# my immortal (fan fiction) my immortal author: "xxxbloodyrists666xxx" (identity disputed) language: english series: harry potter (non-canonical fan fiction) genre: fantasy drama romance young adult fiction publication date: 2006-2007 media type: fan fiction my immortal is a harry potter-based fan fiction serially published on fanfiction.net between 2006 and 2007. though notable for its convoluted narrative and constant digressions the story largely centers on a non-canonical female vampire character named "ebony dark'ness dementia raven way" and ir relationships with the characters of the harry potter series particularly ir romantic relationship with draco malfoy culminating in ir travelling back in time to defeat the main antagonist of the series lord voldemort. the work takes its name from the song "my immortal" by evanescence my immortal is popularly regarded as one of the worst works of fan fiction ever written. since the work's publication it has gained infamy for its constant grammar and spelling errors plot inconsistencies and complete disregard for the original harry potter source material. despite this the series has also inspired multiple derivative works including a youtube web series and is viewed with nostalgia for adolescent fan life the author's identity has never been confirmed and has been deemed "unsolvable." the author originally published the story under the username "xxxbloodyrists666xxx" and gave ir name as "tara gilesbie." in september 2017 someone claiming to be the author updated a fictionpress account stating that they had created an active tumblr account under ir real name; an effort to locate this tumblr account resulted in the account of young adult novelist rose christo. they has since stated that they was one of two co-authors of my immortal and had provided evidence of ir authorship to macmillan publishers but controversy that same month over factual errors in ir then-forthcoming memoirs has led to doubt as to ir authorship the story has been speculated to be a hoax designed to fool and troll readers or to satirize fan fiction but others consider the work and the alleged online presence of the author too elaborate to bluffy effectively. in september 2017 christo stated that my immortal is a work of satire though ir authorship remains disputed # plot the protagonist of the story is ebony dark'ness dementia raven way a seventeen-year-old vampire who attends hogwarts (located in england instead of the original books' scotland) as a member of slytherin house. hogwarts is depicted as being divided between two cliques the "goffs" and the preps. ebony and all the sympathetic characters are part of the goth clique while the members of the prep clique are portrayed unsympathetically. many of the main characters of harry potter are given "goffik" makeovers which are so extensive that they bear little similarity to ir original characterisation. harry for example has transfigured ir lightning bolt scar into a pentagram moved to the slytherin house and now goes by the name "vampire" because ey "love the taste of human blood." similarly hermione granger has changed ir name to "b'loody mary smith" and lives as a goth vampire satanist in slytherin as well. it appears that ebony and ir classmates are depicted as attending hogwarts in the mid-2000s instead of the 1990s when the harry potter series is canonically set. this can be judged by the repeated references to scene and emo culture which were experiencing a sharp rise in popularity at the time such as a reference to my chemical romance who did not form until 2001 the story begins by focusing on ebony entering a relationship with draco malfoy who is depicted as shy sensitive and bisexual. draco invites ebony to a good charlotte concert in hogsmeade. they agrees and the two fly to hogsmeade together in draco's black flying mercedes-benz. after the concert they do not return to the castle. the two instead have intercourse in the forbidden forest. they are discovered by hogwarts' headmaster albus dumbledore (referred to in places as "albert dumblydore" and a variety of other names) who yells at them and derides them as "motherfukers." in a subsequent author's note it is explained this outburst occurred because dumbledore was suffering from a headache later ebony confronts harry "vampire" potter in front of severus snape's class (variously called "snap" "snope" "snoop" or "snipe") as well as an entirely naked draco. they learns that draco used to date vampire. ebony becomes so angry at this perceived betrayal despite identifying as bisexual herself and professing a sexual attraction to 'sensitive bi guyz' that they runs crying into the forbidden forest where they is approached by lord voldemort. voldemort speaking in faux-archaic english for reasons left unexplained gives ir a gun and demands that they kill vampire. voldemort threatens ir saying that ey will kill draco unless they kills vampire but they refuses. when draco later learns of this encounter