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[Jacob]

And yes, it has been pretty much confirmed that this is the real author. UPDATE: Guess not, after all.

Background on what My Immortal is and why it's so popular - Vulture (from 2015)
Run-down of the evidence for authenticity - Daily Dot
Some details on the book - Buzzfeed
Amazon listing - coming 29 May 2018

My Immortal is a landmark in HP fandom and the broader fanfic community -- and the identity of its author is one of the longest running online mysteries, which has thwarted years of Internet detectives -- so this is fairly exciting news to someone like me who grew up with Internet culture.

In early August, "Tara Gilesbie" decided to come forward after a decade of radio silence since My Immortal was abandoned. She reopened an old FictionPress account and then posted a link to it on the My Immortal wiki under the name Fokenprepz. In late August, she posted another update to FictionPress refuting the theory that she was Lani Sanem, author of Handbook for Mortals, which was recently the subject of controversy regarding its inclusion in the NYT bestsellers list (previous GAF thread on the subject). The FictionPress was updated again specifically denying this and giving a few details about the author.

There have been numerous impostors claiming to be Tara over the years, so this was initially rejected as a hoax by many people, including the world's leading authority on My Immortal. However, he relatively quickly admitted that he had been mistaken and the new Tara was in fact genuine. Using information from the FictionPress account as well as a now-deleted tweet from an employee of St Martin's/Macmillan (the publishing house who will be putting out the memoir), tumblr sleuths identified YA author Rose Christo as the real Tara, which she has since acknowledged.

Ms Christo initially refused to give details but she has in the past couple days admitted that My Immortal was a trollfic which (a) settles one of the longest-running debates about the story and (b) makes it a legitimately brilliant work of parody. The memoir will cover a number of topics relating to Ms Christo's childhood aside from My Immortal which, from what she's mentioned so far, will probably be fairly heavy reading. But I'm thrilled to have seen an answer to a mystery that I never thought would be solved, and she seems like a pretty cool person, so I'm looking forward to reading the memoir when it's available.

 

[StoneFox]

I could see her saying that it was troll to get rid of some the embarrassment. I was always a believer of it being a troll since it was seemingly a parody of 2001ish era fanfiction in 2006, but I almost feel like it would have been funnier if it was legitimiately serious.

 

[MMarston]

Ms Christo initially refused to give details but she has in the past couple days admitted that My Immortal was a trollfic which (a) settles one of the longest-running debates about the story and (b) makes it a legitimately brilliant work of parody.

.

(In seriousness, I believe her.)

 

[Fj0823]

 

[BetterThanNothing]

Never heard of this but I don't know much about fan fiction. I do know that picture makes my DNA hurt.

 

[StoneFox]

Never heard of this but I don't know much about fan fiction. I do know that picture makes my DNA hurt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4SCYOvh9zA

 

[chrisPjelly]

I want to burn that picture

 

[Cerium]

Applied Cultural Anthropology is the actual greatest HP fanfiction of all time.

 

[Geist-]

...I don't understand. Can someone explain it like I'm 5?

 

[Fury451]

I would have been legitimately disappointed to find out that this wasn't finely constructed parody. It's still one of the best examples of it of all time.

If it was real then it would've just been kinda sad rather than funny.

 

[hughesta]

My Immortal is one of the only things I can think of that has made me almost hurt myself laughing, oh man such good times reading that and hearing readings of it as a kid. Excited to see where this goes

 

[SchrodingerC]

The My Immortal author mystery has been solved?!
I can't believe it.

 

[Ogodei]

...I don't understand. Can someone explain it like I'm 5?

Infamous badfic (which is a term for horrible fanfiction) in the Harry Potter fandom. TV Tropes has a good breakdown of the plot that gives you an idea of how out-there it is. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/MyImmortal

Basically every stereotype of goth kids from the 2000s inserted into the Harry Potter universe.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

...I don't understand. Can someone explain it like I'm 5?

It's a very famous fanfic that was made around ten years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Immortal_(fan_fiction)

 

[Fat4all]

I DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF MY POST, IM GONNA MAKE IT ANYWAYS HATERS

 

[StoneFox]

...I don't understand. Can someone explain it like I'm 5?

It's a Harry Potter fanfic where the main character is the most stereotypical goth girl ever and the writing is amazingly bad. An excerpt:

"Kul." I raised my eye suggestingly. And den... he tok of my cloves sexily and we started 2 make out. I tok of his shit. He had six-pak justr lik Gerard Way!11 We frenched.

