Literary Demerit: Recent Episodes
Siobhan Cohen
Literary Demerit is a podcast hosted by Siobhan and Kester, two friends with the extremely niche interest of examining works of questionable literary merit. We plan on covering everything from published satire to infamously bad fanfiction.
It’s our 50th episode and our 7th season! This time we’re covering Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami by D’arkYagam’i on fanfiction.net, a very silly Death Note trollfic in which characters are constantly disguising themselves as other characters. Also, neither of us have seen Death Note all the way through and we need to rectify that, but we spend some time talking about what we do remember about the anime (and the cultural phenomenon surrounding it) in the second half of this episode.
Content warnings: Well, it’s a Death Note fanfic, there’s naturally a good amount of death in the story but nothing really graphic. This story also has some sexual content, and while it’s overall very mild there are a couple incest jokes and also a sexual scene involving Light’s little sister Sayu, whose age isn’t clear in this story but who is introduced to us in the anime as a young teenager.
Chapters 10 and 11 of Love Knows No Race. We did it, we reached the end! The final two chapters of this story are every bit as strange as you’d expect, but, at the same time, nothing that happens could realistically have been expected. We spent a lot of time trying to make sense of this fic and ultimately I don’t think we succeeded, but perhaps we still learned something along the way? To close out this season of the podcast, we take a look at the reviews this story received, and then it’s time to reveal what we’ll be covering next!
Content warnings: Again, there’s a lot of incest in this story, and we do have to keep talking about the incestuous date-rape that took place in a previous chapter. This time there’s also domestic violence, self-harm, and suicide. As before, none of this is particularly explicit, but it certainly isn’t handled well.
Chapters 8 and 9 of Love Knows No Race by Carlotta Valjean. Zim and Dib are now parents, and, well... this is where the story begins to truly go off the rails, and, as before, we don’t want to spoil it. We also covered the second half of Unbroken Dreams by the same author, and that wasn’t very normal either.
Content warnings: Incest again, but worse this time, as there’s a scene where a character uses drugs to trick a relative into sleeping with them. While, again, there’s nothing that explicit in here, the subject matter is plenty unsavory on its face and the way the story handles it is bad too. Unbroken Dreams has more in-universe homophobia and also since it’s a Harry Potter fanfic we wind up having to talk about the house elf slavery thing a little.
Chapters 6 and 7 of Love Knows No Race by Carlotta Valjean. In this part of the story we get a shocking (frankly, baffling) reveal that dramatically changes the nature of Zim and Dib’s relationship yet also arguably doesn’t mean anything at all, and… well, you’ll just have to listen for yourself - we don’t want to spoil this. We’re also taking a look at Carlotta Valjean’s other story on fanfiction.net, Unbroken Dreams, which is a Harry Potter fanfic (Drarry, specifically).
Content warnings: Hoo boy. So from this point in the story onwards, it’s basically impossible to talk about Love Knows No Race without also talking about incest. Thankfully there’s still no explicit content, but the way the fic handles this topic really isn’t great, either. Also, in one scene the characters discuss a previous sexual encounter that might not have been totally consensual, and another scene has some mildly gross descriptions of pregnancy/childbirth. Unbroken Dreams has a brief reference to self-harm as well as in-universe homophobia and homophobic language.
Chapters 3 and 4 (and 5, but it’s just an author’s note) of Love Knows No Race. After finding out that Dib is Irken, Zim and Dib are summoned to meet the Almighty Tallest so that Dib can become a proper Invader. We haven’t gotten to any of the truly insane stuff in this story yet, but already there’s plenty to say about how little sense this story makes. We’ve also both completed a rewatch of Invader Zim and spend the second half of this episode discussing the show itself (both of us love this cartoon and we’ve got altogether too much to say about it).
Content warnings: Per the author, this is where the “mild lemon hinting” comes in. (That is, there’s implied sex in this part of the story. Nothing explicit, thankfully.) Additionally, this is technically a ZaDR (Zim x Dib) fic, which is a ship with a canonical significant age gap, and thought this doesn't really matter because the author has changed their ages to be the same, it still bears mentioning.
