The next day, his shift at work felt like it took forever. It was a slow day, and in between customers he kept tapping his fingers on the counter and shifting his weight back and forth between his legs before the shift manager got annoyed and told him to knock it off. He drank probably way too many paper cups of shitty drip coffee. As soon as he got to clock out at 3, he took off the stupid uniform and rushed home.

After a quick hot shower to try to get the omnipresent smell of grease and smoke off of his hair and skin, he threw on a v-neck and cargo shorts and sat down at his desk.

“Stream starting at 4:30 pm Pacific! Gonna be trying a Twilight Princess randomizer, and get ready for a new look!” he wrote and posted to his Twitter (for all of his 10 followers) and the announcements channel of his Discord server. Then he got to work on his makeup.

He finished his look just in time. He was proud of himself for getting something decent on the second attempt. It wasn’t perfect, by any means, but he had a schedule he’d promised his viewers and he needed to go live. After one last quick check in the mirror, he opened up Dolphin and hit “Start Streaming” in OBS.

“Hey chat!” he said, greeting the three regulars who were popping off.

thats_so_craven: OMG YOU LOOK SO GOOD 

thats_so_craven: did u get your gf or sister to do it!

thats_so_craven: ?

eastlySnipes: whoa dude i thought i was on the wrong stream

eastlySnipes: out here lookin like a femboy (not complaining thoj)

melsalvia: i fuckin called it!!!

melsalvia: 🥚

“Thanks, Crave! I did it all by myself, actually. And I don’t have a girlfriend… yet.” He winked at the camera. “Just trying to up my look a little, y’know? Had to do it to it.” He wasn’t sure what specifically Mel was talking about so he decided not to respond for now. Probably something on his Discord server, which he should really probably read through more regularly.

After that brief interaction, he started up the game. He was preoccupied fighting a giant spider when the tone played to indicate someone had donated and a text-to-speech voice read out the message. 

“Are you using new pronouns or a new name?”

He shook his head. “No, just trying to change up my look. Hoping to bring in new viewers.”

After defeating the spider, he glanced at the chat and was pleasantly surprised to see several usernames he didn’t recognize.

“Hey, I see we have some new viewers! Thanks for watching the stream, guys. I’m Hunter aka BigGoron5 and today I’m playing a Twilight Princess randomizer. Basically, it swaps the location of a bunch of items with each other, and it’s different each time.”

Shifting his focus to the chat, Hunter saw an odd string of messages.

dick_kickem420: woah didn’t expect the voice

dick_kickem420: is this a dude or a girl

trans_rites: those aren't the only two genders

trans_rites: mods please keep an eye out for transphobia

“I’m a guy, if for some reason you couldn't tell. Also, this has been a pretty small channel, usually less than ten concurrent viewers, so we don't have any mods except me. But obviously I'll delete any obvious hate speech or whatever.”

oppaiGangnamStyle: wtf i clicked for cute girl

oppaiGangnamStyle: false advertising

oppaiGangnamStyle: is this a prank channel

oppaiGangnamStyle: do you have a voice changer or something

“Haha, dude, you didn’t actually think I was a girl, right? I mean, I know I’m wearing a little makeup right now but I’m still obviously a man!” He flexed his bicep, with no discernable result.

Another new user popped up in the chat.

yaoiMaster69: haha you should prank call guys on omegle

yaoiMaster69: for the meme

yaoiMaster69: itll be hysterical

“I don’t know, guys… I usually just play Nintendo games on here…"

The chat erupted with a flurry of protests.

“Fine, fine. Look, if I get to, uh… 40 subs, I’ll do it, alright?”

And with that he got back to focusing on the game.

“Man, the spinner really is kinda useless, huh?”