Okay, first of all, I didn’t realize until I went to make this post that it’s been exactly a year since the last one. Time fucking flies, huh? Or at least it has for me. I don’t think anyone expects regular updates from this blog at this point, but I usually don’t go a whole year without updating, so I’ll offer a few excuses: real life’s been busy (I moved apartments and started a new job in the past year, among other things), podcasting has been busy (we’ve been covering a particularly long, awful, and painfully sincere fanfic for the past several months, and I think it’s making me lose my mind), and, as usual, most of my blogging happens on Tumblr. I also felt it best to hold off a bit on continuing my MST of this story, since I didn’t want to just be repeating the exact same things I said about it on the podcast. But, well, it’s 2023 now and I think this is long overdue.
This chapter has some references to the very dubious teacher/student sex scene that occurred a few chapters ago, and there’s also some references to suicide, as there typically are.
Recap: After slitting her wrists, Ebony mysteriously woke up having traveled back in time to the 1980s. Satan explained that the bullet didn’t kill her because she’s a vampire, and that James tried to shoot Lucius because he had a headache. On the way to go hang out with the other goths, Ebony and Satan ran into Satan’s ex, Hedwig, who in this story is a goth bisexual twink rather than a female snowy owl, and Ebony had a brain blast and thought perhaps she could try and get this couple back together instead of seducing Satan herself. Her plan, which consisted of telling them to start making out in the Great Hall while she filmed with a “video iPod,” worked, but it might have worked a little too well as the boys just started fuckin’. And then, of course, Dumbledore showed up.
Chapter 42. da blak parade
Shoutout to everybody else who just heard the opening notes of “Welcome to the Black Parade” play in their head.
AN: omg da new book iz kumming out rlly soon I kant wait!!!1111. I fink dat snap will be really the same person as Volximort koz dey are both haff-blood so dat will explain y he kild dumblydore and he hated hairy!!!!!1111
Love that this theory is based on nothing except that Snape and Voldemort both have one magical and one non-magical parent. I think by this logic Seamus Finnegan could also be Voldemort. (JK Rowling, in the event that you stumble across this blog post while frantically Googling your own name and looking for something to be mad about online, I do not give you permission to take this idea and post it as a “reveal” on your Twitter account.)
nd den hairy wil have 2 kommit suicide so voldimort will die koz he will rilly be a horcrox!!!!!111
A lot of people over the years have expressed surprise that Tara guessed this twist, and have cited it as evidence that she’s a troll. I kinda get the surprised reaction, as it’s never really clear how much Tara knows or understands the canon books (she said early on she hasn’t read them all, and obviously canon has very little bearing on this fanfic), but I’d also like to point out that this was a very easy twist to guess as it was heavily foreshadowed starting before we even got the reveal about what Horcruxes are. I don’t think I was particularly good at guessing plot twists in advance as a child and I guessed this one in advance too. From what I’ve heard I believe this was also a pretty popular fan theory.
omg I hope draco nd harry get 2getha dat will be so shmexxy, wont it?? If dey don’t den JKR is hamophobic!!!!!111111
I mean, she is, but not for that reason.
fangz 4 da help wiv facts, medusa u rok!!!111
Facts? There’s going to be facts in this chapter?
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I sat depressedly in Dumbledork’s office wiv Hedwig, Satan, James, Serious, Snap and Lucian. Dumbledore was sitting in front of us cruelly.
Love this. I was going to say I have no idea what sitting in front of someone “cruelly” means, but actually I can picture this perfectly. I get exactly what this is going for.
He looked more young den he did in da future.
Damn, that’s crazy.
He had taken da ipod away and wuz now lizzening 2 a shitty Avril Levine song.
