He... He definitely did look... cute. He looked like a cute, smaller version of what May had looked like. That made him a little uncomfortable. Stephen didn’t want to look like May... even if he looked like her little sister or something. He didn’t know what exactly he wanted to look like, but feeling like he was in some version of May’s body was... It just made him feel very creepy. And that didn’t play well with the fact that he already thought his thoughts were bad and wrong.

There was another issue, too, though. Stephen didn’t really have much idea what he was supposed to do with this software. It was just very complex, going into far too much detail on nearly every aspect. He was feeling so overwhelmed trying to poke around all the menus.

Especially because there were a bunch of things he’d thought as obvious but they weren’t even there. He was looking for a switch for his gender, and... it just... wasn’t there. How were you supposed to change that, then?

Because... Stephen was supposed to be a guy. He needed to find a switch to fix that. Then he would be less of a creep.

But no matter where he looked, no matter how long he navigated the menus, no matter how panicked he got as he realised his numbness was fading... He didn’t find it, and eventually he realised that all the numbness had already disappeared. 

But that only made him realise... he was pretty sure he wasn’t feeling whatever... dysphoria was. Unless dysphoria was that tinge of panic at being stuck in this body and being called a creep about it. But Stephen didn’t think it was that. He didn’t know for sure what it was, to be honest, even if they’d explained it to him multiple times, that strange feeling of... wrongness that pervaded everything you did... 

Which, honestly, that was a description that he was familiar with, because his entire life felt like that. But, well, dysphoria was a VR thing, wasn’t it? And real life wasn’t VR, so it wouldn’t make sense that he’d be feeling dysphoria out there. Which meant dysphoria in VR  had to be something different, and... Well, what else could it be? He felt like what he was doing was wrong, but he wasn’t sure he felt wrong... if that made any sense. And once his situation had sunk in, he was pretty sure the only thing he felt was... calm. And maybe normal.

Which just made him feel even more like a creep. He was in a body based on May’s and it felt normal? Ugh. What was wrong with him?

In the end, after trying his best to ignore how creepy he was, the closest thing to a gender switch that he ended up finding was the options for the... ‘down there’ parts. Stephen knew he needed to fix that, too, but... the idea of looking at all that stuff made him feel a bit sick, and he didn’t feel... uncomfortable with whatever was happening down there right now, so he just left it. Maybe he could make the rest of his body look more like it should, and then he’d do that part really quick, hopefully fast enough that he wouldn’t get too sick in the process.

With that in mind, Stephen went to work making tweaks. Changing his skin tone ended up being pretty easy, which was good, because although May’s pretty dark bronze was very nice, he thought it was a little inappropriate for him to have it. So he slid the colour selector all the way to the sickly pale white he was used to seeing in the mirror... Yeah, that looked about right. 

...And then he decided he didn’t actually like how sickly it was, and he made it just a teensy bit more pink. He smiled. That looked nicer. 

Then Stephen set to work on his hair. The first bit of options on the hair seemed to control how the hair grew... how it was shaped and whether it was receding and stuff. (Ew.) Well, he definitely didn’t want it to be receding, so he didn’t touch that stuff, but he also didn’t want to have May’s curls, so he reduced the slider marked “Curl °/cm” until it was just a little bit wavy.

Consequently, the hair that had only barely reached his shoulders now reached his lower back, which was... 

Wow. That was different. 

...But as much as it was cool and different, he ended up shortening it after all. 

Initially, Stephen brought it all the way to his normal, short length, but he felt himself missing the previous look... And in the end, he couldn’t help but leave it shoulder-length. Yeah... he liked that more. That was nice and cute.

Next he played with the colour, first trying some more exotic colours before ending up leaving it a reddish brown. It didn’t match his usual hair colour but he thought it looked kinda pretty with his pinker skin tone.

There were still some big issues, though — his facial features were just way too close to the ones May had, and his... chest needed to be dealt with, and... well, yeah.

Stephen started working his way through the options for his face, trying to make it look more... flat? Boyish? Like normal? But that was making him uncomfortable so he eventually just sighed and went all-in on what he thought would be cute and pretty, trying desperately to shut out the voices in his head that were repeatedly calling him a creep. He had no choice! He didn’t want to be uncomfortable and all his attempts at looking more like... well, like he was supposed to had made him uncomfortable! He didn’t want to be stuck uncomfortable all summer, okay? And maybe he could try to find a version that was more like... how he should be later. He didn’t want to waste too much of his friends’ time on this right now, after all.

Stephen ignored his thoughts just long enough to manage to finish his face, and as a result he now had a button nose, wide eyes with long lashes, thin brows, and small lips, with soft cheeks on either side, each with just a touch of freckles. He smiled at his work and his reflection smiled back, which, even as the voices in his head were screaming at him, gave him a warm tingle in his tummy. Yeah, this was really cute. 

He moved on, questioning for a moment if he really should mess with his chest, if he was clearly already being creepy enough to stay looking like a girl. In the end he decided to do it anyway, and just took a tad away, otherwise leaving them unchanged. That actually felt much better.

The last thing he did was tweak his voice, playing with the sliders and knobs that he didn’t really understand (except for “pitch,” of course) until it sounded even higher and smoother-sounding than before. That just felt like it fit this body better. It sounded really cute when he hummed, too, which made that warm tingle in his tummy come back.

Anyway, all that left him with a question.

...Did Stephen even want to change anything else? In the end, with how comfortable he was feeling, and how uncomfortable the idea of switching... other parts was... he kinda felt like he was... done? He thought his appearance was cute and nice, and it didn’t really seem like May’s appearance at all anymore. That had been his main problem, hadn’t it? So that would mean he was okay to accept it and move on, right?

But then he started getting worried about... well... it was very clear that he was a creep, now, because for some reason he had settled on not only looking like a girl, but actually being a girl. Since he hadn’t changed anything else, after all. Heck, in some ways he looked even more... traditionally feminine than either of his friends did, and... that made him so creepy, didn’t it? Stephen had basically turned himself into... Some kind of sex object or something. Wasn’t that what girls always complained about guys doing? So it must be something like that.

He knew he was more comfortable this way, for some reason, and was willing to feel like a creep. But them knowing that he was a creep? And the expressions their faces might have, at it? That was just... that was much scarier.

It was right around that moment when a little jingle started playing, startling Stephen out of his anxiety. It was a call. They were calling him. The menu prompted him to pick up, and he took a couple deep breaths before doing so.

“Stevie?” he heard Lily’s voice on the other end. “How’s it going? You’ve been at it a while... Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” he said quietly, trying not to make his changes to his voice too obvious. “I’m done, but...”

“...Stevie sounds even more adorable now!” he heard May squeal, and his face warmed.

“May, shut up, or I’m turning off speaker,” Lily said. Then to him, she asked again, “Are you okay?”

He breathed out. “Yeah. I’ll just... I’ll be right there.”

Then, before she got another word in, and before his anxiety could stop him from ever moving again, he hung up, saved his changes, and clicked a button to return to the VR hub.

ChiriVulpes

Hi again, hope you enjoyed the chapter! There are 5 chapters left, and I can't wait for you to see them! 

Btw, the rest of Polyclueless is on itch.io, and also available in Santa's Secret Transfic Stash Vol. 1

See you again soon! 
- Eris