Time to start a new fanfic! We’re reading Love Knows No Race, an Invader Zim fanfiction written in 2002 by fanfiction.net author Carlotta Valjean. This one’s considerably more obscure than previous stories we’ve covered, but both of us have a Lot to say about it — we’re only covering the first two chapters this week and we still talked about it for well over an hour. We also have unfinished business with KingAurthr2, so it’s time to conclude The Quest for the Holey Grail.
Content warnings: Love Knows No Race is a ZaDR (Zim x Dib) story, and we do have to be clear that canonically Zim is an adult while Dib is a child. While that doesn’t actually matter to this story (like a lot of ZaDR stories, Love Knows No Race treats Zim and Dib as though they’re peers), it’s not really something we can avoid mentioning. The way this author handles Zim and Dib’s relationship is going to require additional content warnings later, but… we’ll get there.
Chapters 27-32 of Kelly The Roman Warrior part 3 The Final Invasion. We’ve reached the end! Kelly, Boudica, and their allies prepare for their final showdown against “Superhannibal,” and we honestly don’t want to give anything about these last few chapters away because this is the first time on the show we’ve read a fanfic that has a satisfying conclusion. We’re also continuing with The Quest for the Holey Grail this week and talking a little bit about what we’ll be covering next on the show!
Content warnings: this is the climactic battle of the entire Kelly saga, so naturally there’s violence and death, but it’s as cartoonishly inoffensive as it always is with this author.
(Additional music credits for this episode: various songs from the Shoujo Kakumei Utena Original Soundtrack and La Fillette Révolutionnaire UTENA: Adolescence Rush by Mitsumune Shinkichi.)
Chapters 19-26 of Kelly The Roman Warrior part 3 The Final Invasion. With Elkus gone, Boudica and Kelly set off towards Carthage in a last-ditch effort to find an ally, but the road ahead of them is filled with despair and cyber-elephants. Will they be able to defeat Superman and protect Rome? This week we’re also taking a look at one of KingAurthr2’s other stories, The Quest for the Holey Grail.
Content warnings: you know the drill, there’s never anything worse than some cartoon violence and character death in Kingaurthr2's fics.
Chapters 9-18 of Kelly The Roman Warrior part 3 The Final Invasion. Kelly and her allies prepare to fight Superman, get help from the Boat Master, investigate a spooky lighthouse, and suffer a great loss… Lots going on this week, basically. In our closing segment we read Profesor Lupus 2: Fighting Moudlermore, which is rather short, so we had plenty of time to also complain about the Harry Potter books.
Content warnings: cartoon violence and character death again. Particular emphasis on the latter this time.
Chapters 1-8 of Kelly The Roman Warrior part 3 The Final Invasion! Another decade has passed since the end of part 2, and Kelly’s life with her wife and magic ghost deer has been peaceful… until suddenly, a new super-powerful threat crashes in from outer space! Per request, we also read KingAurthr2’s story Profesor Lupus and the Curse of the Wearwolf.
Content warnings: cartoon violence, character death - you know the drill. This fic is harmless.
Chapters 17-22 of Kelly the Roman Warrior part 2 The plauges of Gaul. Some surprising twists this week, and for once we mean that both genuinely and positively! We’re not done going through KingAurthr2’s other works, but we took a break this week to instead go check up on our old friend Reicheru-Ketsueki on deviantART.
Content warnings: as before, just some cartoon violence and character death, with some brief references to drug abuse and self-harm in the final segment.
Chapters 9-16 of Kelly The Roman Warrior part 2 The Plauges of Gaul. More wacky plague-related hijinks this week as Kelly and her allies battle plague crocodiles, plague orcs, a plague kraken… you get the idea. For our closing segment we’re once again perusing KingAurthr2’s extensive body of work; we read his stories Batman VS Manbat and Chance Taylor Monster Huntar.
Content warnings: more cartoony violence and character death, also some descriptions of the plague’s effects that would honestly be pretty gross if the prose wasn’t so shoddy (affectionate).
We’re onto Kelly The Roman Warrior part 2 The plauges of Gaul (yes, that’s what it’s called), covering chapters 1-8 this week. It’s ten years later and Kelly, who is now the Caesar, has to get the gang back together so they can go stop a plague! (Or a plauge.) We’re also still going through the rest of KingAurthr2’s stories and read two more of them in our closing segment (one is a Huntik/Pokémon/Yu-Gi-Oh! crossover and one is about Captain America).