I don’t know a lot of Avril Lavigne songs, but I thought it might be fun to speculate on which one he might be listening to, and this kind of sent me down a rabbit hole of wondering why Tara hates Avril Lavigne so much in the first place. While I think of her mostly as a pop artist, her early stuff especially leaned in the pop-punk / grunge pop direction, and I know Tara likes other pop-punk artists (see: Good Charlotte). It’s possible that Tara dislikes Avril Lavigne because she was transitioning towards a more mainstream pop sound/image at around the time this chapter was written (her album The Best Damn Thing, which from what little I’ve heard of it is very much bubblegum pop, came out in 2007), or maybe it’s just because she’s fucking blonde, I don’t know. Anyway I think Dumbledore is listening to “Girlfriend.”
“What da hell is this anyway??” he cackled meanly. I hoped he didn’t find out dat I was frum another time.
Why? Is that against school rules or something?
“Whatever u do don’t blame Ibony, u jerk.” Satan said.
“Yah, siriusly she was trying to get Satan and Hedwig back together.” Serious said deviantly.
Yeah but I think the having sex in the Great Hall thing might have been bad still.
“Be quiet you Satanists.” Dumbledore cockled. “If ur lucky I’ll probably send u all to Akazaban!!! That will teach u to copolate in da Great Hall.”
Not that it actually matters in a story like this one, but Dumbledore does kind of have a point here; Ebony filmed the boys having sex without their consent (without their explicit consent, at least) and perhaps even without their knowledge, and Satan and Hedwig were fucking in a public area, in a school, presumably in front of children as young as eleven. I’m not sure what the Wizarding law is on any of that but I feel like that’s probably several sex crimes. Still, I can’t be entirely on his side, because he says that if they’re lucky he’ll be sending them all to wizard torture prison, and personally I think the ethics of sending anyone to wizard torture prison are dubious at best (hey, has anyone else noticed that the politics in Harry Potter are bad?). And what does that imply will happen to them if they aren’t lucky? What’s worse than being sent to wizard torture prison? Is Dumbledore just gonna murder them?
He changed the song on da ipod 2 a n’Sync song.
I like to think that it’s “Bye Bye Bye,” mostly because that’s the only *NSYNC song I know and partly because I just think it would be funny.
Suddenly I noticed sumfing strong about da Ipod. It was slowly chonging! Dumblydore didn’t notece.
“You fucking poser.” I muttoned.
I don’t actually think there’s any comment I can make here that’s funnier than the text itself.
“I bet you’ve never herd of GC.” James said.
Yeah, I bet so too, because this is the eighties. Dumbledore can’t possibly have heard that Avril Lavigne song or that *NSYNC song before, either, which I was going to ignore because Tara clearly doesn’t care about the musical anachronisms but I guess we’re fucking talking about it now. I like to think he just sorted the songs by genre and is listening to everything categorized under pop music.
Know I knew waht da iPod was chonging in2- Morti McFly’s tim machine!!!!!11
Uh… sure, whatever. Not the craziest thing that’s happened in this story, so who am I to argue with it at this point?
“Shut up Jomes!!!” Drako’s dad shouted.
“Yeah shut up!!!!” Snake said preppily.
“No u shut up Dumblydore!!!!!!!!1111” said Tom.
He wasn’t even talking?
“I’ve had enough of u Satanists in my school!!!!” shouted Dumbledore spuriously.
That’s not very spurious, they are in fact Satanists. Was she going for “furiously”?
Suddenly I grabed da iPod from him. “Evry1! Jump in b4 itz 2 l8!!! I jumped in2 it.
What are the logistics of this? The iPod / time machine is small enough for her to grab one second, and big enough for her to jump into the next? Whatever.
But only 1 odder person jumpd in. It was……..Satan.
Oh, now this is a genuinely interesting turn of events. Ebony telling the others to get in the time machine with her is an obvious bad idea, although I see why she would say it in the moment because they’re all being threatened with wizard torture prison, If They’re Lucky. No one listens to her except Satan (maybe because they’re baffled by the iPod turning into a time machine), but for extremely obvious reasons Satan is the absolute last person Ebony should be bringing forward in time with her. Him getting into the time machine without hesitation here, along with the various hints that he might know Ebony is from the future and has merely been playing along the entire time to make her think her plan is working, makes this genuinely kinda work as a wham moment. Which is crazy to me. We’re at the eleventh hour of the story. God knows how many dramatic ellipses have been deployed by Tara over the course of this thing. And yet right before the end we finally got one that works. I kinda love this.