"Xcuze me but u r going 2 have 2 leave!111" shooted da lady behind us she was a prep.

"Fuk u!11" I said. Suddenly... I attaked her suking all her blood.

"Noooooo!11" she screamed. All the preps in da theater screamed but everyone else crapped koz Satan and I loked so cute 2gether. Satan and I started to walk outside.

"Zomg how did u do that?" Voldremort asked in a turned-on voice.

"I'm a vampire." I said as we went into the car.

"Siriusly?" he gasped.

"Yah siriusly." I said drinking sum beer. Satan started 2 drive da car. I smelled happily.

"Itz too bad we didn't get 2 c da rest of the movie, don't u fink?"

"Yah." I said as we kised passively. Satan parked in a blak driveway next 2 da place where Draco and I had watched GC for the frist time. We went inside where Marylin Mason wuz playing and started to mosh lol.

 

[Fancyarcher]

So wait it wasn't a joke, huh? I remember when that fanfiction was huge & still a thing, that was back when I myself was still using my fanfiction account. Many of my stories are lost to time, which is probably for the best because my writing was horrible. "Yeah, then they broke through the chellah, and then, and then" etc...

 

[How About No]

I could see her saying that it was troll to get rid of some the embarrassment. I was always a believer of it being a troll since it was seemingly a parody of 2001ish era fanfiction in 2006, but I almost feel like it would have been funnier if it was legitimiately serious.

The Tommy Wiseau of bad fanfiction

That sorta bums me out if it wasn't "genuine"

 

[Random Human]

Honestly, it sort of seems less funny to know it was intentionally bad.

 

[SchrodingerC]

I DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF MY POST, IM GONNA MAKE IT ANYWAYS HATERS

Your spelling is too proper and not goth enough. God you're such a prep poser.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

god dammit dumblydore

 

[Media]

I knew it had to be a parody, no one can write that badly with it not being on purpose.

 

[Soma]

for the past week i've been wondering why people on my social media feed have been referencing an evanescence song.

now i know!

 

[SinCityAssassin]

In the early 2000s, Rose Christo was separated from her five-year-old brother and shuttled between foster homes in Brooklyn to the Bronx and back again. Desperate to be reunited with her sibling, she traveled the five boroughs, unable to find any trace of him, as New York State’s child care agencies failed to help her time and again.

Then, with the help of one beloved foster sister, Rose created an infamous piece of Harry Potter fanfiction titled My Immortal, posting it online under the pseudonym XXXbloodyrists666XXX. The “44 chapters and 22,000 words of hysterical, typo-laden hyperbole” went viral as the most notoriously terrible fanfic ever read by the community. For years, fans, writers, and editors researched, debated, and contested the story’s origin and its mysterious author: Was this grammatically challenged rant actually written by a suicidal goth teenager named Tara Gilesbe living in Dubai, or was this a hoax perpetrated by a group of professional authors making fun of fanfiction?

The truth is a gripping, compelling, and surprisingly funny story of how a young girl infiltrated and used the fanfiction community to search for her brother by baiting their attention with a deliberately badly written tale, creating a 10-year mystery that garnered pop culture media attention and remained unsolved — until now.

Seems serious.

 

[Frozenprince]

I don't believe it was parody. Tbh.

 

[How About No]

I don't believe it was parody. Tbh.

#TeamReal

 

[sunshine and gasoline]

Always did feel that it was a trollfic.

Applied Cultural Anthropology is the actual greatest HP fanfiction of all time.

Etomancer actually takes that crown and Forging the Sword is a close runner-up.

Applied Cultural Anthropology certainly is the best Hermione centric HP fanfic.

 

[Geist-]

Infamous badfic (which is a term for horrible fanfiction) in the Harry Potter fandom. TV Tropes has a good breakdown of the plot that gives you an idea of how out-there it is. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/MyImmortal

Basically every stereotype of goth kids from the 2000s inserted into the Harry Potter universe.

It's a very famous fanfic that was made around ten years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Immortal_(fan_fiction)

It's a Harry Potter fanfic where the main character is the most stereotypical goth girl ever and the writing is amazingly bad. An excerpt:

Thank you, I think I get it now.

 

[TraBuch]

Is this the Draco Malfoy leather pants fanfic or was that another infamously bad story?

 

[Cerium]

Etomancer actually takes that crown and Forging the Sword is a close runner-up.

Going to have to disagree with you on the latter.

And what is Etomancer? If you're talking about Ectomancer a brief glance is enough to discern thatit's not worthy of being in the conversation.

