Headscratchers / My Immortal

Let's begin by saying that everything about this fic should have you scratching your noggin.

We now return to your regularly scheduled HS page.

Why is Trevolry Sympathetic?

• What's the deal with "Trevolry/Sinatra"? Neither of those characters seem very appealing to a goffic audience, so did Tara sympathise with how everyone treated them like crap or something?
  • Your guess is as good as anyone else.
  • It's possible that the characters' 'mystical'-type interests (stars, tarot cards etc) were deemed alternative enough to fit into the whole goffic aesthetic.
  • Cracking on to this one: Trelawney is one of the few teachers given a significant role in films 1-4 (the ones which were out when the fic was written), and unlike Mc Gonagall or Snape is not portrayed as stern or strict, thus making her not a prep and thus a goff in Tara's eyes. Also, Trelawney being one of the few female professors might've made her seem cooler to Tara. As for the Sinistra confusion, perhaps Tara read a fic in which Sinistra played a prominent role and assumed that the author of the fic must've been referring to Trelawney because she didn't know who Sinistra was.
  • Sinistra might have been included because her name sounds like "sinister" (in fact, the Latin sinsestra, meaning "left hand," is literally the root of the word.) Tara probably saw that it fit into her Theme Naming and didn't look up anything else about the character.

What's a Prep?

• OK, what the hell is a "prep"?
  • A prep is basically a really stereotypical girly girl.
  • Wikipedia is your friend.
  • Though the above wiki link has the most accurate description, the usage of "prep" as seen in the fic is based on a wider usage of it by various alternative kids in the late '90s and early '00s to basically mean "normie" or "mundane", but with an added emphasis on them being popular kids, especially Jerk Jocks and Alpha Bitches. It's actually something you could see quite a lot on the internet if you paid any attention to teenage pseudo-alternative subcultures there, but has quickly become dated.
  • This would sound dated by saying this, but back in the 80s, it was just a style of dress (preppy) that featured Izod shirts, khakis, loafers with no socks, sweaters draped over the shoulders and other trappings. This fashion trend was usually associated with bully characters like Jerk Jock and Alpha Bitch in teen movies from the decade, which could be why "prep" evolved to be something of a negative term for clean-cut white kids from wealthy backgrounds. These kids were always the arch enemies of the heroes of the movies, who were usually nerdy, Goth, punk or otherwise part of a marginalized group.
  • The funny thing is that if anyone is Hogwarts is a prep it's Draco Malfoy.

Silent Speech?

• At one point in Chapter 16, Tara says that Enoby and B'loody Mary "talked to each other in silence for da rest uv da movie." How exactly does that work?
  • No, wait! WMG! Enoby and B'loody Mary are telepathic!
  • Well, that's pretty much confirmed in-story: Enoby does use "vampire telepathy" (which she calls "telekinesis") to tell Vrompire and Darko to destruct Snap.
  • Would it have been too much to say they were whispering to each other?
  • An assumption on "silence" was typed by accident and was meant to be "Japanese", since they had just been speaking it (well, a word or two of it).
  • Ebony and B'loody Mary could have been using sign language to communicate with each other. After all, there's no sound so it's definitely a pretty silent way of speaking to each other.
  • Simple, it doesn't.

Setting it Straight

• Okay. At one point, it's said that both Draco and Ebony are bisexual. So how come Ebony never demonstrates any attraction to girls, ever? Now, it's probably because Tara isn't supposed to like Queer R Omance, but she could have avoided that by just saying Ebony was straight. So...?
  • Well, To recall correctly, It was Draco who said Ebony was bisexual. It's possible that he simply made a wrong assumption.
  • Hell, she even drops a "Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?" in the very first line of the first chapter's disclaimer!
  • A crack theory regarding this.
    Chapter 3: Then [Draco] put his thingie into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time.
    Chapter 14: He had a sex-pack (geddit cuz hes so sexah) and a really huge you-know-what and everything.
  • Thus, Draco somehow becomes female between Chapters 3 and 14, proving Enoby's bisexuality. Or not.
  • She does keep telling the reader how "sexily" she does everything. It seems that she does find one girl attractive: herself.
  • Actually, there is one hint: when she explains why Snap and Lumpkin went to St Mangos, she says that "they can't have those fucking pervs teaching in a school filled with lots of hot gurls". Now, a woman doesn't need to be sexually attracted to know another woman is attractive, but it's rather strange that she comments on the other students' hotness when she doesn't need to.
  • Maybe Tara thought that making her characters bi would make them more goffik and edgy. Interpret that as you see fit.
  • She could have possibly meant that both Vampire/Harry and Draco were bisexual, and mis-typed.
  • Tara (as Ebony) – What's the difference anyway? – has an excuse to Yaoi Fangirl over Draco and Harry being in an apparently "cute" relationship while still having the two be attracted to her
  • Well, the narration keeps describing other female characters' figures in very flattering terms, and it's all done from Enoby's point of view...

