I poked the power button on my monitor and it flickered on, revealing my background of a pink-haired anime girl smiling widely as she reclined on a couch playing a video game. It wasn’t even lewd - not that I was, like, embarrassed or whatever; no one would see my desktop except me. I just liked this picture because she wearing these adorable bear pajamas and seemed so relaxed and comfy and…

Ugh. I don’t have to justify myself.

Abruptly kind of flustered and annoyed, I clicked over to the program I had set up a few days ago. It was the control side of a rather simple and straightforward trojan horse virus. The poor victim would run a tainted .exe on their own machine, and then I’d be able to see everything they did, with the ability to take control of their mouse and keyboard at will.

It wasn’t a particularly devastating or nefarious virus. I guess theoretically I could steal someone’s passwords and credit card info, but there wasn’t really any way to get their money without having it be traceable directly back to me. What would I even do with money? The far more interesting part of the virus was for its unparalleled ability to fuck with someone. We’re talking some really good pranks here. Theoretically.

And I saw from the program that some unfortunate infected soul was ripe for the trolling.

I clicked over and pulled up a screen that showed their current view.

Unexpectedly, what it revealed was a paint program. For the second time this afternoon I was greeted with a smiling girl. And this one was… also familiar?

I blinked.

A few more lines were added in as I watched, the computer’s user clearly in the middle of the sketch. And even unfinished, the poofy hairstyle was distinctive.

It was Sara from Twinkle Witch Academy, a Canadian animated television show that had aired at odd times when I was in middle school. I knew it because I had been weirdly obsessed with it for a few months. I had my mom tape every episode I could find, up until one of my friends found out and mocked me mercilessly in front of the whole class. It was a stupid show for stupid little girls. I hated it. Obviously. I wound up burning the tapes in my back yard to prove just how much I hated it. Whatever

The point is: this meant that whoever this kid was whose computer I had hacked would be a really fun person to mess with.

I continued to watch. It was a kind of magic of its own to see the sketch come together. The artist was clearly an amateur, but they totally got the character, and their enthusiasm shone through. Well, up until they started coloring in her outfit and used a shade of red that was completely wrong.

I had to restrain myself from taking control of the mouse and doing the coloring correctly, but clearly the artist knew it wasn’t right either, because halfway through they clicked away to open a web browser. Were they going to look up the right—? No. They opened a link to some other page, clicking through with such speed that they had to be more than familiar with the site.

And then: fanfiction. Seriously?

For lack of anything better to do, I followed along as the computer’s user slowly scrolled, obviously reading it themself. It was also about Twinkle Witch Academy, and it was a fairly clumsy attempt at that. Sara was acting way out of character - she’s supposed to be eternally optimistic, not plagued with social anxiety and self-doubts. And where were her friends? She should be going to them with her worries and they’d solve them with the power of friendship, like, you know, every episode of the show? Instead the fic just kept bringing up Cerise, the one mean girl who served as one of the show’s recurring minor antagonists. Sara and Cerise didn’t like each other, they didn’t even—

Whoa. I read that sentence of the fanfic again, and then a few more times just to make sure.

They certainly didn’t kiss. I think I would have remembered that.

I felt a blush spread across my face, and I couldn’t help but look back over my shoulder to make sure my door was closed.

Why would Sara like Cerise? She was terrible! I mean, the fic positioned Cerise as kind of a tragic figure with a good heart who nonetheless lashed out and pushed people away because she was scared about being vulnerable and open, but… Come on, that was ridiculous. There’s no way someone as pure and kind and innocent as Sara would bother with someone so obviously and deeply flawed.

I guess the fic was trying to say that just because Sara seemed perfect, that didn’t mean she didn’t struggle with her own problems but…

I shook my head. This was stupid. The show was stupid. What the fuck was I doing? I justified spending time just spying on whoever this stupid fanfic-reading loser was because that’d help me better know how to destroy them, but it was time to put up or shut up.

But at least all of this had given me the perfect idea.

It was the work of a few seconds to finalize preparations, and then with a click of a button, I seized control of the computer’s mouse and keyboard. A simple use of hotkeys minimized all the windows to reveal the computer’s desktop - surprisingly, just the boring default rolling hills. I clicked over to open up a text editor, placing it at the center of the screen. From my own machine I pasted in some ripped ascii art of a crescent moon behind a cloud.

And then, in bold text, I typed out:

GREETINGS, FOOLISH MORTAL

I was grinning widely as I waited, imagining the shock the person on the other side must be feeling right now. After a moment, they tentatively moved their mouse again. It drifted to the side, and I muttered a brief curse as it floated over an antivirus program on the desktop for a second, but then it returned to click in the text editor, below where I had typed.

Hi?

Yes, I had them in the palm of my hand now. This was going to be good.

I AM THE SORCERESS NOCTURNIA

Again, there was a long pause before the person on the other side tentatively tapped out:

From the show?