 

[L Thammy]

I was always totally convinced it was a troll. It was too creative and funny in how it was terrible, there wasn't enough of a lull for it to be just bad.

 

[L Thammy]

Is this the Draco Malfoy leather pants fanfic or was that another infamously bad story?

I think so.

Didn't Draco die in one chapter and was then alive in the very next one with no explanation? There's no way this couldn't have been a parody.

 

[Faynwulf]

She was in her teens when she wrote it. I don't buy that she wrote a trollfic. It's obviously something a edgy teenager from the 2000s would write.

Someone like "Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m".

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I always pegged My Immortal as a trollfic. Way too dumb, and that's saying something.

 

[Apple Turnover]

My Immortal was gloriously awful. But if the memoir doesn't have tales of Good Charlotte inexplicably playing Hogsmeade like every other day, not interested.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

She was in her teens when she wrote it. I don't buy that she wrote a trollfic. It's obviously something a edgy teenager from the 2000s would write.

Someone like "Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m".

... Have you read it though?

 

[Jacob]

Is this the Draco Malfoy leather pants fanfic or was that another infamously bad story?

The Draco in Leather Pants trope was (is? it's been a while since I read HP fanfic regularly) a very widespread one, but MI immortal is definitely a prime example of it.

She was in her teens when she wrote it. I don't buy that she wrote a trollfic. It's obviously something a edgy teenager from the 2000s would write.

Someone like "Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m".

TBH I didn't really want to think of it as a troll because it was funny to imagine it being genuine, but the giant essay I alluded to the OP sorta convinced me. Just for example, it's hard to imagine the perfect storm of correctly spelled homophones (eg Azerbaijan and Abkhazian for Azkaban) coexisting with the hideously mangled spelling of everything else without it being deliberate. And unlike the vast majority of badfic it's never boring; I don't think I've ever read anything else that makes me laugh so much and so continuously. It's honestly really impressive IMO.

 

[Gulz1992]

 

[MrSaturn99]

Eh, I always preferred the one where a giant squid made love to Hogwarts.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

It's a Harry Potter fanfic where the main character is the most stereotypical goth girl ever and the writing is amazingly bad. An excerpt:

.... I lost my shit at "Satan started ta drive da car".

 

[StoneFox]

News update: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/9/16428248/my-immortal-still-a-mystery-rose-christo-fake

Rose Christo, the alleged author of the legendary 2006 Harry Potter fanfic My Immortal, has had her tell-all memoir canceled by the publisher following revelations that she had Photoshopped documents of proof about her identity.

-------

Above all, the reigning question of who “Tara” is and whether she wrote My Immortal as an intentional parody of bad fanfic is more up in the air than ever. And somehow that seems appropriate for one of the internet’s longest-running mysteries.

 

[Random Human]

News update: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/9/16428248/my-immortal-still-a-mystery-rose-christo-fake

Holy shit

 

[Fj0823]

Holy shit

The plot thickens

 

[CreeperBlocks]

News update: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/9/16428248/my-immortal-still-a-mystery-rose-christo-fake

Well this just got interesting.

 

[OrangeAtlas]

News update: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/9/16428248/my-immortal-still-a-mystery-rose-christo-fake

Reading through all the articles in the OP, then reading down through the thread and ultimately ending up at this post is blowing my mind right now.

 

[Jacob]

Following the fallout of this on tumblr since her (apparent) brother first posted about it on Kiwifarms has really been something. Rose Christo was, for a while, the most believable Tara claimant we'd seen yet IMO, but someone on tumblr (can't remember their username) made the point that Christo's story lined up almost too perfectly with what a lot of fandom culture admires. In retrospect, that seems like it was probably calculated. Ironically, at this point writing My Immortal is the most plausible claim she's made about herself, and I'm still kinda curious what evidence she gave to Macmillan, but it seems foolish to believe that anymore. Being a spectator to all the family drama that has come out is really depressing though, so I'm kinda ready to move on. Definitely not the ending I was hoping for from this. :/

 

[Bronx-Man]

News update: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/9/16428248/my-immortal-still-a-mystery-rose-christo-fake

I knew it

 

[Not]

This is the best one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA_VSQqn32M

EDIT: Oh damn

I wonder who Tara was

 

[Apple Turnover]

News update: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/9/16428248/my-immortal-still-a-mystery-rose-christo-fake

Did she shop them to say her name was Ebony Darkness Raven Dementia Way (or whatever it was) by mistake?

 

[The_Inquisitor]

As a teenager who visited fanfiction a lot back in the day how the hell did I not hear about this. Holy shit...