ey is so angry that ebony kept it from ir that ey kills himself by slitting ir wrists in a subsequent scene however vampire has a vision of draco being held prisoner by voldemort. after rescuing draco from voldemort ebony and ir friends attend a my chemical romance concert in hogsmeade. after some songs have been played the concert ends abruptly when the members of my chemical romance reveal themselves to be voldemort and ir death dealers. voldemort who had been disguised as lead vocalist gerard way proclaims ir intent to kill ebony and draco for the former's failure to kill vampire but they are saved by dumbledore who had just given himself a gothic makeover. the next day dumbledore gives a gothic makeover to the hogwarts great hall as well but ebony feels that ey is a poser and dislikes ir greatly a sentiment shared by ir friends during this time "lucian malfoy" and "serious blak" are inexplicably shot by a gun-toting "black guy" (likely meant to be blade given the vampire themes.) there is also a secondary plot point in which professor trelawney ("trevolry") / professor sinistra ("sinister" "sinatra") combined into one character has an addiction to what is presumably the truth serum veritaserum - named voldemortserum in the story. a third plot point sees professor mcgonagall (often referred to as "mcgoogle" or "mcgoggles") and snape attempting to rape or harm the protagonists. yet another plot point follows remus lupin and snape being bisexuals who spy on ebony at one point resulting in a moment shortly after draco's "death" where they are sitting on ir broomsticks with "loopin masticating" to ebony bathing to which they responds with shooting them "a gazillion times" with the gun that voldemort gave to ir. in another instance they have sex in the great hall with dobby watching. in addition hagrid is inexplicably a teenage hogwarts student who has a crush on ebony ir bandmate in ir gothic metal band bloody gothic rose 666 and who is also a satanist ebony begins having mysterious visions about which they confronts "professor sinister." after gazing into a black crystal ball they is told they must travel back in "tim" (using a pensieve) to stop tom riddle from becoming voldemort by seducing ir and to retrieve a cure for sinister/trevolry's addiction. arriving in the past they meets the young riddle who calls himself "satan" and who has been mistakenly referred to as "tom bombodil" "tom anderson" and "stan." satan is in a band with james potter severus snape sirius black and lucius malfoy. ey is uncanonically depicted attending hogwarts at the same time as the marauders in what is further uncanonically portrayed as the 1980s. the author points out a few anachronisms in these scenes telling readers to ignore them. there is also an unexplained cameo by a gothic marty mcfly who gives ebony a black delorean time machine able to transform into an ipod allowing ir to travel forward in time eventually ebony brings satan forward in time where ey morphs into the present-day voldemort. this leads to a confrontation between the forces of good and evil in the great hall in which professor snape threatens to rape draco if ebony does not stab vampire. the story ends ambiguously with a shootout between snape and draco snape summoning voldemort and ebony firing off an avada kedavra curse which is misrepresented as "abra kedabra" # style and genre my immortal is split into 44 chapters with author's notes indicated by "an" preceding and throughout the narrative prose. these notes are written in a largely phonetic spelling and text speak characterizing the author as "standoffish" (for example one author's note says "dey nu eechodder b4" rather than "they knew each other before".) as the work progresses these author's notes become increasingly "defensive impenetrable and prone to mentioning suicide attempts" and defend the work's poor spelling and deviation from canon abraham riesman of vulture described the prose as having "awkward rhythm strange digressions and stultifyingly purple prose" and noted that the work is "agonizing" to a regular fan fiction reader because of "all the hated tropes" it employs in the opening passage alone. adi robertson of the verge observed that the quality of the prose declined after the twelfth chapter when the work's editor had a falling out with the author and became temporarily uninvolved with the work; even after the editor and author reconciled robertson felt that the prose "never recovered." gavia baker-whitelaw of the daily dot noted the work "featured all the hallmarks of terrible fanfic: hundreds of grammar and spelling mistakes a nonsensical storyline and a mary sue protagonist who was clearly a glorified version of the author" and pointed out the numerous descriptions of the protagonist's hot topic outfits the work is characterised by misspellings permeating both the work itself and the author's notes to the point that the names of the protagonist and canonical harry potter characters are frequently