Admin@everyone Q2-2025 registrations are now closed. Appointments for the necessary tests have been scheduled. The quarter will officially begin on Saturday, March 30th, at 2:00 pm. More here: >??Info. Failure to attend fully prepared will result in disqualification.

  Whoever is running this shitshow is able to refer people for medical appointments. Cool. Sure. Not at all concerning.

  "Yeah," Daniel comments, even though I didn't say anything. He's leaning over my shoulder again. "Admin's got a bit of a creepy tone to him. Pretty sure it's just for show though." He takes a sip from his energy drink, a pink one. Guys can drink pink energy drinks, he told me the first time he got one. In fact, being comfortable with pink just shows that he’s secure in his masculinity.

  I’m starting to realize that Daniel’s idea of what constitutes ‘showing security in your masculinity’ might be a bit fwed. In fact, I’m increasingly suspecting that Daniel has no idea how anything works, in general. ‘Trans women have it easy’? In what fucking world, Daniel? I’m over here desperate enough to go along with this shit, aren’t I?

  The post in the info channel outlines some details: Which medical examinations are going to happen, what to bring to the kickoff call, a lengthy ramble about microphone etiquette for some fucking reason, and details about the shipping of the HRT.

  They’re shipping the full three-year supply of hormones to us immediately? It’s already on the way?

  Participants are individually responsible for proper storage of supplies. If any supplied medication dispys signs of defects, report this in the secure chat.

  I look over at Daniel. “Dude. For real?”

  He tilts his head to the side. “Yeah? It’s from a trusted supplier, if that’s what you’re worried about. They’ve got vetting info in the pins.”

  Overwhelmed by the sheer number of questions raised here, I default to the most immediate, practical question.

  “Where the fuck are you keeping all of it?”

  Nichos is many things, but attentive is not one of them. It is honestly baffling, at times, how he appears to be entirely stuck within his own head. Given this tendency of his, it was practically trivial to sneak the blessed elixir of feminization into my chambers. By which I mean my bedroom.

  It is strictly superior to our current location, which is his bedroom. Pin, ordinary, utilitarian. A desk with a computer, a sad single occupancy bed. Closet, the singur furnishing that came with the apartment, perplexingly with gss doors. Unlike the absurd transparent closet he is stuck with, the curtains were his choice. Blue, which presumably means nothing. Lots of things mean nothing, like the way you think in second person sometimes, that one definitely means nothing, what would that even mean, you know?

  Anyway. “Let’s go, I’ll show you.” I take his hand ptonically and lead him into my significantly more pleasant dwelling. “Bro, I know where your room is, you don’t have to drag me there.” Nichos’ objections fall on ears with perfect hearing, their hopes of victory dashed by my disregard for their contents as I pull him through the common area. Couch, TV, kitchen corner.

  The other occupants of our apartment, Jeff and Kyle, are currently busy with “being responsible students” and “not just ditching lectures to hang out in each other’s bedrooms like you guys do”, uncultured as they are in the ways of high-quality heterosexual male friendship, an art I have studied in great detail to maintain the utter perfection of my impenetrable masquerade.

  Men who share in masculine companionship of the non-Achillean variety are known to fraternize in each other’s bedrooms all the time. Additionally, what is dispyed by this comfortable disregard towards others’ perceptions of our habits, if not the absolute self-certainty possessed only by men so heterosexual that the notion of being perceived otherwise by onlookers simply does not occur to them?

  My inner sanctum beckons. My chrysalis, which I sometimes emerge from, which caterpilrs must do sometimes during the whole butterfly procedure? Surely, they do not simply stew in there the entire time? That would be ridiculous, caterpilrs have needs, such as friendship and love and adventure and finishing up their metaphors already. My companion caterpilr enters the chrysalis too, except Nichos is very much not going to turn into a butterfly because he is a cisgender man, and those are to trans women what worms are to caterpilrs. And so, tragically, I will not love him in the manner oft implied by others, because he is a worm.

  Daniel’s room is a sensory nightmare. The LED strips embedded along the ceiling pulse in perfect sync with the equally obnoxious lighting of his computer, to the tune of that pylist he never turns off. Mercifully, his cat ear headphones are plugged in, the ‘hyper pop’ only faintly audible.

  The walls surrounding his huge double bed are covered in shelves, themselves filled with an enormous collection of. Uh, anime comics? Whatever those are called. And also, figurines. A massive collection of various characters from shows he will never get me to watch, because multiple seasons of cute girls just hanging out and going “uwaaa” at each other seems like a purgatory worse than the one I’m stuck in until I can feel like a cute girl myself.

  The robot show with the two friends who got in an arranged marriage was pretty good, though. He’s got the robots there. Daniel insists that the two leads were lesbians, and that the show was “mind-blowing, life-changing even” to him. I think it’s inappropriate for straight guys to fetishize lesbians this way, honestly. I’d never even dare to do it, and I’m probably a girl myself?

  I have conflicted feelings about lesbians. Not sure I want to think too much about that. I think I need to be more comfortable in my own body before I think too hard about what genders I may or may not appreciate in others.