In the anime adaptation of My Immortal which only exists in my brain (I like to imagine that it’s animated in MS Paint and also that Satan is voiced by Megumi Ogata), there’s a really cool musical stinger playing right now to indicate that things are about to go very badly wrong, so that’s what I’m imagining when I read this part and I think you all should too.
“You dunderheads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111” screamed Dumbledore wisely as we went.
I’d love to know how you scream “You dunderheads!” wisely. I want to start doing it to other drivers in my city.
I looked around. I wuz in da Slitherin conmen room wiv Satan. I was wearing a blak plaid miniskirt with hot pink fishnetz, a sexy blak MCR corset and blak stiletto boots with pink pentagroms on dem. My earrings were blake Satanist sins and my raven hair was all around me to my mid-black.
Why did the time machine change her clothes? Did Satan get a makeover too? I think it’s kinda unfair if he didn’t.
“Hey kool where iz dis?” he asked in an emo voice.
“Dis is da future. Dumbeldore’s iPod dat he tried to take away from me wuz really also a tim machine.” I told him.
“Kool what’s an ipatch?” he whimpered.
“It’s somefing u use 2 lizzen 2 music.” I yakked.
“OMFG kool wait whatz a 4-letter-wurd 4 dirt?” he esked in his sexah voice.
“Um I guezz sand????” I laid confuesdly.
“Yah I wuz just triinyg to make sure u were stil da same perzon.” He triumphently giggled.
I restrained myself from commenting on each line of their exchange here because, much like the initial conversation between Ebony and Vampire way back near the beginning of the story, I think it’s important that you read this uninterrupted and see how it flows, or, rather, doesn’t. These dialogue tags are completely bananas. Satan goes from using an “emo voice” (much like the earlier line about “sitting cruelly,” part of me wants to question what that means and part of me knows exactly what that means), to whimpering (for some reason), to sexily asking Ebony what a four-letter word for dirt is (???), to giggling triumphantly, all across only four lines of dialogue from him. Ebony, meanwhile, “yakked” when answering a question (whatever that means, though it kinda feels like a perfectly cromulent word), and gave “sand” as her answer to Satan’s question even though sand is not a synonym for dirt and the word “soil” is right there. And how does this prove Ebony’s still the same person? Is the implication that Satan’s thinking like “yeah, no one else would be stupid enough to think dirt and sand are the same thing”?
Suddenly some of my friends walked in.
“OMG you’re fucking alive!” said Ginny wearing a blak leather jocket, blak baggy pants and a goffik black Frum First to Last shirt.
I love that we get the outfit description the instant Ginny walks in the door. Just as it should be.
(Re: From First to Last, I’ve never listened to them and I don’t even think they’re still releasing music, but they’re an emo/post-hardcore band that used to be really popular with MySpace teens, so this is a fun little detail that dates the story.)
I explained 2 her why I was alive.
Great line. Nothing else to say here.
“Konichiwa, bitch.” said Willow. She was wearing a blak corset showing off her boobs with lace all around it and red stipes on it. With it she waz wearing a blak leather miniskirt, big blak boots, white foundation, blak eyeliner, red eyeshadow, and blak lipstick.
Konnichiwa to you too, I guess. Nice outfit.
“Hey, motherfucker.” Said Diabolo with his red hair.
I don’t actually think his red hair assisted in any way with him saying that phrase.
He waz wearing a black P?ATD t-shit and blak baggy pants.
Is this the first time Panic! at the Disco has been referenced in this story? It’s not at all surprising that Tara likes them (this is back when Panic! consisted of multiple people, of course), and I’ll be fair to her, this was back when their only album was A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out and I thought that one was pretty good when I was a teenager too.