Content warnings: the usual cartoon violence.
Chapters 8-14 of Kelly The Roman Warrior. As Kelly and her ragtag band of adventurers continue the search for her dad, they travel to all sorts of interesting destinations (Ancient Egypt, some sort of jungle, Mordor) and face many enemies (mantis men, Edward Cullen, 1,000-100,000 orcs). After that, it’s game time as we take a look at an incomplete Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic written by KingAurthr2.
Content warnings: cartoon violence again, also some character death (nothing graphic).
At long last, we’re starting something new! On this season of Literary Demerit we’ll be covering Kelly the Roman Warrior, a story by Fanfiction.net user KingAurthr2. This is a bit of an odd one; it’s written like a trollfic but still retains a tone of charming sincerity, and despite being posted to a fanfiction website, it’s not really based on any one existing media property, though characters from pop culture make an appearance (e.g. Godzilla is there). KingAurthr2 has also written several other fanfics, most of which are pretty short, so we decided to take a look at two others in our closing segment.
Content warnings: aside from some cartoon violence, this story is refreshingly wholesome.
Even though we’re done reading Dirty Laundry, it isn’t done with us. First up, we thought we’d take another look at some of the reviews/comments this fic received; next we go completely off the deep end and start getting into how we’d fix the story if it were up to us to rewrite it. Over the course of the last several months of covering this fanfic, we’ve come up with way too many ideas for how to improve the story, and there’s no way we could just move on without discussing said ideas. Of course, since this is the end of our Dirty Laundry coverage, we’re also announcing the next fic we’ll be covering, so stay tuned till the end!
Content warnings: usual Dirty Laundry warnings, though we’re not actually reading the fic itself this time and spend most of the episode talking about how we’d improve it, so I guess that might be a little less bothersome than normal.
We’ve finally reached the end of Dirty Laundry! We have a lot to say, so much so that we’re going to need to do a wrap-up episode after this one, but first we need to see how the story concludes. Will Keith accept Lance’s apology? Will Lance properly apologize? Will everyone in the McDonalds clap? It’s also time we did another “obvious” count, though this one isn’t a drinking game as we’d probably get alcohol poisoning.
Content warnings: usual Dirty Laundry warnings, some discussion of abuse.
Part one of part eight (the final part!) of Dirty Laundry. After Keith stole a car belonging to two lawyers and fled to go sulk at McDonalds, Lance and his family have to try and make things right and repair the relationship… but it’s not Klance time yet; first it’s time for Keith and Rosa to discuss how they really like the part about the bees in The Secret Life of Bees. We also decided it’s time to once again compare this story with another, better, Klance fanfic, so we read Just Static by ao3 author Jessadilla.
Content warnings: usual Dirty Laundry warnings, nothing unique to this part of the story. Just Static has a fair amount of gore/violence but we don’t discuss it it much detail.
Part two of part six of Dirty Laundry, aka the “Warning: Triggering Homophobia” scene. The tension that’s been building in the Sanchez household finally comes to a boiling point at Christmas Eve dinner! Will it all end out alright, or will it be just as worse? We also decided to cover part seven of Dirty Laundry in its entirety in our second segment, as it’s not long enough to justify spending a whole episode on and, I’ll be honest, I think we’re both trying to get this over with as fast as possible at this point for the sake of our dwindling mental stability.
Content warnings: there’s some homophobia (obviously), albeit milder than the “triggering homophobia” warning would suggest. Unfortunately this part of the story makes up for being less homophobic than expected by being really bizarrely misogynistic again for no reason, and there wasn’t any warning for that.
We’re onto part six of Dirty Laundry and again so much is happening (and we get so mad about it) that we have to break up this section of the story into two parts. This episode we do some last-minute Christmas shopping with Keith and try to make his $40 budget stretch as much as we can, learn about the true cause of mental illness (stomach demons), and then it’s finally time for Keith to confess his feelings to Lance! Will it go well?! Trick question, this is Dirty Laundry and everything is horrible. After that it’s time for us to circle back to talking about The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, since it gets directly referenced in this part of the fanfic, and now that we’re most of the way through Dirty Laundry we can really take a good look at how much it s̶t̶e̶a̶l̶s̶ borrows from said book.