  We step over the treacherous terrain of piled-up hoodies, him manoeuvring like it’s the most natural thing possible to hit the isoted spots of clear flooring. Me, trying my best to follow but tripping over some FUCKING semi-estic band which, why the hell is that even in a pile of guy’s clothes-

  “Woah dude!” he turns around and catches me. My face is pressed up against his sternum, and if this was one of his shows I’d be panicking at having accidentally put my face down his cleavage. He’s only been doing this for six months though, so it’s not like there’s that much going on down there.

  Daniel still yelps, though. He loses his footing, dragging me down with him, and we somehow end up spyed out on his bed, like some cosmic prankster keeps deliberately putting us in situations that look like one of his shows. “Uh. Dan?” I ask, “you all right there?”

  “Haha yeah dude, I uh, just, well,” he’s turning red with what I can only assume is frustration at my carelessness, “growing chesticles are sensitive man, you sorta hit me in the nip there.” Ah. I note this down in preparation for when I’ll have to deal with that myself.

  Holy shit. When, rather than if. It’s actually possible that it’ll be soon, as long as this unhinged competition is actually providing safe goods. Which, okay, when he’s ying on his side it’s definitely easier to notice that he’s been getting results.

  Trying my best to avoid reacting to being in bed with a suddenly noticeably woman-adjacent individual, I rerail us onto the actual subject. “Ok, show me the goods.”

  “Wh- what!?” He’s offended? Wasn’t he just saying he wanted to show me where he’s hiding the meds? He wraps his arms around his chest.

  “Dude. The hormones. The ones you dragged me here for.”

  “OH! Yes, right.” He jumps off the bed, gets on the floor and rummages through the bottom of his closet. He retrieves a cardboard box.

  “Here it is.”

  The box is huge, and now that I think about it I remember him lugging something like that in at some point. Figured it was just anime stuff. Masterful gambit, I guess.

  The contents of the box are an immense quantity of various pill boxes. “It’s mostly blockers, weirdly enough,” he comments. “They just sort of give us options, which I guess is part of the challenge, but…”

  He retrieves a vial. Pin belling of an anonymous nature. Chemical name, specific concentration. It’s an injectable estrogen formution, no doubt. I’ve considered obtaining simir, from sources of a questionable nature where, rumors told me, the packaging would have blushing anime ‘femboys’ on it. Multiple simir vials sit in the box.

  Before I have to pretend not to know what this is, he expins. “Injections. Of estrogen. There’s needles and alcohol wipes, all done properly. I’m not,” he looks at me defensively, “just injecting some shit I got online uncritically. So don’t worry about me.”

  There are other concerns than the quality of the shady estrogen injections to be had here, but sure, he’s feminizing himself with quality shady pharmaceutical goods, and will just have to deal with being a man stuck in a self-inflicted woman’s body, rather than poisoning or some shit. “Bro, I’m not worried,” I lie. “I’m getting on this shit too, you know. You think I’m scared of needles, bro? It’s obviously the real deal, cause I mean-”

  Wait, shit. How would a straight cis guy compliment another straight cis guy’s boobs? I need to think of something fast. He’s practically overdosed on the kool-aid of the ranked competitive breast growth community’s rules, so I have to convincingly pretend I’m a guy. As much as I wish it wasn’t the case, everything I’ve learned today has shown me that I can’t really trust Daniel.

  “I mean your tits are downright bangin’, broseph. So clearly this stuff’s working for you.”

  Judging by the face he’s making I think I fucked up.

  Nichos has complimented my breasts.

  He has. Decred. Appreciation. For the aesthetic appeal of my assets. In unambiguous terms. This is an utmost disaster. He, being a heterosexual man, would surely experience no arousal at the sight of me if he was truly swayed by my thespian acumen. To him, I ought to be merely a victim of self-inflicted gynecomastia. Has he misinterpreted my decration of bad-faith transition?

  ‘The goods.’ Was my initial assessment correct? Did he, in fact, wish to observe my body? Has he, in the short timespan since learning about the competition, decided not only that I am a woman in his eyes, but one with whom he wishes to initiate courtship?

  It is absurd. Did he forget my clear, repeated decrations of exclusive gynephilia? Or worse, does he believe that once he has set himself upon this path, I will drop all respect for his identity, view him as the attractive young woman he certainly could have been if not for the trappings of clear-cut unquestionable manhood, and act accordingly?

  How do I dissuade this course of action? I must imbue him with an understanding of what it would entail for a man to be afflicted with this anatomy. A challenging prospect, given the indescribable joy I derive from the sensation of their existence. Think, Katherine. You know the beast of dysphoria all too well, so it must be possible to falsify a sufficiently harrowing depiction of how heavily it would weigh on his chest.

  I choose my words with the utmost care. “I dunno man, they’re sort of annoying. I kinda don’t care about them at all, unless they start bouncing and shit when I’m moving around, and then they’re just a pain.” His look of concern rewards my efforts, I am succeeding in dissuading him. Now, to solidify his perceptions, I must hammer down the totality of how Daniel, the falsehood in his mind, truly does not care for these features at all.

  I act quickly. I grasp his wrist and put his hand on my chest. The audacity is essential to sell the notion of a complete and utter disregard of even the mere possibility that this could have any significance to the homunculus of a heterosexual man I am presenting to Nichos.

  “See, it’s just a lump of fat.”