“Hey whose that, Ibony?” B’loody Mary questioned as she walked in wearing a black t-shit with a red pentarom on it with lace at the bottom, red letther pants with blak lace, and black stolettoes.
Have I mentioned that I love the outfit descriptions in this story? They’re just so delightful. I can picture this perfectly and I kinda wanna wear it myself.
“Oh its Satan.” I told her and she nodded knowing da truth.
Also a very funny line.
Suddenly Satan started to cry.
“Are you okay Satan?” we asked concernedly.
“OMFG ur from da future!!1! What if u don’t like m anymore koz were from difrent times?????” he asked.
“No I still like you.” I said sexily to him.
“Ok.” He said ressuredly.
I’m nearly certain I said this while covering My Immortal on the podcast (probably the case for a lot of what I’ve written here, actually), but this absolutely reads to me like Satan is doing a little bit of manipulating, mansplaining, and malewifing. I don’t for a second buy his shock over Ebony being from the future, or that he’d think her being from the future means that she doesn’t like him; I think he’s playing up the sensitive goth boy shtick on purpose to distract everybody from the fact that he’s literally the Dark Lord.
I let him lizzen 2 Teenagers by MCR on my ipod while I was about to go outside to find out some fingz. I gave Diabolo a signal to keep Satan occupied.
He’s an emo boy about to listen to “Teenagers” by MCR for the first time in his life. I think he should be plenty occupied.
Satan fell asleep.
Oh, uh, never mind. He fell asleep? While listening to “Teenagers” by MCR? You know what, I don’t buy this either, and I think this is more playacting from him. Ebony, don’t fall for it, he’s faking!
I took the iPod. I was about to walk outside. Profesor Sinister ran in!!!!!!!1111
Yes! Our favorite character returns!
She was wearing a gothic blak minidress with depressing blak stripes, white and blak stripped tights, and red converse shoes.
Great description. How are the stripes on the dress depressing? Actually, how are the stripes on the dress visible at all, if the dress is black and the stripes are also black?
She was wearing LOTS of blak iliner.
Is that, like, different from usual? I kind of imagined this by default with the goth characters.
“Oh my fucking god, where’s Draco!!!!111 How did Snap get back here!!! I tohot he wuz in Azerbaijan.” I asked sadly.
“Ebony I was so worried abott u but I know you can’t fucking die because you’re a vrompire. Snape came back because that girl Britney freed him. I never liked her she was a bad student.” Trevolry said reassuredly.
So not only is Satan acting increasingly suspicious this chapter, it turns out Britney the prep was genuinely bad news all along. This is another kinda great twist; we’ve been expected to take the “goths vs. preps” conflict seriously throughout the story, but it’s never felt like it had actual stakes, or even like those sides were clearly defined. I mean, Snape, Lupin, and Voldemort are all apparently “preps” in this story because they’re villains, but their villainy doesn’t seem to have anything to do with them being preppy, it’s just another reason we’re given for hating them. Britney, meanwhile, has been referenced a handful of times in the story as the preppy girl Vampire used to date, and has been a background character in a few scenes, but she’s never actually done anything before. Now, though, I guess we’re meant to take it that she’s an ally of theirs, and given the way Tara clearly sees the goths vs. preps conflict as Serious Business it actually seems possible this was intended all along.
“That bitch!!!!!!!11 Did she also free Hargrid and Loopin?” I shouted angrily. I hated Britney because she was a fucking prep.
It’s also possible that Tara doesn’t even realize this is a twist because in her mind it’s obvious that the preppy girl who used to date Vampire would turn out to be evil; however, I’ve said before that I think the Tara persona is, well, just a persona, and whoever wrote this story seems at least somewhat aware that they’re writing silly nonsense, so I still think this is secret genius.