Content warnings: unfortunately we have to continue talking about the ableism surrounding how this story treats its one autistic character, as well as the misogynistic/bizarrely judgmental way in which Dirty Laundry treats that character’s mother. Since we talk about The Secret Life of Bees again in this episode, we also need to give another warning for antiblack racism.
Part five of Dirty Laundry is a bit shorter so we decided to cover it all in one go; however it does contain two particularly noteworthy scenes, including the (allegedly) the most controversial scene in the fanfic, which we’ve got way too much to say about. Many others over the years have also had a lot to say about this part of the story, which means it’s time to revisit the Fanlore article in our closing segment!
Content warnings: this chapter we’re focusing pretty heavily on the ableist treatment of this story’s token autistic character, and we also go over the (in our opinion, justified) accusations of racism and ableism directed at the author in the closing segment.
Part two of part four of Dirty Laundry. Abuela is coming (haha, sooo funny!) but she’s not the only new character getting introduced this episode, and it’s honestly difficult to say which character introduction we’re angrier about! This is a particularly long and rowdy episode, so strap in; we have a Lot to say about this part of the story. To close out the episode, we checked in with the Voltron fandom on Tumblr to see what people have been saying about Dirty Laundry.Content warnings: in addition to the usual racism/homophobia/biphobia, this section of Dirty Laundry is particularly heavy on the misogyny, and there’s more than a little ableism (with promises of more to come in future).
We’re now right around the halfway point of Dirty Laundry, which means it’s almost time for Abuela to arrive, but first we have a scene where Keith gets confronted about his fake relationship by his not-boyfriend’s fourteen-year-old kid sister and has some Very Normal Thoughts(™) about a potential domestic life with Lance! In our second segment we decided to compare/contrast Dirty Laundry against a Klance fic the two of us actually like, so we read and review Pepsicola by Ao3 author corydalis.Content warnings: usual Dirty Laundry warnings apply (the story is racist and the topic of homophobia frequently comes up), nothing unique to this part.
Part two of part three of Dirty Laundry. Closing out the arcade scene from the previous episode, this section of the story contains such exciting events as Keith being a god gamer, Lance managing to (somehow) sexily play Dance Dance Revolution, and the promise of Abuela’s impending arrival in part four. In our closing segment, we decided to have a little fun and play a drinking game… that we advise none of you try at home, and certainly not with hard liquor. Obviously.
Content warnings: typical for this story, there’s some amount of (out-of-universe) racism and (mostly in-universe) homophobia/biphobia.
This episode covers the first half of part three of Dirty Laundry. Keith and Lance go on a date and play laser tag, a scene which takes up the majority of this section of the fic, so we chose to cover it all in one go. As for our closing segment, this time we decided to take another look at ReicheruKetsueki’s deviantArt account, since there’s more material there we didn’t cover during our Blood Raining Night episodes.
Content warnings: usual CWs for this story, nothing unique to this episode.
The long-awaited second half of part two of Dirty Laundry, which features Lance’s dad outing his bisexual son to a homophobic man and Keith and Lance getting into a very logistically implausible fight by the side of a highway. This part of the story has been driving us particularly insane ever since we first read this fic and we’ve got a lot to talk about. For our closing segment we took a little (virtual) trip to Mesa del Caballo to get a better sense for the location this story’s author so lovingly described.
Content warnings: a fair amount of in-universe homophobia/biphobia this chapter, plus some out-of-universe discussion from us about the author’s poor handling of the topic. There’s also some mild violence this time.
(Additional music credits for this episode: “Passionate Duelists” by Shinkichi Mitsumune.)
Part one of part two of Dirty Laundry (this is gonna get confusing, huh?). Keith and Lance play twenty questions, there’s a “recording your fake boyfriend in the shower” prank that goes both wrong and sexual, and Rosa makes a cum joke. We also took a look at the Fanlore article about this fic, though we’re saving some of it for later when it’s more relevant.
Content warnings: same as usual with this story; this one’s a little raunchier than typical for this fic, but not outright explicit either.