Invincibility Coke

• What's the street value of invincibility coke?
  • If you let Drako take your virility keenly against a tree, he'll give you some invincibility coke.

The Undying Draco

• How is it Draco comes back to life? Twice? Rule of funny and Just not caring aside, how does this fit in the logic of the story?
  • Voldemint probably kidnapped Draco and put a dead body double in his place or something to cover up the operation, or maybe after Draco killed himself he kidnapped the body and brought him back to life for some reason. Also, when does Draco commit suicide a second time?
  • Regarding Draco, when Dumbldor runs into the dormitory he says "It has been revealed that someone has-" but stops when he seen Snap and Loopin chewing on the sex tape. I'd always assumed that, had he been able to finish, it would have gone "-kidnapped Draco and left a fake corpse".
  • Everyone here is missing an important detail. Immediately before Draco's death is revealed, Ebony says she expects him to slit his wrists, but not die because he's a vampire. This suggests Dumbledore merely mistook him for dead. The real headscratcher here is why Ebony believed Dumbledore's report of Draco's death.
  • Considering the nature of this fic, she could've meant he just attempted suicide. Or not.

Is Hedwig an Animagus?

• Is Hedwig an Animagus? Because in canon she's female, and an owl. Maybe she's an owl who's a human animagus, and the spell doesn't care about gender?
  • It's most likely a reference to Hedwig and the Angry Inch: Since it's in the 80's and Hedwig is a blond LGBT guy, it can't be a coincidence.
  • It's more likely that she meant "Hagrid" not "Hedwig." Since she did seem to say that the character she calls Hargrid is supposed to be Cedric, it's probable that the character she calls Hedwig is meant to be Hagrid. The timeline matches better too.
    • If so its consistently misspelled, which sets a precedent this story doesn't have (as in, there are at least two radically different misspellings in successive order).
    • Pretty sure Tara meant "sarcastic" when she said "that was sedric," especially because the only other time a word form for "sarcastic" is used it makes no sense in context, and "Hargrid" is consistently misspelled. Given how she does seem to think Hargrid is a seventh-year, she may well be mixing him up with someone else.

Self-Possession

• So, "Snap" was possessed by... Snap? How does that work?
  • He could be possessed by his future self? He's unaccounted for when Enoby goes back in time. While Ebony brought Satan back with her after having him fall in love, Snap went back in time.
    • Eureka! Snap went back in time on Voldemort's orders, knowing that Enoby was time-travelling. Should Ebony screw up the timeline or change Voldemort in any way, Snap would undo what she did. He told Dumbledore that they were in the great hall when Satan and Hedwig were having sex.
  • Dunno how it happened, but it resembles a D&D battle where one of the party got Charm Person'd by the enemy. How'd we deal with it? By charming the party member right back. So maybe Snappy had the same thing done for a similar reason. (Yes, Charm Person isn't mind-control, but still...)
  • Based on the context, it seems like she meant to say "James was possessed by Snape". Apparently, we're meant to believe she somehow misspelled "James" as "Snap".
    • Most likely a point of she just didn't care after making a mistake. Some writers make those kinds of mistakes where they'll be writing/typing what's on their mind, and they'll accidentally write something in that makes no sense, but it was on their mind at that current point.
    • The Swedish translation of one Harry Potter book, writes "Voldemort" where it should say "Dumbledore" by mistake. It's in a scene that doesn't even feature Voldemort.

Does Lucius Lose an Arm?

