"Come on, Eric, just ignore all that legalese and hit accept!" My roommate Ron was really starting to get into in my personal space, blocking my phone's screen. "Well, sorry for trying to at least get some idea of all the rights I'm waiving here," I grunted while pushing his face aside to focus on the text. "And, after all, you were the one who wanted me to get in on this because FaceApp is apparently so fun and everyone is doing it, but just look at all this stuff they want me to accept."

The document on-screen seemed endless, and every part of it was listing some kind of permission you gave the company behind this all. At least you could opt-out of them. Manually, that was. And there were probably hundreds of checkboxes on this thing.

"Location data… why would this app even need that? That's definitely getting unchecked. I'd bet ten bucks that's just here so they can sell that info." Ron could only shake his head, chuckling in disbelief. "You know, you're really starting to scare me with all this stuff. But, like, I promise it'll all be worth it. I haven't seen anything this impressive in… ever, probably." Yeah, yeah, sure. He certainly kept singing this stupid app's praises… wouldn't leave me alone unless I'd give it a shot.

"Well I'm absolutely not giving them my phone number… aaand… that’s all of them!" Scrolling through the list of empty checkboxes felt freeing. Well, I've left one single box checked, the ‘Permission to modify the user's likeness.’ That was kind of the point of this whole app, after all. Probably there so they couldn’t get sued for defamation if they changed the image in some unflattering way?

 

"Okay yeah cool cool I get it your data's super safe but can you please start it now? It took you like half an hour going through this stupid document." Huh, so Ron had just been watching me wade through a pool of legalese nonsense for 30 minutes? Almost felt like this was my sweet revenge after he's been annoying me over this app the whole day. "Yeah, yeah, let's do this."

I started up the app and was greeted with my own face. Okay, cool, you could've at least eased me into this but I guess I had to look at my ugly visage now! Visible stubble even though it's not even been 8 hours since I shaved this morning, tired eyes, greasy brown hair, the whole wrongness package was here.

"Okay, so just take a picture and then you should see some options…" My roommate's instructions snapped me out of my self-loathing. "Umm, yeah, fine." I clicked the button and heard a digital 'Snap!' noise, followed shortly by my reflection frozen on the screen. Really not a flattering shot I took there, though I guess I never liked any pictures of me very much. "Okay, so, where are the options?" The screen showed a notification, claiming it was “Processing…” something right now. A good minute passed of us staring at the screen in anticipation. "Does it usually take this long?" I turned towards my roommate.

"Nah, applying an effect takes a few seconds but this has always been instantaneous for me."

"Huh. Weird," I pondered with my head tilted.

"You know, I bet you taking apart the permissions broke something. Didn't give it some requirement it needed, or something. Who knows, maybe the location is critical for the app to function?” He chuckled at his own joke. ”Anyway, all I know is I'm not gonna sit through you dissecting that document again."

He got up and left my room, clearly disappointed that he couldn't share this new passion of his with me. "Well, see ya then. Come over to my room and tell me if you do manage to get it to work." He looked at his watch absentmindedly. "Actually scratch that, I forgot you spent forever unchecking boxes, I gotta get going two minutes ago. Just text me, I guess? I'll be back late today."

And with that, I was alone with my phone, as well as the apparent processing of this image.

 

Somewhere far, far away, a faerie was staring down a computer screen, visibly frustrated. On the screen was nothing but a window entitled "FaceApp Vendor Hub", with a tab called "Data For Sale" open and empty. Well, not exactly empty: Looking closely, one could see lots of offers popping up, though all of them vanished immediately after, having found a buyer.

The faerie, with blue skin with twinges of violet and long, curly, black hair, was operating the computer, trying to chase notifications before they inevitably disappeared. "Screw! This! Thing! Ungh! I should've known all the other buyers would just be… multi-million companies that’ll gobble up that data immediately.”

The faerie pounded on her desk, making her monitor move ever so slightly.

“Just, fuck you, Bezos, can’t you leave at least leave one piece of data for me? Please? I just wanna prank someone come onnnnn I’ve been waiting all day.”