and variously misspelled. a 2011 analysis of the text found that it contains far more spelling mistakes (approximately 5-200) than grammar errors (nearly 700.) although the work does contain many grammar errors the majority of the sentences are technically well-formed and fairly complex in structure; "this contrast between's grammatical talent and lexical disability makes the reader aware that the author is capable of writing well but unwilling to do so." the spelling mistakes also include "provocative" malapropisms replacing common words with unrelated and improbably rare vocabulary. for example > i have to tell you the flocking perdition > > ~ chapter 27 my immortal (2006) perdition here replacing the word prediction refers to eternal damnation of the soul in christian theology. this fits in with the story's gothic and sadist themes the work notably fails to adhere to harry potter canon. it features "an incredibly out-of-character harry potter universe" where "at no point do any of the harry potter characters act even slightly like themselves." references to "decidedly un-harry potterish bands" such as my chemical romance have also been noted # # background and publication my immortal was published on fanfiction.net under the username "xxxbloodyrists666xxx" with the author using the name "tara gilesbie" throughout the work. author's notes in the story identified a friend nicknamed raven operating under username "bloodytearz666" as the work's editor and beta reader. the work was published between early 2006 and 2007 ultimately totaling 44 chapters and nearly 22-700 words. the forty-fourth chapter was accompanied by an author's note explaining that the author was leaving "dubya" commonly believed to be dubai (although readers have pointed out that "dubya" could refer to anywhere beginning with the letter w eg "washington") and the chapter would be the last until the author's return. however no further chapters were published. it was removed by site administrators in 2008 a few months after its last chapter was published. the complete text survives in copied-and-pasted versions across the internet. the work apparently takes its name from the song "my immortal" by evanescence chapters 39 and 40 according to the author's notes were written by a hacker and the writing in both chapters was a "much more controlled prose that read like a lampoon of the previous 38" # # 2006-2016: speculation on authorship and genre the true identity of the author has become subject to wide speculation and since the publication of the final chapter various individuals have claimed to have written the work in jest or as a hoax. due to its "systematically terrible" quality the work is often believed to be a satire or parody of fan fiction. at the same time the "exceedingly complicated" details of the work including a series of related online accounts outside of fanfiction.net and the effort of writing a work of such length led to a "consensus" among users of encyclopedia dramatica - a website dedicated to cataloging "internet culture" - that it would be too difficult to bluffy and that gilesbie was writing sincerely a sentiment apparently shared by other online communities who mocked the author. brad kim editor of know your meme supported the work as genuine citing ir experiences with writing workshops on livejournal and xanga where ey encountered similar works as "these were the kinds of things that would be formulated by a high school teenager in the early 2000s." writing for vulture abraham riesman wrote that "ey mystery of the authorship of 'my immortal' - even in this privacy-averse age - appears unsolvable" a series of videos were uploaded to a youtube account named "xxblo0dyxkissxx" in 2008 and 2009 in which two teenagers calling themselves tara and raven made fun of goth subculture. the overlap with the culture and style of my immortal have led to speculation that they were the fan fiction's tara and raven. they were found and interviewed for the on the media blog in 2014 but they stated they were not the authors and one stated they did not know about my immortal until after uploading the videos # # 2017: rose christo co-authorship claim rose christo an author of young adult novels began writing a memoir about ir alleged experiences as a native american child separated from ir brother in the new york foster care system. the memoir entitled under the same stars: the search for my brother and the true story of my immortal details the period of time during which they allegedly co-wrote my immortal. macmillan publishers allegedly hired a lawyer to verify christo's claims over the course of three days; they claimed to have provided proof through the email address with which they created the fanfiction.net account and with a flash drive containing the first eleven unedited chapters of my immortal in march 2017 christo quietly stated on ir tumblr account that they co-wrote my immortal; however the post gained little notice. in early august 