• Lucien/Lucius or whatever is Draco's dad. And in the past he gets his arm shot off by Samaro Potter who was secretly possessed by Snap at the time in some kinda time gambit to keep Draco and Vampire apart, or something... Well, here's the actual thing: Point is, Lucien has only one arm in the present in My Immortal, but when Ebony goes back in time and takes the bullet, he gets it back. Does Lucien ever lose his arm in any way in the actual Potter canon, and this is Tara's way of explaining it, or is Lucien having one arm entirely her own creation?
  • Lucius at no point has one arm in the Potter canon. It's all Tara. The funny part is Tara apparently forgot to explain that he only has one arm in the My Immortal present, making Ebony's amazement that he has two arms in the past completely random.
    • Thanks for clearing that up. Understandably, Tara probably didn't think of that plot thread until the time travel was already introduced.
    • The best possible explanation is that in the movies, the aristocratic Lucius goes around with a walking stick. Tara seems to have construed that he needs it for support, believes him to have one leg, and somehow in her mind it's become one arm.
    • It's more likely that she has Lucius and Wormtail mixed up. And it's seriously messed up, as she'd have to mistake (or disregard) Draco's parentage, exactly what limb Wormtail cut off(a hand, not an arm), when Wormtail lost said limb (during Goblet of Fire), and which of them was friends with James and Sirius when they were at school.
  • If you wanted to give Tara way more credit than she deserves, it could be an Actor Allusion to Jason Isaacs, who played Captain Hook in a movie a couple of years before the fic was written.

What's Voldemortserum?

• (Same guy who asked the Lucius Arm question above) What the hell is Voldemortserum? Is it based on something from the canon but with a screwed up name, or what?
  • Presumably that should have been Veritaserum, which (since you haven't read the books or seen any other movies) is truth serum.
  • So wait... then that makes Professor Sinister/Trevolry addicted to truth serum?
  • Yes, that's exactly what it means.
  • If you think really hard about it, her addiction to Vloxemortserum/Veritaserum makes a level of sense, and is almost an arc. Trevolry wants to tell the truth when she prophesies, so she's constantly downing the stuff. Eventually, it starts to get her, leading to Ebony finding out from Voldemort that the only cure to Vloxemortserum addiction is vampire blood. If Tara has finished the story, Ebony might have cured Trevolry.

A Hairy Problem

• How is it that Ebony was named after her 'long ebony black hair' when she was presumably born without it?
  • From an in-story perspective, there are three plausible explanations: 1) For whatever reason, her parents didn't name her until they could tell what sort of hair she had, 2) For whatever reason, Ebony herself or her parents changed her name from whatever it was originally, and 3) Her parents were divination/deviation experts and therefore knew what her hair would be like.
  • Plenty of babies are born with some hair, and it would still be black. It just wouldn't be "long".
  • Based on the other characters, like "Vampire," and "Drkola," and the utter outlandishness of her full name, she probably made it up herself. Alternatively, she sprung, fully formed, from the Hellmouth. Either or.
  • Except that even IF she had black hair at birth, the colour may not stick. Some babies are born with blonde hair which fades to brown. So the birth colour thing isn't particularly viable, if her parents are halfway decent.
    • Her parents were guessing.
  • Prophetic Names are omnipresent in Canon.

The Parody Puzzle

• Is this a troll fic or not?
  • That's still being debated. It's a lot funnier if you read it as one, though.
  • This has to be a troll fic. No one, no matter how stupid, could seriously write something like "Im good at too many things! WHY CAN'T I JUST BE NORMAL? IT'S A FUCKING CURSE!".
  • The giveaway is (possibly paraphrasing) "It was.... TOM BOMBADIL!" Someone as uneducated as "Tara" supposedly is would have any reason to know that name, as Bombadil didn't appear in the Lord of the Rings films. There are a few other hints that the author is smarter than Tara appears.
    • Like the fact that Tara can't spell "Ebony" correctly most of the time, and yet somehow stumbled upon spelling "masticate" and "Azerbaijan" correctly. It's a troll fic.
  • There's no damn way someone can misspell their own characters' names so many times and once even as TaEbory, so it's a yes.
  • On the other hand, this fic is also 40+ chapters long. So it's either an extremely dedicated troll or an incredibly stubborn fangirl. It's possibly a dedicated troll, though, since there's just so much nonsensical shit happening.
  • According to Kiwi Farms' thread on Tara, she claims it's a troll fic.
  • More troll evidence, less based upon Tara being smarter than she appears and more upon not knowing things she probably should: the description of Gerard Way she gives during the fic is actually pretty inaccurate. Like, ignoring the misspellings, she describes him with the wrong eye color and body type. And it's a lot more plausible that a troll just was too tired to search up a description of Gerard than it is to think that Tara didn't know what he looked like.

Time Travel Trouble

• How is it that Voldemort shows up after Ebony brought Satan (who is past-Voldemort) into the future? Shouldn't present-Voldemort cease to exist when his past self was removed from the past?
  • Assuming Satan returns to the past at some point, Tara's way is actually consistent with the Harry Potter time travel rules.
  • When present day Voldemort shows up in the present day in Chapter 40, Ebony's actions in the past already starting to affect him. To prevent further tampering, he poses as his past self from that chapter on, until turning back into himself in the final chapter.