On this episode we’re covering the latter half of part one of Dirty Laundry, which contains such fascinating topics as implausible iguana behavior, Keith and Lance’s bizarre Star Wars hot takes, Lance’s innate dancing talent, and eavesdropping little sisters. We spend the second part of this episode giving our thoughts on The Secret Life of Bees, which this fanfic was heavily inspired by.
Content warnings: the same warnings given for the last episode apply to this one, and will continue to apply throughout our coverage of this story. There’s also some discussion of antiblack racism (both within and out of universe) when we’re covering The Secret Life of Bees.
This week we’re beginning our coverage of Dirty Laundry, a notorious shipping fic (Keith/Lance) from the Voltron fandom. Unlike previous stories we’ve covered, there’s no doubt this one was written sincerely, and it’s an unbelievably popular fanfic with plenty of genuine fans; it’s also incredibly controversial, and honestly it’s so bad I think it’s been driving both of us crazy. The story is divided into “parts” rather than chapters and they’re pretty long, so this episode covers roughly half of part 1. To close out the episode, we also (re)watched season 1 of Voltron: Legendary Defender in order to provide the canon context for this fanfic.
Content warnings: in-universe, homophobia is a plot point in this story (nothing particularly violent or explicit, but it’s still something we have to discuss). Out of universe, this fic is full of racist stereotyping; in particular, Lance and his family are Mexican-American in this story and written very stereotypically. Also, while it’s most likely unintentional, there are some uncomfortable moments in this story regarding underage characters.
Now that we’ve finished reading the fanfic, watching the fanime, and playing the video game, it’s time to take a look at Blood Raining Night as a whole and give some closing thoughts! We talk about the video game and also spend some time going through the author’s DeviantArt account looking at her older journal entries, as it appears Rachel went through a little character arc of her own and became more mature over the course of creating BRN. Then we reveal what we'll be tackling next on the podcast!
Content warnings: brief mentions of sensitive material present in the previously covered chapters including violence and sexual assault, plus some casual racism from our weaboo author.
This is the audio-only version of our second playthrough of Maid Madness by BoldZone Games and Reicheru Ketsuekineko-Oni! It's a New Game + and includes a different ending and lots of extra content. For the version with video, check it out on Bloom Plays or follow the link below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tZ2zCho8wk
This is the audio-only version of our Let's Play of Maid Madness by BoldZone Games and Reicheru Ketsuekineko-Oni! For the version with video, check it out on Bloom Plays, or follow the link below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUuwr_qeIpg
Chapters 29-30 of Blood Raining Night. We’ve finally made it to the end! But there’s still a lot left to talk about; the final two chapters are no less weird than the rest of the story, and we have some Theories on what might be being implied if this fic is, indeed, secret genius. After having finished the fanime last week, we decided to take a look at the other videos on the creator’s YouTube account this week in our final segment.
Content warnings: remember the sex scene we had to warn for in a previous chapter between two characters with a concerning age gap? Yeah, that’s relevant again. Also there’s child abduction. Again. Also in the closing segment, we talk about another "story" Rachel wrote which includes mentions of self-harm and suicide.
Chapters 27-28 of Blood Raining Night. We’re closing in on the end of the story! This week we learn a lot of new information that it sure would have been nice to know earlier, Reicheru learns to practice self-love in a surprisingly literal fashion, and we have a nice relaxing island getaway with no murder involved at all, definitely not! We also finished up watching the fanime this week.
Content warnings: death, gore and violence, body horror, some fairly mild sexual content, uh… clone sex? If that bothers anybody.
Chapters 25-26 of Blood Raining Night. We only cover two chapters this time but there’s still a lot to dig into here — like curvy meatloaf, questionable fiancé behavior, suspicious boys of indeterminate age, and dildo arms. In the second half we discuss episode 9 of the fanime, which reveals Reicheru’s tragic backstory and explains why her dad hates her, but doesn’t explain why we’re supposed to be on her side about it.
Content warnings: ableism and racism, both within and outside the context of the story, in addition to the fanime version of the previously covered nonconsensual abortion that doesn't work.
