askmyimmortal - Tumblr blog

[askmyimmortal]

People keep asking me about Tara, people pretending to be her and whether she was a troll or not, most of the time I like to think of her as a myth who disappeared from the internet after the last chapter was published. But SOMEONE wrote it and whoever they are, I wonder if they know how notorious the story became. On the topic of whether it is satire or not I always said it looked too earnest to be satire because good satire authors are usually more organized. It's entirely possible that she saw Back To The Future as a kid and remembered Marty McFly because a LOT of people have seen that movie without necessarily being very into pop culture. Same for Tom Bombadil, she looked like she had some form of dyslexia and could have seen the name somewhere, got confused with Tom Riddle like she mixed up Cedric Diggory and Hagrid.

No one will ever know the true nature of My Immortal because unless a Tara Gilesbie shows up with a real ID and everything there's no way to know for sure.

Given that I think “My Immortal” is a troll (with the reason generally being that author Tara references both Marty McFly and TOM BOMBADIL), I just reread it and I’m astounded by the effort put into it.

The spelling and grammar gets steadily worse over the course of the story, messing up simple words and even the main character’s name (variations on Ebony include Enoby, Enony, Eboby, and my favorite Enopby). The author gives frequent shoutouts in the A/N at the beginning of each chapter to someone called Raven, who she considers a friend and apparently functions as a beta. In chapter 16, Tara severs ties with Raven, expels/murders Raven’s character Willow, and changes Ebony’s full name to Ebony Dark’ness Dementia TARA Way. It’s suggested that they fought because Tara stole Raven’s poster of Gerard Way. By chapter 17, they appear to have made up and Willow is brought back with no further explanation.

The plot, of course, is just insane, but the story was obviously being read; Tara begins each chapter furiously ranting about “flamerz” leaving bad reviews, terribly misspelled. At one point, Ebony was referred to as a Mary Sue and she immediately tried to shut that down, citing “Satanism” and “depression” as flaws. She held each new chapter hostage, demanding a certain number (usually 5) good reviews before she would update. Assuming the spelling and grammar mistakes were intentional, the natural progression of them getting worse and worse is incredible. The difference between Tara’s A/Ns and Raven’s edited text is also astounding, although chapter 16, during their supposed rift, is not noticeably more poorly written than the chapters immediately preceding and following it.

The misspellings of character names and general slipups get worse and worse to the point that once, “Enopby” is referred to as “Tara”, and at another point, “TaEnby”, further to emphasize that Ebony is, in fact, the most obvious self insert in the history of literature. The reference to Marty McFly (he appears at the end of chapter 35 to spirit Ebony into the future) confounds me; Tara does not seem like she’d been aware of pop culture enough to have seen “Back to the Future”, given that she describes “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as this serious, depressing, Adult movie. She’s young enough to consider “he put his thingy into my tool” an accurate description of sex. Further, she references Tom Bombadil, a character in “Lord of the Rings” who I believe just shows up and sings for a while and is strongly implied to be God and then disappears, not really relevant to anything. He’s not even in the movies. Would Tara Gilesbie have read “Lord of the Rings” when she admits she’s never read the Harry Potter books?

Read through that lens (that this was an elaborate hoax), can you believe the rest of it was so organically terrible? Even now, 10+ years after the fact, no one can agree on whether this story is a troll, and until anyone finds out who Tara Gilesbie really is, it’s going to be impossible to know for sure. This is just crazy to me.

[askmyimmortal]

My Immortal: The Comic, remastered for tumblr

(part 1/2)

(video mentionned in chapter 7)

[askmyimmortal]

My Immortal: The Comic, remastered for tumblr 

(part 1/2)

[askmyimmortal]

I’ve retrieved the original comic pages from my parent’s place and I’m planning to rescan them really soon and post them to tumblr for the first time (there was an old page going around uncredited a few years ago but I haven’t seen any since then, so the 10th anniversary is probably a good occasion to repost them myself)

still don’t know if i’ll post them on here or on my main blog, we’ll see.

Stay tuned don’t hesitate to drop me a message if I forget which is very very likely

[askmyimmortal]

different anon, it's actually xXblo0dyxkissxX (they had the o and 0 switched) youtube com/user/xXblo0dyxkissxX

Here’s a direct link for y’all

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZv5DCOrKlfGaED03cFx2ZQ

I don’t really know what to make of this, since it was posted a full two years after My Immortal was posted and therefore after it got so much attention, so it might be people trying to pass for Tara and Raven like so many have done by now... I didn’t take the time to watch it all though, but I’d like to know what you guys think about this?

