are charging at them, and monsters are scarier than horses, you need the practice and you need it in a situation where scarier doesn't mean actually going to kill you."

"I imagine that for you it took time to get used to sneaking around them and...trusting your power?"

"Yeah." He lands on his doorstep and lets them in. "I can always perceive myself, I don't 'look invisible' to me. And there isn't like an HUD or anything to show me when it's engaged or not, I have to go by what I was intending to do and the backlash."

Warm. The blanket can go someplace convenient and then they can head for the couch. 

"How long did it take you to get comfortable with it?"

"I'm still getting moreso but I think I had most of it down inside the first month or two. I'm often running around by myself in dungeons so it can be easy to model it as - the monsters just can't see intruders of whom I am one instead of I'm invisible?" Couchsnuggles.

"...It's kind of a funny thught to imagine you just casually walking right up to them while chatting into your phone about what you're doing. Though not so funny considering they're...menacing people."

"Well, I'm not usually talking unnecessarily when I'm low enough backlash to avoid it - costs more backlash the more I have to hide, so if I'm actually quiet I can be silent cheaper, if I'm behind something I can be invisible cheaper, etcetera. Also it's a dungeon comm device, phones don't get signal in there. But yeah."

"I guess I've only interacted with you when you were racking up a lot on purpose to help me out and not at more...normal levels for you?"

"Yeah, I don't fly much in dungeons - short tactical bursts only. The imperceptibility is comparatively a lot cheaper. Though I do get pretty wretchedly talky by the end of many dungeons. I wind up talking to the victims."

"You did mention talking to the victims. Well I don't find you wretchedly talky, even though I'm having a much harder time than I usually do generating responses. I'm..fairly extroverted normally."

"You're doing very well, I'm not finding you hard to talk to at all. Though I am occasionally telling myself that since you are hiding in a scarf this is definitely exactly how you would look if you were incredibly fascinated by everything I had to say so I have no evidence that you are not."

"I'm not bored..You're...quite interesting to talk to." She finds a lot of people at least a little interesting to talk to even if they aren't friend material but Traceless is well above average. (She's really glad about the scarf right now)

"Inconveniently I get less so the more backlashed I am because it gives me less and less time to think of something to say."

"Inconveniently that also gives me less time to wrestle out a response." If they do dungeons together they will have an obvious conversation topic...Stop getting ahead of yourself..

"Yeah, it's not great, but there was no implicit promise that it would be." Shrug.

Small sigh "We'll just have to manage."