Chapters 22-24 of Blood Raining Night. We have a wedding — sorry, I mean a “weeding” to attend! After that, the fic hits us with some extreme mood whiplash that we don’t want to spoil, but there’s a reason why this is our longest episode yet. Episode 8 of the fanime also contains a… surprisingly good scene that doesn’t matter to the story at all, and we spend a while unpacking how bizarre it is.
Content warnings: some pretty extreme violence this episode (torture, gore, dismemberment), and while it’s less of a focal point this time, we do spend some time discussing the weird teacher/student interactions and uncomfortable age gap relationships in this story.
(Additional music credits for this episode: “Judai’s Theme” by Yutaka Minobe, “Lilium (Music Box)” by Manga Star.)
Chapters 19-21 of Blood Raining Night. This week we go shopping for some "maid's dresses," invite a lesbian couple to witness an epic wedding murder prank, and learn why you shouldn't order burritos on a first date. Afterwards we cover episode 7 of the fanime, which is probably the weirdest yet.
Content warnings: mentions of blood, gore, and other bodily fluids, creepy and suggestive dialog, an instance of ableist language, and the protagonist being incredibly, cruelly unsympathetic to multiple characters who have suffered abuse.
Chapters 15-18 of Blood Raining Night. Our reading this week covers such topics as anime-induced amnesia, more singing competitions, wedding invitations… and a surprising reveal about Reicheru’s father. We also watched episode 6 of the fanime.
Content warnings: more weird student/teacher interactions, violence, gore, cannibalism, and another ludicrously unsexy sex scene, this time between two characters with a concerning age gap.
Chapters 10-14 of Blood Raining Night. This time we’re faced with an unsolvable math problem, another high school singing contest, a Mexican restaurant, God appearing in the form of a newborn catgirl, and more! We wrap things up by talking about episode 5 of the fanime.
Content warnings: inappropriate teacher/student interactions, a scene where a character is given a nonconsensual magical abortion (which apparently has no effect), in-universe racism (also some out-of-universe racism, as the author still thinks Korra is Mexican), and childbirth.
Chapters 5-9 of Blood Raining Night. This week we have a HENTAI WARNING, take a look at some unique baby name ideas, learn all about the trouble with angles, and more! We also watched episode 4 of the fanime; the episodes are getting longer and the fanime’s plot isn’t 1:1 with the fanfic, so from here on out we’ll be tackling one episode at a time.
Content warnings: did we mention the HENTAI WARNING? Also, in the same chapter there’s a scene where a character abuses drugs and self-harms. Later chapters include some less-than-consensual sex, violence, incest (though we're not sure if the author remembers they're related), torture (including sexual torture), and also an instance where a character’s brown skin is described in a fetishistic manner.
It’s time for us to start a new fanfic! We’re reading Blood Raining Night, an anime crossover fic about a demon catgirl who is in a relationship with the entire country of Denmark. It even comes with its own fanime! This week we read chapters 1-4 and watched episodes 1-3.
Future episodes covering this fic will require stronger content warnings, but this week there isn’t anything to warn for other than some (gross, unsexy) suggestive language and descriptions of violence.
Chapters 7-8 of Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen. We don’t want to spoil anything that happens in these final two chapters of the story, as things go in some… rather unexpected directions this time! We also watched the second and final season of the My Immortal webseries, which we discuss in the latter half of the episode.
Content warnings: sexual assault again, as well as some apparently consensual but still very strange bestiality (it’s hard to explain).
Chapters 4-6 of Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen. This week we go to the beach, attend a high school talent show, and learn about why Ewdard is promised to Bella (it's because he made a promise). In our closing segment we discuss the first season of the My Immortal webseries.
Content warnings: there are more references to sexual assault this week (as stated before, it’s not something we can avoid talking about with this story), though nothing as explicit as the previous episode.
We’re starting a new fanfic this week! We read chapters 1-3 of Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen. This is a personal favorite for both of us and we’re excited to discuss what makes it such a good trollfic. As a point of comparison, this week we also take a look at the first three chapters of Twila, The Girl Who Waz In Luv With A Vampyre (another Twilight badfic with very clear My Immortal influences).