[askmyimmortal]

xXbl0odyxkissxX This is hers and "Raven"'s Youtube channel. Tara is the blonde one

I did a YouTube search for this but found nothing?

[askmyimmortal]

Wooops I missed the anniversary

10 years ago, on March 4th 2006, My Immortal was published on fanfiction.net.

I was going to draw something but I honestly had no idea when the anniversary was, I found out today. Oops. Maybe I’ll draw something later anyway but if you’re still here, thank you and have a goffik day.

[askmyimmortal]

Is anyone even still following this account? Hi happy valentine's day I hope you're having a goffik time 💜

Happy Valentine’s Day from My Immortal!

[askmyimmortal]

Hi I really enjoy your comic it brings light to my limpid-tear eyes. Will you ever do more? I especially liked the bit where she was in the bath with a steak.

Thank you very much but it’s been years now, like the great philosopher Bieber said, “I will never say never” but it sure looks like I won’t be continuing the comic…

[askmyimmortal]

What I really love about My Immortal is that it's become such a staple of bad fanfic and so many have claimed to know the truth of Tara, be Tara, know her, know someone who knows her etc. that it's impossible to be sure what the real truth is. Was the real tara a troll or not? What happened to her? It's a legend now, shrouded in hearsay and anonymity of internet. And I love that. Really, truly love it.

[askmyimmortal]

myimmortalseries answered: I know of at least two people claiming to have been her, and I’ve heard about four separate peeps claiming to be her. So jury’s out

Yeah that's what I thought when that person came up to me like "HEY I FOUND TARA'S ACOUNT" the first thing I thought was oh great, another troll.

There's also this other girl who made a comic and claims to have known her personally IRL but I think she deleted it because I can't find it anymore...

[askmyimmortal]

Two people unfollowed me after I posted this. Now it's not the number of the beast it's just the bloke next door

Also I’m at 666 followers right now thank you guys for staying here even though I don’t update — maybe I’ll do a few answers at some point but I feel like I’ve covered pretty much everything (let’s face it, Ebony isn’t exactly a complex and deep character)

If you’re interested in seeing more of my art you can visit my art blog.

As for the comic, well… I don’t think I’ll be rebooting it anytime soon but you never know.

Fangz to all of you! If you have clever questions you can keep sending them, maybe I’ll answer :)

[askmyimmortal]

relixala answered: total troll. the imitation of the original author’s writing style is poor at best and no one stays in a phase like that after 8 years…

erimies answered: I think this one has become a yeti question. ‘Was she a troll or not’, ‘Is this Tara’, we may never know. And that’s beautiful.

Yep I definitely agree with that... I also like to keep the mystery, it's what I always answer when people ask me about Tara. She disappeared and she will never come back. She will remain a legend.

brainbubblegum answered: >member for 2 years.

I guess the creator of this account never intended for this to pass as being as old as My Immortal, but like I said after 8 years she wouldn't have used that username...

[askmyimmortal]

Also I'm at 666 followers right now thank you guys for staying here even though I don't update -- maybe I'll do a few answers at some point but I feel like I've covered pretty much everything (let's face it, Ebony isn't exactly a complex and deep character)

If you're interested in seeing more of my art you can visit my art blog.

As for the comic, well... I don't think I'll be rebooting it anytime soon but you never know.

Fangz to all of you! If you have clever questions you can keep sending them, maybe I'll answer :)

[askmyimmortal]

Someone on dA is trying to convince me that this is Tara's real account. Just so you know, my personal opinion is that she disappeared and anyone claiming to be her has a 99.99% chance of being a huge troll. Honestly if she wasn't a troll in the first place, after 8 years she would have 1. changed username, 2. moved past her goth/emo phase.

I don't know if I'm the ultimate authority on the matter but a lot of people come to me with this kind of stuff.

What do you guys think?

[askmyimmortal]

can you update the comic its like the most hilarious thing ive ever read

Yes I'm going to finish it

APRIL FOOL'S! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[askmyimmortal]

I've been inactive for like a year but I'm bringing this back for those who didn't get them on time last year. Have a goffik Valentine's Day with your loved one or all by yourself with your you-know-what :)

Happy Valentine’s Day from My Immortal!