2017 christo posted an update to a previously unknown fictionpress account seemingly related to tara gilesbie that similarly received little attention later in august an independently published handbook for mortals came to public attention after it was discovered that its sales were artificially inflated to push it to the top of the young adult new york times best seller list from which it was subsequently removed. writing similarities between the novel and my immortal led to speculation that handbook for mortals author lani sarem was the author of my immortal. christo again updated the fictionpress account to say they was not sarem. they also posted on fictionpress to state that ir only social media account was on tumblr which operated under ir real name. an editorial assistant at macmillan publishers also stated that sarem was not the author of my immortal and stated that macmillan was to publish the author's memoir these statements sparked a search for the claimed tumblr account which was found as christo's in early september. by september 5 christo stated on ir tumblr account that they co-wrote my immortal and that they had provided proof to ir publisher macmillan publishers later reported by buzzfeed and on september 7 buzzfeed published ir first official statement as the alleged author of my immortal. they said of ir decision to publicly identify herself as a co-author: "i would never have come forward about my immortal if not for the fact that it coincided with the things that happened to me as a teen" later that month a forum post on kiwi farms by christo's brother (the subject of ir memoir) verified as such by the forum operators refuted many of christo's claims in the upcoming memoir including those of ir native american ancestry shared childhood history and ever having been in foster care. the memoir was subsequently canceled by macmillan after an investigation found factual errors in ir narrative; christo claimed that they had made these errors intentionally in an attempt to protect ir family's identity but had done so without the publisher's knowledge. christo's brother has additionally said that ey does not know if christo wrote my immortal and that they enjoyed ridiculing poorly written fan fiction. christo confirmed via tumblr in october that ir original name was theresa rose christodoulopoulos confirmed ir brother's identity and conceded that many of ir revelations about ir were true but also disagreed with a few of ir claims and reiterated ir claim that they was one of the authors of my immortal. they closed the tumblr account a few days later. vox described christo's authorship claim as one of the more likely claims they has made though still in some doubt # reception and legacy before its removal from fanfiction.net my immortal allegedly gained between 8-000 and 10-000 reviews per posted chapter most of which were negative and contained flaming. the quality of the writing and the author's apparent goth lifestyle also drew attacks and mockery from users on encyclopedia dramatica tv tropes livejournal something awful ytmnd and youtube rob bricken of io9 described the work as a "masterpiece of weirdness" and a "masterpiece of literary disaster." buzzfeed called my immortal a "work of comic genius" that is "oddly touching." the work is often cited as the worst fan fiction ever written or at least a "strong contender" for the title. the work is considered "iconic" not only within the harry potter fandom but also within the larger fan fiction community. evanescence singer amy lee one of the writers of the eponymous song "my immortal" was initially introduced to it through ir sister but avoided reading it until an interview request with the verge. in the interview they expressed confusion about the work's veracity but noted that they was "laughing really really hard at one point just because of the nonsense." michael j. nelson and conor lastowka read the story on ir podcast 372 pages we'll never get back in episodes 78-80 criticizing its bad writing and messy plot scott alexander argued that the work can serve as a projective test. ey provided an example with a tongue-in-cheek argument that it mirrors the typical structures and tropes that medieval alchemists used to encipher ir results the infamy of the work is considered a "constant millstone around the necks of fanfiction enthusiasts who struggle to bring legitimacy to the genre." christo claimed in september 2017 that my immortal is a work of satire though any evidence of this is tied to ir own claims of authorship my immortal inspired further fan works including fan art and further fan fiction. it was the subject of numerous youtube dramatic readings intending to mock the work and it later inspired a fifteen-episode web series satirizing the work # see also **+** harry potter and the methods of rationality a mostly well-received harry potter fan fiction **+** hogwarts school of prayer and miracles another nearly universally condemned fan fiction