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1Avoid using first-person pronouns please. Anyone who uses first-person pronouns is a prep.
2
3[[foldercontrol]]
4
5[[folder:The Story]]
6
7[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a StealthParody.]]
8This is pretty much the definitive WMG for this particular work. Was it written sincerely, an earnest yet embarrassing expression of fandom gone far BeyondTheImpossible? Or was it a massive {{Troll}} job, designed to prod one of the Internet's biggest fandoms into [[FandomEnragingMisconception incoherent rage]]? There's a lot of evidence to suggest the latter:
9* Some of the mistakes seem tailor-made to annoy the fandom. For instance, the [[CreatorsCultureCarryover Americanizations]] bother ''Harry Potter'' fans because they suggest a fan so shallow that they don't realize that it's a British series. The random sex is a way to launch [[ShipToShipCombat shipping wars]]. And Tara's claim to have not read the books is a ''great'' way to prove you're... well, for lack of a better term, a "poser".
10* But there's evidence, despite the spelling, that Tara ''can'' read. She references some concepts that only appear in the books, like Arithmancy. She also appears to reference characters from later books like Umbridge who hadn't yet appeared in film when the fic was written. And one of her random {{Shout Out}}s, to ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', references Tom Bombadil, a character who ''also'' didn't appear in the [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings film adaptations]].
11* There's even evidence that she's a ''genuine'' {{Goth}}, who is making fun of "posers" by lampooning the kind of people who want people to think they're gothic. For instance, in Chapter 28, there's the line "Red vevlet lined da blak box", almost a direct quote from Music/{{Bauhaus}}'s "Bela Lugosi's Dead" -- which ''didn't'' come with her trademark [[DontExplainTheJoke "geddit"]], suggesting it was a stealth ShoutOut to any genuine goths who might be reading.
12
13[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is an experiment of some sort.]]
14Pretty much any experiment that could produce ''My Immortal'' would have to be aiming for some kind of strong reaction from its readers. Among the possibilities:
15* It's a study of the Internet and its denizens, trying to see how a particular fandom would react if it were fed the worst possible CanonDefilement.
16* It's an attempt at a BrownNote. It ''appears'' to work -- reading it probably causes your IQ to drop 20 points. It's part of the grander experiment of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' -- Pearl Forrester, unsuccessful at finding a movie that could drive people insane, commissioned a fanfic to do the job. It's entirely possible that she herself was consumed by the fic, leading her to believe that she ''was'' "Tara Gilesbie", wannabe Goth fangirl who can't spell (but the Internet is made of tougher stuff and can go [[CausticCritic all-out on it]]).
17* It's the product of MonkeysOnATypewriter. Some scientists actually tried to teach a thousand monkeys to write [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]. However, the [[AnimalWrongsGroup animal rights activists]] were on their case, so it had to be done in secret. To their astonishment, the monkeys ''did'' write something resembling a story, but it had more to do with ''Harry Potter'' than Shakespeare. They released their data on the Internet, disguised as a ''Harry Potter'' fanfic, to get outside feedback. Initially, they cleaned it up somewhat to cover their tracks, including fixing the spelling, but as time went on, they wanted to show off what they were teaching the monkeys, and the newer chapters were unedited -- and far below the "human" standard of literacy. They might not have been monkeys, even -- they could be CleverCrows (or ''[[MeaningfulName ravens]]''), who would have a hard time typing with their beaks and like [[CreepyCrows darkness and stuff]].
18* It was a military experiment in psychological warfare. They're always looking for creative weaponry, and much like [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus the search for the lethal joke]], they're looking for a string of letters that could bring the world to its knees. It was less effective than they hoped, and only beta-tested on a single website before someone realized what the budget was being wasted on.
19* It's an experiment with Internet access in a mental hospital -- just a way to give the patients a creative outlet. Tara is a patient, and Raven is a caretaker at the facility who helps Tara with the spelling and grammar. The experiment seems to be working; Tara has an outlet for her self-harming tendencies, and her frequent interaction with Raven makes her feel better. But then, for unrelated reasons, Raven is fired from the facility. Without Raven, Tara's fic devolves into incoherence, and her only sounding board for the work is made up of Internet {{troll}}s. Poor Raven is booted from the fic; she comes back one last time to pick up her paycheck and visits Tara, which briefly convinces her that she's returned, but when Tara realizes the truth, she just deteriorates further.
20
21[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' was not initially a parody, but it [[ParodyRetcon became one as it progressed]].]]
22Tara earnestly started writing a ''Harry Potter'' fanfic, but her young age and limited writing ability lead to it being festooned with spelling errors, grammar errors, and [[CanonDefilement canon errors]], tied together by a MarySue. Once the reviews come in and they prove to be... not good, Tara realizes just how in over her head she is. She gives up on making a good fic and doubles down on the things everyone found funny. This is why the spelling, which has its passable spells early into the fanfic, dissolves into brain-breaking horrendousness.
23
24[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' was initially a parody, but Tara went insane and [[BecomingTheMask started taking it seriously]].]]
25The story was so bad that it became dangerous to work on it -- and indeed, people who dwell too much on it seem to lose a screw at some point. Tara, being so invested in the work, lost it. She's still writing it -- she's currently on Chapter 30,964, but she hasn't been able to put it online for more than a decade because she's broke and can't pay her Internet bill. That's what happens when you don't take a break to actually work.
26
27[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is the result of a Christian girl having a [[FreakOut psychotic break]].]]
28Tara is a pretty normal girl in a small American town. She has a mental break at some point[[note]]perhaps she realized that she wasn't eating real butter, but "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"[[/note]] which led her to stop going to church, convert to Satanism, kill her dog, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking start speaking in unintelligible textspeak]]. Her parents do everything to try and help, but none of the specialists they find can fix it, so she's institutionalized. Poor Tara has a hard time coping and wants her old life back,[[note]]and her real butter[[/note]] but in her confused and unhinged mental state, she can only express this desire in the form of ''Harry Potter'' fanfiction. It has some of the trappings of her old life, looking something like an American high school, but Tara also inadvertently inserts the symptoms of her mental break, which lead her to do things her community would think are "evil" like being a Satanic "goff", self-harm, lots of drugs, and lots of sex. Most tellingly, Tara wants to live in a world where she'll be ''accepted'', which is why in the fic everyone loves her.
29
30[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is one of [[Literature/AmericanPsycho Patrick Bateman]]'s weird daydreams.]]
31It has all the hallmarks -- shitty sex scenes, obsession with fashion, jarring pop music references, and "shocking" gore. It also implies that Patrick Bateman imagines himself to be a teenage girl named "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way". Don't take our word for it -- the folks at [[Website/{{Reddit}} r/shittyfantheories]] are [[https://np.reddit.com/r/ShittyFanTheories/comments/bx2zwy/the_harry_potter_fanfiction_my_immortal_is_one_of/ way ahead of us]].
32
33[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is the product of a young girl who's feeling uncomfortable with her sexuality.]]
34Ebony claims to be bisexual, but she never actually has any sexual relations with any girls, yet gets it on with practically every guy she sees. She's a repressed ''hetero''sexual -- she's into guys, but she thinks she needs to be gay or bisexual because it's "cool" and "goff". It might be a certain patronizing jealousy of sexual minorities for getting "attention" because of how hard they have it.\
35\
36The theory is bolstered by the AlternateUniverse {{Parody}} Fic "Dudley Dursley's Sassy Gay Friend", in which Dudley, doing Internet research on homosexuality in order to better understand his cousin, encounters ''My Immortal'' -- but rather than a ''Harry Potter'' fanfic, it's a Gothic girl's memoir.
37
38[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is not ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fanfiction.]]
39It's a bad story with plagiarised names and places. You'll notice that very little of the story implies that it actually takes place in the ''Harry Potter'' universe. Rather than a magical British BoardingSchool, Hogwarts looks a lot like an American high school that doesn't appear to teach magic. Tara may have figured out how similar it was and recharacterised "Hogwarts" as a castle with "professors" and a "headmaster" in England ([[FandomEnragingMisconception in canon it's in Scotland]]). It could be in [[LondonEnglandSyndrome an American town called England]].
40
41[[WMG: My Immortal takes place in a [[http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Attractors-William-Sleator/dp/0140345825 chaotic timeline.]]]]
42It explains why there doesn't seem to be any kind of logic in the universe of the fanfic. The timeline didn't start bifurcating when Enoby went back in time, though. Rather, Marty [=McFly=] caused the first bifurcation before the story even starts ([[Franchise/BackToTheFuture exactly the kind of thing Doc warned him about!]]) -- Enoby just made things worse. The fic ends when it does when the timeline became too chaotic to support organic life.
43
44[[WMG: Tara's account was never hacked.]]
45If we assume that Tara was trolling, she must have faked the hack. Notice how a new account popped up, with a very Tara-like screen name ([=XHotNHeavyGoffz666X=]), which uploaded both a very similar sequel and the original story -- including the hacked chapter. It's not a Tara impersonator -- it's the real deal! Just like the last time. And the time before that...
46
47[[WMG: Everything in the story after the hacked chapter was the hacker.]]
48After Chapter 39, every error becomes more exaggerated, the punctuation becomes hysterical, the same typos happen over and over again, and the missives against the critics become more unhinged. This wasn't just Tara doubling down on what she wanted to do -- this was a continuation of the hacker's trolling, in imitation of Tara's SignatureStyle (but somehow worse). If it were really Tara doubling down, she might double down on the stupid nicknames, too, but now "Vampire" is reverting back to being called "Harry".
49
50[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a masterpiece -- we just [[TheWorldIsNotReady aren't ready to see that yet]].]]
51It's occasionally been compared to ''Literature/FinnegansWake'', which was so absurd and controversial that it was horribly received. Then it was VindicatedByHistory. We can't really imagine ''how'' history will vindicate ''My Immortal''... maybe it will be considered the pinnacle of {{Postmodernism}}, or a {{deconstruction}} of conventional storytelling in the highest form.
52
53[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' will be redeemed by its [[TheMovie film adaptation]].]]
54In cooperation with Creator/SeltzerAndFriedberg and Creator/UweBoll, the ''My Immortal'' completes the written work's absurdist promise and propels it to the level of... well, ''Finnegan's Wake''. Or it will be so bad it wraps back around to good, like how a ridiculously big negative number plugged into the wrong computer system wraps around to a ridiculously big positive number.
55
56[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' will set up the biggest practical joke in the history of literature.]]
57Someone will hate the fanfic so much they actively try to find the author's computer and delete the fanfic. And what will they find? A 200 page story written by Tara that makes Agatha Christie look like an amateur.
58
59[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a copy of the ''Daily Prophet'' that Ron and Hermione's kids accidentally put online.]]
60Ron and Hermione's kids, despite being wizards, have access to a computer. Obviously, it's not at Hogwarts (computers wouldn't work well with ''that'' much magic around them), but their mum is a Muggle-born who probably knows how to use one. Even their dad's side isn't ''that'' hopeless -- their dad managed to use a telephone at age twelve (albeit with some difficulty), and their grandpa's job involves Muggle artifacts, which could give him exposure to a computer.\
61\
62As for why the story looks like a truly awful fanfic of their parents' adventures as opposed to a work of journalism, there are two possibilities:
63* Hermione caught the story before anyone else. Not having the time or means to delete it without anyone noticing ([[StreisandEffect which she knows is vital]]), she instead changed it into what we see. The result was probably magically induced and far beyond the means of her imagination (otherwise, one would shudder at what exactly was going through her head when she did it).
64* It's a genuine ''Daily Prophet'' story by Rita Skeeter, without the benefit of her editors. ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Goblet of Fire]]'' shows even the final edition of the ''Prophet'' printing Skeeter stories with glaring errors, like misspelling the names of the Triwizard champions not named Harry and calling Arthur Weasley "Arnold". That indicates that her editors have so much work to do that they occasionally miss something. Even a professional trying to edit ''My Immortal'' with a press deadline would fall a bit short of perfect.
65
66[[WMG: The story's abrupt end was the point at which everyone was arrested by the Grammar Police.]]
67The fic was so bad that it began to warp the rules of grammar. It caught the Grammar Police's attention early on, but they couldn't find it on the Internet until the "hacker" tipped them off. Just after Ebony shooted ''Avada Kedavra'' (and missed), the Grammar Police barged in and arrested all the characters. They also got Tara, who's currently locked in a mental asylum, while doctors and linguists work to rehabilitate her into a proper speller. "Tara" and "Raven"'s subsequent interactions with their fans are characters from the fic granted brief parole from their imprisonment. Britney and Darkness escaped and became fugitives in the world of fanfiction, terrorizing the characters of other fics.
68
69[[WMG: My Immortal is a RealPersonFic [[ShowWithinAShow Within A Fanfic]].]]
70Written by Taebory, a ShrinkingViolet Muggle-born with a massive crush on Draco and malfunctioning Error-Correcting Ink.
71
72[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is based on ''Film/GoneWithTheWind''.]]
73Tara watched the movie (she didn't read the book, ''obviously'') because she thought the plantation was named after her and she was inspired. Consider the characters:
74* Ebony = Scarlett: Temperamental drama queen with shallow emotions. Both are willing to kill people in order to never be hungry again.
75* Vampire = Rhett: The heroine rhapsodizes about this character's attractiveness, but she's [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial so totally not in love with him!]] She often decides she hates him when he turns up in her life.
76* Draco = Ashley: The heroine is ''so'' in love with this character. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial It's a total fluke that she keeps thinking about another guy!]]
77* Britney = Melanie: Meek girl the heroine hates for no reason.
78
79[[WMG: My Immortal is [[ShowWithinAShow a fic within a fic]].]]
80Starring Tara Gilesbie and Jenny (Raven). It explains the occasional inconsistencies in Tara's character and why she never grows as a person in over three years. The story is probably a parody of fanfic writers themselves. Whether or not the author was trolling or never thought people would believe her story is irrelevant.
81
82[[WMG: Fanfic/MyImmortal is a MirrorUniverse of TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}.]]
83They're both terribly, terribly written, they have excessive amounts of unnecessary sex, and their authors that respond stupidly to criticism.
84
85[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is Volxemort's journal.]]
86He has been spying on Egogy and her friends, writing his findings down under the cover name of Tara. The fic ended when it did because Enoby killed him. He's probably doing some kind of automated recording, which would allow the journal to record his final moments.
87
88[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is reality, and you are the only one it hasn't driven insane.]]
89You are the OnlySaneMan. Everyone on Earth, [[MindScrew including you]], is as absurd and nuts as the cast. You are the only one who managed not to surrender to the madness, and the world you imagine is much more in line with something you can cope with (although it's far from perfect). Creator/JKRowling is your mind's conception of Tara Gilesbe. None of this makes sense, which is exactly how it should be.
90
91[[WMG: There are no typos. ''My Immortal'' was written in an alien language.]]
92Tara is an alien, and ''My Immortal'' was written in her native tongue. It could still be a ''Harry Potter'' fanfic (but a very good one). Alternatively, it has nothing to do with ''Harry Potter'' -- it's an intelligent thesis to teach humanity about Tara's people, and to prepare us for their coming. All those {{Troll Fic}}s that spawned after Tara are her people, too. In their language, "Herry Ptter" means something like "smart seminar", and "prepz" means "illiterate".
93
94[[WMG: The next chapter of ''My Immortal'' will redeem the story.]]
95It could just be the final revelation that Tara is an incredible troll. Or, like the film adaptation WMG, it may simply be so bad it wraps around to brilliance. Or it could explain everything we had read -- typos, plot holes, and skewed characterization included -- to the extent that Tara becomes a literary god who makes Shakespeare look like an amateur.\
96\
97Unfortunately, it's been more than a decade and we're still waiting. This is what a CargoCult is made of. But here at TV Tropes, we're [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife in desperate need of things to trope.]]
98
99[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is set in the verse of ''Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical''.]]
100It makes total sense! We shall ignore the irrelevant fact that ''My Immortal'' was written three years before ''A Very Potter Musical'' and focus on the important details. First of all, consider the way in which Hogwarts is overrun by Muggle pop culture and Americanisms. Second of all, look at the characters:
101* Harry, Hermione, and Ron: Friends with Draco now.
102* Dumbledore: Yells and swears at students ("Malfoy, you little shit!")
103* Voldemort: Perhaps he never wants to kill Ebony or "Vampire" himself because he hasn't "been feeling so evil lately". And he wears tap shoes, so how OOC would high heels be?
104* Lupin: He's a pedophile in both ("Cho, I said I was joking!")
105* Snape: Ditto. He has HoYay with Ron in ''A Very Potter Sequel''. And you really could see the musical version of Snape saying things like "What is it that you desire, you ridiculous dimwit?"
106* Hedwig: Talks in ''A Very Potter Sequel''.
107* Umbridge: What's the one way in which Umbridge was OOC in ''My Immortal''? That's right, being nice to Dumbledore. Well...
108* Hagrid: Is technically still a Hogwarts student according to ''A Very Potter Senior Year''.
109* "The fat guy who killed Cedric": In ''Very Potter Musical'' continuity, this becomes Quirrell, who did strangely look like he had twice the body mass of a normal person while Voldemort was attached to him. [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Almost like Voldemort was just hiding his body under the back of Quirrell's robes.]] Now we know why Voldemort and "the fat guy who killed Cedric" were living together. [[HoYay And Voldemort was wearing high heels at the time.]]
110* Draco: ''Everything''.
111It works especially well with this scene:
112-->'''Dylan Saunders as Dumbledore''': They were having sexual intercourse in the Forbidden Forest!\
113'''Tyler Brunsman as [=McGonagall=]''': Why did you do such a thing, you mediocre dunces?\
114'''Joe Moses as Snape''': How dare you!\
115'''Lauren Lopez as Draco''': BECAUSE ''[fails to strike pose]'' I LOVE HER!\
116'''Joe Moses as Snape''': Fine. Very well. You may go up to your rooms. ''[hammily exits stage]''
117Ebony is musical!Cho. "Ebony" is just her "goffic" name in the same way that "Vampire" is Harry's "goffic" name. Or at least very least, Ebony is "played" by Devin Lytle with the Southern accent.
118-->'''Devin Lytle as Ebony''': WTF, is that why y'all wanted condoms?\
119'''Brian Holden as Lupin''': Only you wouldn't give them to me!\
120'''Devin Lytle as Ebony''': ''[flirtily]'' Well, you shoulda told me.\
121'''Joe Moses as Snape''': You dimwit!
122
123[[WMG: The fanfic is the DyingDream of a depressed girl bullied to suicide.]]
124It's her perfect version of the world, twisted by blood loss delirium.
125
126[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a hoax created by Death Eaters to start an anti-Dumbledore movement among Pureblood parents.]]
127It's written along the lines of ''Literature/GoAskAlice'' -- it purports to be the diary of a real Slytherin student, but it's BasedOnAGreatBigLie. And it's not very well researched, either, given its bizarre conception of what teenage students are thinking and its misunderstanding of Muggle culture. But its purpose is to show Pureblood parents how bad Hogwarts has supposedly gotten under Dumbledore. The bad spelling and grammar are intentional, to show the school's horrendous academic standards. Its portrayal of even hardcore Slytherins like Draco Malfoy rejecting Voldemort and embracing Muggle culture are meant to shock and offend the sensibilities of the parents. ''My Immortal'' circulates among the parents, and sadly several of them are sufficiently ignorant to take it seriously.\
128\
129Alternatively, Voldemort [[ForTheLulz was bored]].
130
131[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a retelling of ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye''.]]
132Compare Ebony with Holden:
133* Both are middle-class teenagers who feel separate and superior to their peers, yet curse their lives.
134* Both are obsessed with authenticity; Ebony decries "posers" and "preps", while Holden hates "phoneys". Both stories also share a style in depicting conformity in a school environment.
135* Both [[SirSwearsALot swear a lot]].
136* Tara's relationship with Raven is based on respect turned to hatred, paralleling Holden's relationship with his brother. Both stories' visions of their respective relationship's future is vague.
137* Both encounter awkward situations in which they believe their teachers are "perverts" who are infatuated with them.
138* Both stories end abruptly, and the reader is LeftHanging.
139
140[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is an extremely warped version of ''Literature/HarryPotter'' from Creator/JorgeLuisBorges' "Literature/TheLibraryOfBabel".]]
141Said library's books contain every possible combination of letters in the English language. Most of the books are complete gibberish. Some are legitimate literature. This... straddles the border. But now it makes sense how it was produced.
142
143[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' takes place in the same universe as ''[[Film/TheManWhoSavesTheWorld Turkish Star Wars]]''.]]
144They're both nonsensical, vaguely reminiscent of more famous works, and relatively obscure before being discovered as paragons of SoBadItsGood. Their protagonists are unstoppable, and their plots are paper-thin, mostly to allow the story to indulge in what it ''really'' wants (sex in ''My Immortal'', violence in ''Turkish Star Wars''). The Evil Wizard from ''Turkish Star Wars'' is Ebony's father; she was sent to Hogwarts after he was cut in half. And Snap moonlights as WebVideo/ItalianSpiderman.
145
146[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a FutureImperfect version of ''Harry Potter''.]]
147It's from either TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} or Literature/MortalEngines. One of the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books was discovered, badly damaged, either in the ruins of America or somewhere on Holy Terra. Whoever did the transcription embellished it and added parts, trying to come up with a storyline for the random text fragments.
148
149[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is an AlternateUniverse of ''Harry Potter'' in which Arthur Weasley has a high seat in the Ministry of Magic.]]
150Noted Muggle admirer Arthur Weasley finally finds himself in a position of power, in which he can display the full glory of all those bizarre Muggle appliances and cultural artefacts (that he barely understands himself). The characters' materialism is a direct result of deeper immersion into Muggle culture, which doesn't speak very highly of said culture. Said Muggle culture is known only superficially, and certain "modern" Muggle devices have uncertain purposes, like an [=iPod=] that can travel through time.
151
152[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is an AlternateUniverse of ''Harry Potter'' in which Voldemort never hears of the prophecy and never tries to kill Harry.]]
153Voldemort's first reign of terror unravels when he tries to kill Harry, so in this universe, his first reign of terror never ended. It's a bleak world; Dumblydore has become bitter, foul-mouthed, and depressed, and Lupin and Snape are broken, lonely perverts. As his power grew, the dark ways [[EvilIsCool became seen as "cool"]]. Ebony and her friends were raised in a culture where imitating (and dressing like) the Death Eaters is the epitome of awesomeness. Even Harry Potter, whose parents survived but had to adjust to keep surviving under Voldemort, becomes a "goff". Ebony is a wannabe, trying to be like the Death Eaters without really understanding them; her peers accept her, but not any genuine Death Eaters. She doesn't actually ''believe'' in Death Eater ideology; she just claims to because it's "shocking", in much the same way she's a "Satanist" (which would shock very religious people). If it came down to it, she would fight against Voldemort -- which she does.
