Tara Gilesbie: Trolling Genius?

A while back, my friends and I recorded our own dramatic reading of the infamous Harry Potter fan fiction, My Immortal. We were inspired by this video:

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

That is the best dramatic reading of anything, ever. I always lose it at “big bobs”. (By the way, the way those lines are written in the video are actually the way they’re written in My Immortal. Seriously, it’s that bad.)

Anyway, I have only now decided to write a blog post about My Immortal.

For those who don’t know, My Immortal is regarded as the absolute worst fan fiction of all time. Everyone who has read it agrees with this, but there is often debate about whether the author of the fan fiction, Tara Gilesbie (I refuse to refer to her by her ridiculous screen name) is a troll or not.

I have sometimes called Tara a troll, but to be honest, I’m not really sure if she is one. If she is a troll, then she’s the best troll of all time, but I have my doubts.

Let’s look at the reasons why Tara is often considered a troll.

My Immortal is horribly written in every way, shape and form, but it’s perfectly horribly written, if that makes any sense.

The plot… well, there isn’t really much of a plot to begin with, but it just… it just doesn’t make any sense. There’s no continuity and no order to anything. It has not even the slightest connection with canon (WHY IS EVERYONE SUDDENLY A GOTH AND WHY DOES VOLDEMORT SPEAK IN YE OLDE ENGLISH?). There are also a lot of badly written sex scenes.

The grammar. Oh dear God, the grammar. It makes grammar freaks like me want to tear their hair out. The first couple of chapters were edited by her friend Raven, so while the grammar and spelling isn’t perfect, it is at least readable. Raven eventually stopped editing for Tara, however, and then all Hell breaks loose. How can anyone seriously write “triumelephantly”?

At the beginning of each chapter, there’s an author’s note that’s basically just Tara yelling at preps and posers to stop criticizing her fan fiction. Or as she puts it, “stup flamming da stryo ok!!!1111”. Again, how do you write something like that seriously?

Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way (most ridiculous name ever, and why is there an apostrophe in “darkness”?) is Tara’s shameless self-insert character. She even accidentally calls Ebony “Tara” a couple of times throughout the story. Ebony is one of the best examples of a Mary Sue. In fact, most of the characters in the story are Mary Sues and Gary Stus. They’re perfect and beautiful (and totez goffik), they never get called out on their bullshit (and trust me, they pack a lot of bullshit), and everyone magically loves them despite the fact that they have as much personality as a brick wall.

I would also like to point out that Tara often misspells Ebony’s name. Tee hee, Enoby.

This fan fiction is too badly written, which is why many people think Tara is a troll. However, although I have sometimes called her a troll myself, I don’t really believe she is one. It’s hard to make yourself sound that stupid yet still sound believable, and My Immortal just sounds so believably stupid to me. Tara would have to be a trolling genius to pull that off.

Plus, I must confess, I don’t want Tara to be a troll because, well, I kind of love My Immortal? I don’t love it in the sense that I think it’s good (it’s definitely far from good). I love it because it’s so terrible that it’s hilarious. I’ve read it more than once, and it still cracks me up. I mean, how can you not laugh at gems like these:

• “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!”
  It was…………………………………………………….Dumbledore!
•  He was so sexy that my body went all hot when I saw him kind of like an erection only I’m a girl so I didn’t get one you sicko.
• AN: STOP flaming! if u flam it menz ur a prep or a posr! Da only reson Dumbledeor swor is coz he had a hedache ok (This becomes a character trait, by the way. It’s often mentioned that Dumbledore acts like a jerk when he has a headache.)
• “My name’s Harry Potter, although most people call me Vampire these days.” he grumbled.
  “Why?” I exclaimed.
  “Because I love the taste of human blood.” he giggled.
  “Well, I am a vampire.” I confessed.
  “Really?” he whimpered.
  “Yeah.” I roared.
• Draco ran out even though he was naked. He had a really big you-know-what but I was too mad to care. (Priorities, dude.)
• “VAMPIRE POTTER, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” I yelled. (Best sentence ever.)
• “How did you know?” I asked in a surprised way.
  Voldemort got a dude-ur-so-retarded look on his face. “I hath telekinesis.”
• I started to cry and cry. Draco started to cry too all sensitive. Then he ran out crying. (That’s a lot of crying.)
• “What have you done!” [Dumbledore] started to cry wisely. (Only Dumbledore could cry wisely.)
• Then I looked out the window and screamed… Snap was spying on me and he was taking a video tape of me! And Loopin was masticating to it!
• Hargrid ran outside on his broom and said everyone we need to talk.
  “What do you know, Hargrid? You’re just a little Hogwarts student!”
  “I MAY BE A HOGWARTS STUDENT….” Hargirid paused angrily. “BUT I AM ALSO A SATANIST!” (Why the hell would that mean that people should listen to you?)
  “This cannot be.” Snap said in a crisp voice as blood dripped from his hand where Dumblydore’s wand had shot him. “There must be other factors.”
  “YOU DON’T HAVE ANY!” I yelled in madly. (I must quote these lines whenever someone says something implausible from now on.)
• WARNING: SUM OF DIS CHAPTA IS XTREMLY SCRAY. VIOWER EXCRETION ADVISD. (I just LOVE this line. She’s advising us to shit our pants, because it’s just so scary. Brilliant.)
• “You fucking bustard!” yelled Draco at Vampire. “I want to shit next to her!1”
  “No I do!” shouted.
  “No she doesn’t fucking like u, you son of a bitch!” yelled Draco.
  “No fuck you motherfucker she laves me not you!” shouted Vampire. And then……………… he jumped on Draco! (no not in dat way u perv) (Thanks for clearing that up, Tara.)
• He pot his wetnes in my u-know-what sexily. I gut an orgy.
  “Oh Draco!111111!1 Oh mi fuking gud Draco!1111” I screemed passively as he got an eructation. (Yep, I’m pretty sure that’s how sex works.)
• I got up suicidally. (How exactly do you do something “suicidally”?)

