diff --git a/src/background.ts b/src/background.ts
index 50a11cb..95edc51 100644
--- a/src/background.ts
+++ b/src/background.ts
@@ -329,6 +329,20 @@ chrome.storage.onChanged.addListener((changes, area) => {
 
 async function refreshAccountStates(): Promise<void> {
   console.debug('[substandard] session changed; refreshing subscription and block state')
+  // Started here and awaited at the end, so a sign-in is what pays for the
+  // walk instead of the first popup after it — but kept out of the badge work
+  // below, because no icon should wait on a read this long.
+  //
+  // Not a refresh, unlike the two reads below. Those must show the new
+  // account's own actions, so they re-read; the follow set is keyed by DID, so
+  // a new account is already a new entry, and asking for a refresh here would
+  // mean re-walking fifty thousand follows every time a handle or an avatar
+  // changed — `refreshStoredSession` rewrites the mirror for those too.
+  const warm = getFollows(false).catch((err: unknown) => {
+    console.debug('[substandard] could not warm the follow set', err)
+    return null
+  })
+
   const all = await chrome.storage.session.get(null)
   const [subs, blocks] = await Promise.all([
     getSubscriptions(true).catch(() => null),
@@ -342,4 +356,6 @@ async function refreshAccountStates(): Promise<void> {
     state.blocked = blocks ? blocks.dids.includes(state.pub.did) : undefined
     await setTabState(Number(key.slice(4)), state)
   }
+  // Keeps the worker alive for the walk; the listener is what holds it open.
+  await warm
 }