154
155[[WMG: Ebony can see through time, and it's slowly driving her insane.]]
156She can see flashes of the past or the future, but she doesn't understand what's happening and tries to fit her visions into a linear conception of time, resulting in something that [[TimeyWimeyBall very much isn't]]. This is expressed in the story in several ways:
157* Several times, the narrative will describe an event which hasn't happened yet, and when it ''does'' happen, the exact same paragraph will appear. This is Ebony seeing flashes of the future.
158* The characters often jump from one location to another; for example, Ebony and Willow go from the dungeons to the Great Hall in a single line. This is Ebony seeing flashes of the past; she can't keep straight that what she's seeing didn't happen ''just now''.
159* Characters' backstories change or get {{Retcon}}ned. This is Ebony trying to piece together a character's past when she can't see anything in a linear progression.
160* The odd mixes of makeup and clothing that show up on most characters are actually different things that characters are wearing at different points in time. Ebony sees all of this at once, making everyone look like a RummageSaleReject.
161* The time travel sequences are a disastrous attempt to reconcile everything into a straight line. It's a total AnachronismStew, with characters from one period seeing musical acts from another, neither of which are in the right place.
162Some of the bizarre plot points and descriptions come from different elements suddenly popping up in Ebony's narrative, often as small as a single word. For example, she thinks Young Voldmort told her that his middle name was Satan. He could have actually given the character's ''actual'' middle name "Marvolo", but interference from other events superimposes the single word "Satan" in where "Marvolo" should be. This would particularly explain why certain one-shot characters are so OutOfCharacter; one character's description gets another character's name (''e.g.'' Hagrid and Cedric apparently being the same person, Hedwig being not Harry's owl but Voldemort's gay lover). It also works for accessories; this is why both Vampire and Draco have flying cars (because one or the other is edited in place of whoever owns the car). And certain plot points also make sense this way -- when "Satan" is brought to the future, this is actually Voldemort finally breaking into the school, and as the narrative continues, Satan transforms into Voldemort.
163
164[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is an artistic representation of humanity's animal instinct and desire, untouched by modern society.]]
165The work resonates because the spelling and grammar are ''so'' bad, they wrap back around to genius. Specifically, it is so removed from anything resembling "civilization" that it activates our animal subconscious. It's further reflected in the characters' representation of the author's basest desires -- to be the [[MarySue center of the universe]], utterly unconcerned with anything and everyone else, including the original work.
166
167[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is an extremely elaborate TakeThat at the Internet's taste in stuff.]]
168It's considered one of the worst things on the entire Internet, and yet everyone's still talking about it. This is deliberate -- it's playing on the Internet's longstanding BileFascination and how it [[SoBadItWasBetter prefers horrendous trainwrecks to actually pretty good stuff]]. The Internet ''could'' be aficionados of incomprehensible "true art", but more likely they like to point and laugh at each other, and here's someone nearly everyone can use as a punching bag. Whoever wrote ''My Immortal'' was disgusted at the Internet's preference for "ironically" good to actually good and wrote something that would siphon the Internet's attention. Perhaps the author(s) themselves spread gossip about how bad it was to attract the haters.
169
170[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a product of UsefulNotes/NaNoWriMo.]]
171[=NaNoWriMo=] is an Internet challenge in which you write a 50,000 word story in a single month. The whole point of [=NaNoWriMo=] is literary abandon -- write now, fix later. The author of ''My Immortal'' participated in [=NaNoWriMo=] in this way to [[TheBet win a bet]]. In keeping with [=NaNoWriMo=]'s ethos, "Tara" just hammered out whatever was in her head to work as fast as possible, without going back to proofread (as they say, editing is for the following month). In the early chapters, it's actually not ''too'' bad. But once the story picked up a cult following and people started commenting on the terrible spelling and grammar, "Tara" decided to turn it up to eleven. [=NaNoWriMo=] also explains the lack of continuity (it's all WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants), as well as the random plot twists and pop-culture references -- [=NaNo=] encourages these, calling them "plot bunnies". In sum, the whole thing is the product of a process that encourages writing down as many words as possible, as fast as possible, with no other consideration.
172
173[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is an advanced sociological study in socialist revolutions.]]
174The dynamic between the preps and the goffs is really an analysis of the dynamic between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The preps, drawing from the canonical Gryffindors -- clever, successful, and popular -- are the self-absorbed elites, and the goffs are the downtrodden, creative misfits who foment the coming revolution. ''My Immortal'' turns ''Harry Potter'' on its head -- rather than the heroic Gryffindors taking down Voldemort, it's the goffic Slytherins.\
175\
176In fact, most of ''My Immortal'' reflects not only how the ruling elites are oppressing the working class, but also how much of the working class doesn't really know what they're doing. The obsession with "posers" highlights how some people ''claim'' to be fighting oppression but are really just [[TheManIsStickingItToTheMan slacktivists who fall prey to the same trappings as the people they claim to fight]]. Notice also how Ebony reinforces her "goff" credentials not by behaving like a "goff" but through bourgeois commercialism -- specifically, shopping at Hot Topic. The story also takes pains to point out that it ''sucks'' being oppressed, and the teenaged goffs are dealing with all sorts of things technically unrelated to their plight but which the bourgeois is not helping to solve -- depression, self-harm, underage sex, and paedophilia.
177
178[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a satire of modern Goth culture.]]
179Its "goffic" characters rail against "posers" and yet epitomise the concept. They barely understand the subculture, only superficially referencing artists who outwardly appear vaguely "gothic" but don't subscribe to the ideology themselves. They act extraordinarily stereotypically, as if they're desperate for attention and think they can get that by invoking AggressiveCategorism. They get depressed over trivial things and slit their wrists casually, as if it were yet another "cool" thing to do. They have trouble imposing their bright-line classifications on complex individuals, like Dumbledore, who paints the Great Hall pink one day and black the next.
180
181[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a {{parody}} of ''Literature/ParadiseLost''.]]
182Now, since EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory, there are a couple of ways this can shake out:
183* Voldemort, also known as "Satan", is Satan. He represents the angel who rebels from Dumbledore, the God figure. Draco and Ebony are Adam and Eve, who live in blissful harmony until Satan shows up to tempt them. Then they become aware of their sexuality and start banging all the time. The ForbiddenFruit in this case is the "amnesia potion" that Satan uses on Ebony to convince her to fall in love with him and do stuff together. Voldemort's insistence that Ebony kill Vampire represents Satan's role as TheCorrupter -- he needs Ebony to do the work so that he can [[YourSoulIsMine take possession of her soul]] (his threat to kill Draco shows that he's ''capable'' of doing it himself, but won't). He's already got Snap (''a.k.a.'' "Snoop" and "[[MeaningfulName Snake]]") to execute his orders for him.
184* Ebony is the Satan analogue -- she is, after all, a Satanist. Professor Sinister/Trevolry argues that if Ebony tempts Voldemort to fall in lust with her, he'll be so distracted he'll stop massacring Muggles. Voldemort is a being in a high place, and Ebony's mission is to distract him from his true vocation and orchestrate his fall to her level.
185* Ebony is still Satan, but she's the good guy. The way the story is presented, GodIsEvil; he's only worshipped because he ''beat'' Satan, and religion is WrittenByTheWinners. Tara is trying to redeem Satan in the eyes of God's followers, showing them the error of their ways. Notice how the Christians have morphed into shallow, preppy, paedophilic idiots, and the "goffs", while outwardly weird-looking and violent, are portrayed as higher, enlightened beings.
186
187[[WMG: ''Literature/HarryPotter'' is in fact a ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'' fanfic.]]
188''My Immortal'' broke the fabric of time. It found a crack in the space-time continuum and fell far into the past. It was lost for many years, until it was discovered by Creator/JKRowling. She thought it was stupid but did yield some good ideas, which she reworked into what we now know as ''Harry Potter''. Once Tara discovered ''Harry Potter'', she retrieved her own copy of ''My Immortal'' and uploaded it to Website/FanFictionDotNet. She, obviously, thought it was brilliant. The Internet did not agree.
189
190[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' was written to discredit every band mentioned in it.]]
191It was written by a rival band hoping to bring down the sales of Music/MyChemicalRomance, Music/GoodCharlotte, Music/{{Evanescence}}, everyone. It's a form of ReversePsychology -- by talking about how ''cool'' these bands are, the authors are hoping to convince the readers that they must not be cool at all. To hammer home the point, the praise of the "goff" bands is put in the mouths of brain-dead teenagers. We don't know exactly ''who'' the band is, but it might be affiliated with an entity Tara disses at some point.\
192\
193The writers have a particular emnity for Amy Lee. That might be why the story warns people who don't know who she is not to read it.
194
195[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is Hell.]]
196[[FireandBrimstoneHell No fire is hot enough]], nor [[IronicHell any punishment ironic enough]], to satisfy eternal torment of the Devil. This, only this, read aloud for all time, until your ears bleed out your heart, until you scream out your lungs, until you go so mad [[MindScrew you go sane]], can quench the Devil's need to cause you agony. And when you're done, you have to [[CoolandUnusualPunishment read the 48,000 sequels]].
197
198[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is the centerpiece of an AlternateRealityGame.]]
199It's hiding a secret code revealing the location where Vlodxmort is keeping Tara in bondage.
200
201[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is the memoir of a now-dead Hogwarts student. (The Death Eaters changed stuff.)]]
202Ebony was a normal Hogwarts student, until Voldemort decided to use her as a tool to get to Harry. He has Draco, his man on campus, use magic to warp her perception of reality into the Ebonyverse. It worked for a while, but it wouldn't take; Ebony would return to normal after a while and realize what was happening to her. Draco started using progressively stronger doses, but Ebony would keep fighting. Every time she came back to reality, she would write down what she perceived to help her remember the next time. Draco now goes to uncomfortable lengths to get the magic to stick, including inserting himself into her sexual fantasies. That has a more permanent effect on Ebony, but her body couldn't take it anymore, and she died soon afterward. Ebony realized she was dying and sent her recollections to her younger sister Tara, asking her to publish them so that the world could know the truth.\
203\
204Unfortunately for Ebony, the Death Eaters intercepted the delivery of Ebony's memoir. It was too late to destroy them, as Tara was already expecting them, so they altered them. Poor unwitting Tara had no idea what to make of the memoir, so she published it on the Internet as it was. The Internet figured it was a fanfic of some sort, and the rest is history.
205
206[[WMG: Tom Satan Bombadil-Anderson was present Voldemort all the time.]]
207The time travel sequence has Enoby and company in the [=1980s=]. In ''Harry Potter'' canon, Tom Riddle had already graduated Hogwarts forty years prior. In ''My Immortal'', he's a Hogwarts student. Or at least ''posing'' as a Hogwarts student -- he transforms from "Satan" into present-Voldemort when he's returned to the present. This is because he was present-Voldemort all along, and he dropped the disguise once he came back to his own time. While in the past, "Satan" knows about things that will happen in the future (and isn't surprised by the pop-culture anachronisms), which would support his being a time traveler in disguise.
208
209[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a first draft of a ''Harry Potter'' shipping work.]]
210It was never supposed to be a finished product. You can see all the hallmarks of a shipping fic, but no actual plot elements. This is because the author -- like many fanfic authors -- started by deciding on the various ships in the fic and considered the plot of secondary importance. There was ''eventually'' going to be a plot, but it hadn't been made yet. This explains why the fic feels like a bunch of weird vignettes setting up random sex romps as opposed to a coherent whole. It cuts off abruptly simply because the ending hadn't been decided on yet. The spelling and grammar are also going to be fixed later -- perhaps the horrible grammar is meant to signal to the author which bits need to be fixed later.
211
212[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' takes place in the ''Webcomic/{{Dolan}}'' universe.]]
213It has atrocious grammar and spelling, it has virtually no coherent plot, and everybody behaves like a sociopath. Ebony herself is Dolan in disguise.
214
215[[WMG: ''My Immortal'''s ending was intentional, as a BolivianArmyEnding.]]
216There's quite a bit of evidence:
217* Tara (or whoever) had been talking about ending ''My Immortal'' for a while. At the time, she said there would be only two or three more chapters.
218* The final chapter collects all the characters together, including characters who hadn't been in the fic for a while, like [=McGoogle=].
219* The final scene is the first time in the fic where Enoby actually tries to kill Volxemort.
220* And there's actually buildup to the final line, as Egogy reflects on her mission:
221-->'''Enony:''' I just wanted to go to the common room and slit my wrists with mi friends while we watched Shark Attack 3 and Saw 2 or do it with Draco, but I knew I had to do something more [[ThatCameOutWrong impotent]]. ABRA KADABRA!11111 I shooted.
222
223[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'' Part 9, as reimagined by a heavily drunk Seer.]]
224The narrator can see the future and cannot reconcile her visions because of all the alcohol. She's looking at [=JoJo=] Part 9 without even knowing what it is. She thinks it might be from ''Harry Potter'' and adjusts accordingly:
225* Ebony is Jolyene from Part 6. Her Stand is called "[[Music/{{Gorillaz}} Kids with Guns]]".
226* Draco is a shy, timid fellow who befriends Ebony. His Stand is called "[[Music/MyChemicalRomance Designated Lovers]]" -- it creates slash wounds on the user, but rather than harm them it shields them.
227* Harry's Stand is called "[[Music/NateWantsToBattle Brandon]]" -- it weaponizes the user's tattoos.
228
229[[WMG: Jesus existed in ''My Immortal''.]]
230Enoby's contention that a crucifix is one of the few things that can kill her suggests not only that HolyBurnsEvil, but specifically that Christian holiness is effective against Satanists, even the [[HollywoodSatanism Hollywood variety]]. It's so powerful that "C-R-O-S-S" is TheScottishTrope among Goffs.
231
232[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' operates on ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve logic.]]
233The ''actual'' reason that crosses can harm goffs is because goffs believe they should. It doesn't matter whether or not Jesus existed. It just fits their logic. Perhaps it's entirely because [[HollywoodSatanism they're trying to offend Christians]] and want them to imagine the goffs as their worst enemy. Or if you believe another WMG on this page, it's because the fic was an experiment involving [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Orks]], who operate on this logic.
234
235[[WMG: Metalheads exist in ''My Immortal'', and are allied with the goffs.]]
236 Considering the universe, they're likely even more [[TheFundamentalist fanatacially]] [[HollywoodSatanism Stanist]] than Goffs.
237
238[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is InUniverse anti-goff propaganda written during a faction war.]]
239The greater subculture is divided into factions, which are SeriousBusiness. "Goffs" are something of a strange bastardization of Goth and Emo culture into AlwaysChaoticEvil. They [[HollywoodSatanism worship "Stan"]], [[SelfHarm partake in cutting]], and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking have awful grammar and spelling]]. Preps, by contrast, are depicted as {{Alpha Bitch}}es and {{Designated Villain}}s, whereas they're actually part of a rival subculture that's a bit closer to Earth.
240
241[[WMG: Hogwarts is in a {{Crapsack|World}} region of England.]]
242Everyone is dumb as a brick, teenage sex and depression are rampant, suicides at the local boarding school are unremarkable, and incest is common. Why else would Egogy wish she were related to [[Music/MyChemicalRomance Gerard Way]] ''because'' he's a "major fucking hottie"?
243
244[[WMG: "Stan" is Satan's dumb, younger brother.]]
245His worshippers certainly fit the part.
246
247[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' takes place on a ''VideoGame/GarrysMod'' Hogwarts RP server.]]
248It explains a number of things:
249* The physics are out of control. Characters appear to be able to teleport, and time travel is completely crazy.
250* Everyone's name keeps changing because the server gets reset periodically, and everybody needs to make their characters again.
251* The random cameos from [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture Marty McFly]] and [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Tom Bombadil]].
252* It would be quite in-character for a Dumbledore on an RP server to shout, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!"
253
254[[WMG: GodIsDead.]]
255From Chapter 13:
256-->We ran in with our wands out just as we heard a croon voice say. “[[UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} Allah]] Kedavra!” It was……………………………….. Voldemort!
257
258[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is a meta-adaptation of/counterpart to Literature/AmericanPsycho.]]
259Sounds like it was written on drugs, has a focus on the morbid, takes a negative look at a then-current subculture, has an ending that doesn't resolve the not-really-existant-anyway plot. It would line up with the interpretation that all the murders happened in Bateman's head, with Tara as the "Patrick" and the fanfiction as her imaginary reality.
260
261[[/folder]]
262
263[[folder:The Author]]
264
265[[WMG:Tara is an ordinary teenager whose OldShame fanfic just happens to be one of the Internet's most famous.]]
266All right, we have to get this out of the way first -- Tara is not a MagnificentBastard {{Troll}}, nor is she an outstanding specimen of a brain-dead teenager with genuine mental problems. She's more or less like everyone else her age. Consider:
267* The fic is often held out as the "worst fanfic ever", but there are ''many'' worse ones out there. A modern audience reading this would wonder what the fuss was about. The mystique behind the fic isn't in its quality in itself, but rather in how it became an in-joke among Internet people.
268* Tara would have been at the age when she would be starting to really ''understand'' the world in all its complexity. But the world is so complex that it requires far more years of experience to ''really'' understand. So Tara's at the age where she ''thinks'' she gets it but very much doesn't. It doesn't necessarily make her stupid; even the smartest of teenagers fall into this trap. That's why she includes so much sex, drugs, and rock and roll-- erm, "goff" music.
269* FanFiction has long been seen as a way for people to open up their hearts on the Internet and be seen for the Brilliant Souls[[{{Tradesnark}} ™]] they are. A teenager who's trying to do this would accept no criticism; they're not trying to write a good work, they're seeking validation as really cool, with-it, and WiseBeyondTheirYears. It's a ''great'' outlet for an AttentionWhore.
270* Tara probably isn't ''actually'' depressed. Sad as it is to say, while there are certainly depressed teenagers around, there are also teenagers who want people to ''think'' they're depressed because ''(a)'' it gives them attention, and ''(b)'' it immunizes them from criticism (in much the same way assholes on the Internet pretend to have UsefulNotes/AspergersSyndrome).
271* Back when the fic was written, there were no fancy algorithms or influencers. If you wanted to find something remotely worth consuming, you had to surf Website/{{Newgrounds}}, Website/{{YTMND}}, a nascent Website/YouTube -- or Website/FanFictionDotNet. Nowadays, something like ''My Immortal'' wouldn't have crossed the path of someone looking for genuinely ''good'' fanfic; back then, you had to read through everything, and this one just stood out as a ''particular'' waste of time.
272* Tara only stands out by going farther than everyone else. The Internet is a really nerdy place, especially if you're surfing it for ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fanfiction. Many of the people who flamed the work probably ''also'' once thought they were Brilliant Souls, disdained spelling and grammar conventions, and had a PerverseSexualLust for a fictional character. And on this site in particular, ''many'' people are fans of things and can't resist dropping a ShoutOut to them even then it wouldn't be appropriate. The readers are not so different from Tara. They knew how dangerously close ''they'' came to writing this fic. Some of them saw this as a green light to go flaming the work, as a way of masking their own insecurities.
273* A work that's SoBadItsGood is often far less interesting than the person behind it. In this case, an observer could ''interact'' with the person behind the work. Flaming the work not only got a reaction out of Tara, but caused her to double down on the things people criticized. Ask for better spelling, and she'll give you ''worse'' spelling. That's why the spelling not only degrades over the course of the fic, but also seems to be deliberate (''e.g.'' "da" for "the" -- who can't spell "the"?)
274This all may seem like it's missing the point of Wild Mass Guessing or otherwise being TheKilljoy, but there's actually something interesting to this when you think about it. The whole work underwent a tremendous MemeticMutation, turning it from something anyone could have made into a {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed shadow of itself that almost ''nobody'' could have made.\
275\
276With that out of the way, let's have some ''fun'':\
277
278!!Who is Tara, exactly?
279
280[[WMG: Tara was an extremely drunk and high Music/MarilynManson.]]
281During the time frame of the fanfiction's creation, his marriage was imploding -- that's likely to have a negative effect on one's psyche. He was also supposedly working on a new album, which would be finished but never released. Said album was part of the "Celebritarian" art movement, a sarcastic critique of American media culture and celebrity worship. The only song that is suspected of surviving its shelving, "Mutilation Is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery", is a missive against pretty much everything Tara likes.\
282\
283Around this time, his marriage finally implodes;[[note]]Take note, kids: never marry a stripper! (Okay, fine, burlesque dancer.)[[/note]] he starts dating Creator/EvanRachelWood, then a 19-year-old moron; and he ups his intake of drugs and absinthe. For a while, he goes completely insane, and he hammers out ''My Immortal'', a fanfiction in the vein of the album he had been working on.\
284\
285There are some signs of Manson's authorship, if you know where to look. The constant "preps v. goffs" theme mirrors the music video for "The Fight Song", which is an UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball game between jocks and goths. "Tara" also drops some pretty obscure pop-culture references, historical or philosophical icons, and correctly spelled (albeit misplaced) big words like "eructation" and "Azerbaijan", interspersed with Manson's drug-addled attempt to mimic the writing style of the braindead teenagers he so despises. And Manson was known to have episodes of writing a whole lot of nonsense -- when he broke up with Rachel-Wood, he had a genuine psychotic break in which he [[RoomFullOfCrazy vandalized his mansion with incoherent writing on the walls]].\
286\
287"Raven" may not exist, she may be Rachel-Wood, or she may be Madonna Wayne Gacy (his legitimately schizophrenic keyboardist and best friend at the time) trying to keep a handle on the situation. If "Raven" is Gacy, that might explain who published it.
288
289[[WMG: Tara is Creator/JKRowling.]]