I DO NOT KNOW OF WHAT ‘SHOW’ YOU SPEAK
I AM FROM THE SHADOW REALM
AND I WISH TO MAKE YOU AN OFFER

Here was the true stroke of genius, the thing that really elevated your trolling. As any artisté could tell you, it was the personal touches that mattered. Nocturnia was one of the most notable villains of Twinkle Witch Academy, a powerful ancient sorceress who tempted the main cast with their heart’s desires. She would always follow through when she made a deal, but there’d be some twist or fine print that meant it was a disaster for everyone involved. Thankfully, Sara and her friends always found a way to outsmart her and get things back to normal.

So a fan of the show should know better than to take any deal, but also… a fan of the show would never be able to resist.

Okay. I’m listening.

At first this person’s terse responses were worrying, but the more I thought about it, the more it indicated that had to be taking this very seriously indeed.

I OFFER YOU YOUR HEARTS DESIRE
IN RETURN, YOU MUST PROMISE ME A FAVOR
TO BE COLLECTED IN THE FUTURE

I expected more questions. What I got was:

I accept.

My grin grew. There was just one thing left.

VERY WELL
TELL ME: WHAT IS YOUR HEART’S DESIRE?

And here came the ultimate troll: to have some be drawn into a web of deception, to care so strongly, to endure the mortifying ordeal of being known, and then to have all of that be dashed against the rocks of ‘lol.’ I waited and waited as the cursor blinked, for such a long time that I was afraid the other person had gotten up and walked away from the computer.

Until finally, they started typing again.

I want to be a girl.

Now it was my turn to sit frozen as I tried to process that. It wasn’t until the other person started backspacing, clearing out the message that I reacted again, taking control.

I carefully typed their message out again for them.

I want to be a girl.

I knew what I should do here. The classic, tried and tested troll response would be to drop a ‘gay! lmao’ and then disappear into the aether, maybe crashing the computer on the way out. But did that even make sense? I mean given the fanfic from a minute ago if she was a girl then she would be gay, and happily so, I bet? Which meant the insult didn’t really have much of a sting. Instead I felt kind of weirdly jealous. Jealous of this immunity to insult that I had just realized I mean. Why else would I be jealous of some theoretical lesbia— okay, I was getting very out of my depth here, dial it back.

My brain didn’t seem to be cooperating, and so I just typed out the first thing I could think of:

WHY

A moment later I hurriedly typed a ? to complete it.

Don’t all boys kind of want to be a girl instead?

Huh. I thought about that for a sec. Okay, yeah, that checked out. But then they had started typing again and it started to flood out.

I just… I don’t know. I’m so miserable and lonely and I 
know logically that being a girl wouldn’t solve all my 
life problems but I also think I’d be happier and better 
able to actually handle them? I can’t stop thinking about 
it. I see girls and get so confused and feel funny inside 
because they’re so pretty but I feel so weird and bad when 
I think about being someone’s boyfriend, and sometimes I 
think what I really want is to be them. I wish I could 
wear cute clothes and have other people see me as a cute 
girl who looks nice, rather than just as a creepy weirdo. 
But that seems so impossible, and like I don’t deserve it, 
and I just hate myself and

I took control away from their keyboard for a sec, because it felt like they were spiraling.

OK

I typed out.

HOLD ON

I sat and tried to wrap my head around everything. I could clearly destroy this person, like real scorched-earth stuff, it would be so easy? But. Something about that didn't sit right with me. Maybe because it was too easy. Instead... an idea blossomed in my mind.

It’d be the longest of long cons. But. Okay, if years of completely shitty comedy had taught me anything, it was that the idea of a boy dressing as a girl is just inherently funny, right? Obviously. The biggest joke.

And yeah! Trolling someone relied on doing exactly the opposite of what anyone expects.

So wouldn’t it be the absolute best, most unexpected prank to be… supportive? I’d encourage this person, help them into being a girl for real.

It’d take an awful lot of work. I’d heard of transgendered people before but I had always felt weird about looking into it further. This’d be a reason to have to do a lot of research on exactly how people did… whatever they did. I’d have to make sure I got things right, too, maybe even to the extent of trying a few things out myself.

You know.

It was a sacrifice that I was willing to make, because I was so committed to the bit.

And even if everything weirdly worked out super well and this person on the other side of the computer wound up being a happy, cute girl, I’d have the ultimate trump card of all: it’d all have been for a joke and not for real and that’d be hilarious.

Ha ha. So random!

I realized I was biting my lip a bit too hard because it had started to bleed a little. My hands only shook a little as I typed out:

VERY WELL, BUT THIS IS COMPLICATED MAGIC
I WILL RETURN WITH MORE INSTRUCTIONS SOON

I was just about to close my control program when I saw one more line typed out:

Thank you.

I clicked off the program and took a deep breath, just staring into space for a moment.

That... had been unexpected. But once again, I amazed myself with my ability to think on my feet. If I could pull this off, it'd be truly legendary.

But now I had so much work to do.

Glancing back down at my computer, I opened up a new web browser window. I had no clue where to start, but I typed ‘I want to be a girl’ into the search engine and started opening tabs to pages that seemed relevant and not overtly shitty.

Yes. This would be the greatest, most thorough and completely devastating prank ever pulled off.

…

A moment later, I opened a tab to the fanfic from earlier too. I wasn’t sure how that would necessarily help, but I should probably read the earlier chapters too, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.