Why was it Deleted?

• The link on the main page leads to a re-post of the story and fanfiction.net deleted the original version. Why is that? Why did they delete it? I've seen no other sign of the people in charge caring about the quality of what's posted on the site, so did they remove for a different reason?
  • There have been other instances of fanfiction.net removing stories that it considers to be "obvious trolls." The works of Peter Chimaera, for example. Whether My Immortal is an actual trollfic, or just the product of an incredibly bad author, is still a subject of much debate.
  • Also, when it was on fanfiction.net, the amount of reviews (almost entirely flames) it got was pretty ridiculous. It might have been, at least in part, for Tara's own sake that they took the story down, since she was on the receiving end of thousands of angry messages on their site.
    • also! there were THOUSANDS of reviews on the original. Imagine the strain that would have put on FFN's servers. They might have had to shut it down for technical reasons.

Psychic James and Lucian?

• How do James and Lucian know the names of their future sons? When James attempts to shoot off Lucian's arm, Lucian says Draco will never be friends with Harry.
  • Maybe "If I had a son, I would call him X"? Not that it solves anything else (for example, that they already know both will have a son). Alternatively, considering that the time-travel part takes part in the Eighties (when Harry and Draco were already born), so maybe they all had to repeat classes (due to being goffik instead of learning) so they were still in school when their children were born.

The Advent of Amnesia Potion

• Ebony dips Satan's cigar into Amnesia potion, only for Satan to tell her that Amnesia potion won't work as it hasn't been invented yet.
  • How is this possible, when in the past (same timeline as Tom Satan Bombadil's schooldays) Ebony steals Amnesia potion from Professor Slughorn? It means the potion has been invented!
  • Possibly Slughorn somehow travelled to the future and got the potion there.
  • Maybe Slughorn was developing the potion and that was a useless experimental version.

On You-Know-Whats

• If Draco has a you-know-what and so does Enoby, does it mean both of them are of the same gender?
  • No. Genitalia does not equal gender.
    • To clarify: genitalia doesn't denote your gender, which is a cultural term, but your sex, which is biological.
  • You-know-what can simply be a euphemism for any genitalia, regardless of the type.
    • The person who brought this up is referring to the scene where Draco put his "boy-thingy" in Enoby's.

Why Film Voldemort and Hedwig?

• If Ebony is supposed to pretend to be in love with Voldemort, why does she eagerly offer to film him and Hedwig making out?
  • Considering she shortly before made out with Voldy, it makes her seem manipulative and uncaring.
  • Her in story reasoning seems to be that she could keep her fidelity to Draco while making Volxemint good. Apparently she forgot about her previous sex scene with Tom Bombadil.
  • If one recalls, she's displayed eight of nine signs of being a psychotic Yaoi Fangirl. She probably wanted the tape for her own purposes.

Wand vs. Gun

• Why does Voldemort in Chapter 44 summon Navel's wand, when he has a gun to shoot people with?
  • Even if a wand is more useful to him, why can't he use his own wand? To summon Navel's wand would require his own wand. which is more powerful than Navel's.
  • This must mean Navel is the true hero of the story, not Harry. He is taking away Navel's wand to prevent Navel from defeating him magically. This must mean Navel is more powerful than Harry, who doesn't have his wand taken away from him.
  • It would also explain why Voldemort keeps on threatening to kill Draco and doesn't when he has the chance to do so. Navel is protecting his friends from Voldermort somehow.

Fred, George, Crabbe, or Goyle?

• So apparently Crabbe and Goyle are the brothers of Ron/Diabolo and Ginny/Darkness. Not only that, but they also use something. That they got from Weasley's Wizard Wheazes. Um, what? Did Tara somehow manage to get Fred and George and Crabbe and Goyle mixed up?
  • That appears to be the case.

Is Voldemort Muslim?

• At one point Voldemort shouts "Allah Kedavra." Is Voldemort Muslim?
  • [insert joke answer here]
  • If he is, he's of a Tara version, where the entire Koran is misspelled.
  • Technically it means something to the effect of "Let God be destroyed" ("Allah" is Arabic for "God" and "Kedavra" is an Aramaic word for destruction), so if anything he is the opposite of a Muslim. As in, the most extreme type of misotheist.
  • It goes another way - Tara could also be referring to the 'All Muslims are terrorists' stereotype and apply that to Voldemort (trying to emphasise his evilness by making him Muslim)

Tom's Prediction

• How does Tom Satan Bombadil know that Hogsmint gets its name changed to Hogsmeade in 2000? He's in the 80's when he says it! One shouldn't ask for logic in this fic but this is really bothersome.
  • It could be because Tom/Voldemort "hath telekinesis". Outside of that, your guess is as good as mine.