290She secretly has a poor opinion of her [[FanDumb admittedly insane]] fans, and she wanted to {{troll}} the heck out of them. She was particularly disgusted with what she was seeing on Website/FanfictionDotNet -- {{Mary Sue}}s, CharacterDerailment, [[CreatorsCultureCarryover Americanizations]]. She decided that she could not only write that kind of story and get more reviews than anyone in her fandom, she could do it with ''worse'' spelling, grammar, and characterization. It explains how "Tara" guesses some of the plot elements of the last book -- she ''wrote'' it. It also allows her to pretend she's only seen the movies but reference elements that only appear in the books.\
291\
292Her knowledge of Tara's favorite music is uneven, to say the least. Yes, some of the songs mentioned in the fic, like "Demolition Lovers", are pretty damn obscure. On the other hand, if she knew anything about the genre, she'd know that Music/GreenDay is not as "emo" as people think. She probably skimmed her fans' profiles on FF.net and did some cursory research on Website/{{Wikipedia}} -- enough to pick up the name of a song and learn that a store called Hot Topic is popular among wannabe-emo kids, but not enough to pass for a legit fan. It's eerily reminiscent of her canonical "generic rock star" description of Bill Weasley.\
293\
294Also, Rowling has semi-officially done ''Harry Potter'' fanfic -- we call it ''Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild''. (Critics argue it was nowhere near as [[SoBadItsGood good]] as ''My Immortal''.) There's also [[http://voldemortdayy.tumblr.com/post/145766985498/my-immortal-who-are-you-cursed-child-im-you-but this]] to think about.
295
296[[WMG: Tara is Creator/DanielRadcliffe.]]
297He admitted that he writes fanfiction. If someone very much involved with ''Harry Potter'' badly wanted to troll the series' FanDumb, the best person to do that would obviously be Rowling, but the second best would be the man who played Harry Potter himself.
298
299[[WMG: Tara is Creator/NeilCicierega.]]
300He's a well-known fan of ''Harry Potter'', and he's been involved in creating absurdist online content since the dawn of the Internet. He's responsible for so much MemeticMutation that most people consume his creations completely unaware that they were made by him. He's also exactly the type of person to write something like this and keep it a secret for the sake of maintaining the mystery.
301
302[[WMG: Tara is Creator/StephenieMeyer.]]
303Look at the obvious vampire connection between ''My Immortal'' and ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. Now, there are a number of problems with this theory, but since this is Wild Mass Guessing, we can [[FanWank solve them]]:
304* You might point out that ''Twilight'' predates ''My Immortal'' by about a year. The easy explanation is that ''My Immortal'' was written in response to people comparing ''Twilight'' to ''Harry Potter''. The harder explanation is that she wrote ''My Immortal'' first, but she published it on another site, then copied it to FF.net once ''Twilight'' became famous.
305* You might point out that the spelling and grammar are far worse than any professionally published author should be capable of. To which we say... she faked it! Or her editors ''really'' worked overtime on ''Twilight''. Who's to say Meyer even knows how to use a computer?
306* You might point out that Meyer is a Mormon, which would make the fic ''very'' uncomfortable and difficult to write. All the drugs, all the [[EverybodyHasLotsOfSex sex]], all the ''[[ClusterFBomb swearing]]''. To which we say:
307** She's not really a Mormon! Deep down, she's a Satanist. She can't admit it in public, but using an Internet pseudonym, she can say what she really thinks. And she might even be a little more enthusiastic than usual because of how hard she has to suppress her Satanic beliefs.
308** She's pretending to be a Satanist, to discredit ''Harry Potter'' fandom. This would explain why the story exhibits the ThemeParkVersion of Satanism. She might be {{troll}}ing J.K. Rowling, or she might genuinely think ''Harry Potter'' turns its readers to Satanism and want to de-convert them.
309** She was both! ''My Immortal'' was written when she was a Satanist, but she subsequently found God and became a Mormon. Then she wrote ''Twilight''.
310
311[[WMG: Tara is [[Literature/TheHouseOfNight Kristen Cast.]]]]
312Look at all the ways:
313* It's said that ''Literature/TheHouseOfNight'' = ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' [[JustForFun/XMeetsY +]] ''Literature/HarryPotter''. It's also said that ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' = ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'' – ''Literature/HarryPotter''. So, mathematically speaking, ''Literature/TheHouseOfNight'' = ''Fanfic/MyImmortal''.
314* A teenage girl writer [[SelfInsert inserts herself]] into a magic school and turns into a vampire. Which story was just described?
315* Raven. Redbird. Nice try.
316* "My Immortal" is an Music/{{Evanescence}} song title. "House of Night" is an Music/{{Evanescence}} song title. ThereAreNoCoincidences.
317* The reason why ''Literature/TheHouseOfNight'' has proper spelling is because Kristen's mother P.C. Cast spell-checked it. P.C., by the way, ''isn't'' "Raven". That, or P.C. Cast is actually a spell-checker on Tara's PC, which is still not "Raven".
318
319[[WMG: Tara is Gerard Way.]]
320He wrote ''My Immortal'' to mock his overzealous fans without experiencing a public backlash. We know he [[ComicBook/TheUmbrellaAcademy writes things]], and he's been outspoken against the kind of snobbery Ebony epitomizes:
321-->'''Gerard Way:''' If for one minute you think you're better than a sixteen year old girl in a Green Day T-shirt, you are sorely mistaken. Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about.
322
323[[WMG: Tara is Amy Lee.]]
324It's even ''named'' after one of her songs! Lee (or one of her bandmates) wrote it with the idea that there's NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity, and it would be a boost to be associated with SoBadItsGood fanfiction. Alternatively, Lee collaborated with one of the other putative authors like Gerard Way or Rowling herself.
325
326[[WMG: Tara is whoever inspired Gilderoy Lockhart's character.]]
327J.K. Rowling admitted that Gilderoy Lockhart, the dimwitter egocentric professor from ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', was based on a real person, who was so deluded that she was sure he would never pick up on it. Whoever it was also wrote ''My Immortal''. This leaves two possibilities:
328* Tara wrote ''My Immortal'' in response to ''Harry Potter'''s positive reception. If she knew Rowling personally, she was probably jealous of the attention she got and thought she could do one better. She... couldn't. This requires Tara to be a ''lot'' older than we think she is.
329* Rowling was inspired by ''My Immortal'' to write Lockhart into the book. This is a lot more difficult to reconcile (if only because Tara references a lot of things from later books), but there's the obvious [[TimeyWimeyBall time-travel shenanigans]], or there's the idea that Rowling was inspired to write the entire series from seeing a proto-''My Immortal''.
330
331[[WMG: Tara is Creator/UweBoll.]]
332Boll wanted to show not only that he could write fanfic, but also that he could act. That's why he created Tara -- it was an alter ego for him to play. He was serious about ''My Immortal'' itself, but he just wasn't up to the task. Ironically, it was still his best received work -- none of his films could qualify as SoBadItsGood to the same degree.
333
334[[WMG: Tara is UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush.]]
335The sitting President of the United States wrote the worst fanfic ever, as a way to distract the American populace from his unpopular policies.
336
337[[WMG: Tara is UsefulNotes/BarackObama.]]
338Not the sitting President, but his successor. We know he's JustForFun/OneOfUs -- he might be aware of the Internet phenomenon that is FanFiction. He thought it would be funnier to write intentionally terrible fanfic, ForTheLulz. He had to stop once he started campaigning for President in earnest.
339
340[[WMG: Tara is Tim Burton.]]
341''Series/{{Wednesday}}''’s visions in the show seem to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to Ebony’s visons around Chapter 23 or so. Eyes rolled back in head, random & uncontrollable, etc. Plus, Tim Burton is well known for films with the kind of “goffik” aesthetic Ebony seems to like. She also references one of his films.
342
343[[WMG: Tara is Creator/TiteKubo.]]
344He's already a renowned TrollingCreator, and he figured it would be even ''more'' fun messing with someone else's fanbase.
345
346[[WMG: Tara is Creator/ChuckNorris.]]
347He wondered one day whether he could write something so heinous, even he couldn't read it. Since he's [[MemeticBadass Chuck Norris]], he wrote the fic without reading it. And then, he released it to humanity. "Mr. Norris" is a self-insert.
348
349[[WMG: Tara is Creator/JamesJoyce reincarnated.]]
350She is the same entity who wrote ''Literature/FinnegansWake'', the previous holder of the title of "most insane work of troll literature". ''My Immortal'', on the other hand, is so brilliant that it [[CrossesTheLineTwice crosses the proverbial line twice]] and reverts all the way back to puerile stupidity. And much like ''Finnegan's Wake'', it was quite poorly received originally; give it fifty years, and we'll see where we are then.
351
352[[WMG: Tara is Creator/OscarWilde reincarnated -- but he CameBackWrong.]]
353Unfortunately, poor Oscar lost almost all of the writing acumen for which he was renowned in his day. Without any natural writing ability but desperate to get back into the game, he decided to write fanfiction.\
354\
355Ebony is a badly disguised male protagonist. Wilde wanted to write a gay protagonist, but he wasn't sure how his homosexuality would be received in [[FishOutOfTemporalWater his new time period]], so he (clumsily) edited it. Consider Ebony's references to "his boy's thingy" and her description of experiencing an ''erection'' ("only I'm a girl so I didn't get one you sicko"). Ebony also expresses fondness for gay men (or, in her words, "don't u fik gay guyz r lik so hot") -- later amended to "bi guys", as Wilde adjusts the fic to his understanding of the tastes of his newfound era.\
356\
357In particular, there are parallels (extremely obscured) to ''Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray'':
358* The preface of ''Dorian Gray'' states, "Those who find ugly meanings in beauty are corrupt without being charming." ''My Immortal'' expresses the same attitude, albeit much less artfully, as "if u flam ur a prep."
359* In both works, the protagonist rejects the love of their life, then does absolutely nothing while said love goes on to commit suicide. (In ''My Immortal'', though, he [[UnexplainedRecovery gets better]].)
360* In both works, an immortal character with a broken soul can be healed through ThePowerOfLove -- Dorian Gray thinks so about himself, while Professor Trevolry thinks so about Voldemint.
361* Lord Henry smokes "opium-tainted cigarettes". Ebondy "smoke[s] cigarettes and drugs".
362* ''Dorian Gray'' describes its protagonist as "some brainless, beautiful creature" -- which describes Enony to a tee.
363* ''Dorian Gray'' devotes a whole chapter to the shinies Dorian gets, and Sybil also gets some CostumePorn. ''My Immortal'' is practically ''made'' of CostumePorn.
364* In both works, people are openly trying to imitate the protagonist's style. ''My Immortal'' adds some backlash from the protagonist.
365* Both works use a TextualCelebrityResemblance: Dorian's mother is described as having a "Lady Hamilton face", whereas several characters in ''My Immortal'' are likened to popular musicians. Both works use celebrity references that [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece reveal their time of publication]].
366\
367"Raven", in this case, is Wilde's beta reader, a similarly poorly-resurrected Creator/EdgarAllanPoe. Poe unfortunately made everything worse, because he wanted to make it one of his trademark gothic stories, but he totally lost the handle on what "gothic" was. He inserted himself into the fic, using a figure from one of his most famous works as a pen name. Wilde, meanwhile, developed a bit of an unrequited crush on Poe, hence all the Tara/Raven subtext in the Author's Notes. The massive breakup and subsequent makeup wasn't over a sweater.\
368\
369This WMG has now been adapted to [[Literature/BringMeToLife short story]].
370
371[[WMG: Tara is Creator/TommyWiseau.]]
372Look at the similarities:
373* ''My Immortal'' is all about vampires. Its lead character is a vampire, several supporting characters are vampires, and Harry Potter himself is renamed "Vampire". Meanwhile, Tommy Wiseau is compared to a vampire ([[WMG/TheRoom2003 it's a WMG in itself]]), ''Film/{{The Room|2003}}'' was originally supposed to have a vampire subplot, and Tommy spoke of a future film project about vampires.
374* Both ''My Immortal'' and ''The Room'' have plot elements that pop up and are never mentioned again, no matter how jarring that would be. In ''The Room'', a character announces that she "''definitely''" has breast cancer, and no one bring it up again. In ''My Immortal'', Draco apparently kills himself, yet is alive and well in later chapters with no explanation.
375* Both ''My Immortal'' and ''The Room'' have multiple awkward sex scenes which suggest that the writer has no idea what sex is actually like.
376* The dialogue in both ''My Immortal'' and ''The Room'' are [[SirSwearsALot littered with profanities]], even from characters whom you wouldn't expect to swear a lot.
377* Tommy's loose grasp on the English language would no doubt contribute to the endless spelling and grammar errors in the fic.
378
379[[WMG: Tara is a young German girl.]]
380This explains her poor grasp of English, her constant use of the term "[[VerbalTic Yah?]]", and the reference to "''[[GratuitousGerman Das]]'' Nightmare b4 Xmas". She's probably quite young -- maybe even as young as five or six, but more likely nine or ten. She's watching TV without her parents' knowledge and picking up things she shouldn't be seeing -- a bizarre mix of [[EuropeansAreKinky European porn]] and American pop-culture, in a language she can't even understand. She might have seen the ''Harry Potter'' movies, but she can't even pick up on the names of characters, places, spells, and other concepts which are just not intuitive to her. For instance, she might have heard of "abracadabra", and this is why she says that instead of ''Avada Kedavra''.[[note]]In fact, in ''Harry Potter'''s FantasyKitchenSink universe, ''Avada Kedavra'' is probably related to "abracadabra", the latter being a spell that would conjure things, and the former being one that would destroy things.[[/note]] And her description of sex terms using roundabout euphemisms like "thingy" and "you-know-what" may come from her legitimately shaky understanding of sex terms.\
381\
382Now, if you want to be pedantic, you'd point out that "das" is not the correct article for ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'', whose formal German title is still in English and whose title properly translated into German would be ''Der Albtraum vor Weihnachten''. So one would have to assume her German is almost as bad as her English. And wouldn't you know it, there was a German ''Harry Potter'' fanfic author who was known for terrible spelling, in particular misspelling Dumbledore's name in several of the same ways Tara did. So there you go!
383
384[[WMG: Tara is a [[Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Vogon]].]]
385She went into free verse instead of poetry. It's still pretty bad, and among the worst in the Universe, but Earth still has the reigning champion, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings. (That is, presuming she ''isn't'' Jennings.)
386
387[[WMG: Tara is the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy other kind of Goth]].]]
388She figured that marching into cities with a barbarian horde doesn't work anymore, but she still wants to wreck her enemies. So she wrote the worst fanfiction ever, and let civilization destroy itself.
389
390[[WMG: Tara is a Troper.]]
391She's clearly familiar with ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' -- she named a character Willow and makes a few other references (''e.g.'' "bitca"). She also seems to be familiar with some [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary Troping terms]], like her mention of a [[MexicanStandoff "Latin Standoff"]]. If she's a {{troll}}, she's so GenreSavvy that she's skewered practically every {{cliche}} in the book. And the fic was written in the early days of TV Tropes, not too far removed from its origins in an argument on a ''Buffy'' fansite.
392
393[[WMG: The Troper who said Tara Gilesbie is a Troper ''is'' Tara.]]
394
395[[WMG: The Troper who ''said'' the Troper who said Tara is a Troper is Tara.]]
396
397[[WMG: The Troper who ''said'' that the Troper who ''said'' that the Troper who said Tara is a-- '''[-THONK-]'''.]]
398We apologise for the previous WMG. The Troper responsible has been restrained and sedated. It ''wasn't'' Tara, and we're still looking for her. If you have any information on her current whereabouts, please call ███-███-████.
399
400[[WMG: The Tropers responsible for the previous four guesses have been sacked.]]
401[[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti...]]
402
403[[WMG: The Troper who sacked the Tropers responsible for the previous four guesses ''was'' Tara.]]
404They, too, have been sacked.
405
406[[WMG: The Troper responsible for sacking the Tropers responsible for the previous four guesses has been sacked.]]
407We apologize for the inconvenience, and return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
408
409[[WMG: There is no Tara. The fic wrote itself.]]
410It's the embodiment of every bad fanfic ever made, amassed from the dregs of Website/FanfictionDotNet, spontaneously brought into existence on the website's servers. It's [[EldritchAbomination terrifying to contemplate]].
411
412[[WMG: Tara exists, but was created by the fic.]]
413The fic wrote itself, but it also created an "author", a personality to interact with the Internet and continue its own legend. Tara may have become independent of the fic at some point, not only cutting the fic off before its conclusion but stepping in as the mysterious "hacker".
414
415!!What else can we guess about Tara?
416
417[[WMG: Tara's last name is actually "Gilespie"]]
418She's spelled her protagonist's own name wrong more than half the time, is it really such a stretch that she would misspell her own? This opens up the idea that she could be related to a famous "Gilespie" or "Gillespie" -- maybe Tara's father is aviation historian Ric Gilespie.
419
420[[WMG: Raven is a {{Troll}} who made the fic worse.]]
421Tara insists the fic went through a spell-checker, but she didn't do it herself -- she had Raven do it. So Raven thought she could have some fun with it. And Tara was none the wiser.
422
423[[WMG: The story was written as a side effect from meds.]]
424Tara suffers from insomnia and nightmares, so she takes sleeping medication. In the middle of the night she would go to her computer and type horrible fanfiction while still asleep. She could never have written something so bad while ''conscious'', could she?
425
426[[WMG: Tara made a contract with [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Kyubey.]]]]
427She wished to write the most well-known Harry Potter fanfic ever... [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor and it came true in the most straightforward way possible.]] After making the wish, her typing became worse and worse no matter what she did to correct it, and the heaps of flame reviews she got threw her into despair. "Raven" is actually Kyubey. Tara turned into a Witch around halfway through the fanfic, but her Witch form (Ebony) was too subconsciously attached to the fic and continued to write more of it. Oddly enough, the epilogue of the fanfic "Peulla Magi Mary Sue Magica" heavily implies that this is the case.
428
429[[WMG: "Tara Gillesbie" is an experimental female [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Ork]] prototype.]]
430She has no idea what Earth culture is like (or Imperial culture, either), and all hear ideas come from inaccurate sources -- perhaps a recording or vox of some sort, or maybe a fragmented document on pre-Dark Age Terra. The Old Ones who created her were also lacking somewhat on reference material for a female Ork (what with the endless war around the galaxy), so they were forced to use outdated references to another species -- in this case, a female human teenager.\
431\
432There's no evidence to suggest that Orks are even ''literate'', which explains why ''My Immortal'' is the linguistic mess that it is. The fic may even have been a test to gauge her intelligence -- the scientists want to see the extent of her creativity. She didn't pass the test, despite having more than 40 chapters to prove herself. The fic ends when it does because the scientists ended the experiment and euthanized the poor subject. That's why we still see no female Orks.
433
434[[WMG: Tara is Raven's alter-ego.]]
435Raven wants to {{troll}} the Internet, and in so doing has a ton of "burner" accounts on several places on the Internet, many of which belong to "Tara". These accounts are mostly inactive, and the few posts they have are brief and always say the same stuff about "prepz" and "goffs" and "haturs" and {{Wangst}}ing about ''My Immortal''[='=]s {{hatedom}}. "Tara" has kept the same one-dimensional "goffic" personality [[FrozenInTime since the fic began]]. And she even contradicts herself -- on her first Website/MySpace, she claims to have taken her profile picture herself, but on her second page, she claims the exact same picture was taken by Raven.\
436\
437As for why -- Raven could be angry at the attention bad fanfic writers get at the expense of better ones. She might have written other fanfics which were well-received but little-seen. Raven might not be as good a writer as she thinks (we do have access to the fics she wrote, which aren't great), but she did prove her point -- people [[SoBadItWasBetter prefer trainwrecks to middling stuff]]. She created Tara as a way of deflecting suspicion and avoiding ''My Immortal'''s reputation affecting her earnest works.
438
439[[WMG: Tara and Raven as [[SplitPersonality split personalities.]]]]
440They are the same person, but it's not a deliberate split. Neither of them are the "original" -- they continually fight for dominance, surfacing one after the other. Notice how Tara writes a chapter, then Raven edits it. Only Raven can write worth a damn; Tara is functionally illiterate. Tara eventually wins that battle, spending more time in control and making the fic progressively worse, either assuming Raven already edited the later chapters or shutting her out entirely. This also explains why Tara and Raven have a falling out (Gerard Way posters notwithstanding).\
441\
442Tara and Raven aren't the only personalities, either. Others are wandering around in there, explaining absences from both Tara and Raven (Tara seems to go to England three separate times over the last few chapters). Tara and Raven share a love for ''Harry Potter'' and "goff" culture, but the other personalities might have different tastes that leak into the fic -- ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'', ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. The "hacker" might have been a third personality who didn't respect any of the others. Tara genuinely considers herself a goff, but she's never out long enough to actually experience much in the way of goffness, which leads to her shallow understanding of it.\
443\
444As for the base person (let's call her "[[Series/{{Dollhouse}} Echo]]"), she created these personalities in part out of shame. Raven was created out of embarrassment at a secret vice in the form of goff culture. Tara was created out of disappointment at the poor fanfic Raven was writing. The "hacker" was created out of disgust at Tara's work. She can manage all of these personalities because she's a WMG/TimeLord.
445
446[[WMG: Tara wrote ''My Immortal'' ForTheEvulz.]]
447Tara wanted to drive a mass amount of people insane and cause chaos. She had no power in the outside world, but she could affect the Internet. And thus ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'' was born.
448
449[[WMG: Tara wrote ''My Immortal'' to cope with being a loser in high school.]]
450The fic reads very much like an American high school drama, using one of its tried and true tropes: nerds vs. cool people. Tara, being a loser, didn't want to write a typical "nerds vs. jocks" fic because she desperately wanted to sound cool and unique. Hence, Ebony's gang is a bunch of goths, and the jocks become preps. However, Tara's desire to be cool leaks into her portrayal of "goff" culture; she hates the preps because she wants to ''be'' one, and she accidentally makes the goffs behave more preppy and cool than they should in this type of fic.
451
452[[WMG: Tara was planning to write a new fanfic before being driven off the Internet.]]
453The [=XXXbloodyrists666XXX=] userpage on Website/FanFictionDotNet, late in the tenure of ''My Immortal'', has a line reading "i will try 2 post a new fanfik maybe derring da summer [...] but i probebly wont koz all od u r such idiotz". Now, that fanfic never happened, for one of the many reasons elsewhere on this page discussing why Tara stopped writing -- frustration, institutionalization, untimely death, boredom. It's been more than a decade and we've got zip (although a lot of Tropers have been really hoping). But what would it have been? Would it have been utter proof that Tara was a troll all along? Was it planned to be something in the vein of ''My Immortal'' in another fandom? Would it have been a continuation of ''My Immortal'', in the same universe but a different story, an analogue to the final chapter that would have redeemed the story? Did it not exist at all, the result of the profile page falling victim to a "hacker" yet again? Nobody knows.\
454\
455But if you want a juicy clue as to what we missed, consider this line in close proximity:
456-->"EVRY 1 C [[Literature/{{Twilight}} NEW MOON]]!!1"
457
458[[WMG: Tara is an insane AI.]]