Another notification popped up, and she didn’t even bother clicking on it, burying her face in her hands. However, when it was still on-screen after a few seconds passed, she immediately regained all her lost energy and clicked on it was fast as she could. “Name redacted, huh? And look at that, almost no permissions given. Guess now I know why nobody wanted your data. What can I even do with this…”

She looked at the picture. Not too flattering, greasy hair, tired eyes. Not her favorite kind of victim, but better than just watching an empty screen. Next up, the permissions. Only one has been set, but that didn’t matter, that one was all she needed. Lastly, the price tag. $100. And that was with only one permission given! She couldn’t even imagine how much all the bots immediately buying up the other offers were shelling up. Now, she didn’t much care for this kind of currency, but she did have some money saved up - mostly from drawing commissions for humans, or other fair folk. Drawing had always been a passion of hers, so she was glad she could use it for something.

“Do you wish to purchase [REDACTED]’s personal data and waived permissions?” She sure did, thank you very much. With a single click, this human’s likeness was hers to mess with.

 

At this point, I have long put aside my phone and was just lying in my bed, lost in thoughts, when a rumble pulled me back to the real world. Picking up my phone and unlocking it, I could see that whatever it has been “processing” for so long was apparently finally done. Sure took its time.

I could see the picture I took a few minutes ago, as well as a multitude of options, with my face looking just as terrible as it always did. I could see lines drawn over it, perfectly accentuating the sharp edges all over it. Great. Not only did this make me even more aware of how bad I looked, they’ve also got facial recognition. That shouldn’t really have surprised me, they needed to apply all those filters somehow, even if I thankfully unchecked any ways of third parties using that data for commercial gain.

I looked over all the filters available to me. That sure was a selection. Starting off with seasonal filters for Halloween, you could apparently turn your picture into a skeleton, a ghost, a demon, all that stuff. Ah, Halloween, the last barrier keeping Christmas from seeping any earlier into the year.

What else do we have here. Your generic age stuff (no thanks), beards (hell no!), cat ears (...maybe?), you know the drill. And, of course, one more option. The good old gender swap filter, as off as that terminology was. I didn’t know why that filter specifically made me feel so weird, but it just did.

 

Trying to get my mind off it, I messaged Ron, telling him that the app finally got done processing. Almost immediately, I got a response.

“you gotta try out the girl filter!!! make sure to send me what it looks like lol” Of freaking course. I was well aware that if I didn’t send him what he asked for, he’d just get it out of me by asking me about it nonstop once he was home again.

Whelp, here goes nothing. I turned on the “girl filter,” as Ron so eloquently put it. Sounded better than “gender swap,” at least. Seeing that I could turn on more filters, I scrolled through the list. Guess demon could be alright? Would certainly make for a fun Halloween picture.
Satisfied with my choices, I clicked apply. Once again, it took a while to process. Seeing as how this was starting to look like another practically eternal loading screen, I was just about to put my phone away. But before I could do so, I was overcome with an extreme drowsiness and passed out almost immediately, phone still in hand.

 

The faerie rubbed her hands together in glee. Here we go, this’ll lead to some fun confusion, he’ll be shocked, inevitably he’ll reset the changes on the app and she will have had her fun. Just as she liked it, fun without any lasting negative effects. Her pranks used to be a lot more permanent and potentially dangerous, but making human contacts really helped her change her ways of thinking about these. She still loved playing tricks on humans, no doubt, but nowadays it was all just temporary and way less severe.

She sure was glad her scrying powers weren’t limited by any of those stupid terms and conditions: Just by feeling the influence of her magic extending to this person, she could track him down in an instant. He sure took his time deciding, but that doesn’t matter.

Now that his choice was made, she was finally able to get to work. A demon girl, huh. She looked over at her screen, seeing the image FaceApp’s servers generated for his request. Yup, that’s a demon girl alright. Only a face, of course, but soon enough she had a pretty good vision of a body that’d fit that head. Gotta change the clothes, too, no self-respecting demoness would wear something so atrocious. Just a plain t-shirt and sweatpants, really? Oh, she could not wait for this guy to wake up. Maybe he’d realize how horrid his fashion sense was.