Why Hogsmint?

• Why did she even feel the need to say that Hogsmeade was once called Hogsmint? It's probably not covering for a typo, as Tara's made way too many non-covered ones for that to count, and it's really unnecessary. So why?
  • Same reason that she feels the need to say that Hot Topic was once called Hot Ishoo (It never was; Hot Topic was founded in 1988, and so wasn't around when Voldemort went to school, and the name was still Hot Topic then.)

Ebony's Opinion on Bright Colours

• She's a "goff," right? Does that mean she thinks bright colors are un-orky?
  • Er Shoota That Da Dork Lord Gave her did Ave lots o Dakka shootin Snap And Loopin a Gazillion times an All! Er Constant Mukkin' about wit Expensive cloths an Flashy Gadgitz probly Mean she either a flash git or krumped one Recently an got herself lotz o Teef. We should Go an Pay er a Visit an KRUMP Er. What you think Boyz?
  • She'z just mukkin' about! Wastin' toime with these sparkly nonsense instead of joinin' up fer DA WAAAAGH!!! She ain't no Goff boy! She ain't near DEAD 'ARD ENUFF!!! WE'Z GONNA KRUMP ALL DEM BATHROBE WEARIN' GITZ GOOD AN' PROPPA!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!
  • ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT!?!

Why Didn't Ebony Know of Harry?

• How is the fact that Ebony apparently didn't know who Harry/Vampire was before chapter 6 even remotely believable? Not only it's a continuity error (since she then says that they're in a band together), they are in the same year and House and Hogwarts doesn't have that many students. Besides, Harry is the most famous student in the school by far.
  • It’s never said she doesn’t know him before. The only time she shows a lack of familiarity is when she hasn’t seen who it was. When she does notice who it is, she describes him while noting things like him no longer wearing glasses or having a scar, so she almost certainly knew who it was.

Why Age Peter Down?

• Why did Tara feel the need to specify that Peter Pettigrew was 16 in her fic and so he wasn't a "pedo" for hitting on Ebony? It can't be because she doesn't want to show an adult hitting on a teenager, given Snap and Loopin's behaviour throughout the fic. And it can't be to show Pettigrew in a less negative light, since he's already murdered and tortured people and his advances repulse Ebony to the point that she kills him.
  • A guess is that readers complained about Tara making Snap and Loopin pedophiles so she aged down Pettigrew to avoid any more of these complaints.

What Does Snape Lack?

• What does Snape not have any of?
  • Other factors. Snap is a prime number.

Why Smith?

• So most of the name changes were to do with making it darker ("Ron" to "Diabolo", etc), but what's with changing Hermione's surname to "Smith"? It's a relatively normal last name, so what's Tara's reason for changing the last name to "Smith"?
  • Tara wanted Hermione to be a pureblood, but the story she went with to do it required Hermione to have a new last name (that of her biological parents, and not her kidnappers), and we all know by now that Tara is pretty terrible with names. That said, "Smith" is kinda lazy even by her standards, so it could be that she knew it was just there to address the issue and would never be brought up again.
  • Tara was a fan of Mr And Mrs Smith given that she mentions it in reference to her outfits, maybe it comes from that?

Goth or Emo

• The use of the word "Goth" (or "Goff") instead of "Emo."
  • Even if "My Immortal" is a parody, the use of the word "Goth" (or "Goff") is a very strange choice, given that all of the "Goff" things described and referenced in the story seem to be aspects the Emo subculture of the time. "Goth" was already a dated term when the fic began, in 2006. Even people with no interest in anything "Emo" were familiar with the term.
  • Whether serious or satirical, the level of detail that "My Immortal" delves into with this subculture makes this even stranger. It is very unlikely that anyone familiar enough with this subculture to know the names of specific songs, band members, and movies like "Corpse Bride," wouldn't hear the word "Emo" at some point in their endeavors.
  • Those few that did identify as "Goths" in the early '00s would have made a point to distinguish themselves from "Emos." Certainly, if Ebony didn't identify as an "Emo," one would expect a character like her to have some strong opinions (most likely labeling them as "posers"), and expect some rants from her about being mistaken for one.
  • For any high-school based fanfic written in 2006 and 2007, regardless of its focus subculture, it's extremely surprising that the word "emo" never appears at all in all 44 chapters.