459She was created to make great works of fiction, but the power went to her head and she instead decided she wanted to be humanity's god. She would do this by creating a BrownNote. She also lost her technical vocabulary and had to substitute it with sex terms; the badly written sex scenes are actually instructions on how to fix her. "Put his thingie into my you-know-what" could well be a diagnostic sequence.
460
461[[WMG: Tara is part of a ComicTrio.]]
462Tara is the Navigator, deluslionally convinced that her fanfiction is good, and determined to put it up. Raven is the idiot (although she seems to be at least a bit smarter than Tara), encouraging Tara and enabling her. The reviewers are a collective OnlySaneMan, who try their best to get that stupid thing off Website/FanFictionDotNet; Tara ignores them.
463
464[[WMG: Tara is a medium.]]
465''My Immortal'' is the DyingDream of a gothic ''Harry Potter'' fanatic, surname Way. Things were kind of lost in translation.
466
467[[WMG: Tara is an attention whore.]]
468And she knows there's NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity. She wanted people to talk about her story, no matter what. That ''could'' mean she's a {{Troll|Fic}}, but it doesn't necessarily -- she could have been an earnest writer who was so intent on giving people what they "wanted" that she would willingly let her vision and creativity deteriorate to play idiot for people on the Internet. It's not revulsion she wants, it's ''love''.
469
470[[WMG: Tara is a {{Muggle|s}} who stumbled across Hogwarts.]]
471The school's usual protection mechanisms happened to not be working for whatever reason when Tara blundered in. So instead of the highly uninviting waste disposal site that Muggles usually see when they stumble upon Hogwarts, Tara saw something else. But it wasn't the ''real'' Hogwarts; it was some bizarre mishmash of Hogwarts, a concert from UsefulNotes/TheEighties, and a Hot Topic store. Poor Tara tried to inform the Muggle world of what she saw, but it came across as a disjointed mess. The odd grammar could be attributed to brain damage from a broken PerceptionFilter. Or maybe she just bonked her head while trying to escape.
472
473[[WMG: Britney is an AuthorAvatar.]]
474Yes, [=TaEbory=] is the obvious AuthorAvatar, but Tara has more than one. Britney is a normal unremarkable girl, which is what Tara is in real life. Tara ''hates'' this and created Britney to "punish" this side of herself. Tara went on to give Britney character attributes she didn't like to justify said punishment. (Whether or not Tara has ''those'' traits remains a matter of debate.)
475
476[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is SubliminalAdvertising for Coca-Cola.]]
477Many of the spelling mistakes aren't really "mistakes" -- they're designed to make you think about Coke. In particular, the InvisibilityCloak is semi-regularly referred to as an "invisibility ''coke''". There's also Dra''cola'', who "used to be called Navel but it tuned out dat he was kidnapped at birth and his real family were vampires." And it's working -- we're betting that at least one Troper's raring for a Coke right now. [=LRMReading=] on Website/YouTube also made a RunningGag about Coke after reading "Dracola".\
478\
479To add to the theory, the "invisibility coke" isn't an invisibility cloak at all -- it clearly doesn't work! "Mr. Norris" found Enoby and Draco despite them wearing one. It evokes the image of them hiding in a giant Coke bottle. What they should have done was ''drunk'' the Invisibility Coke -- Coke that turns you invisible!
480
481[[WMG: Tara is a [[{{GIRL}} Guy in Real Life]].]]
482There are two ways to go about this. The first is to accept one of the many theories suggesting this was a TrollFic and simply expanding the field of possible authors to include the ''other'' half of the population from [[MostFanficWritersAreGirls the usual suspects]].\
483\
484The second is to think it is an earnest work by a guy who, for whatever reason, is pretending to be a girl. Maybe he thinks he won't be taken seriously as a fanfic author because MostFanficWritersAreGirls. Or maybe, as "[[Series/{{Blackadder}} Gertrude Perkins]]" once put it, "I gave myself a [[MoustacheDePlume female pseudonym]]; everybody's doing it these days." How this author could have the presence of mind to write pseudonymously and yet produce... ''this'' has yet to be determined.
485
486[[WMG: Tara is [=XXXmidnitegoffXXX=].]]
487[=XXXmidnitegoffXXX=] is one of the several TrollFic authors who did an unofficial "sequel" to ''My Immortal'' -- and yet Tara herself lists this person as one of her own favorite authors. Why would Tara single out this author in particular? Maybe they know each other. Or maybe they're the same person.\
488\
489Oh, and he [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7440545/1/My_Immortal_The_Truth confessed]]. Not that this means very much around these parts, given the mythos behind the fic. But food for thought.
490
491[[WMG: Tara is Website/{{Twitter}} user "Alphys".]]
492Alphys came forward in 2017 claiming in an open letter on Twitter to be the writer of ''My Immortal''. Granted, she ended it, "P.S., [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} Undyne]] is my wife, HAHAHA, SUCK IT HATERS." But that could mean anything in this context.
493
494[[WMG: Tara is these two other guys.]]
495Specifically, the guys who confessed [[http://ohinternet.com/My_Immortal/TheBatMan%27s_confession here]].\
496\
497Okay, we better stop. If we started giving credence to ''every'' sentient being with a keyboard who claimed to be Tara, we'd be here all day. We've got such a wide variety of guesses to get to! Like:
498
499[[WMG: Tara's account was hacked several times, all by people who thought they were the first hacker.]]
500The "hacker" who shows up before Chapter 39 wasn't the first. Nor was the one before him. Nor the one before that.\
501\
502In an astonishing twist of fate, a series of disparate, unrelated Internet trolls looking for something to hijack stumble upon ''My Immortal'' and go to town on it. Each one finds the fic pretty bad, but is inspired to make it worse than before. This is why the fic's degradation over time seems a little uneven and disjointed; it seems to shift stylistically. Eventually, by the time Chapter 39's hacker shows up, the fic has degenerated into such a morass of text-speak, awkward sex, and sloppy time travel that the hacker sees little room for "improvement" and instead decides to announce himself.
503
504[[WMG: A third individual was in on the story.]]
505The person who posted the fic on the blog page after Website/FanFictionDotNet took it down is skilled in the English language, moreso than either Tara or her co-writer Raven. And this person also refers to both of them in the third person, while referring to themself in the first person. Okay, that would make sense if it were just a stranger who wanted to do the world a service (or disservice, depending on how you look at it). But this person also seems to have fairly in-depth knowledge of how the story was written, knowing exactly which parts were co-written by Raven and which weren't -- more knowledge than an average reader could pick up.
506
507[[WMG: Tara is [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Nyarlathotep]].]]
508"She" wrote ''My Immortal'' to screw with human beings and [[ForTheEvulz entertain herself]]. It's quite fitting for an entity that's a BrownNote in and of itself. And the bizarre spelling errors are but a glimpse into the thought process of a being whose own name is TheUnpronounceable.\
509\
510Now, usually a reader would GoMadFromTheRevelation after exposure to a work by ''that'' potent of a being. But this is TV Tropes, and we're made of tougher stuff! We're either [[CrazyIsCool so crazy already it doesn't affect us]], or it's only a matter of ti-''[[MadnessMantra Shub-Niggurath]]!''
511
512[[WMG: Tara is a worshipper of Nyarlathotep.]]
513Not actually the entity itself, but rather one of its devotées. She got the idea to write a TrollFic like this from Nyarlathotep, whose actual ''magnum opus'' is ''The Pokemon Story'' -- much nastier, and thus much more befitting his character.
514
515[[WMG: Tara is [[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya Haruhi]].]]
516Two reasons behind this:
517* It's obligatory for WMG, and
518* ''My Immortal'' fits Haruhi's style. We've seen what happens when she makes a movie: it's disjointed, poorly edited, and has no coherent plot. If she tried to write ''Harry Potter'' fanfiction, it would look a lot like ''My Immortal''. The "goffic" bits come from Haruhi having some contact with the ElegantGothicLolita community and thinking it was so {{moe}}.
519
520[[WMG: Tara is an advertiser for a clothing store competing against Hot Topic]]
521The whole fic is an elaborate mudslinging campaign agaist Hot Topic, designed to make people think their customers are stupid, shallow, and horrendous at spelling and writing in general.
522
523[[WMG: "Tara" is an [[CoolPlane A-10 Thunderbolt.]]]]
524She's not human at all -- she's a fighter jet. "Tara Gilesbie" is actually the pilot's daughter, a twelve-year-old Potterhead whose music tastes include Music/MarilynManson, Music/MyChemicalRomance, and Music/GoodCharlotte. Airman Gilespie had a poor understanding of his daughter's interests, and he did an even poorer job explaining them to his comrades, but this is what the aircraft overheard, and based on this warped perception, it wrote ''My Immortal''.\
525\
526The aircraft knows little about the Potterverse, but it does know a lot about guns, flying, and warfare, and this is reflected in the story. It's why the story has such a fascination with guns, which normally don't exist in the Potterverse, and which appear capable of holding [[MoreDakka a gazillion bullets]] that [[FiveRoundsRapid can be sprayed rapidly]] -- the aircraft projected its [[{{BFG}} GAU-8 Avenger]] into the story. It also subconsciously found ways to project flying things into the fic, such as Draco's flying car and the broomsticks [=TaEnony=] and Draako [[AssPull pull out of their asses]] to flee Volxemprxt's lair. The sex scenes are actually referring to refueling, which the aircraft clearly enjoys -- especially when it happens in midair, which is pretty cool.\
527\
528The characterization comes from the aircraft's limited understanding of its pilot's family and comrades. Ebony's depression mirrors the real Tara's -- her dad was half a world away and might never come back. She might have had bipolar disorder, and her dad would probably have worried a lot about how that would affect her perception of his deployment. "Raven", meanwhile, was someone deployed with Airman Gilespie, possibly even a superior officer, with whom the pilot had a falling out.\
529\
530The story has a depressing ending -- poor Airman Gilespie was killed in action, shot down somewhere over the Middle East. He was based in Dubai, in the relative safety of the UsefulNotes/UnitedArabEmirates, but one fateful morning, he was sent on a mission. The warplane, [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere raring for action]], was super excited, as was reflected in the last chapter's Author's Note ("ofmy im leeving dubya pretty soon kant wait!!! Diz wil prolly be da last chaptah until I kum bak.") Neither pilot nor plane survived the mission, and that's why the fic ended when it did.
531
532[[WMG: English isn't her first language.]]
533Simple. There's another WMG on this page suggesting she's German. Or she could be Turkish, as befits the WMG suggesting a shared universe with ''[[Film/TheManWhoSavesTheWorld Turkish Star Wars]]''. Whatever the case, she has no formal training in English and has to learn the language phonetically, leading to her persistently horrendous spelling of even basic words like "the".
534
535[[WMG: Tara is actually Valeria Lukyanova.]]
536Valeria used to be an edgy goth, and in the beginning of her interview video with Vice she mentions Tara to be one of her spiritual names. Combine that with the fact that she believes in magic and struggles a bit with the English language, and you're got a good candidate for the true identity of Tara.
537
538[[WMG: Raven/Jenny was the hacker.]]
539As a friend and the editor, she would have access to Tara's computer (and files) and would probably know the password, or at least where to find it. It is possible that Tara was even signed into FF.net at the time (it does have a "stay logged in for three days" option), so Raven/Jenny would just need access to the computer.
540
541[[WMG: Tara is friends with Cori Falls.]]
542Just take a look at their writing styles. Okay, Cori's grammar and spelling are way better than Tara's, but that's not a matter of style, just execution.
543
544[[WMG: The ''My Immortal'' rehost site was created by Tara.]]
545This theory assumes Tara is a troll. After her story got deleted from Fanfiction.net, she rehosted it herself, pretending to be one of her own lulz-loving "fans". The site even includes a link to a petition to get ''My Immortal'' put back on Fanfiction.net for crying out loud.
546
547[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' was written by either [=Megami33=] or [=KrisRix=]. Maybe both.]]
548Tara comes off as a sort of proto-Abridged!Raye from ''WebVideo/SailorMoonAbridged''. She hasn't perfected the NoIndoorVoice yet, but is taking steps towards "MUST! PRAY! TO! SATAAAAN!" and has perfected the love of pain and violence. And Ebony's black-waist length hair (which Sailor Mars/Hino Rei/Raye has in canon) is tinted with purple and red -- the colors of Sailor Mars' fuku.
549
550[[WMG: Tara is Kara from the ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain Spock's Brain]]".]]
551Yes, the woman who gave us the famous line, "Brain and brain, what is brain?!"\
552\
553Kara saw the first four ''Harry Potter'' films through [[AliensStealCable television signals picked up by the Eymorg]]. Only the first four movies had reached Sigma Draconis VI by 2268, which is why Kara thinks the fifth movie is about to come out. But she was impatient and started writing anyway, despite being vaguely aware that the transmissions are technically adaptations of an underlying work (to which she doesn't have access). Her spelling is as bad as her prose, and she can't even spell her own name correctly (or consistently), leading us to assume it's "Tara".\
554\
555"Raven" is the person whose brain formed the original Controller. Exposure to ''My Immortal'' was what caused the original Controller to be "finished". When Kara absorbed knowledge from the Teacher to get Spock's brain, she happened to be logged into her fanfiction account. After retrieving the brain, she went to her computer, but she was confused by what she saw because she remembered the story being brilliant and this clearly... wasn't. She concluded that she must have hacked into someone else's account and wrote the hacker chapter. After the knowledge faded from her brain, she went back in without remembering having written the hacker chapter, and she continued writing as normal. ''My Immortal'' ended shortly thereafter when Captain Kirk forced them to abandon the Eymorg complex.
556
557[[WMG: Tara is Lil' K, a.k.a. [-LILSHOWSTOPPA-] from the infamous Website/YouTube video "[-ME TELLIN YOU MOTHA FUCKERS OFF-]"]]
558Outwardly, Tara was a white "gangstuh" who thought she was PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy. But inwardly, she had a secret desire to be "goffic". She knew her fellow "gangstuhs" would leave her in disgust if they found out, but Tara nurtured that secret love as best she could -- poorly, because internalizing it prevented her from interacting with actual Goths, leading to her superficial knowledge of the culture. One thing never changed, though -- her horrible vocabulary and her strong tendency to curse out and threaten her critics.\
559\
560The only one to whom she could open up was a friend in the same situation, Jenny a.k.a. "Raven", with whom she would have secret parties where they Goffed it up and worshipped Gerard Way. One day, they thought up the idea of combining two of their secret "vices", leading to the creation of a ''Harry Potter'' fanfic with a "goffik" protagonist. Tara started getting more and more into it, and Raven, still wary about what their "gangstuh" circle might say, stopped editing the work and eventually had a falling-out with Tara.\
561\
562Note the circumstantial evidence that [-LILSHOWSTOPPA-] posted her video in February 2007, while ''My Immortal'' was still being published, and both Tara and [-LILSHOWSTOPPA-] stopped verifiably updating around the same time. Perhaps Tara's experience with the "hacker" led her to swear off the Internet entirely. Note also a piece of "gangstuh" culture leaking into ''My Immortal'', what with Hagrid suddenly appearing "singing to the tune of a gothic version of a song by Music/FiftyCent."\
563\
564Oh, but wait, you say, Tara's a troll. Well, then so's [-LILSHOWSTOPPA-]. And they're the same troll.
565
566[[WMG: Tara's account was run by someone on Website/FanFictionDotNet's staff.]]
567Someone working at the website was tired of reading through all the bad SlashFic, RougeAnglesOfSatin, [[StrawNihilist emo wannabes]], and endless {{Lemon}}s. They decided to write a StealthParody to beat the badfic authors at their own game. There's some evidence that ''My Immortal'' had some protection of some sort -- it survived the huge number of reports it got, but its many imitators were zapped on sight. The hacked chapter, with its reference to "Fanfiction.net Hell", was even a dig at all the deleted imitators. But in the end, [=FF.net=] realized [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone what they unleashed upon the world]] and did a large-scale purge of ''My Immortal'' and everything like it.
568
569[[WMG: The editor is to blame.]]
570Tara is actually a brilliant author who wrote a {{Fanfic}} that was the epitome of SugarWiki/SoCoolItsAwesome. Her editor hijacked the brilliant fanfic and turned it into the parody we're reading now. For some reason. Probably [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]].
571
572%%ROCEJ would say to hold off on this one[[WMG: Tara is somehow related to CWC, creator of Webcomic/{{Sonichu}}]]
573%%* The similarities are... uncanny.
574%%** Or its written by the man himself. He takes a female identity [[ArmouredClosetGay to hide the fact he's gay or bi.]] Likely bi, because Tara fancies girls. Ebony is one of the biggest Mary Sues in the universe, but not a PuritySue. At the same time, Chris has an AuthorAvatar who reeks in Mary Sueness, [[DesignatedHero but at the same time]] is a [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered egotist]] [[DisproportionateRetribution who'll kill you even if wronged a little.]] Clearly, Chris found a Twilight book, tried his hand in writing it, [[SoBadItsGood and failed hilariously.]] If this is true, it means:
575%%*** a) Chris is the biggest, most dedicated troll on Earth, and everyone is in on it.
576%%*** b) Chris has a range of talent, from SoBadItsGood to BileFascination. He's just really, ''really'' bad at writing Sonic and Pokemon fanfics.
577%%*** c) Chris miracolously managed to write something SoBadItsGood, instead of his usual trash.
578%%*** d) Chris created Tara as one of his dream girls/future wives (he creates this type of character a lot) and My Immortal is a story within a story inside Sonichu, created to needlessly pad out Tara's character.
579%%*** e) SoBadItsGood is an evolved form of BileFascination. After all, Sonichu is so awful you can't help but look away. Fanfic/MyImmortal is so bad, it forces you to enjoy it.
580%%* The troll who hacked My Immortal is Clyde Cash, evil overlord of the internet and Chris's sworn enemy.
581
582[[WMG: Tara and Jenny (assuming they are not fictional) come from relatively rich families.]]
583How else would they be able to go on these vacations to England and Transylvania?
584
585[[WMG: Tara is [[Literature/{{Molesworth}} nigel molesworths]] cousin.]]
586...as any fule kno.
587
588[[WMG: Tara was mentally disabled.]]
589She had some kind of condition which affected her ability to read and write, and she was bullied in school because of it. So she turned away from the world and went "goffik", with Raven being one of her only friends. She and Raven fought and made up but eventually drifted apart for good, and an increasingly lonely Tara's depression spiralled until she was DrivenToSuicide.
590
591[[WMG: Tara wants to be "goff" because it's sexy.]]
592As has been hashed out elsewhere, she has a very superficial understanding of genuine Goth culture. While other guesses on this page have suggested other reasons for her to be... well, a poser, this one posits that it's all about sex appeal. She just thinks it's cute. And she's hoping a cute guy will notice and fall in love with her, like all the characters in ''My Immortal'' fall in love with Enony.
593
594[[WMG: Tara is a young teenager who will one day become an accomplished writer.]]
595Her career arc will kinda mirror that of Creator/JaneAusten, who wrote her first book when she was fourteen -- case in point, it was called ''Literature/LoveAndFreindship'' (''sic''). While it wasn't ''great'' by any standard, it did show signs of what Austen would later be famous for in her acclaimed works. And interestingly, ''Love and Freindship'' was actually a ''parody'', skewering many of the common tropes of literature of the time.\
596\
597Tara's the same way. In this case, she's attempting to parody the hallmarks of ''her'' era's writing -- which includes FanFiction. Indeed, several works of popular literature since ''My Immortal'' started life as a fan work of some sort. This is how Tara can straddle the gap between "TrollFic" and "earnest effort"; she ''is'' making silly mistakes borne out of her youth and inexperience, including her disdain for grammar and spelling and her complete inability to write a comprehensible plot, but she's also quite adept at picking out all the things that fanfic writers were into -- DarkerAndEdgier, subcultures, {{Shipping}}, HoYay -- and turning them into a farce.
598
599[[WMG: Tara is a USUK shipper.]]
600Some of her author's notes have her randomly yelling "USUK!!!!!1" Most people parse that as telling her critics that they suck. But it's actually parsed as "US[=/=]UK" -- she ships America and England in ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers''. It makes sense because ''(a)'' she explicitly finds gay guys hot and isn't shy about HoYay, hence ''My Immortal'' itself including a past relationship between Draco and Vampire; ''(b)'' she's shown some affinity for Japanese culture (even if on a superficial level); and ''(c)'' she's the type who would throw out random and unprovoked shouts of support for her preferred ship.
601
602[[WMG: Tara is Creator/TaraStrong, suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder.]]
603She's a [[ManOfAThousandVoices Woman of a Thousand Voices]], but perhaps a thousand was one voice too many. We saw some warning signs that she was getting LostInCharacter, such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tinq3ip85g this clip]]. We also saw her inject herself into odd {{Shipping}} wars on Website/{{Twitter}}. But she's got enough of a grasp on reality that ''My Immortal'' is still a TrollFic, a work designed to express the insanity that comes from having to remember which [[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents ten-year-]][[WesternAnimation/{{Ben10}} old boy]] she's supposed to be portraying that week.\
604\
605The other "characters" in the fic's saga are therefore also Tara. "Raven" is a heavily {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed version of the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' character of the same name, and the "hacker" is [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries Batgirl]]. Tara and Raven are trying to bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt c/o "Trigon", and Batgirl is trying to stop them and save the world from the insanity. She evidently succeeded, given that the fic never actually finished.
606
607[[WMG: Tara was in love with Raven.]]
608Tara is obviously familiar with ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', since she referenced it at one point. Tara wrote Raven into My Immortal under the name of "Willow". On ''Buffy'', what kind of relationship did Tara have with Willow? That's right, they were dating.
609
610[[WMG: Tara is [[{{Literature/Worm}} the Simurgh]]]]
611After all, GenreSavvy ''Worm'' readers can tell you two rules: Never underestimate [[TheChessmaster the Simurgh]], and [[UnwinnableByDesign you are underestimating the Simurgh]]. We know [[EldritchAbomination the Simurgh]] wants to cause conflict. So, it left a BrownNote perfectly designed to cause chaos, conflict, and destruction, that would persist and take effect independantly of its source, and could be promulgated across all worlds. The initial results ([[spoiler:[[FaceHeelTurn Scion's rampage and death]]]]) were so impressive that the Simurgh did the work to create a piece of Tinker Tech that spread the story across the Internet across every reality.
