Stuck in a mini-bureaucracy

I'm trying to transfer a few domains from one registrar to another. Also transferring ownership from someone else to myself. As the great procrastinator I am, I'd waited for as long as possible, or as it turns out, longer.

Transferring a .com domain can apparently take up to 18 days. And apparently you can only transfer a .se domain to either another registrar or to another person. Trying to do both at the same time will fail partially, leaving you in a situation where nobody can control the DNS.

Fixing this requires emailing the registrar. Let's see if there are more steps that I have yet to encounter.