With her visualizing the changes-to-be in her head and having gotten this human’s explicit permission, nothing was stopping her powers from fully affecting her victim’s - as much as she disliked using that word these days - likeness.

 

When I came to, I was feeling groggy and tired all over. What, did this stupid app take so long that I fell asleep in the time it took to process just one image? Here’s hoping it was worth it, at least.
I still had the phone in hand, and looking at the processed picture, wow, Ron sure wasn’t kidding when he said this app was impressive. Seeing it like this, it doesn’t really seem like the picture itself was all that unflattering. The issue was just my face. What used to be a lifeless smile fit for a retail worker now seemed full of life. The eyes still looked tired, but it was definitely more like an “I’m tired but I’m still there to support the heck out of my friends”-tired than an “I’m tired and just wanna get some rest from this accursed mortal vessel”-tired.

The hair in the picture was nice and pretty, seemingly being kept in a ponytail, and also just a bit darker than before. I didn’t really know how the algorithm decided that a ponytail would look good, but it sure did!

Of course, I was also dancing around the other big part. The demon part. That really should’ve cried for my attention first. The skin turned a light shade of purple all over the face, and though it was unusual, it looked rather appealing once I got used to seeing it. To quite literally top it off, two horns sprouted out of my edited likeness’ forehead. They were curved, kinda like a goat’s horns, doing a full 360° rotation before ending. Like little handles. The ends looked spiky, but when I felt them I could tell they blunted down just enough to be safe to touch.

 

Wait. When I felt them?

I kept moving my fingers around my forehead. Yup. That’s definitely two very distinctly horn-like shapes up there. I managed to tear my eyes off my phone and looked down at myself. My hands were purple? My hands were purple. Switching to my inside camera, I could see the edited image from FaceApp staring back at me. Well, except it responded to me moving my face around. Either FaceApp managed to hijack my phone and developed a filter that’s real-time capable and extremely consistent - not to mention, making my hands turn purple. And the whole horns-on-my-forehead thing.
Or.

This is my actual face? I took a good look at it, moving it around at all sorts of weird and obtuse angles that any facial recognition software would certainly struggle with. I opened my mouth, observing that my canines had grown and sharpened a little. I moved my phone around my head, observing my ponytail - which was pretty cute, all things considered. In the end, my experiment concluded that this was probably actually me? Especially considering that my hands are still purple and I’m starting to get used to it and that fact is calming but also weird and gosh I’ll just look at the mirror and see for myself.

 

Moving around, I definitely felt different. Lighter on my feet, I just wanted to jump in place for no specific reason. Just felt nice. After pacing around my room for a good minute, just moving my body in all sorts of ways, I finally made it to the bathroom where I could get an unbiased look at myself from the one true and cruel judge of all self-worth: The bathroom mirror.

The verdict: I looked really cute.

Looking over my body, I could see that it really seemed like all of my skin was now that nice purple tone. And, one thing which I somehow never noticed is that apparently this comes with a tail too? It was black and could probably reach a bit over the top of my head if it got stretched out. And it ended in a little tip that I could only describe as a heart shape? Right now it just slowly waved around absentmindedly, so I tried controlling it. I figured that this had to be like an extra limb, right? And, lo and behold, I could move it around without any issues. That seemed like a neat thing to have. A tail, that is. Looking cute is nice, of course, but…

Huh. I never realized it because I was too preoccupied with some other aspects, but it seems my clothes got changed too. Instead of… whatever I threw on in the morning - I genuinely couldn’t remember - my clothes now looked actually presentable. A black top with a white image of… it looked like flames? With, like, screaming faces on them? I wasn’t sure if this was entirely my aesthetic but I supposed that it fit the whole demon and Halloween motif. Topping it off was a cute purple skirt somewhat matching my skin tone and black thigh-highs. Overall, a bit too dark for my taste but definitely still cute. Even the screaming faces started to look appealing and I really hoped this wasn’t the demon part of me speaking.

 

Moving around in front of the mirror, it became clear that my whole body didn’t just feel different, it looked really different. Instead of my starving, literally edgy body this looked nice and a little curvy in the right places and ripe for cuddling with a cute girl.

