Over a decade ago Fanfiction.net became the home of the most well-known Harry Potter fanfiction. This notoriously bad work of art has become a big part of internet history. If you haven’t heard of My Immortal by user XXXbloodyrists666XXX, this fic is about a girl named Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. Ebony, or sometimes Enoby, is a goth vampire who begins a relationship with Draco. Many of the characters choose new “goffik” names, such as Harry going by Vampire. The plot is convoluted and the spelling and grammar are progressively worse throughout the story. The author would sometimes interject with comments in the middle of the story and she also accuses anyone who leaves negative comments of being a prep. The story was was taken down from the site by administrators, but there are still places where you can read this catastrophe.
There’s been a lot of mystery around this author. The author of this beautiful disaster claimed to be someone named Tara Gilesbie, but many believed that to be a pseudonym. Many wondered if this was truly written by a grammar-challenged teen or it this was written as a joke. Interestingly, the mysterious author actually predicted a major plot point in the last Harry Potter book. Before Deathly Hallows even came out, My Immortal had Harry turn out to be a horcrux. As the years went by many people wondered who the mysterious author could be and where they were in life now. Last month the internet was shocked to receive a few announcements from the author on her Fictionpress profile, a sister website to Fanfiction.
In these announcements, the author mentions that the Fanfiction profile was hacked and she no longer has access to it. She thanks the readers for keeping My Immortal alive over the years in the first update. In the second update she denies rumors of any connection to Lani Sarem, an author that is surrounded by controversy involving rigging sales to make it to the New York Times best-seller list. In this update she also confirms that Tara is not her real name. The third update is longer and again thanks the fans for keeping the story alive and condemns Sarem’s actions.
After these updates, her identity was revealed. Unfortunately, the revelation was not her own doing. Curiosity fuels the internet and she was sadly outed as the author of My Immortal before she wanted to be. Her name is Rose Christo and she is a published author with a memoir coming out next year. This memoir will chronicle her time in the foster care system and being separated from her brother. The memoir will also address why she wrote the infamous fanfiction. You can pre-order the memoir here.
While it is unfortunate her identity was revealed before she wanted it to be, at least we can now support her by buying her books. You might ask why I would suggest supporting someone who’s famous for lines such as, “Loopin held up the camera triumelephantly.” Well, she wrote a magnificently bad fanfiction that has left a significant mark on internet history to the point that it inspired a webseries. As an aspiring writer, the fact that she accomplished that and has become a published author that writes about LGBT+ characters and advocates for better treatment of Native Americans, something she is passionate about, is inspiring. She kind of my new hero.