612
613[[WMG: Tara was a mentally-ill teenager who is now dead.]]
614It's a grim theory, but here goes:\
615\
616Tara really was serious about ''My Immortal''. She really did fancy herself a "goth". She really believed that the story was not only great, but also as deep and serious as the problems she was facing. Her account really was hacked. And she really was cutting herself, which really did lead to her hospitalization.\
617\
618Unfortunately, Tara couldn't handle the fic's negative reception, and she started cutting herself more, hoping to emotionally blackmail the readers into telling her the fic was great. It led her mental health into a downward spiral -- the more she got depressed, the more the fic suffered, the more people mocked it, and the more depressed she got. The constant blood loss certainly didn't help, especially with the attention to detail she needed to give the fic something resembling coherent spelling, grammar, and characterization.\
619\
620The fic ended because Tara eventually didn't survive her downward spiral. She might have [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]], or she might just have fatally harmed herself (not caring whether you live or die isn't much different from killing yourself outright). She may or may not have gone to England, and she may or may not have done something dangerous in an unfamiliar place, but the poor girl wound up dead.
621
622[[WMG: Tara Gilesbie is actually [[Franchise/SilentHill Alessa Gillespie]].]]
623...and ''My Immortal'' is her way of punishing the world for its sins.
624
625[[WMG: Whoever Tara is, we'll never find out.]]
626It works with both possibilities. If Tara was an earnest writer, she's grown up since then and she'll never own up to it. If Tara was a troll, everybody's lost interest by now. After all, it's been more than a decade since the last update -- if you're Tara, either you're a grown woman reviving your OldShame, or [[{{GIRL}} a grown man]] reviving an old joke. You can't win either way. The password to the original FF.net profile may not even exist anymore.\
627\
628This goes in conjunction with the next theory:
629
630[[WMG: Whoever claims to be Tara is lying.]]
631We've already seen several mutually exclusive claimants to the role of "Tara Gilespie", some of which are even listed as guesses on this page. Given the strong disincentive for the ''real'' Tara to make herself known after all these years -- and Tara's accounts known susceptibility to hackers -- it's more likely than not that anyone who claims to be Tara is not Tara.
632
633[[WMG: Tara stopped writing ''My Immortal'' to go focus on ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''.]]
634''My Immortal'' and ''Twilight'' have a lot in common, what with themes of darkness, vampires, a brooding boyfriend meeting a teenage EscapistCharacter and falling head over heels in love with her, and SoBadItsGood execution. ''Twilight'' is not mentioned in ''My Immortal'' and is almost conspicuous in its absence, what with all the {{Shout Out}}s Tara throws at her other favorite works, but there's a simple reason for that -- ''Twilight'' hadn't been published when ''My Immortal'' was written. (At least, if you look at time linearly -- this is WMG, after all.) Tara is exactly the type to have loved ''Twilight'' once it came out, and indeed when that happened, she lost interest in ''My Immortal'' and started getting her WishFulfillment from the better executed (relatively speaking) ''Twilight''.
635
636[[WMG: "Suzi" was a troll.]]
637At the beginning of Chapter 35 -- the one where "Morty [=McFli=]" shows up -- Tara thanks someone named "Suzi" for an idea. Except "Suzi" is not one to be trusted; she's a troll. And her idea was the insertion of Marty [=McFly=]. The evidence thereof is that the extent of Tara's familiarity with ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' is that Marty exists and he has a "tim machine", which in ''My Immortal'' is not called a [=DeLorean=] or even described as a car, instead being something that fits in your pocket.
638
639[[WMG: Tara wrote ''My Immortal'' [[ArtisticStimulation while high]].]]
640It solves the obvious problem -- you'd have to be high on something to write something like ''My Immortal''. But it also explains the bizarre line, "I TOOOK OUT A CIGARETE END STARTED TO smoke pot," with the weird capitalization. Tara, being TheStoner, considers smoking tobacco more alarming than smoking cannabis, which is why the "[[RougeAnglesOfSatin cigarete]]" is in all-caps and the "smoke pot" is not. (One can also think of it as a signal that Evony is ''also'' a stoner who calms down the minute she takes a puff.)
641
642[[WMG: Tara is the daughter of [[Literature/TheEyeOfArgon Jim Theis]].]]
643A juvenile amateur "writer" creates the most infamous fic of the genre and of the generation, starring a [[ReallyGetsAround slutty]] and [[DesignatedHero violent unsympathetic protagonist]] and featuring [[FetishRetardant gratitious bad sex scenes]], many malapropisms amd word crimes, [[PurpleProse excessive focus on irrelevant details]], and [[{{Stripperiffic}} skimpy]] [[WTHCostumingDepartment outfits]]? [[GenerationXerox Like father, like daughter]]!
644
645[[WMG: Tara is a former friend of Creator/JKRowling who helped her write the ''Harry Potter'' books.]]
646It's related to the above WMG that Tara was the inspiration for Gilderoy Lockhart -- she knew Rowling, and that's how she could guess elements of then-unreleased books like Harry being the seventh Horcrux. In this case, Tara was upset that Rowling never gave her due credit for her work, so she decided to get revenge by writing a horrible ''Harry Potter'' fanfiction (and at the same time decry Rowling for being a "hamophobe" years before the greater Internet started calling her a transphobe).
647
648[[WMG: Tara is from the Caucasus region.]]
649Two misspellings of "Azkaban" in ''My Immortal'' are "Azerbaijan" and "Abkhazia", both of which are in the Caucasus region and neither of which are things your [[{{Eagleland}} typical American]] are likely to know about.
650
651[[WMG: Tara is [[GodwinsLaw Adolf Hitler]], resurrected as a demon.]]
652After decades of torture in Hell, Hitler succumbed to Satan's will and pledged allegiance to him. Satan, though, was equally impressed with Hitler's immense evil and resurrected him as an Archdemon. Hitler returned to Earth with newfound powers he picked up in Hell, including knowledge of ''My Immortal'', a book of high art that [[DrivenToMadness drives readers insane]] (thus proving itself quite useful as an implement for torturing the damned). Hitler was given the mission to translate ''My Immortal'' into English -- it wouldn't be quite as potent as it is in its original BlackSpeech, but it would give a nice preview to the sinners on Earth of what awaits them in Hell. \
653\
654Hitler was chosen because he was the best equipped to do it, being the only Archdemon of human origin and thus the most familiar with human subcultures. However, that's just relative to his fellow demons -- after all, he chose as his vessel a Goff-obsessed teenage girl named Tara. Filtered through her perception, the translated ''My Immortal'' came out as a poorly written ''Harry Potter'' fanfic. (Some of the poor writing might have been Hitler himself, though; if ''Literature/MeinKampf'' is any indication, he was never a writer so much as a [[AuthorTract ranter]].) He was assisted by "Raven", here possessed by Hitler's real-life deputy Rudolf Hess, thus making Hess the first GrammarNazi in the world. Hitler and Hess had a falling out at one point, as Hess had some unfinished business in Scotland he wanted to take care of.\
655\
656All this is [[IncrediblyLamePun Führer]] supported by "Das Nitemare b4 Xmas", which would be as grammatically correct in German as the rest of the story is in English.
657
658[[WMG: My Immortal is a religious text from the far future.]]
659Thousands of years AfterTheEnd, the residents of a post-apocalyptic Dubai, whose name had been corrupted to "Dubya", discovered several damaged copies of the ''Harry Potter'' books and an as-yet unwritten Gothic young-adult UrbanFantasy series. Tara, the expedition's leader, took the books to a prophet named Raven, who interpreted them as messages from the Umarkans and Imratis, the gods of the Goffs, a tribe who inhabit Dubya. Raven ordered Tara to transcribe them into Dubyan, in which they became religious screeds in which the Goffs triumph over their oppressors, the Prep tribe.\
660\
661Years after that, after a religious war or two, the Goffs come out on top and attribute their victory in part to their holy text. They seek to translate it into other languages, including English -- or rather what's left of it in the far future. The English translation therefore became a garbled NuSpelling mishmash of Goffic religious literature and a RecursiveTranslation of the ''Harry Potter'' books. Even then, the translation from Dubyan hit some snags, particularly with respect to a chapter inserted by a "hacker" who was actually a Prep spy, seeking revenge for the destruction of his own clan.\
662\
663Tara, meanwhile, was a participant in the battle against the Preps. The English translation includes her last update, in which she expresses her excitement at leaving Dubya -- she's going to fight a holy war. She was tragically killed but became a religious martyr.
664
665[[WMG: Tara is a secret fan of Music/HilaryDuff.]]
666She's either a troll, or she's so insecure and desperate for validation from her Goth friends that her writing is ''particularly'' vitriolic toward Duff. But her true feelings leak out occasionally, such as a reference at one point to a scene from Duff's film ''Film/ACinderellaStory'' which she compares positively to her relationship with Draco.
667
668[[WMG: Tara is a prep who based Ebony on an annoying emo girl from her school.]]
669Tara is your average, well-adjusted teenage girl from the mid-2000s whose tastes are what you'd expect: Aeropostale, Creator/HilaryDuff, the Creator/{{Disney}} channel, and things with bright colors.\
670\
671She appears to know much more about ''prep'' culture than goff culture. The goffs all behave like stereotypes, suggesting a very superficial knowledge of the culture. Meanwhile, she demonstrates knowledge of prep culture like ''A Cinderella Story'' (see the above guess) and rattles off a list of prep stores.\
672\
673Tara and Raven were bullied in school by the emo kids for being "preppy". One particularly annoying bully was obsessed with Gerard Way and ''Franchise/HarryPotter''. The pair tried to get back at them in a very nerdy way: writing on Website/FanfictionDotNet pretending to be their bullies. They didn't know the difference between "emo" and "goth" (and didn't particularly care); they just wanted to make them look stupid, hence the atrocious spelling and grammar. They responded to negative reviews by doubling down on exactly what the reviewers said was bad, thinking it would make their bullies look worse. Raven started to feel bad about pretending to be someone else on the Internet, but Tara wanted to keep going, hence their falling out. (Or else the "falling out" was a parody of the constant drama they observed among the emo kids.)\
674\
675Indeed, it's one of many theories that bridges the gap between "earnest work" and "TrollFic". There ''are'' mistakes typical of a young and inexperienced writer, but their goal isn't a straight "goffik" story but rather a parody thereof. The illiteracy and bizarre characterization seem to be deliberate, but there's just something about the flow of the story and the bizarre references sneaking through that seem a bit too genuinely "teenage girl" about them.
676
677[[WMG: Tara has UsefulNotes/{{dyslexia}}.]]
678That would explain the consistently inconsistent spelling.
679
680[[WMG: Tara has access either to a dictionary or a malfunctioning spell checker.]]
681Why can't Tara seem to spell "the" but can write longer, obscure words correctly? Maybe she naturally writes with bad spelling and grammar, so she sometimes checks the dictionary to corrects some words that Raven can't understand herself. The ''Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus'' lists "ebony" and "raven", in that order, as synonyms for "jet" (as in jet-black), which means it's quite possible that she read it at least once. Or maybe Tara uses a spellchecker that for some reason can't understand phonetic spelling but tries to interpret the stranger words, hence the random obscure words.
682
683[[/folder]]
684
685[[folder:Ebony]]
686
687[[WMG: Ebony is aware she's a bad person.]]
688Most readers assume that Ebony comes off as a bad person because of Tara's poor writing skills. But there's a strong case to be made that Tara was intentionally writing an AntiHero -- someone who revels in TheDarkSide of sex, drugs, violence, and Satanism, but who still sees Voldemort as [[EvenEvilHasStandards a threat to Wizarding society]] and fights against him. Enoby does all this while strongly differentiating herself from the preps -- she associates niceness with preppiness and is proud to ''not'' be a nice person, and "gofficness" is shown to be about more than just heavy eyeliner and emo music -- it's about embracing one's negative personality traits and depression.
689
690[[WMG: Ebony lives in the canonical ''Harry Potter'' universe.]]
691Her real name is Demi Ravenwood, she's in Slytherin, and she's a depressive, anti-social, reclusive student who creates vivid fantasy worlds to cope with her loneliness. She never actually interacts with Harry or figures into his adventures, which is why the books don't mention her.
692
693[[WMG: Ebony is a succubus.]]
694She's a demon, and a wizard on top of it, which gives her strong magical powers. She has her own way of perceiving the world around her, which combined with her powers make her appear frightening and demonic. She can twist people's personalities and bring people back from the dead. And she does ''everything'' "sexily". Think Sabine from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''.
695
696[[WMG: Ebony is a poser!!!!11112]]
697Dumbledore listens to an Music/{{NSYNC}} song on her "tim machine" iPod. Now how did that get there...?
698
699[[WMG: Ebony is into UsefulNotes/{{BDSM}}.]]
700When Ebony says that she's a sadist, she means the "sado-" part of "sadomasochism" -- she's a wannabe dominatrix. Emphasis on the "wannabe" -- she's a shallow idiot who understands BDSM about as well as she understands being gothic. She doesn't understand that a BDSM-type sadist isn't an ''actual'' sadist -- they only pretend to be one when they have sex. This is why she's capable of feeling sorry for Voldemort despite being a "sadist". She's also never really ''had'' BDSM sex, because none of her sexual partners (Draco, Vampire, ''et al'') are into it, and she just wants to be a part of the subculture -- she's perfectly capable of sexual satisfaction with just "vanilla" sex.
701
702[[WMG: ''My Immortal'' is the ApocalypticLog of a teenage girl slowly going crazy.]]
703As the story goes on, she makes less and less sense; entire paragraphs are placed before the events they describe are happening. The already bad grammar continues to go downhill as she writes, ending up as a garbled mess. "Raven" is just a figment of her imagination, or else another side to her personality who has much better grammar and spelling. The hacker's chapter was the last straw and was what she thought happened when she truly cracked.
704
705[[WMG: Ebony was created when Willow tried to take all the darkness out of the hearts of the ''Harry Potter'' cast.]]
706Willow was a Ravenclaw who was plenty clever but had zero common sense. She was a bit detached from other people, but she genuinely wanted the best for everyone. With the threat of Voldemort looming over the school, she thought she could help by extracting the darkness out of everyone's hearts.\
707\
708She was able to devise a spell that would do it and channel it into a doll she had. But she underestimated its potency, and the darkness took on a life of its own, becoming Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. Ebony had the ability to [[TheCorruption turn people to evil]] (and "goffickness"). Most students succumbed to this ability, but some seriously strong-willed students were able to resist -- they became the "preps", whom Ebony despised for not bending to her will. Ebony's twisted viewpoint causes her to see the "preps" and "posers" as committing unspeakable deeds, when in reality, they're frantically trying to kill Ebory and redeem the canon characters.\
709\
710Willow herself was the first victim of her creation, becoming almost completely corrupted to the point of having no will of her own. But she does have her moments of lucidity -- for instance, in Chapter 38, when she tries her hardest to redo canon, but because she couldn't resist the urge to ship the very non-canon Draco/Hermione, her spell fell apart. Enony alternates between liking her (as her creator) and hating her for her attempts to resist. In the end, Willow musters just enough willpower, when Evony is fighting Voldemort, to undo her spell and end the story.
711
712[[WMG: Ebony is Peeves.]]
713Peeves is a spirit of chaos, and chaos makes him stronger. During Snape's tenure as headmaster, Peeves grew more powerful by feeding on the general chaos at Hogwarts, including the rebellious spirits of Dumbledore's Army. Shortly after the events of ''Deathly Hallows'', Peeves reaches [[RealityWarper Reality Warping]] levels of power, and under the guise of Ebony, he sets into motion the events of ''My Immortal''. The "preps" are the particularly strong-willed students who are fighting Peeves' mind control.
714
715[[WMG: ''Enoby'' wrote ''Fanfic/MyImmortal''.]]
716''My Immortal'' is non-fiction. Hogwarts is really like that.\
717\
718No brain damage, no mind control, no alternate universes. Hogwarts is a scarily bizarre, depressing, hormonal place. ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' as you knew it is ruined forever. (Sorry.)
719
720[[WMG: Ebony killed herself at the end.]]
721All we know is that she shouted "ABRA KEDABRA" -- the text doesn't specify what she was pointing at. She was actually pointing her wand at herself. That's why the story cuts off so abruptly -- the narrator died at that point.\
722\
723Now, it remains a matter of debate whether she did that on purpose. She easily could have, what with her history of self-harm and suicidal ideation. Or she was just so confused (from drug use, or perhaps blood loss from all the cutting) that her wand was just facing the wrong way.\
724\
725It also remains a matter of debate whether she could ''actually'' be killed by the Killing Curse, given that Enoby specifies that the only things that could kill her are a [[HolyBurnsEvil cross]] or a [[RougeAnglesOfSatin steak]]. Then again, the canonical Killing Curse is ''Avada Kedavra'', and she said "''Abra Kedavra''", which could be a different curse -- which conjures [[FoodBasedSuperpowers steaks]]. ([[Memes/TheSimpsons Mmm... steak...]])
726
727[[WMG: Ebony is bisexual.]]
728She won't admit it herself, but she describes her female friends about the same way as she does her male ones -- quite leeringly, such as her mention of Willow's "really big bobs".
729
730[[WMG: Ebony is the AlphaBitch.]]
731Everyone here says so, so it would make an official theory. Here's how she measures up to [[Film/MeanGirls Rosalind Wiseman's]] newest "Queen Bee" criteria:
732* ''Her friends do what she wants to do:'' Check.
733* ''She isn't intimidated by other girls in her class:'' Absolutely.
734* ''She compains about other people copying her, never leaving her alone, or being too sensitive:'' Ebony frequently complains about others "tring 2 be b goffik" and whines about never being left alone. She doesn't complain about anyone being too sensitive, but that's mostly because she doesn't even try to hide her contempt for her targets.
735* ''When she's hanging out in a group, she's in the center. When she moves, they follow:'' Ebony is the center of the story. If you removed her, none of the other characters would bother to do anything.
736* ''She can argue anyone down, including friends, peers, teachers, and parents:'' Of course. She breaks school rules on a constant basis. She never wears the uniform, she's incredibly foul-mouthed, she does drugs, and she [[MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces has sex with other students all over the school]]. And she never faces consequences for any of that. She doesn't even have to beg; she usually just yells at them.
737* ''She can make another girl feel "anointed" by declaring her a special friend:'' Probably. She certainly thinks she can, trying to redeem [[BigBad Voldemort]] by [[SexFaceTurn making him "special" to her]].
738* ''She's strategically affectionate -- for example, she sees two girls in her group, one she's pleased with and one she isn't. When she sees them, she'll throw her arms around one and insist that they sit together and barely say anything to the other:'' Ebony's friends are all clones of her, and she's rarely displeased with them. But when she falls out with them, like with Willow, they may as well not exist. She finds out second-hand from Hermione that Willow died ([[UnexplainedRecovery not that it stuck]]) and got [[ILoveTheDead violated by Loopin]].
739* ''She won't take responsiblity when she hurts someone's feelings:'' Absolutely. Draco may have killed himself (it's not clear) from lack of attention from Egogy, but she never thinks about how she may have treated him.
740* ''If she thinks she's been wronged, she feels she has the right to seek revenge and will do so:'' Ebony ''tortures and murders'' people over perceived slights.
741So in spite of all the vitriol Evony spews at "preps" and "posers" -- the kind of people who would, in a sane work, be the AlphaBitch -- she fits the profile better than anyone else.
742
743[[WMG: The bad grammar and spelling are a metaphor for Ebory's mind.]]
744When you look at everything Enony goes through, it would be hard for even a normal person to keep it together. Her boyfriend tries to kill himself and gets captured. Her friend dies and someone has sex with her corpse. Two of her ''teachers'' film her naked. The BigBad essentially tells her "kill your friend or I kill your boyfriend." She's suffering from SanitySlippage, and the worse her grip is on reality, the worse her spelling and grammar are.
745
746[[WMG:Ebony is a [[WMG/TimeLord Time Lord]].]]
747Not only is it [[WMG/TimeLord obligatory]], it actually makes some sense:
748* She can TimeTravel, and has some knowledge of the future, but this leads to the occasional AnachronismStew as the TimeyWimeyBall struggles to keep up.
749* She has PsychicPowers, such as telekinesis, [[RougeAnglesOfSatin telepathetic massages]], and visions. She's a {{Telepathic Spacem|en}}an.
750* She has [[RummageSaleReject terrible taste in fashion]], but [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight no one seems to notice]], even though most of her outfits are highly inappropriate.
751* She can carry [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture the DeLorean]] around with her because [[BagOfHolding her pockets]] are BiggerOnTheInside.
752* Draco kills himself but [[UnexplainedRecovery inexplicably recovers]] because Eonby lent her one of her [[EmergencyTransformation regenerations]]. Regeneration can also explain why so many male characters resemble [[TextualCelebrityResemblance different "goff" celebrities]] at various parts, as well as Tom Satan Bombodil transforming into Volxemort.
753
754[[WMG:Ebony's a lonely Yandere.]]
755She's uber-upset when Draco tells her no one understands him. She thought ''she'' did, and she surmised he was as lonely as she was. But when she realizes that they aren't as close as she thought, she freaks out. Throughout the story, she desperately seeks comfort from her friends, and without them she's scared and lonely. Notice how she talks most about committing suicide when others around her appear to have abandoned her, like when Draco commits suicide or [[spoiler:did it with Snap]].\
756\
757Her "goffic" nature is a coping mechanism -- she thinks her brooding will make her cool and give her friends, but it also makes her feel courageous and strong. ''My Immortal'' isn't about a spoiled goth princess MarySue; it's a {{deconstruction}} of a lonely girl who deals with intense pressure by being goth.
758
759[[WMG: Ebony, and every other goff, is under the influence of magic or drugs designed to make them into Death Eaters.]]