But wait, hang on, time-out, I couldn’t be doing this. I still had absolutely no clue what demonic rituals FaceApp has channeled for this Halloween marketing gimmick or how they did it, but soon they’d probably just be like “Hahaha thanks for participating in this event, now welcome our new demonic overlords taking over the company!” after a day or so and everything would be back to normal and I’d be back in my old body and things were gonna be right again.

But I also didn’t really want that? Sure, this was wrong, but also nice and comforting in some weird way even though this whole demon with horns and a cute tail thing should have probably been freaking me out. In the mirror, I could see my tail bobbing from side to side on its own.

Hehe. Cute.
I started pacing back and forth in the bathroom, just trying to get my thoughts in check. What’s going on? Did FaceApp just awaken a bunch of people’s demonic ancestry by accident? Or on purpose? Were there gonna be videos on Twitter of demon girls running on rooftops, punching other demons in the face? What was gonna happen to me? What did I want to happen to me?

 

The faerie watched the demon intently. This was certainly unexpected. As was usual, the human got spooked and looked at themself in the mirror after the change occured. However, the next thing most victims do is try to revert the changes as quickly as possible. But this “Redacted” person? They certainly didn’t seem to mind. Being a demon as well as a different gender should feel terrible to them. What an interesting human. Maybe this prank would turn out more fun than she could have imagined.

 

After looking at myself in the mirror some more, striking some goofy and decidedly cute poses, I returned to my room and buried my face in my pillow. I just hoped that my horns wouldn’t rip it or something. I just closed my eyes and tried to figure out what I was even feeling.

Was this weird? Yup, definitely. FaceApp turning people into demon girls was certainly unprecedented, and from a cursory look at Twitter it didn’t seem like this has happened to anyone else. Or at least nobody posted about it happening. But then again, I sure haven’t told anyone about this yet, either, so what did I know.

What could’ve caused this? That genuinely stumped me. The longer I thought about it, the less sense it made that FaceApp somehow caused this. After all, if this was a marketing gag, they’d draw more publicity to it now, like hijacking phone cameras to broadcast videos of transformed people checking themselves out or something like that. Was this even related to FaceApp? It must be, right? After all, I looked like the image that app generated.

How did I feel about this? Thinking about that, a billion conflicting thoughts swirled through my mind. This was wrong, this wasn’t me, but it also didn’t feel bad? But also this could be reverted any second now and also demons were, like, bad, aren’t they? Was I gonna turn out to thirst for the blood of the innocent or something like that? I did get attached to the top surprisingly quickly… 

 

“Hello, earth to cute demon girl?” I could hear a pleasant voice coming from behind, with a melodic vibe like a good pop song played throughout the summer that somehow never became annoying. I immediately turned around and could hear a small ripping sound. Guess that answered the pillow-horn-interaction question.
Then again, I barely had time to register that noise because standing in front of me was a beautiful, blue-skinned faerie with long hair. Actually, looking closer, she was floating in front of me. I sat up on my bed to get a better look at her. “Oh, great, did this stupid app also transform you?”
The creature in front of me couldn’t help but chuckle into her hand. “Oh no, dear, unlike you I’m the real deal. Faerie through and through.”

“Wait. Unlike me?” I sat up on the bed and looked quizzically at her.

She looked down at me with a mischievous smile. “Yup, you merely look the part of a demon, but you’re still 100% human.” That was… calming, at least? Though I wasn’t sure why this calmed me down, it’s not like I really wanted to stay like this, right?

I shook my head, trying to not lose sight of the actual mythical creature levitating in front of me. “Okay, so, I take it from your comments that you know what happened to me?”

She chuckled again, the quiet noises soon turning into actual laughter. It was a mischievous laughter, certainly, but it felt sincere, not like she looked down on me. In a metaphorical sense, that is. She was looking down at me literally, what with me sitting on my bed and her levitating. And me having lost a few inches.

“Well, you could say that. You could also say that I’m responsible for this.”

 

“Wait, are you gonna change me back?” My eyes turned wide with… some emotion. Some part of me wanted this to be excitement, but deep down I knew it was fear and anxiety.

“Well, do you? Most people beg for me to undo my magic, and I oblige, but you… you certainly acted differently than most.”

