My Immortal and the Enigma Behind the Story

Fanfiction has a reputation among some groups as being “weird” or “strange.” This is a simplification. In reality, the quality of fanfiction varies widely from work to work. There are middle schoolers writing their first stories to professional authors writing in worlds created by other professional authors.

In fandom communities, there’s a well-known phrase used to describe a certain quality of fanfiction: “crackfic” or just “crack.” Crackfic refers to stories where the very premise is ridiculous. You can’t suspend your disbelief like most authors want you to while consuming their stories. Very little about a crackfic is logical, and much of the time, it doesn’t seem like the author spent much time thinking about the story at all between the initial idea and posting it.

There’s a catch though. While “crackfic” is sometimes used to describe stories that ended up being “bad” despite the writer’s intention to write something good, these days quite a bit of crackfic is written that way on purpose. Fans take a premise that they know is ridiculous and play with it for the pure fun of it. The lack of logic is part of the fun.

When readers find these stories, it’s not always clear what the author intended unless the author makes their intentions clear, and in some cases, this leads to speculation about whether the author has written crackfic on purpose or not.

No story encapsulates this more than My Immortal, a Harry Potter fanfiction published on FanFiction.Net in 2006 and 2007. Written by a supposed teenage girl, this fanfiction has become so infamous that it has its own Wikipedia page. More than a decade after it was written, people continue to speculate that this “bad” fanfiction was satire all along.

What is My Immortal?

My Immortal is a 44-chapter Harry Potter fanfiction by the author XXXbloodyrists666XXX, who claimed to be a teenager in author’s notes included in the story. It was posted between the releases of the sixth and seventh Harry Potter books, which was a busy time in the fandom. The story has since been removed from FanFiction.Net by its original author, but copies of it continue to pop up online.

The story follows Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way, a vampire who attends Hogwarts with the characters from the Harry Potter series. Ebony is part of a goth clique within the school, and much of the story focuses on conflict between the goths and the preps. Just some of the hijinks in the story include vampires, a romance between Ebony and Draco Malfoy, and an appearance by Voldemort, who asks to be called Satan. It is, to put things lightly, a strange story.

The plot itself isn’t the end of the story’s quirks either. Many of the author’s notes especially are written in textspeak with an abundance of misspelled words. Author’s notes are also inserted within the story itself. This can be seen in this snippet of the story:

Draco and I held our pale white hands with black nail polish as we went upstairs. I was wearing red Satanist sings on my nails in red nail polish (AN: c does dat sound lik a Maru Sue 2 u?). I waved to Vampire. Dark misery was in his depressed eyes. I guess he was jealous of me that I was going out with Draco. Anyway, I went upstairs excitedly with Draco. We went into his room and locked the door. Then…

It’s many of these elements that lead people to believe the author was not only aware of the story’s flaws but writing it that way on purpose.

Who wrote My Immortal?

Who was behind My Immortal has been a hot topic for years. Many people believe that the author’s claims about being a teenager were false. The tone of the story itself and the accompanying author’s notes leads these people to believe that it must have been an invented persona.

Others believe the work was an inexperienced teenager’s honest attempt at writing a story. As far-fetched as the plot is at times, these people argue that a lot of work seems to have gone into constructing it. Forty-four chapters is a decent chunk of time to spend on a joke. The primary reason so many people believe My Immortal was satire—that it included many elements common in “bad” fanfiction at the time—is also an indication of a teenager experimenting with writing for the first time.

In the decade since it was first posted online, several people have claimed to be the author of the fic, but no one has presented public evidence to confirm their claims. The claim that gained the most attention came from Rose Christo, a young adult author.

Christo’s case caught a lot of attention because of added controversies that rose after she publicly claimed to be the My Immortal author.

In 2017, Macmillan revealed that they were publishing Christo’s memoir. The memoir was said to be about Christo’s experiences growing up as a Native American in the US foster care system. She also claimed to have written My Immortal, claims which Macmillian said they had verified.

At first, the press coverage of the memoir was focused on My Immortal, and it was this coverage that caught her estranged brother’s attention. Her brother posted on the site Kiwi Farms that his sister was lying about being Native American. Kiwi Farms moderators claimed that they’d confirmed the user was Christo’s brother. Backlash followed.

Not long after, Macmillian came forward claiming that they’d found errors in Christo’s story and would no longer be publishing her memoir. Christo herself also confirmed that the man in question was her brother and that much of what he said was true. However, she continued to claim authorship of My Immortal. Nothing has been confirmed in the years since, but unsurprisingly, many find it difficult to believe claims by someone who was proved to be lying about other parts of their life.

As of 2021, people continue to speculate about who might have been the person behind My Immortal. It’s one of the great mysteries of the internet. There may never be an answer, but the truth might be a lot less interesting than the mystery anyway.