“Yes they are on the loose at this school. Dumblydore is back Cornelia is on his way to help evry1. Tell evry1 u see to lock themselves in their conman room!!!!!!” Trevolry said worriedly.
Okay, I know Snape and Lupin are creeps. Hagrid is a bit of a more complicated situation because Tara can’t remember if he’s a Hogwarts student and part of Ebony’s goth band or if he’s a grown man hitting on a teenager, but at this point it appears he’s intended as the latter. I’m not saying that it isn’t a good policy to call in backup and tell the students to stay in their dorms if three sexually predatory men break into the school. I’m just questioning when Hogwarts started caring about the safety of its student body? Also, while this is the sort of thing that happens in the canon books, I wanna point out how wild it is that they’d call in the PM for this.
“OK. But where’s Dracko???? How cum he was doing it with Snap?????”
“I dunno why but I know he almost tried 2 commit suicide after he saw u almost kill urself.” she said.
Given the context that 1) Snape is twice Draco’s age and in a position of authority over him, 2) in this fic Snape is known to be sexually predatory towards teenagers and was even sent to the hospital about it (and escaped said hospital in order to have this encounter with Draco), and 3) Snape attempted to rape Draco earlier in the story, I think this detail makes it pretty damn clear that what happened wasn’t consensual. Trevolry may not be the world’s greatest detective.
“OMG dat’s terrible!!!!!!!!” I gasped. Satan was still asleep, so he couldn’t tell what was going on.
Hm… are you sure about that?
Then I said “Lizzen evry1, I have sumthing imptent to do. in hr evry1 stay!!!!!!!!!” wiv dat I ran out.
Especially coherent dialogue here.
“Good luck Tara!!!!!!!11” everyone cried.
We’re not even pretending Ebony’s not an author insert anymore, I guess.
I ran sexily down the staris in2 da Grate Hall while da portraits around looked at me scaredly. There was hardly ne1 else in the stairs nd tere was an atmosphere of horrer. On da way I saw Britney laughing on da stairs. She was wearing a a slutty pink shirt wiv flowers on it, a blu jean skirt Abercromie and pink stiletoos. She looked jest like a pentagram of those fucking preps Hilery Duff and Lindsey Lohan.
If we set aside how the prose is garbage nonsense, I actually love this as a villain reveal. Again, looking past the silly description, this is genuinely atmospheric; Ebony is alone, running through the deserted castle, as the enchanted portraits look on in fear/apprehension of what’s to come. And then she runs into Britney, who is dressed in full prep regalia (basically villain attire in this story) while laughing (I presume evilly) on the stairs. Like, what a fun mental image.
“You fucking bitch!!!!!111” I shouted angrily.
“No, your totally a bitch. Now Voldemort will like totally kill u!” she laughed.
Ohmygod I like, totally love her dialogue, it’s like totally great!
(Lest this read as sarcastic, let me clarify it isn’t. Again, we know the preps are the villains in this universe and this is precisely how you’d expect a stereotypical preppy teen girl in the 00s to talk, which as far as I’m concerned makes this perfect villain dialogue in context. No notes.)
“Crucious!!!!!!!!!1” I shouted selectively pontificating my blak wand and she started screaming koz she was being tortured and I laughed sodistically.
I really like the phrase “selectively pontificating.”
“No!!!!!!1 Help me!!!!!!1 Please!!!!!!!!1” Britney screamed terrifiedly.
I put up my middle finger at her.
That’s our Ebony!
In her hand I saw da video camera Snape and Lumpin had used to take da video of me. I put the tape of Voldimort doing it with Hedwigg onto it.
I probably don’t have to point out that there would have been no way to directly transfer a video from an iPod to a digital camera in the 00s, but I will point out that (assuming this is the same camera Snape and Lupin used to film Ebony in the bath during an early chapter) I don’t even think it’s a digital camera. Lupin referred earlier to how even though the lens broke, the “tape” was still intact. He didn’t say “memory card.”