Huh, that was surprising. I was sure most guys wouldn’t mind being a girl.

“You know, if you wanna be a guy again, I can do that. I don’t wanna make you suffer or torment you or anything. I just wanna have some fun, but you silently burying your face in your pillow is decidedly not that, as cute as you may be.”

I blushed a little. Why did her calling me cute make me feel so… good? Content? Something like that?

“Okay so just to be sure the only magic you did was the body stuff? You didn’t like… charm me to enjoy your compliments?”

The faerie erupted in laughter again, and this time it did feel like there was some other emotion in it. Was she feeling… a little hurt?

“I would never tinker with someone’s mind. I’ve heard enough stories of that going extremely wrong, no thank you. I wanna have fun, not traumatize people.”

That was… reassuring? But this also meant that I genuinely enjoyed her calling me cute and that felt like a big can of worms to unpack. Why did I enjoy this all so much?

 

“Hey, by the way, I never got your name. All the system showed was ‘Redacted,’ and that’s not a very fitting name for a person.”

‘Oh yeah, it’s Eric.’ That’s what some part of me that just wanted to return to normalcy wanted to say. It wanted to go back to being some guy who hated how he looked and never was truly happy, just because that’s how it used to be. How it should be, or whatever. But I always kind of disliked that name. It’s not a bad name, it just never truly felt like mine. My whole body never truly felt like mine! And this body I got from some stupid prank was, ironically enough, the most I’ve ever felt like I truly belonged in a body. It felt freeing, and comfortable, and right.

It’s like realizing how bad your old mattress was after buying a new one and finally getting a comfortable sleep. You never used to realize because it was just normal for you, but after you have experienced how good things could be? There was no going back, not without constantly being reminded of the wrongness.

And that’s exactly how I was feeling right now. In comparison to this, going back to my old body was something I couldn’t imagine for myself. Screw normalcy, screw what was expected of me. I was finally happy and I wasn’t going to give that up.

 

“Umm, hello, earth to Redacted person who still hasn’t told me her name? Are you gonna respond or are you gonna continue staring into…” She followed my blank stare until she was looking at my room’s white wall. “… into your wall?”

So, this lady didn’t know my old name? Guess I was allowed go wild then. I just went with what was on my mind, whatever felt right.

“Oh yeah, it’s Rachel.” That’s what all of me said. It felt right. The name, the voice, the whole feeling of my body. “And, if at all possible, I never wanna change back.”

The trickster smiled, and I couldn’t look away from it. “You sure are an interesting person. Or, interesting girl now, huh?” I nodded silently. “Well, I admire… whatever it was that got you to willingly keep the effects of a faerie prank. However, are you sure about the demon parts?”

I grabbed my horns, and really liked how they felt. It was comforting to touch them, and they didn’t really obstruct my view either. I moved my tail into my view, and touched it lightly. That was pretty neat, too. Then I looked down at my hands, and I certainly liked that skin tone, too. But then I saw the ripped pillow from the side of my view and considered walking around like this literally all the time.

“You know, I like the horns and tail and skin, but… maybe not all the time?”

The faerie looked at me with a comforting smile. “Oh, that’s easy. Just turn off that filter in FaceApp. That’s how I expected people to get rid of the changes, without me even having to show myself.” Oh. Huh. So I could’ve reset it just like that? It was a good thing I didn’t think of that.

 

I jumped off my bed and hugged the woman standing in front of me. “Just… thank you. For everything you’ve done. This is kinda what I always wanted but never realized? And I have no clue when I would’ve realized on my own that this is who I am.”

I swear I could see her blushing a little. “So… if you wanna keep in touch… in case anything acts up or you wanna change something else… you can reach me on Twitter, @, uh, FaerieGirlValerie.”

I promptly grabbed my phone and looked at her account. Her pinned Tweet was commission info. Interesting. “Cool, I followed you, thanks!”

“Yeah, talk to you over Twitter at some point, maybe, thanks! But, umm, I gotta go. Bye, Rachel!”

And with that, she vanished from my room and I was the only unnatural-looking being in it. I could turn off my demon form, but I wanted to keep it for a bit longer. At least long enough to freak out my roommate when he returned.