Content warnings: chapter 3 of Forbiden Fruit contains a rape scene, and the entire story merits a warning for consent issues as the protagonist being sexually assaulted is a plot point and thus something we can’t avoid discussing. We give a more in-depth warning for this fic’s content before beginning the chapter reading. There is also an instance of homophobic language in the fic we read for the closing segment.
Chapters 43-44 of My Immortal. We’ve reached the end of the story! This fanfic has a rather abrupt conclusion, so we spend some time discussing what that might mean. For our closing segment, we take a look at some decade-old reviews of this story to get a sense of what the critical reception was around the time the fic was written.
Content warnings: self-harm is mentioned once again, we talk about the rape scene from an earlier chapter, and there’s an instance of homophobic language.
Chapters 40-42 of My Immortal. As we close in on the end of the story, the chapters are getting longer and we’ve got more to talk about — plus, we had to take a quick aside to cover our favorite AITA post of all time. This week we’re again jumping backwards and forwards in time as things appear to be building towards a climax. We also get to meet Voldemort’s ex-boyfriend, who might not be who you expect! In our closing segment, we take a look at an article from 2015 that speculates on My Immortal’s authorship and provides some context about the cultural phenomenon surrounding this fanfic (we have some Thoughts about this article and they aren’t exactly positive).
Content warnings: as always, self-harm is mentioned, and there’s also some discussion of rape (talking about the attempted rape of a character in a previous chapter) and pedophilia (talking about Ao3). There’s also an instance of ableist language in the article we read for the closing segment.
Chapters 34-39 of My Immortal. We investigate the mystery of Lucius Malfoy’s missing arm, watch a movie that definitely isn’t The Exorcist, and attend yet another concert (Marilyn Manson), before taking a closer look at the “troll chapter” of this story in which Tara’s account was allegedly hacked by another user.
Content warnings: self-harm gets mentioned yet again, and there’s a bit where we discuss Ebony and Satan trying to give each other magic roofies.
Chapters 26-33 of My Immortal. We’re getting into the Real Plot of this fanfic, in which Ebony travels back in time to seduce Voldemort to prevent him from becoming evil. This week we sexily jump into the Pensieve to meet Voldemort back when he was a sexy goth boy, learn about the addictive properties of truth serum, and (as usual) listen to some My Chemical Romance. In our final segment, we hunt down quizzes similar to Tara’s “are you a goff or a prep” quiz that has sadly been lost to time.
Content warnings: self-harm per usual, a scene in which an adult threatens to rape a teenage character, and some references to (fantasy) addiction.
Chapters 18-25 of My Immortal. This week we learn about the proper way to smoke heroin, meet several new characters including “da coolest fucking teacher ever,” and attend yet another MCR show. We’re getting close to the point where the actual plot of this fanfic kicks in (yes, it has a plot). In the closing segment, we finish our deep dive into Raven’s fics, including one she co-wrote with Tara.
Content warnings: self-harm again (as per usual with this story), a couple brief mentions of rape, and some ableist & homophobic language.
Chapters 12-17 of My Immortal. We learn about what really happened to Draco, attend an MCR show with an unexpected twist, and investigate the saga of Tara and Raven’s fight. Viower excretion advisd! Finally, we take a look at the first few chapters of one of Raven’s fanfics, I’m Not Okay.
Content warnings: more self-harm mentions as well as a very brief mention of rape and another brief mention of necrophilia.
This week’s episode covers chapters 6-11 of My Immortal. We meet our tritagonist Vampire Potter (and a few more new characters), try to solve the mystery of whether or not Voldemort has a nose, and learn about what cut of meat is required to kill a vampire. To close things out we talk about the Todd G. authorship claims.
Content warnings for this episode: mentions of self-harm/suicide, a scene in which two adults spy on a (technically of age) teenager in the bathroom, and a couple brief instances of ableist & homophobic language.
Welcome to Literary Demerit, where we examine works of questionable literary merit. In our inaugural episode, we begin to cover My Immortal, the infamous Harry Potter fic considered by many to be the worst fanfiction of all time. This week we're covering the first five chapters of the story, in which we meet our protagonist Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and accompany her to a Good Charlotte concert with Draco Malfoy. Then we talk about the elephant in the room - the Rose Christo fiasco.
Content warnings for this episode include a hilariously vague sex scene, as well as a very brief and flippant mention of self-harm.