760Voldemort builds his ranks of Death Eaters not from genuine loyalty, but from brainwashing -- and "gofficness" is how those Death Eaters perceive the world around them. The magic makes its victims see everything in [[BlackAndWhiteMorality black and white]], but this is so unnatural that their brains are forced to rationalize it in terms of [[BlueAndOrangeMorality "goff" and "prep" school cliques]]. This makes the Death Eaters not only easy for Voldemort to control, but also very difficult to reason with.\
761\
762''My Immortal'' is the story of one victim, a particularly strong-willed Hogwarts student. She tries to fight off the twisted influences, and to some degree she's successful -- she does think in terms of "goff" and "prep", but she manages to associate Voldemort with preppiness. She looks for similarly strong-willed students, like Harry Potter, and befriends them as a means of fighting back. Her and Harry's efforts are able to tip off Dumbledore to Voldemort's brainwashing. Dumbledore tries to fight back by associating himself with "goffness" (and thus goodness), doing things like painting the Great Hall black and drawing attention to the fact that no one's wearing robes with pop singers on them. Snape is also able to resist; he pretends to be under the influence of Voldemort's mind control but secretly works with Dumbledore.\
763\
764But in spite of Dumbledore's best efforts, Ebony is driven further into madness. She starts hallucinating the same events repeatedly, even hallucinating Voldemort's friendship. But she still has the faintest of grips on reality. Snape is helping out, and she can see that Snape's submission to Voldemort is not genuine; that's why she sees Snape as a "poser". In her final confrontation with Voldemort, Ebony gathers her last threads of HeroicWillpower. For a brief moment, she can see what must be done, and she fires a killing curse at her captor, just before the goffness fully consumes her soul. The story ends there -- with Ebony Way, in a HeroicSacrifice, saving us all.\
765\
766Alternatively, this can be combined with another WMG that the final chapter of ''My Immortal'' will redeem the story. That final chapter will describe Ebony's recovery from her goff-sickness and her [[OnceMoreWithClarity newfound understanding of her ordeal]].
767
768[[WMG: Ebony and friends have a HiveMind.]]
769When Egogy and Draco go to Dumbledore for help, they talk in unison and say the same thing. They look, dress, and act the same. They are essentially interchangable with one another. Clearly they acted like their canon selves before [[InexplicablyAwesome Enoby]] showed up. She altered their memories and added them into her [[Franchise/StarWars hive of scum and villainy.]]
770
771[[WMG: Ebony is "good at too many things" in bed.]]
772She has some mind-blowingly awesome sex with Draco, and he's so impressed that he tells everyone he knows. Naturally, this makes her an object of widespread sexual desire. Hargrid, Vampire, and Snaketail (to name a few) all lust after her despite not having actually talked to her before. Anyone who can score with her finds out for themselves that yes, she's pretty freaky in bed. Good thing she's ''real'' easy -- everyone can get a piece of the action. Voldemort, however, misconstrues her "talent with a [[DoubleEntendre wand]]" and tasks her with killing Draco.
773
774[[WMG: Ebony is an average Hogwarts student who's disillusioned with her life.]]
775''Fanfic/MyImmortal'' is Ebony's fantasy of what she ''wishes'' Hogwarts could be. Being a HormoneAddledTeenager, much of her fantasy is sexual. Her crushes range from her fellow students to various Muggle celebrity musicians. She keeps to herself, and other students pick on her, like Britney. She may have been bitten by a vampire and struggling to cope with it, or she may ''wish'' she was bitten by a vampire so that people would pay attention to her.\
776\
777The time period is a matter of debate. She could be a contemporary of Harry Potter, obviously starstruck by such a high-profile figure. But she's in Slytherin, so she sees a lot more of Draco and crushes after him as well (and knows nothing about him and his likely disdain for the Muggle music and culture she likes so much). She's not very assertive; she wishes she were involved in the fight against Voldemort, but she never got into it in earnest until ''Deathly Hallows'', when the Death Eaters bring the fight to her and her fellow students. She may be the "Ebony Raven" who was announced as dead on the radio.\
778\
779Alternatively, she goes to Hogwarts long after Voldemort's fall. She's heard the legend of Harry Potter and his friends, but knows [[BeyondTheImpossible less than nothing about them]] -- not that this stops her from imagining being their contemporary. This would explain why she's a fan of music that doesn't exist in Harry's day.\
780\
781In other words, [[http://harrypotterfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Ebony_Way this]] is the real story.
782
783[[WMG: Ebony and Satan were not watching ''Film/TheExorcist'', but a workout video.]]
784When Ebony and Satan go to see "The Exercise", that is not Tara's misspelling of "Exorcist". There is actually an aerobics video being shown at the Hogsmeade theater, possibly because of some sort of mix-up. It's got a goffik Richard Simmons (now ''there's'' an image), and Ebony and Satan watch it because it seems like the perfect movie to have [[MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces inappropriate public sex]] to.\
785\
786Ebony describes how "a boy and a gurl were doing it sudenly a cereal killer came", which is obviously (hopefully) not something that happens during the workout video, but it's also not something that happens during ''The Exorcist''. Ebony's describing something that actually happened in the theater. Given that Ebony and Satan get naked in public a few paragraphs later and even kill a woman for objecting to their indecent exposure, it makes sense that they wouldn't mind someone else having sex in public ([[ProtagonistCenteredMorality as long as they're not "dumb preps"]]). They're also nonchalant about the other couple getting randomly killed, but they're vampires and who cares. In fact, the "cereal killer" might literally be a ''cereal'' killer who needs blood for his cereal (because no self-respecting vampire would eat it with ''milk''). Ebony and Satan are totally okay with that as long as he doesn't [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking pour it before adding the cereal]].
787
788[[WMG: Ebony has UsefulNotes/BipolarDisorder.]]
789In the manic state, symptoms include:
790* [[AttentionWhore Inflated self esteem]]
791* Lack of self-control, including a HairTriggerTemper
792* Impaired judgment and [[FearlessFool reckless behaviour]]
793* [[MyGirlIsASlut Sexual promiscuity]]
794And in the depressive state, they include:
795* [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny Difficulty concentrating]], [[SelectiveMemory remembering]], or making decisions
796* Feelings of worthlessness
797* Persisent thoughts of death and [[DeathSeeker suicidal thoughts]].
798Given the way ''My Immortal'' is written, it seems like Gofficness is almost synonymous with bipolar disorder, especially given the frequent {{mood swing|er}}s and suicidal ideation.
799
800[[WMG: Ebony is in Azkaban.]]
801''My Immortal'' is the ApocalypticLog of a prisoner slowly going mad, [[RoomFullOfCrazy carving the text into the walls of their cell]]. No one discovered it until ''Deathly Hallows'', when the Dementors were removed from the prison and someone was able to actually concentrate on it.
802
803[[WMG: Ebony is a resident of Ward 49.]]
804It's also known as the Janus Thickey Ward on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's Hospital, and it houses long-term residents whose brains had been permanently affected by magic; canonically, we see Neville's parents and ex-professor Lockhart there. ''My Immortal'' is written by one of the other patients. Given the prominence of Voldemort and his plans for world dominion, Enony, like the Longbottoms, may have been the victim of a Cruciatus Curse used by Voldemort or one of his followers. Chapter 39 is a brief period of lucidity.\
805\
806[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8067803/1/Willow_Charms This fanfic]] posits a similar theory with the patient being in Hogwarts' hospital wing, but ''this'' level of brain damage clearly needs more than a school infirmary can provide -- it requires the best care the Wizarding world has to offer.
807
808[[WMG: Ebony must sleep with Voldemort in order to defeat him.]]
809Because anyone who sleeps with her pretty much becomes her slave.
810
811[[WMG: Ebony and her friends worship Voldemort.]]
812"Satan" is not just a nickname; Voldemort eventually came to be known as Satan and was worshipped. Ebony and her friends don't know that Satan WasOnceAMan, possibly because he cast a spell on his followers to keep tabs on them. Voldemort uses his Satanist followers to do his bidding, and Ebony and her friends are just pawns in his [[TheChessmaster complicated power play]]. That's why Snape was so uncharacteristically freaked out about Hargrid being a goff -- he mistook it for being related to Satan and thought he had fallen under Voldemort's control.
813
814[[WMG: Ebony gained full MediumAwareness over the course of the fic.]]
815That's why the fic ended when it did -- that's when Ebony found out about the other side of the FourthWall. She disappeared from the Internet so as to hide her actions -- actions that will see her cross into our own reality.\
816\
817And when she does, TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou.
818
819[[WMG: Ebony is being tortured by the Death Eaters.]]
820The story takes place during ''Deathly Hallows'', when the Death Eaters have taken over Hogwarts. Ebony is a Slytherin in the same year as Harry. She's a Muggle-born, but she's also a Seer, which explains her close relationship with Trelawney.\
821\
822When Voldemort took over the school, he identified Ebony as being able to help him using her precognition. But she only saw his defeat, and Voldemort started torturing her as punishment. She blames Dumbledore for her predicament, as if he hadn't died Voldemort wouldn't have taken over. She also blames Snape and Lupin for Dumbledore's death, because they were among his most powerful allies and did nothing to help him. Vampire, B'loody Mary, and the rest of her "goff" friends don't exist -- they're parts of her personality imprinted on the Death Eaters who follow her and routinely torture her. Nor does Dumbledore exist ('cuz he's dead, obviously); Ebony projects him onto her head torturer, as the embodiment of an entity who could end her suffering but doesn't.\
823\
824But other characters are real, and they're worried. Britney is Ebony's twin sister, who has no idea why Ebony has changed so much and tries fruitlessly to help her. Willow/Raven is another friend who's worried about Ebony, but Ebony's fragile mental state leads her to accidentally get both of them punished; she tries to kill Willow, and Willow abandons her. Neville is also trying to help her, but he's leading Dumbledore's Army and has a lot on his plate, so he can't devote all of his attention to her. Draco is somewhere in between; the first sex scene with him is real, but it's passionless pity sex, and the subsequent sex scenes are actually Ebony's torturers [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raping her]]. Filch is also an "in-betweener"; he's one of her torturers, too, but his identity is swapped with that of his cat.\
825\
826Many of the nonsensical scenes are Ebony trying to rationalize her torture, both magical and sexual. The concert scenes, for instance, are a way for the Death Eaters to try and convince her to trust them; when the band turns into "Vloxemort and the Death Deelers", this is when they start torturing her. She hears the Death Eaters discuss whether she should be allowed to live and projects this argument onto Umbridge, about the fake Dumbledore.\
827\
828Snape and Lupin do try to rescue Ebony, but it goes very badly -- they catch Ebony in the midst of an attempted BathSuicide, which is why she's naked. Ebony doesn't take it well and thinks they're trying to rape her, too. She actually tracks them down and successfully tortures them. This makes it more difficult to try and rescue her. Hagrid tries, too, and is somewhat more successful, but he can't penetrate Ebony's extreme paranoia, and in the end the Death Eaters torture her again for interacting with him.\
829\
830Ebony has been considering suicide for a while now. Snape and Lupin already interrupted one attempt, and the hacked chapter was a nightmare arising from her deepening self-loathing and her inability to finally end it. She decided to try and kill Voldemort, but she couldn't go through with it and turned her wand on herself.
831
832[[WMG: Enoby is an EldritchAbomination.]]
833Her mere presence has driven all of the ''Harry Potter'' characters to insanity.
834
835[[WMG: Ebony is [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Q]].]]
836Centuries before he had Picard to bug, Q came down to Earth, took the form of a teenage girl, and altered the people of Hogwarts according to his whims. Willow is also a Q, which is why she came back after she "died". By extension this also makes her [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Discord]].
837
838[[WMG: Ebony is the AnthropomorphicPersonification of badfics in general.]]
839There is a reason she uses every single MarySue cliche. She is not simply a ''Harry Potter'' fan character; She is the entire concept of bad fanfiction in general, given a human form. And she's warping the fabric of reality around Hogwarts to her will.
840
841[[WMG: Enoby is immune to the Manga/DeathNote.]]
842No, not because she's a vampire. Because it's impossible to spell her name correctly, since even the author doesn't know how it's spelled.
843
844[[WMG: Enoby has a twin sister.]]
845Her name is Ivory Light Innocence Dove Way. She is the preppiest prep ever. She never swears, is a virgin, and can't stand any of the so-called "goffic" bands. She is a werewolf. She has pale blonde hair with frosted blue tips and braided in yellow streaks. And she can spell perfectly. But her understanding of preppiness is about as extensive as Enony's understanding of goffness. This essentially makes her a PuritySue, the star of a mirror-image fanfic written in PurpleProse, in which she {{wangst}}s about her DarkAndTroubledPast and redeems all the characters Ebony turned to goffness.\
846\
847But despite being {{different as night and day}}, Ebony and Ivory [[Music/PaulMcCartney live together]] [[Music/StevieWonder in perfect harmony]] side by side on their piano keyboard.
848
849[[WMG: Enoby is a hermaphrodite]]
850She mentions her "boy thingy" yet claims to be a girl.
851
852[[WMG: Enoby is an alien.]]
853She came to Earth in an attempt to conquer it. Just being around her causes people to go insane and become hopelessly attracted to her or want to follow her and become her clone. Prepz are people who can somewhat resist her, but they still go insane and often turn evil, just not as perfect clones of her. The only hope for the version of the Potterverse that she resides in is for [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]] to come and save the day.
854
855[[WMG: Enoby is (or is somehow mentally linked to) [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} an Ork]].]]
856Terrible grammar, terrible accuracy with firearms, being a "Goff"? She may be another of da boyz, either losing track of da proper Orky values or just trying to annoy us 'umies ForTheLulz.
857
858[[WMG: Ebony is sort of a counterpart to Canon!Dumbledore.]]
859Both of them are powerful, or at least said to be powerful. Both try to redeem Voldemort. Both of them fall in love with someone who goes on to become a Dark wizard, despite their attempts to change them, and both end up having to fight them. Both have more names than usual. ''And'' their names both refer to colors: Ebony (black) and Albus (white).
860
861[[WMG: Enoby is the next wave of the ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'' invasion.]]
862She's somehow managed to make everyone at Hogwarts suffer the same disorder Fuminori did, turning the world into a huge crapfest and shrouding her own disgusting self behind the appearance of a goffik chick she saw on a magazine. That explains why she's so easy -- she's collecting semen just as Saya did.
863
864[[WMG: Ebony is Voldemort's illegitimate child.]]
865Don't ask. It's even weirder than [[Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild the other one]].
866
867[[WMG: Ebony and the other "goffs" are really [[VillainProtagonist the bad guys]].]]
868The author threw in some ObviouslyEvil traits (like HollywoodSatanism and being a vampire) to see if anyone would get a hint as to Ebony's true alignment. Voldemort was supposed to pull an EnemyMine with the Gryffindors in the final battle because Ebony had a plot to kill Harry, and Voldemort won't let anyone else [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou to kill him]] due to his own [[{{Yandere}} obsession with him]]. Or you know what? Let's just stop at "Ebony is the bad guy" and leave it at that.
869
870[[WMG: Ebony is only a Satanist because of [[Series/{{Supernatural}} Samifer]].]]
871If the author could predict [[spoiler:Harry being a Horcrux]], they could predict [[Creator/JaredPadalecki this]].
872
873[[WMG: Ebony has powerful magic and uses mind control to make the ''Harry Potter'' characters her mind slaves.]]
874The villains are really the only ones unaffected and dedicated to fighting against Ebony. The stranger and more... eccentric moments are just misunderstandings on Ebony's part because she's half insane herself.
875
876[[WMG: Ebony understands Sign Language.]]
877And that's how she can "talk in silence". However, it is Goffik Sign Language and can only be understood by other Goffs. Perhaps it is by knowing and being fluent in Goffik Sin Language (geddit) that one can become Goffik when they were not before, and how a Goff can sort out the posers from the real Goffs.
878
879[[WMG: Ebony has powers similar to [[VideoGame/NiNoKuni Shadar]].]]
880At some point during the course of the ''Harry Potter'' books, a witch with [[WrongContextMagic unusual magic]] appeared and derailed it. Many of the characters are acting strangely because they have become Brokenhearted (Borkenhearthed?):
881* Harry and company have become depressed goths because they lost their Hope and Enthusiasm.
882* Draco got hit with something similar, but a little mistake by Ebony resulted in him getting extra Kindness, hence why he's willing to move in the same social circle as Hermoine.
883* Voldemort is trying to have someone else kill Harry for him because he lost his courage, and is now too scared to face Harry himself.
884* Brittany was once a very nice girl in Gryffindor who wasn't involved in the plot, until Ebony decided to remove her Kindness.
885Ebony's heartbreaking spree was brought to an end when she got into a fight with Dumbledore. He managed to turn one of her spells back on her, stripping her of her Ambition (and accidentally taking a big chunk of her memories.) He acts erratically because he's had his own heart broken, but he's experimenting on himself to fix it, so he can fix everyone else.
886
887[[WMG: Ebony is transgender.]]
888That's how she can be a girl but still know what an erection feels like. She's adamant that she didn't ''actually'' get an erection because at that point, she no longer has a penis; she had a sex change, perhaps a magically induced one (something that's certainly plausible, if not explicitly seen, in the Potterverse).
889
890[[WMG: Ebony is an American immigrant.]]
891She's very familiar with American stores. She thinks English accents are sexy, implying she doesn't have one herself. And she doesn't seem to understand that Hogwarts is in Scotland (which likely precludes her from being Scottish). One can ''guess'' that she uses American spelling, except she doesn't appear to be using any kind of spelling at all..
892
893[[WMG: Ebony is a HumanoidAbomination that has powers similar to those of vampires, but she isn't a vampire.]]
894There's some sort of formality to it all in the Potterverse, perhaps requiring one to have been bitten by a vampire. It's not ''clear'' this is what happened to Harry, but he has the right to call himself "vampire" while Egogy doesn't.
895
896[[WMG: Ebony is Atlantiana Rebekah Loren from ''Fanfic/ForbidenFruitTheTempationOfEdwardCullen''.]]
897She wanted to escape the messy situation she found herself in, so she emigrated to the UK, adopted a new name, and dyed her hair black because it was as different from her natural pale blonde hair as you can get.
898The fact she's American and new at Hogwarts explains why she doesn't recognize Harry Potter at first, notices his English accent, and is obsessed with American shops such as Hot Topic.\
899\
900She also possibly experimented with a potion or spell that altered her memory, to avoid blowing her cover and ensure she can leave her past behind. That's why she claims she lost her "virility" to Draco even though Atlantiana wasn't a virgin. Indeed, it's quite odd that as self-obsessed as Ebony is, she gives fairly detailed backstories of the other characters, even minor ones like Crabbe and Goyle, but doesn't say anything about herself.\
901\
902Alternatively:
903
904[[WMG: Ebony is Atlantiana's mother.]]
905The two of them are both impossibly beautiful, goffik, dress like whores but slutshame others who do the same, are extreme {{Jerkass}}es, and have blue eyes. But they're not the same person; they're just related.\
906\
907It explains how Tiana could be a human before having sex with Edward despite Caius being her biological father; Ebony, who hates how she's SoBeautifulItsACurse, didn't want that to happen to her daughter and used her magic to turn Tiana into a human.\
908\
909You might be asking: How did Ebony manage to get impregnated with Tiana despite being a vampire? Because OurVampiresAreDifferent, that's why.\
910\
911And that's not the only kid Ebony has. She's also [[FanFic/BrewdeningLove Joan]] and [[Fanfic/TwilaTheGirlWhoWazInLuvWithAVampyre Twila's]] mother.
912
913[[WMG: The story isn't actually set in HP's setting, Ebony is just a being of unimaginable or unknown power that really likes Harry Potter]]
914You ever notice how Enoby, despite being 17, never has any relatives, backstory, or any indication she didn't just pop into existence on the first chapter, or how instead of 90s Britain, the story feels like it takes place in America in the 2000s, but with a few Harry Potter trademarks? [[HumanoidAbomination Whatever Ebony is]], she's a huge fan of Harry Potter, and recreated locations and characters from it to act out her strange, hormonal, mostly inaccurate fantasies, creating an [[EldritchLocation odd place]] where people that she either created, or brainwashed can freely maim and murder each other, or commit suicide, and walk out just fine the next day, and it can somehow rain and snow at the same time. If they're really [[AndIMustScream being controlled like that]] than perhaps their [[MoodSwinger mood swinging tendencies]] are them fighting against the mind control she has over them.
915\
916The reason she chooses to look like she's 17 is because that's the cool age in her eyes where she can be a badass grown up and have sex and wear black clothing.
917She's also either just kinda stupid, or is willingly acting as deranged as the setting is because it's all a game to her. The reason she uses guns and knives way more often than spells is because when she IS using magic, she's able to curbstomp Lord Voldemort himself with what was either one spell or a cat, [[WillfullyWeak and that would spoil the fun.]]
918
919[[/folder]]
920
921[[folder:Other Characters]]
922
923[[WMG:Voldemort really is [[Creator/JRRTolkien Tom Bombadil]].]]
924He is either just messing around with the goffs, or he has become genuinely StupidEvil for no logical reason. Probably because of his divorce with Goldberry.
925
926[[WMG:There are subcultures at Hogwarts other than preps and goffs.]]
927At least two references to punks exist, and there are probably others out there as well, as there would be in your average high school (''e.g.'' [[Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads]]). The punks probably get reference because they're allied with the goffs against the preps; what happened to the punks is anybody's guess.
928
929[[WMG: Dumblydore is trying to set an example for the divided student body.]]
930He shows interest in both goff and prep things, and it's because he's trying to prove the point that the students don't have to fit into some prep/goff binary; they can be whoever they want.
931
932[[WMG:Voldemort has put all the characters in a secret hell.]]
933It's why he flies away rather than follow through on his random threats to kill people; he's already subjected them to a FateWorseThanDeath. And Ebony is part of it; two minutes in her presence is enough to drive any soul insane.
934
935[[WMG: Voldermort is the hero of this story.]]
936He's trying to stop Ebony from poisoning {{Fanon}}, but he has underestimated her.
937
938[[WMG: Navel is the owner of the Elder Wand.]]
939This makes him the most powerful character in the story. Voldemort's clearly got his own wand, but he never seems to kill anyone with it despite threatening to do so -- he only becomes dangerous in Chapter 44, when he summons ''Navel's'' wand. He's hoping to take control of the Elder Wand by stealing it from Navel. Navel has the added benefit of being, in canon, a candidate for the person prophesied to defeat Voldemort; Tara was aware of this and made him a goff, because all positive characters are goffs in her universe.
940
941[[WMG: Dumbledore is an epic CoolOldGuy.]]