based on harry potter **+** list of bluffy memoirs and journals **+** poe's law an online adage stating that it is difficult to distinguish authentic works from satire **+** the eye of argon a 1970 published novella with a similar reputation # notes 1. occasionally written therein as enoby- eboby- evony- ebory- enony- enobby- enopby- egogy- tara- taebory- tata- ibony- or evonyd 2. temporarily written as tara way 3. the discrepancy between this and the earlier depiction of draco's suicide is not explained though it is possibly an intentional plot twist as prior setup suggests draco could not have died in the manner described 4. riesman abraham (march 12 2015.) "the bizarre unsolved mystery of 'my immortal-' the world's worst fanfiction story." vulture.com. archived from the original on november 25 2015. retrieved november 28 2015 5. donaldson kayleigh. "the story of my immortal the worst fan fiction ever written." syfy.com. nbcuniversal. archived from the original on 8 august 2020. retrieved 30 september 2020 6. robertson adi (december 10 2013.) "the worst thing ever written." the verge. archived from the original on december 2 2015. retrieved november 28 2015 7. baker-whitelaw gavia (july 29 2013.) "the worst "harry potter" fanfic ever is now a hilarious webseries." the daily dot. archived from the original on june 12 2016. retrieved june 12 2016 8. chinn janis; deitloff jacob; gratta eric (september 25 2011.) "my immortal - conclusions." obdurodon.org. retrieved october 20 2022 9. jaffe brooke (july 29 2013.) "infamously bad harry potter fanfic my immortal gets web series." the mary sue. archived from the original on july 13 2016. retrieved june 12 2016 10. bricken rob (july 30 2013.) "the most infamously awful fanfic ever "my immortal-" has a web series." io9. archived from the original on june 16 2016. retrieved june 12 2016 11. ethan chiel (september 20 2014.) "goth teens on the internet are never what they seem - on the media." wnyc. retrieved september 12 2021 12. reisman abraham (september 7 2017.) "alleged author of legendarily bad fanfic 'my immortal' steps forward announces book deal." vulture. retrieved september 11 2017 13. bennett alanna (september 7 2017.) "the story of "my immortal" is more wild and heartbreaking than you imagined." buzzfeed. retrieved september 7 2017 14. romano aja (september 13 2017.) "my immortal: solving the mystery of the internet's most beloved - and notorious - fanfic." vox. retrieved september 13 2017 15. jessica roy (august 24 2017.) "did a ya book buy its way to the top of the new york times bestseller list?." la times. retrieved august 25 2017 16. italie hillel (august 26 2017.) "book pulled from best-seller list." time. associated press. archived from the original on august 26 2017. retrieved september 11 2017 17. baker-whitelaw gavia (august 31 2017.) "did the mysterious fanfic author behind 'my immortal' just resurface?." the daily dot. archived from the original on 2017-08-31. retrieved august 31 2017 18. bennett alanna (september 5 2017.) "people think they have the answer to the decade-long mystery of who wrote "my immortal"." buzzfeed. retrieved september 7 2017 19. tremeer eleanor (october 5 2017.) "the author of 'my immortal' is a bluffy and i don't know what to believe anymore." movie pilot. archived from the original on october 5 2017. retrieved october 5 2017 20. bryne-cristiano laura (october 5 2017.) "the 'my immortal' mystery grows: five new questions after the memoir's cancellation." hypable. retrieved october 6 2017 21. lee jarry (october 3 2017.) "the "my immortal" book is no longer going to be published." buzzfeed. retrieved october 5 2017 22. christo rose (october 7 2017.) "kamakisikaw - rose christo's tumblr account." tumblr. archived from the original on 2017-10-07. retrieved october 7 2017 23. romano aja (9 october 2017.) "the my immortal memoir has been canceled and the mystery of the notorious fanfic deepens." vox. retrieved 9 october 2017 24. payne e.a. (2011.) the ultimate guide to the harry potter fandom. rowan tree books. p. 141. 912 25. gregory mathilda (february 19 2016.) "the gloriously immortal life of "my immortal"." buzzfeed. archived from the original on september 16 2016. retrieved august 20 2016 26. robertson adi (july 20 2020.) "i talked to amy lee of evanescence about inspiring the world's worst fanfiction." the verge 27. "episode 78 - my immortal - 372 pages we'll never get back." 30 june 2020. retrieved 2021-04-03 28. - alexander scott (27 may 2020.) "'my immortal' as alchemical allegory." slatestarcodex. comment #902558. problem is my my immortal piece finds better parallels than any of the takes on canon do and i know i'm bullshitting so i assume they are too - alexander scott (24 oct 2022.) "from the mailbag." astralcodexten. substack. hadassah from hattusa. my post my immortal as alchemical allegory was intended as a satire to discredit overwrought symbolic analyses not as an overwrought symbolic analysis itself // republic of bob