Clearly this fanfiction is literary brilliance.

Except for the parts in bold (obviously), those are all actual quotes. Copied and pasted from the fan fiction. Seriously.

Finding out that Tara is a troll would make the fan fiction less funny to me, so until there is proof (which will probably never happen), I’m going to continue thinking that Tara was just an idiotic preteen when she wrote My Immortal.

If anyone is interested in reading the fan fiction, here’s a link: http://myimmortalrehost2.webs.com/

Now, I will leave you with this: STUP FLAMMING MY BLGO OK!!!11111!!one!!

My Geeky Pet Peeves Part 1

The title says “Part 1” because this will probably be the first of many posts like this. Basically, I will be listing some of the geeky pet peeves that I have. Well, I don’t think they’re “geeky”, but other people seem to think they are, hence the title.

So, let’s begin.

1. When people refer to Harry Potter as a book for children.

Yeah, sure, the first two or three books are obviously written for kids (although I still think adults should be able to enjoy them). However, the books matured with their audience and the characters, and the last four books are definitely not what I would call childish. They become much darker and more serious. Now that I think about it, even the first three books are dark for children’s books. Honestly, did the people who think Harry Potter is for children even read past the first chapter of Philosopher’s Stone?

2. When people spell Mortal Kombat as “Mortal Combat”.

No! No C’s, damn it! It’s spelled with a K.

3. When people refer to Sektor, Cyrax, and Cyber Sub-Zero/Smoke as robots.

They are not robots. They are cyborgs. And yes, there is a difference. Look it up, if you don’t know what it is.

By the way, did you know that while Mortal Kombat 3 was in development, Sektor and Cyrax were referred to as Ketchup and Mustard (due to their color schemes) before their names were finalized? I find that truly hilarious.

4. When people think that Sub-Zero and Scorpion are brothers.

SERIOUSLY, WHY DO PEOPLE THINK THAT? IT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE! Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot are brothers (at least, they share blood… Story Mode reference…) but Sub-Zero and Scorpion are not. Okay? Okay.

5. When people mix up characters from the Pokémon anime, games, and manga.

The games came first. Ash, from the anime, is based off of Red, the main character of the Generation One games. Except that Ash is, you know, an idiot. The main character in the Pokémon Adventures manga is also called Red, but that does not make him the same Red from the games. Blue is Red’s rival in the games, and his anime counterpart is Gary. Although Gary and Blue are extremely similar (definitely more similar than Ash and Red), they are not the same person either. Blue is the name of Red’s rival in Pokémon Adventures as well, but he is also not the same Blue as the one from the games. There was supposed to be an option to play as a female character in Generation One, but they ended up not being able to fit her in the game (although they did fit her into the remakes). Green from Pokémon Adventures is based off her design. She has no counterpart in the anime.

6. When people say that Pokémon Adventures has the same canon as the games.

I love Pokémon games, and I like Pokémon Adventures. However, they do not have the same canon, they have two seperate ones. Stop saying that it’s canon that Red in the games started with a Bulbasaur and Blue with a Charmander. Stop saying it’s canon that Squirtle was later stolen by Green. That may have happened in the manga, but that doesn’t mean it happened in the games. Technically, Green isn’t canon at all in the games. Even if you choose the female character in FireRed/LeafGreen, she’s never mentioned in other games the way Red and Blue are.

The point is, I don’t think there is a single canon for the starters that Red and Blue chose. Everybody who plays the games picks a different starter, so we all have our own personal canon for that part of the story. I started with Charmander, which means that Blue picked Squirtle, since he always has to be a jerk and pick the starter that has the advantage against yours. So, my personal canon is that Red started with a Charmander and Blue with a Squirtle. Others may have picked different starters, so their personal canon would be different.

Also, half of the Gym Leaders in the manga are evil, and they’re not evil in the games. So yeah, the games and manga definitely don’t have the same canon.

That was a long explanation.

This is all I can think of at the moment, though I will probably think of more later. Expect to see a Part 2. And probably a Part 3. And Part 4. And Part 5. And so on.