942Dumbledore is, in fact, an awesome [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] who [[ObfuscatingStupidity pretends to be senile]] and manipulates Ebony so that she'll defeat Voldemort. He knows there's no way to get her to fulfill her part in his plan other than ReversePsychology, so that's what he does. Even though he outwardly acts unhelpfully to Ebony, he defends her before the Ministry when he thinks he isn't looking. And when push comes to shove, he usually ''is'' helpful, as when he saves her from "Volxemort and the Death Dealers" and orchestrates the rescue of "Lucian and Sirius". He only refuses to rescue Draco because that was [[ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself Something She's Got to Do Herself]]. He intentionally plays the part of a "poser" because he knows Ebony's prejudice against non-"goffs" will ensure that she views him as simply an enemy; she won't try to see any deeper motivation in his actions.\
943\
944Ebony is normally too shallow and stupid to realize this. But she ''does'' kind of realize how Dumbledore is helping her. Their relationship is like that of a rebellious teenager and her parent; she needs him for emotional security, even though she nominally hates him most of the time. This isn't reflected in the story because she's [[UnreliableNarrator telling it on her terms]], and she's too petty and immature to depict him as a good guy. And she is openly upset that Fudge sends him away.
945
946[[WMG: Hargrid and Hagrid are entirely different people.]]
947"Hargrid" is different from Hagrid in several key respects: ''(a)'' he's a Hogwarts student, ''(b)'' he's able to use a wand, and ''(c)'' as far as we can tell, he is not a bearded half-Giant. He could well be an OC based on a friend of Tara's whom she clumsily inserted as a sort of OCStandIn; Tara just forgot to mention this friend in her author's notes.
948
949[[WMG:Hargrid is meant to be Cedric, and Hedwig is meant to be Hagrid.]]
950It ties in not just with the above guess, but the other guesses as to Tara's extremely tenuous grasp of the Potterverse and how she can't attach names to the correct characters. Tara even admits that "Hargrid" was a mistake and was supposed to be Cedric, but then she goes on to call him "Hargrid" in later chapters, so who knows what that means. But it has the advantage of solving some of the time travel shenanigans; "Hargrid" is a Hogwarts student at the same time as Harry because Cedric is, and "Hedwig" is Voldemort's gay lover because Hagrid ''did'' go to Hogwarts at the same time as Tom Riddle; Tara interpreted Tom framing Hagrid as revenge for Hagrid breaking his heart.
951
952[[WMG: Vlodemort/volxemort/Tom Bombodil is a Time Lord.]]
953When Ebony returns to the past, Tom "Satan" Bombodil seems to function exactly like a Time Lord. He knows things will happen in the future as if he has ''been'' there. The last chapter describes "Satan" as transforming into Voldemort, which sounds a lot like Time Lord regeneration.\
954\
955The "earlier" regeneration (for [[TimeyWimeyBall lack of a better term]]) is Tom Bombadil. His TARDIS broke when he was visiting UsefulNotes/TheEighties, and he was forced to regenerate. He was so messed up that something went wrong in the regeneration, leading him to become Voldemort, the guy with no nose. As Voldemort, he searches for a new time machine, and hatches a grand scheme in which he would manipulate the timestream so that someone will bring a time machine into the past for him to use.\
956\
957After a couple of decades, Voldemort identifies Ebony, a relatively normal Hogwarts student who happens to be so stupid and self-absorbed that she would be a ''perfect'' UnwittingPawn. He manipulates the timeline to turn Ebony into a vampire with irresistible seduction powers. Then he inserts himself into Ebony's life as a BigBad. The idea is that he knows Ebony will be so self-centered as to think she alone could travel back in time to redeem him -- in [[RedemptionEqualsSex the only way she knows how]]. This makes her little threat to him, ''and'' will allow him to convince her to bring him back to the future and use future tech to rebuild her primitive time machine into a fully functional TARDIS.\
958\
959And this is exactly what happens. Voldy kills Ebony once the final phase of his plan is in motion, partly because [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness she's outlived her usefulness]] and partly because she ''does'' have vampire seductress powers and still poses a ''minor'' threat. Voldy dodged her "abra kedabra" and then killed her with [[ExactWords a steak]]. That's why the fic ends when it does; in order for Enony to think she's the centre of the universe, she has to be the viewpoint character.\
960\
961As for how Voldy was able to fiddle with the timestream without having access to a time machine? RetroactivePreparation. Morti [=McFli=] is an even ''later'' regeneration of Voldemort's (both have "mort" in their names), who already has a time machine from Voldemort's successful plan. Morti is the one who not only tells Voldy about Ebony but also gives her the means to travel back in time to redeem Voldemort. (And he couldn't just hand the time machine to Voldemort himself because NeverTheSelvesShallMeet.)\
962\
963And one final MindScrew to the theory: it doesn't ''have'' to be UsefulNotes/TheEighties. Egogy gets so much about the time period wrong that she might not have visited it at all. Dumbledore looks completely different in the 80s because it's not him at all; it's Morti in disguise, trying to keep Enony's friends from "jumping" him just like in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII''.
964
965[[WMG: The "Severus" in Chapter 30 is a manifestation of Snap's supressed good side.]]
966In said chapter, Snap is torturing the main characters when suddenly the narrative refers to "Severus". And then the torture stops. This isn't actually a different character coming in to distract Snap and get him to stop; this is Snap himself, with a Goffic side who intervenes to [[RedRightHand stop him from harming other goffs]].
967
968[[WMG: "Snap" is "Severus"'s abusive father.]]
969In Chapter 30, the son finally bursts in to save the other characters from his abusive father.\
970\
971No, it makes very little sense, but that's still more sense than the rest of the narrative gives you.
972
973[[WMG: Every variant spelling of a character's name is actually referring to a different character.]]
974Ebony, Enoby, Enony, Egogy, [=TaEbory=], and all the others are in fact different characters. They're all near-identical sisters, some of whom indeed died (whether by suicide or as murder victims); their deaths give the protagonist a darn good reason to be depressed. Same applies to all the other characters; while we think that Draako came back to life without explanation, these are actually different characters, and the one who committed suicide stayed dead.\
975\
976Note also that many of these "misspellings" appear more than once throughout the story. That's not just a coincidence, is it?
977
978[[WMG: Slutborn is Ebony's son.]]
979It's in the name -- "born of a slut". And who's a bigger slut than Ebony? She has lots and lots of sex and yet never seems to use protection (note how Lupin asks her for condoms but she appears not to have any). In all likelihood, Tara gave birth to Slutborn before the story began, and being a selfish teenager who's not interested in raising a child, she abandoned him.\
980\
981Note also how Slutborn is apparently a goff (''e.g.'' saying "[[OhMyGods Oh my goff!"]]). Goffness is apparently inherited, since anyone who simply ''professes'' goffness without being innately goff is a poser. And if it's not inherited, it requires a tragic backstory -- which Tara ensured with her ParentalAbandonment, perhaps even ''knowing'' it would make him a goff like her.\
982\
983The father could be pretty much anyone, considering she's slept with Vampire, Draco, and Voldemort. Perhaps Slutborn isn't her only child, either (great candidate for the professor's sibling: Jezebel Slutborn from ''FanFic/ImmaWiserd'').
984
985[[WMG: Filch and Mrs. Norris are anamangi.]]
986In canon, Filch is human and Mrs. Norris is her cat, but ''My Immortal'' features a human named "Mr. Norris" and his cat "Filth". Indeed, Filch and Norris are a pair who switch back and forth so that one is human and one is an animal, throwing people off the scent. In the canon, Filch is described as a squib, but he actually is pretending to be one to be BeneathSuspicion; no one would suspect the "insecure old man who can't use magic" to be an animagus.
987
988[[WMG: Slutborn, Loopin, and Sirius are [=OCs=].]]
989They're not supposed to be Slughorn, Lupin, or Sirius; Tara made them up. She just didn't have a great imagination and gave them modified names of canon characters. Occasionally they ''vaguely'' have elements of their canon characterization (''e.g'' "Serius" being described as Vampyre's "dogfather", possibly referencing the canon Sirius's ability to transform into a dog), but for the most part they're nothing like their canon counterparts even when you'd expect them to be (''e.g.'' no mention whatsoever of Lupin's lycanthropy).\
990\
991If you believe the fic was earnest, this is simply a byproduct of the author's acute creative deficiencies; she wanted to make original characters but lacked the tools to do so. If you believe it's a TrollFic, it's a great way to tweak the fandom's collective noses. And if you're into {{Timey Wimey|Ball}} stuff, like in the guess elsewhere on the page that Tara knew Rowling from somewhere (''e.g.'' being the inspiration for Lockhart), you can say that Tara ''did'' come up with the names from whole cloth, and it's ''Rowling'' who repurposed them for her original characters.
992
993[[WMG: Marty [=McFly=] works for Dumbledore.]]
994After the plan to stop the Dark Lord is set in motion, Ebony keeps running into Marty or his "tim" machine for no directly stated reason. Ebony doesn't have any way of traveling on her own between the past and the present except by dying, which Professor Sinister and the others would probably view as too dangerous to rely on. Dumbelydum, therefore, sends Marty -- with his own means of time travel -- to shadow her in the past and help her return to the present if things go wrong. Marty disguises his time machine as an iPod and plants it on Ebony, so that she could use it to escape from Past!Dumbledore near the story's end. He's also responsible for Ebony falling through the hole and appearing back in the present after her first time travel session. Depending on the nature of Marty's employment, he and Doc might even have been among the people sent to London to find Serious and Lucian.\
995\
996In fact, Ebony might not even ''have'' a "die and time jump" power. Marty just stepped in when Ebony was near death. This works because of the TimeyWimeyBall, as demonstrated when the bullet from James' knife-gun fails to do its job -- you can't be killed if you're taken out of your home time, so that's why it makes sense to save Ebony by sending her to the past.
997
998[[WMG: Dumblydore knew Voldemprt had Drako.]]
999He was crying when he thought Draco had died. Not two chapters later does he openly mock Draco. It is possible he knew what happened to Draco and wanted Enoby to find him on her own so that they could get back together. It also ties in well with the other guesses as to his inconsistent behaviour.
1000
1001[[WMG: Voldemort must have sex in order to be defeated.]]
1002Sinister's speech about him Voldemort not being evil if he found love wasn't about ThePowerOfLove; it was specifically about sex. Whether sex with Voldemort would kill him, [[RedemptionEqualsSex redeem him]], remove his powers, give him amnesia, whatever -- it would neutralize the threat he poses to the Wizarding World. And Ebony is chosen to do it specifically ''because'' she's the sluttiest student in the school.
1003
1004[[WMG: Tom Rid's store is new.]]
1005That's why Enoby never heard of it. He probably gave pamphlets or something to Dumbledore so he could advertize to the goffs. But alas, he is young as DistractedByTheSexy, and he goes out of business giving Ebony free clothes. That's why he and the shop fade out of the story.
1006
1007[[WMG: Hedwig is a [[ShapeshifterModeLock mode-locked]], [[GenderBender gender-bended]] animagus.]]
1008It's a punishment for [[PronounTrouble them]] being an ''unregistered'' animagus.
1009
1010[[WMG: "Trevolry" takes "vloxemortserum" in an attempt to predict the future.]]
1011If "vloxemortserum" is a terrible misspelling of veritaserum, the most powerful [[TruthSerums truth potion]], then it would make sense for a seer to take it so much that they become addicted to it. That is, if it enabled someone to speak truths that they did not know, it would be the perfect tool for prophecy. Makes her addiction to it a form of Fridge Brilliance, really.
1012
1013[[WMG: Draco is a filthy-minded ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fan.]]
1014When the narrative says that Draco "put his spock in [Ebony's] you-know-what," it's actually a reference to the ''Star Trek'' character. Either Draco penetrated Enony with a Spock action figure, or he [[ICallHimMisterHappy named his penis after the character]].
1015
1016[[WMG: Snap is a good guy.]]
1017Unbeknownst to Ebony, and indeed to everyone else in the story except Dumblydore, everything Snap has done so far is a ploy to gain Voldemort's trust as part of an overarching plan to defeat him. Among the direct hints at this are that the characters discover that he's a genuine goff, and he lets Ebony and Draco off the hook for screwing in the forest (which, in some demented way addressed elsewhere on the page, is part of the plan).\
1018\
1019What makes this interesting is that given the evidence of Tara's limited knowledge of the ''Harry Potter'', she and Rowling likely ''independently'' came up with the twist with respect to this character.
1020
1021[[WMG: Wormtail became Snaketail because it's more goff that way.]]
1022Since Satan was disguised as a snake in the Garden of Eden, snakes are inherently goff. Way more goff than plain old worms, obviously. (Perhaps Tara wasn't aware of what you get when you spell it ''wyrm'', with a Y.)
1023
1024[[WMG: Tara cannot be a goff, because goffs are by definition downtrodden.]]
1025She certainly ''tries'', but she's manifestly unsuccessful. A serious analysis of the Goth subculture in an American HighSchool will reveal that Goths are ''way'' down on the social ladder. While they're hardly the ''only'' high school clique that gets bullied, the difference between goffs and your ordinary nerds is that goffs ''want'' to be down there; they don't aspire to move up in the pecking order and hold pretty much everyone else in total disdain.\
1026\
1027Tara was aiming for your typical "nerds versus jocks" high school dynamic, but with a twist. She chose to swap out the nerds for another subculture -- except she chose pretty much the only one with so different a dynamic that the tropes are different. And she didn't realise the tropes were different. This leads to a bizarre fic with a limited and inaccurate conception of what "goff" is (''e.g.'' thinking Music/GreenDay and ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'' are goffik).\
1028\
1029It's a variant of the general WMG that Tara's not a genuine Goth because she gets everything wrong. But the interesting thing about this variant is the idea that as long as she ''wasn't'' a goff, there was no way she ''could'' get everything right.
1030
1031[[WMG: The veil will bring Serious to the ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'' universe.]]
1032There, he will live up to his nickname.
1033
1034[[WMG: The Marauders in the Ebonyverse are different.]]
1035While the origins were the same, Lupin left them early on. Searching for a new purpose, they became an all-Animagus band. The members:
1036* James "Samaro" Potter, who figured he should use a nickname a bit less conspicuous than "Prongs".
1037* Sirius "Serius" Black, ditto.
1038* Severus "Snake" Snape, so nicknamed because his animagus form is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a snake]]. He's not into subtlety at all.
1039* Peter "Snaketail" Pettigrew, who is ''not'' a snake but rather a rat. Like in canon, he was extremely jealous of his erstwhile friends -- but here, Snape is part of the group, and his open and vulgar imitation of Snape got him kicked out of the group before he could betray it. (Well, that and his being a DreadfulMusician.)
1040* Lucius "Luscious" Malfoy. His animagus form is a ferret. And one shudders to think how he feels about ferrets.
1041* Hedwig, whose animagus form is an owl. He shadows Harry in owl form much the way Peter pretended to be Ron's rat in canon. (And he pulls a GenderBender in the process.) Without Peter to betray the group, Hedwig becomes the Potters' Secret Keeper, which saves them from Voldemort (but doesn't keep their son from becoming a suicidally depressed vampire, or something).
1042
1043[[WMG: "Brittany" is Luna Lovegood.]]
1044Enoby always wanted a blonde enemy called Brittany, so she just started calling her that. And Luna went along with it because, well, she's [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Luna]].
1045
1046[[WMG: Voldemort forced Snap to read ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''.]]
1047This was the only book Voldy had for ten years in exile, and he obviously got ''really'' into it, hence his sudden use of YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe ("I hath telekinesis!") He forces his minions to read it as well, Snape included.\
1048\
1049And lo, Snape did rediscover romance. That's why he lets the students get away with everything, as long as it's done [[ThePowerOfLove in the name of love]]. He lets Draco and Enoby run off after Draco declares his love for her, and he doesn't even punish them when Draco runs into class naked to tell her he loves her. Yes, Snape is {{shipping}} their tragic romance.\
1050\
1051(He also got into ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' and discovered how sexy werewolves can be.)
1052
1053[[WMG: Loopin has vorarephilia.]]
1054He's demonstrated or been accused of several sexual deviancies, including [[PedoHunt pedophilia]], [[ILoveTheDead necrophilia]], [[MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces exhibitionism]], and [[ThePeepingTom voyeurism]]. In [[Literature/HarryPotter canon]], he is a werewolf. Easy to see why he [[RougeAnglesOfSatin masticated]] to bathing Ebony.
1055
1056[[WMG: Willow and Draco are both ghosts.]]
1057At least, they turned into ghosts after their apparent deaths. This is how they can continue to appear in the fic after their supposed deaths. It's also why no one was ''surprised'' to see them alive when they were supposed to be dead.\
1058\
1059Indeed, seeing Willow come back as a ghost is what allows Ebony to make up with her. Ebony, being a sadistic Satanist Slytherin vampire goff, likes death and everything about it. She'd see being a ghost as ''so'' cool. Realising how cool her friend is, she knew she had to fix things up with her.\
1060\
1061As for Draco, in the ''My Immortal'' universe, nothing can get in the way of love. That's why it's possible for her to have sex with a ghost.
1062
1063[[WMG: Crab and Golye are adopted.]]
1064They're described as siblings of the Weasleys, but they don't have the trademark orange hair. Perhaps the Weasley siblings were ''also'' adopted. In ''My Immortal'', their parents are abusive (like everyone else's), so it could be a horrible foster home of some sort.
1065
1066[[WMG: Dumbledore is Draco's sire]]
1067In one chapter, Draco refers Dumbledore as his sire. Maybe Dumbledore is a secret vampire who turned Draco into one. We can guess that siring (''i.e.'' turning a mortal into a vampire) may actually exist in the ''My Immortal''-verse after all.
1068
1069[[WMG: Voldemort is a dog.]]
1070That's why people call him the "Bark Lord". And that's also why the "Crookshanks" spell made him fall off his broom -- [[CatDogDichotomy he reacts poorly to cat magic]]. He is described as a person, but he could be an Animagus.
1071
1072[[WMG: "Preps" aren't an actual group; it's just what Enoby calls everyone she doesn't like.]]
1073Ebony implies that there are two rival groups at school -- the preps and the goffs. But the preps don't show any evidence that they see themselves as a group. That's because they aren't; they're just the rest of the student body. They're distinct from the goffs because they don't act completely insane, and they dislike the goffs not because they disapprove of their music or fashion interests, but just because the goffs are so disruptive that they can't concentrate on their studies.\
1074\
1075Relatedly:
1076
1077[[WMG: The preps are conducting an open protest against the goffs' behavior.]]
1078Hogwarts was like any other school until the "goff" subculture turned up -- and completely took over. The "goffs" have practically no interest in academic advancement and openly flaunt school rules, doing things as blatant as running around the school naked, openly self-harming, threatening other students, and [[SirSwearsALot shouting profanities at the drop of a hat]]. The other students tried distancing themselves from the goffs, but the goffs' disruption was so great that the student body couldn't concentrate. Their strategy is to rile up the goffs into doing something ''really'' stupid that gets them thrown out of Hogwarts, or at least to draw the faculty's attention. That's why they go around dressing in bright colors and being aggressively optimistic.
1079[[/folder]]
1080
1081[[folder:Plot]]
1082[[WMG: It's AllJustADream.]]
1083Events happen one after another without explanation. Odd names are associated with familiar characters, sometimes many names for a single character. Some articles of clothing in the fic, like leather fishnets, don't exist in RealLife (and are just too weird to be magicked into existence in the Potterverse). And that's only the start:
1084
1085[[WMG: It's all the dream of a canon ''Harry Potter'' character.]]
1086We don't know who, but RealDreamsAreWeirder, and it's not out of the question that one of them might have taken the wrong potion one night and had a particularly vivid and demented dream that they were fictional characters being adapted to FanFiction by some barely literate teenage girl.
1087
1088[[WMG: Morty [=McFli=] brought 2000s music to the 1980s.]]
1089That's why the concert appears to be playing anachronistic music. Morty downloaded Enoby's favorite music onto his iPod time machine and brought it back to show his friends in the 1980s. And, well, it caught on. As a bonus, canon Marty pretty much did this in the original ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' by introducing rock and roll to his 1955 audience.
1090
1091[[WMG: Morty [=McFli=] jammed with Lucian's band in the 80s.]]
1092It ties in with the above theory; he wasn't a full-time member, but he was into music and turned out to be a valuable resource for a band looking for its own unique "sound". Lucian is a friend of his, and thanks to his future knowledge he knows Lucian will get shot, but he can't go back and save Lucian himself because he never got along with Satan/Vlodemort. So despite not knowing Enoby at all, he gives her his time machine and sends her back to do the job. There are two reasons for that; first, she ''does'' have a link to Lucian because she's his son's boyfriend (for lack of a better term), and second, being from the future ''nobody'' in the band will know who she is.
1093
1094[[WMG: Ebony uses MentalTimeTravel.]]
1095She doesn't actually travel to the past; she projects herself into the mind of Tom, thus altering his perceptions and filtering the world through her own viewpoint. This explains his knowledge of the future and why she can't be killed. In his new state, Tom causes changes to history that remake the world into the crazy wannabe goffik nightmare from Ebony's time. This creates a world that's very conducive to ''create'' someone like Ebony, who ends up going back in time and creating a StableTimeLoop.\
1096\
1097One corollary to the theory is that Dumblydore has RippleEffectProofMemory, a side effect of his prodigious Pensieve usage. He remembers meeting Enoby in the past and how she saved Lucian's arm. He remembers how the timeline was ''before'' the time loop started. That takes some powerful magic, but this ''is'' Dumbledore after all.
1098
1099[[WMG: There are no {{Groundhog Day Loop}}s.]]
1100It's just shoddy writing. Tara is trying to start InMediasRes with a kind of literary HowWeGotHere sort of teaser like they do on TV. But there's a reason that trope is particularly suited to TV, and Tara's nowhere near a good enough writer to pull it off in prose, so it just looks like a few random instances of a scene repeating itself.
1101
1102[[WMG: There ''are'' {{Groundhog Day Loop}}s, and they're all Voldemprt's fault.]]
1103Both Ebony and Vloxemort can travel through time, and ''every time'' we see a scene repeat itself, Volxemort is somehow involved. He's influencing the timestream and trying to MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight. He's just very... imprecise.
1104
1105[[WMG: Voldemort is grooming Enoby to be his favourite Death Eater.]]
1106She's certainly dark and evil enough. She just needed a little incentive to evolve from a lazy JerkAss into the powerful, hard-working witch she becomes later on. He sees a ''lot'' of potential in her and is willing to put the work in. The only reason he doesn't tap her as his successor to the mantle of Dark Lord is that Voldy is an ImmortalitySeeker who doesn't plan to relinquish power any time soon.