Then I continued to rown down the stairs with the camera. When I had reached da Grate Hall I saw Vampire Potter. “OMG Vampira!!!!111” I yielded.
We hugged each udder happily. He locked at me wif his gothic red eyes and spiky blak hair. Around them were blak eyeliner and iShadow.
Why did she write “eyeshadow” like it’s an Apple product?
His He wus wearing a blak leather Jackson, ledder pants, a Panik at da Disko concert shirt and his blak congress shoes. He looked mor like Joel from Good Charlote than ever. (did u hear der song da river it rox!!!1)“I wus so worried you died!” moaned Vampire.
“I know but Im a vampire lol. When I woke up I wuz back in 1980, so neway I bought Voldimort from when he was yung with me.”
How the fuck is he supposed to react to this news? “Oh, you brought the guy who killed my parents forward in time with you? Great!” Like…?
“Where’s Draco?” I asked spuriously.
Also not what “spuriously” means and this time I’m really not sure what Tara was going for. “Seriously” maybe? Weird to misuse the same word twice, in two different ways, in the span of a single chapter.
“Draco? You mean that fukking poser who betroyed you?” Vampir snarkled with anger in his sexy voice.
“I NO BUT WE HAV 2 FIND HIM.” I SED SMARTY.
Not smarty enough for it to have occurred to her that Draco didn’t have sex with Snape of his own free will, though. The all-caps on this line is a nice touch; did Ebony scream this?
“I’ll do it den.” Harry said angstily.
“OK.” I argreed.
I don’t know if splitting up is the best idea at the moment. It seems like Voldemort and co. are about to launch some form of attack, we know Voldemort wants Vampire dead, and, while he’s been trying to get Ebony to do it, he’s also said that if she doesn’t he’ll just do it anyway. Like, if I were Ebony in this situation, I wouldn’t want to leave Vampire alone right now. Why don’t they both look for Draco together? Why isn’t Ebony personally invested in trying to locate her boyfriend?
Suddenly……….all da lights in da room went out. And den…….da Dork Mark appeared.
This isn’t anything groundbreaking, of course, but having the lights suddenly go out all at once and the Dark Mark appear is effectively spooky… or would be if Tara hadn’t written “Dork Mark,” but I don’t think I can look past that.
“Oh my fucking satan!!!!!” Harry shouted.
“I fink Voldimort has arrivd.” I sed anxiously. “Fuck, I have to find Draco!!1 I guess we shood separate.”
No, as I’ve already been over, I don’t think they should. Also, Vampire already agreed to look for Draco, but now Ebony is saying she has to look too, so why don’t they just look together? I get wanting to split up and cover twice as much ground, but thanks to Ebony’s stunt with the time machine earlier, they also have to contend with twice as many Voldemorts. I really think sticking together would be safest.
“Ok.” Vampire sed diapperating.
This is nitpicky, but I haven’t mentioned this before, so what the hell. Regarding Apparation. I know Tara doesn’t really care about the Harry Potter lore, and honestly neither do I, but to my recollection this is something pretty much all adult wizards know how to do — and since seventeen is considered legal age in this story, that would include our main characters, which makes it strike me as a bit odd that Tara doesn’t have the main three use it more. Like, has Ebony ever Apparated? This is a universe where it’s entirely plausible and canon-compliant for the Mary Sue to be able to teleport, and yet she doesn’t. It shows such restraint that I think Tara must have just forgotten about it, the way she seems to have forgotten that Ebony being a vampire means she can’t be killed using conventional methods and often seems to forget that the characters can do magic in general.
(And, yeah, if this were canon-compliant no one should be Apparating inside Hogwarts at all, since the castle is specifically enchanted so that you can’t do that. There are also in-universe justifications as to why characters wouldn’t be Apparating all over the place; it’s not easy to learn, and if it goes wrong it can lead to horrific injuries. Like I said, though, Tara doesn’t care about canon compliance and I support her.)
Sadly I ran into the Great Hall.
Keep this line in mind. You’ll see why next chapter.