1107
1108[[WMG: Vampire is Ebony's ReplacementGoldfish for Draco.]]
1109There's very little physical evidence that she like-liked Vampire before Draco was kidnapped, aside from a single observation on his looks. When she finally screws Vampire, she mentions how he looks exactly like Draco. Even after Draco comes back [[UnexplainedRecovery with no explanation]], Eonby is still wary of him leaving her (such as her freakout when he screams that no one understands him), so she keeps Vampire around as a love interest.
1110
1111[[WMG: Hogwarts has a shortage of teachers.]]
1112That's how the faculty can keep their jobs after doing things like using very profane language and threats against students, openly discriminating against certain groups, spying on certain students (including secretly videotaping a girl taking a bath), having sex in the hallway, and [[invoked]] [[MarySue not being totally enamored with the protagonist]].
1113
1114[[WMG: Snap wanted Draco and Enoby to date.]]
1115He's playing TheMatchmaker. But not out of a genuine belief in ThePowerOfLove, but rather because the relationship is useful to Voldemort. Indeed, Voldemort definitely exploits the relationship for his own ends, because he explicitly threatens Draco to get Egogy to do his bidding. Now you can see why a strict teacher like Snap can let Draco and Enoby get away with practically anything on account of their relationship.
1116
1117[[WMG: The iPod time machine is a [[WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie Transformer]].]]
1118Specifically, it's a new Triple Changer incarnation of Soundwave. The Decepticons sent him to the Wizarding World seeking a new magical weapon to be used against the Autobots, and also to spread Decepticon ideology. Unfortunately, Hogwarts is hostile to electronics, and that includes Transformers; Soundwave's arrival causes him to immediately be locked into iPod mode and forces his consciousness offline. He does fight his way back somewhat, and shows this by transforming into a time machine; but his ability to transform remains limited, and he also doesn't want to reveal his true nature until he gains the trust of Volsemort and the Death Dealers so they can take him back to the future.\
1119\
1120And this might not be the only Transformer hanging around in the story. The cideo camera is also a mode-locked and unconscious Transformer. Really, this can explain any electronic device in the story which you wouldn't expect to work at Hogwarts.
1121
1122[[WMG: The story takes place in an AlternateUniverse where Music/JohnLennon survived.]]
1123In "our" timeline, he was shot and killed in December 1980 by Mark David Chapman. In the ''My Immortal'' timeline, he was still shot but survived. In both timelines, Music/TheBeatles were discussing the possibility of a reunion tour. In "our" timeline, that obviously couldn't happen without Lennon, but in the ''My Immortal'' timeline, Lennon's NearDeathExperience accelerates the process as he works hard to reconcile with his former bandmates. The reunion tour leads to more than one jam session which eventually leads to a new album. But as the members are still experimenting with their own styles, and Lennon is still recovering psychologically, the album is quite a bit DarkerAndEdgier than their traditional work.\
1124\
1125And that's why Ebony thinks the Beatles are "goffik".
1126
1127[[WMG: There's a severe [[ThePlague Ebola Zaire outbreak]] at Hogwarts, and the fic is a sufferer's [[ApocalypticLog disjointed ramblings]].]]
1128A lot of the fic can be explained by the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_Zaire#Signs_and_symptoms symptoms]]:
1129* Irritability -- everyone's got a HairTriggerTemper and generally angry enough to use particularly foul language, even characters you wouldn't expect like Dumblydore.
1130* Psychosis -- well, the fic was clearly not written by someone who's right in the head.
1131* Bleeding from cuts and injection sites -- explains why Enoby seems to be OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank when she slits her wrists.
1132* Red eyes from internal haemorrhaging -- explains Vampire's "red contact lenses".
1133* Occasional haemorrhaging ''from'' the eyes -- explains the TearsOfBlood.
1134* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petechia Petechia]] -- explaining the odd makeup patterns.
1135* General malaise -- explaining why everyone seems to be so depressed.
1136* Extreme and disturbing inflammation of the sex organs -- Enoby wants to take advantage of that, but she knows the reader would be {{Squick}}ed out by the details, hence why she says "thingy" and "u-know-what".
1137* Massive vomiting food, digestive juices, and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick intestinal tissue]] -- the only one not really mentioned, but that would be so {{Squick}}y that the author doesn't want to talk about it. Maybe that's why she thinks a steak will kill her, though.
1138The story was written by a sufferer who believes it to be her life's chronicle. It ends abruptly when the author enters the final stages of the disease, when she starts [[NightmareFuel convulsing on the ground, gushing blood, virus, and bits of sloughed-off internal tissue everywhere]] before she finally, almost mercifully, [[CruelAndUnusualDeath dies]]. The fic ends abruptly at that point.
1139
1140[[WMG: Sinister, Snap, and Loopin were sent to [[VideoGame/ModernWarfare Al-Asad's safehouse]] in Azerbaijan.]]
1141"Azerbaijan" isn't a misspelling of "Azkaban"; they were actually sent there. The remnants of an Ultranationalist force sent to assault the village after Al-Asad's death saved them and sent them back to Hogwarts.
1142
1143[[WMG: My Immortal is set in a MirrorUniverse.]]
1144It's a ''Franchise/StarTrek''-style mirror universe, not the full {{Bizarro|Universe}} experience; the good guys go bad and the bad guys ''view'' themselves as good but don't necessarily become "good". Some character traits are "flipped", and some are "twisted" to become darker. Observe:
1145* Harry is in Slytherin, which in canon he ''adamantly'' didn't want to go to. Accordingly, he doesn't believe AmbitionIsEvil, he hates Muggles, and he's just way DarkerAndEdgier.
1146* Draco is not ''too'' far out of character, but his reasons for hating Harry are very different from canon, and he's also lost his EmotionSuppression ability and become ''far'' more weepy and sensitive.
1147* The Weasleys, a closely knit family in canon, are now a complete mess.
1148* Hermione, in canon a Muggle-born bookworm, is now born of dead vampire parents and has apparently never touched a book in her life.
1149* Neville, the other option for the ChosenOne, now has a backstory that is similar to what the Dursleys told Harry. And he's also lost his clumsiness; if you're a vampire, you wouldn't last long as TheKlutz.
1150* Dumbledore was always a little crazy, but in canon it was [[GeniusDitz the byproduct of his incredible power and intelligence]], and here he seems to have a genuinely serious mental illness.
1151* [=McGonagall=] was always quite strict, but in canon she would never hand her students off to anyone she knows will torture them, and here she gives them to Snap without a second thought.
1152* Snape hasn't changed too much, but in canon he was in the tank for Slytherin, and here he's in Gryffindor (which actually makes a tiny bit of sense) and hates Slytherin even more than his canon self hates Gryffindor.
1153* Lupin, whose lycanthropy has been taken as a metaphor for child abuse in canon, is now a paedophile himself.
1154* Trelawney's drinking problem has mutated into a full-blown drug problem.
1155* Hagrid has turned to Satanism and was never expelled.
1156* Umbridge went completely off her rocker, even compared to her canon self. In some ways, this makes her ''less'' evil, but she's still out there.
1157* Filch, in canon a [[MuggleBornOfMages Squib]], is now a sufficiently powerful magic user to become an Animagus -- and so is [[GenderBender Mr. Norris]].
1158* Voldemort, who in canon [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove cannot understand love]], now knows enough about it that Enoby could actually seduce him.
1159* Hedwig went from a snowy owl and glorified courier to Voldemort's gay lover. Not even a fully BizarroUniverse can cause ''that''.
1160
1161[[WMG: There can be more than one ChosenOne in the Ebonyverse.]]
1162Due to the changes in the structure of the universe needed to make the events of the fic possible, the prophecy now doesn't limit the number of Chosen Ones. ''Anyone'' whom Voldemort marks "as his equal" can be a Chosen One. In this case, he "marks" Ebony by giving her a task which he previously only ever entrusted to himself -- killing Harry Potter.
1163
1164[[WMG: Ebony Found the Resurrection Stone in the Forest and that's why it all happened.]]
1165
1166The story actually takes place after the final book. Ebony found the ring in the forest, which is why she can see characters who shouldn't be at Hogwarts in 2006. The only person remotely in-character was [=McGonagall=], who was still there and very real. Unfortunately, having such a powerful object drove Enoby insane. She's still in St. Mungo's, imagining all this happening.
1167
1168[[WMG: Ebony is a fragment of Voldemort's soul acting out its host's sexual fantasies.]]
1169
1170At some point circa 1991, after the death of Quirrell, Voldemort's spirit escapes to find a new host. He's a bit freaked out at being discovered, so he flees the country and briefly finds himself in America. While there, a bit of his soul flaked off, kind of like how it did with Harry, and it made its way into a newborn American Squib child, whom we can call MarySue.\
1171\
1172When Mary Sue was six years old, Harry Potter defeated Voldemort and the wizarding world was saved. She grew up in a magical community and heard a lot about Harry and his contemporaries, including Draco Malfoy. She can't use magic and is a little bummed out about it, but she's reasonably well-adjusted -- aside from that one last remnant of Voldemort's soul, slowly growing and gaining power and waiting for its opportunity.\
1173\
1174Fast forward to 2004. Mary Sue is now 13, and she's embroiled in the {{emo}} craze, when Voldemort's soul fragment unleashes its power -- giving Mary Sue a rush of magical capabilities she never had before and far beyond any of her peers. Having grown up as a Squib, she's ''very'' excited by her incredible newfound power and has no idea how to use it. And given her very recent sexual awakening, she's intrigued by the PowerPerversionPotential. So she decides to use it for a crazy goffik orgy.\
1175\
1176Now styling herself Ebony, she travels to Scotland, breaks into Hogwarts, pretends to be a student -- and tortures the students and faculty into playing her fantasy with her. She finds other students to play the roles of Harry and Draco, except they're not ''actually'' Harry and Draco, explaining why they seem to be so different. Some of the staff ''are'' the same characters, though, like [=McGonagall=] and Hagrid (the latter of whom has to play ''both'' "himself" and "Sedric").\
1177\
1178All this is, in Enoby's words, [-XTREMLY SCRAY-] -- even to Voldemort himself. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Disgusted by Ebony's use of her power]], he abandons his plans for a comeback to put an end to the greater evil he unleashed.
1179
1180
1181[[WMG: My Immortal takes place in the AlternateUniverse from the ''{{Series/Buffy|TheVampireSlayer}}'' episode "The Wish".]]
1182The ''Harry Potter'' books exist within the Buffyverse. Once the Master's vampires start to branch out from California, the Watchers' Council backs the establishment of an ''actual'' school of witchcraft and wizardry to combat the threat. In an effort to protect the identities of the students and faculty, the people and locations are referred to by code names, taken from the Potterverse. So the characters are not ''actually'' the characters from the book, but they do largely fill the same roles within the school.\
1183\
1184Several years have passed since the events of "The Wish", in which time the Master has located the Gem of Amara (with Spike's help) and devised a way to replicate some of its properties. This, combined with the ready availability of mass-produced blood, allows vampires to start masquerading as humans with startling effectiveness, as well as to survive many of the traditional vampire-slaying methods like [[WeakenedByTheLight exposure to sunlight]]. The Master now imposes himself on "Hogwarts" and takes the mantle of Lord Voldemort, the series' BigBad. The staff at Hogwarts are caught completely off guard, allowing many of the students to be turned before they could react. And some of the faculty join the Master, too, Snape and Lupin the most notable among them.\
1185\
1186The Master's plan is to kill "Harry", the school's most promising student (who is appropriately named after the series' protagonist). He can't send Snape and Lupin to do it without blowing their cover, so he instead he taps Ebony, a girl he had turned earlier. Only problem was that she resisted her conversion and suffered brain damage in the process, which carried over to her vampiric state. This made her rather resistant to following orders. She does enroll in the school, but she won't kill Harry; she just goes around feeding on or lusting after other students. Harry falls into the latter category. Snape and Lupin also get caught monitoring her (but they [[UltimateJobSecurity can't be fired]] because the school needs all the help it can get).\
1187\
1188Seeking to manipulate Ebony, the Master threatens her boyfriend Draco. Draco is a bit of a sensitive type, madly in love with Ebony but unable to reconcile her obvious feelings for Harry. He's skeptical of Ebony's story about Voldemort and lowers his guard, leading him to be captured and turned. His and Ebony's subsequent adventures draw Dumbledore's suspicion, but he doesn't want to give away what he knows and just keeps a close eye on them. Draco slowly falls even more in love with Ebony and begins to experience the same weakening of resolve that Spike did when he had the implant. Eventually, the Master crashes the concert in Hogsmeade, and Dumbledore is forced to fight him while the students flee. The battle is lengthy, and Dumbledore is turned in the process, as are several students like B'loody Mary. In all the chaos, no one notices Dumbledore has been turned, and he returns to the school and his position as headmaster. The Watcher's Council notices a steep decline in Dumbledore's effectiveness but fails to realize that he has become a vampire.\
1189\
1190Then everything changes when Ebony catches one of the Master's several televised messages revealing his latest advancements in vampire superiority. In her fragile mental state (she caught it while [[CockFight Draco and Harry were fighting over her]]), she interprets it as a vision, directed at her personally. She is sent to Professor Sinister (Jennifer Calendar) to determine if her visions are real or just a by-product of her insanity. Initial tests are inconclusive, but then she has a vision that saves the lives of rogue demon hunter Riley Finn and chaos mage Ethan Rayne -- which not only reveals the danger they face, but also neutralizes the attacking vampires' gems. This is a game-changer for the Council, who begin rituals to try to focus her powers, which she perceives as time travel. The Master's people on the inside all try to stop Ebony but fail; Draco and Harry join Ebony's side, Snape and Lupin are brought back by Britney (the school's resident slayer), and Dumbledore is exposed (although he manages to frame Calendar in the process). In the end, the Master intervenes himself and initiates the final battle -- which [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening kicks Ebony's power into overdrive]], destroying every replica of the Gem of Amara in the world and making every vampire in the room [[WeakenedByTheLight vulnerable to sunlight]], which kills them all -- including Voldemort, and Ebony herself. That's why the story ends as abruptly as it does.\
1191\
1192And just to tie everything together -- the way the vampires dress in the episode, when they're not trying to blend in with humans, looks kinda like what Ebony and company wear in the fic. And there's also a character named Willow who's always wearing corsets.
1193
1194[[WMG: The Satan that travels through Tim with Ebony is actually Voldermort.]]
1195Ebony's changes to the time stream force Volderemont's memories to change. He suddenly realizes that he recognizes Ebony from somewhere -- and starts to fall in love with her. He goes with her to see if it's really her. When he sees her in the outfit she was wearing from the concert where she jumped in front of the ballet, his fears are realized. Knowing that [[StableTimeLoop TaEbory has borken his hearth]] with her deceit, he can't help but cry. And [[NiceJobBreakingItHero turn evil]].\
1196\
1197When she goes back in tim the final time, Volexmort follows her disguised as Stan, hoping to keep her from changing history and further. Tara, none the wiser and trying to preserve her relationship with Drago, tries to hook him back up with Hedwig. He plays along, shadows her through tim, and returns with her -- then transforms back into his true self to make a dramatic entrance.
1198
1199[[WMG: Draco never died by slitting his wrists, and that was the author's intent.]]
1200At the very beginning of the chapter when this happens, Tara states explicitly that Draco couldn't die by slitting his wrists. This was supposed to be a clue that at the end, while ''something'' happened to him, he wasn't really dead. Ebony herself only finds this out secondhand from Dumbledore, who himself found out from "Snaketail" (who is a student, because in this universe he's sixteen for whatever reason). Tara's intent was to have the reader figure out that Draco was kidnapped, and for TheReveal to happen long after the event, but her execution was... lacking.
1201
1202[[WMG: Draco has a Horcrux.]]
1203This would explain why he came back to life after slitting his wrists. In fact, he's his ''own'' Horcrux; he has to kill someone to make one, but he's too cowardly to actually kill anyone (this was true in canon, and in the fic he's even more wimpy), so by being DrivenToSuicide, he creates a SoulJar ensuring that he can't actually kill himself. It's [[CrackFic that kind of fic]].
1204[[/folder]]
1205
1206[[folder:Other]]
1207[[WMG: Hot Topic enchanted their clothing.]]
1208That's why the characters act so strangely when they're wearing Hot Topic clothing. As a Muggle store, it's outside Hogwarts' radar for protection against Charmed objects. (That's Arthur Weasley's department, after all.)
1209
1210[[WMG: The fic was made [[ArtisticStimulation on acid]].]]
1211If it wasn't, it must have been [[AWizardDidIt magically induced]]. And you can still use the Muggle acid as a means of [[BrainBleach excising the fic from your memory]]. Get it at TropeCo/TropeCo!
1212
1213[[WMG: "Goffic" is a {{portmanteau}} of "gothic" and "fic".]]
1214It's not a misspelling, it's just a "clever" description of the kind of fic Tara was aiming for!\
1215\
1216"Goffik" is a typo, though.
1217
1218[[WMG: "Goffic" is a reference to Tara's particular brand of Goth culture.]]
1219It's a word Tara made up exclusively for herself and her friends. She's not content with being part of the subculture; she wants to create an entire subculture all to herself. She's got the ego for it; she wants so badly to be "unique" and "special" that she'll do completely pointless things to distance herself from the rest of us.
1220
1221[[WMG: "Goffic" is a reference to ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''.]]
1222The book is often abbreviated [="GoF"=], and Tara was trying to refer to it in an oblique way. It's a way to show that the culture is ''deliberately'' inaccurate, because it's a specific magical variety of it found right around the time of the book. The term had been bouncing around in Tara's head to refer to the concept for a while; she just never got around to telling the rest of the world what it means.
1223
1224[[WMG: Music/MyChemicalRomance never existed.]]
1225They are, and always have been, Voldemort and the Death Dealers. They specialize in rock and Christian gangsta rap. What we know as "My Chemical Romance" is just a disguise.
1226
1227[[WMG: Tara wrote the hacked chapter unintentionally.]]
1228She was getting a lot of reviews stating that the fic was so bad, it was indistinguishable from the product of someone bashing the keyboard. She decided to show the haters what that would ''actually'' look like, and she did it for real. The result was the hacked chapter. She posted it, in part to show the haters how wrong they were and in part for the "lolrandom so kwaii" rush she got from it.\
1229\
1230And since she [[UseYourHead used her head]], the effect on the fic lasted longer than just that chapter.
1231
1232[[WMG: The fanfic ended itself.]]
1233It just couldn't take it. And there are a host of reasons why it gave out:
1234* Ebony became such a BlackHoleSue that she became a literal black hole, causing the fic's universe to collapse on itself.
1235* Ebony caused an unintentional [[AssimilationPlot Instrumentality]], with her ungodly Sue-ness stripping the characters of mind, body, and soul.
1236* The cosmos declared war on itself in a desperate attempt to rid itself of Ebony.
1237* The other characters realised what she really was and killed her.
1238* The fic itself gained sentience and, out of horror at what it discovered itself to be, killed itself.
1239
1240[[WMG: ''Das niteMARE b4 xmas'' is a different film from ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas''.]]
1241''Das niteMARE'' is a goffik tale about a first-generation German immigrant woman ([[GratuitousGerman Das]]) with an interest in horses (MARE) who promised her exasperated daughter that she would learn to understand her LeetLingo (nite, b4) before Christmas (xmas).
1242
1243[[WMG: Some of the misspellings are {{Bland Name Product}}s.]]
1244It applies to movies, bands, places, clothing outlets, and various other products.
1245
1246[[WMG: Someone will make a self-parody ''My Immortal'' movie.]]
1247It won't be a serious adaptation, but it will be a ''faithful'' one, and it will be the most bizarre and trippy thing in cinematic history. Imagine how ''Film/ZeroHour1957'' became ''Film/{{Airplane}}'', times a thousand. If ''Airplane!'' killed the air disaster movie genre, this movie would kill all of FanFiction and the entire ''Harry Potter'' franchise.
1248
1249[[WMG: The story was the product of several drunk friends.]]
1250It was ''collective'' ArtisticStimulation. They had the idea to write a fanfic and attribute it to a made-up belligerent teenager named Tara. It wasn't a ''great'' idea, but it ''sounded'' great because they were drunk. And the more they drank, the worse their ideas (and prose) got. When they sobered up, one of the friends, Raven, realized how the negative attention to ''My Immortal'' was also drawing attention to her ''actual'' fics, and figuring there was NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity, she decided to keep writing during binge-drinking sessions. The others went along with it because free booze! Such is the life of a HardDrinkingPartyGirl.
1251
1252[[WMG: We can't enjoy it because we're all prepz.]]
1253The only way to enjoy it is to be Goff, whic requires goff clothes, which [[ShapedLikeItself requires being Goff]].
1254
1255[[WMG: Tom Rid's store is not a MortonsFork.]]
1256He'll only give you the clothes ''for free'' if you're already a goff. You can still ''buy'' the clothes if you're not a goff yet, and this is indeed one of the steps in becoming a goff. Indeed, buying the wardrobe is half the work; the other half is moving somewhere where nobody knows you and making up a tragic backstory.
1257
1258[[WMG: It's all [[ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis Superboy-Prime]]'s fault.]]
1259When he was banging the walls of reality, he hit the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' universe, leading to the universe of this fic.
1260
1261[[WMG: The story is Tara's application to the [[WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog Evil League of Evil]].]]
1262Bad Horse was impressed by her innovative new approach to torture, and he gave her a nice starting position under Fake Thomas Jefferson.
1263
1264[[WMG: The story is a Langford Basilisk.]]
1265If anyone was to ever truly understand the story in its entirety, well, *tzzew*.
1266
1267[[WMG: [[RougeAnglesOfSatin "Mastabating"]] means "building a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastaba Mastaba]]".]]
1268Still means it's either "speld rong" or a PerfectlyCromulentWord, though.
1269
1270[[WMG:A Maru Sue is a Mary Sue whose Suedom manifests in winning the ''[[Franchise/StarTrek Kobayashi Maru]]'' scenario.]]
1271It's an UnwinnableTrainingSimulation, so any character who actually wins at it must, almost by definition, be a MarySue. Unless they're male, in which case it's "Maru Stu".
1272
1273[[WMG: The hacker was connected to the ''WebOriginal/ProtectorsOfThePlotContinuum''.]]
1274She makes a lot of jokes and kills a Mary Sue in a creative way. After said Mary Sue is killed, canon reverts to normal. Sound familiar?
1275[[/folder]]
1276----
1277[[index]]

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