FicWad

I love writing.

I mean that.

It's my air, my oxygen. The needle in my veins, the gush of adrenaline pumping in my blood, that last snatch of breath before I flat - line. It's my skill when nothing else is. It makes me feel better about myself, makes the world around me shrink and become so insignifigant. It's my coke, my smack, my crystal meth; it sends me high as a kite. I can write away for hours, punching my computer keys, reading from my little notebook, muttering small changes and minor spelling errors as I type. I hardly ever stop.

It can be anything. I literally apply my writing to everything; not just essays and assignments that my opinion busts his nosy way in - school work and simply answers in Geography or something. I can't get enough of writing. I read biographies of other authors on this site (FicWad, what else?) and I see music is my life. Italisized, in bold, in capitals, sometimes with little stars around it. Sometimes music is my religion. My Chemical Romance is my life, others say. For some it's Harry Potter, or Death Note, their band shirt collection, their boyfriend/ girlfriend. Their shrine to Billie Joe Armstrong in their bedroom.

We all have our little vices.

Mine is writing.

I'm not gonna lie and say I've been writing since I was in the fucking womb or something; that I was just a bunch of cells cuddled up in my mother when suddenly I shouted 'EUREKA!' (despite not having a mouth, we'll discuss that later) and when I came out to bright lights and grabbing hands the doctors regarded my pen and paper, my introverted look and my questioning stare and the nurse narrowed her eyes, peered closer and scrutinized me carefully. My mother fearfully whispered: 'is it a boy?' (My mom had this thing against having male children, I dunno why, but there's four girls in my family) And the nurse whispered in the ear of the mid - wife, who nodded, raised her head, and declared:

"No." Her eyes glitter with pride. "It's a fan fiction writer."

Oh my God, Lornaigh. The rambling.

I guess I started writing when I was eleven or twelve. That is, I got interested when I was eleven or twelve. I was well able to pick up a pen and put it to paper before that. We'd be handed out essays in class once a week and my mates would groan unanimously. There would be cries of 'PLEASE, MISS, PLEASE MISS NO' and 'feck this, I ain't writing 'bout this shit'. Bribes would be offered. Pleads would be beseeched. My teacher would refuse every week.

But to me, this was Heaven. I loved writing essays, and I bloody well still do. The way it worked in my primary school (elementary school to ye Americans) was that we'd go up to the teacher, who had written out seperate topics, about thirty of them, and we'd pick them. My teacher at the time happened to fucking hate my guts (she used call me Laura; when I put up my hand once and corrected her that Miss, my name is Lornaigh, um yeah, she went 'WHO CARES, LAURA'S A NICER NAME') and so, at twelve years old, and bubbling with excitement about me showing off my fiction writing skills, she would hand me the worst essay titles in the history of the world. The. Worst.

You know what I mean; we've all been there.

While my friends would be handed with start the essay with this sentence; describe a scene outside your window; write about the current state of Irish politics, I'd get My Bedroom. My Summer Holidays. My Best Friend. Don't get me wrong here mates, I love my bedroom, my summer holidays and my best friend, but these things never satisfied me as an aspiring writer. I wanted to show off my vocabulary, with stunning, impressive words like elongate.Irreverent. Propoundment. I wanted to show my flare for twisting plot lines, my formal writing style. Fuck it, I wanted to wedge my detailed smut in there. (Yeah, I was a pervy little twelve year old.) So writing about my cat's face or something was not fueling my fire.

So, fast forward a few months later, I'm thirteen, my new favourite band is My Chemical Romance, I have an insanely huge lesbian crush on Alicia Way and my essays are still as shockingly shite as ever. I listen to Revenge every single day and I wear my Revenge t-shirt every day and I pray to the Almighty Ray Toro every day and basically I'm a fan - girl. (Bear in mind this was in early 2006, and so this was before Black Parade) Not an annoying, OH MY GAWD WHY THE FUCK IS FRANK GOING OUT WITH JAMIA SHE IS SO FAT AND UGLY AND OH MY GAWD HE'S SECRETLY MARRIED TO ME HE JUST DOESN'T KNOW IT fan - girls, just morally obsessed with My Chem. For the record I think I should just say I have absolutely nothing against Jamia, I think she's very pretty and seems, from her Twitter, to be very nice. She's lovely and I hope the best for her and her husband.

Anyway, one day I'm in my room, doing crack or something, and it occurs to me: why not blend two of my favourite things on the world?

Bradley Cooper and chocolate?

No, brain, shut up. That's something else. I mean My Chem and writing fiction. Perhaps an original story about them being on tour? Or maybe they're vampires and they terrorize a local town? Something like that. I grab a pen and paper and race to my cousin and tell her about my fantastic and totally original idea of writing fiction about my favourite band. She looked at me like I had suggested I had come up with beating her with a stick. Very unimpressed.

"Lornaigh," she said, incredulous. "There are hundreds of sites with stories made up about their fandom. Not just MCR but other stuff too. It's called fan - fiction."

I remember staring at her. My dream had come true. I don't have the best memory but just picture a little blond thirteen year old girl (I look nothing like what you imagine My Chem fans to look like; I look like an air head who would dance to Ke$ha or something) fucking crying with happiness.

"Fan...fiction," I murmured dreamily, experimenting with the words. "Can I...can I join?"

"Oh my God, Lornaigh, get out of my face, I'm watching Mythbusters" or something along those lines came out of her mouth but I was beyond ecstatic at this point. I raced to my father's laptop at the time (not to future writers; DO NOT USE YOUR PARENTS'/ SIBLINGS'/FRIENDS' LAPTOPS FOR READINF FAN FICTION. THEY WILL DISCOVER IT AND THINK YOU ARE THE SADDEST THING EVER. IT'S BETTER TO DISCOVER PORN THAN FIC. AT LEAST PORN IS WITH REGISTERED ACTORS, NOT GERARD WAY.) and looked up fan fiction sites.

The first one I came across was fanfiction.net. I have to say, I was not impressed. They didn't (and still don't, I believe) have a page for My Chem and I found this mildly offensive. By 'midly offensive' I mean I fucking freaked out. 'WHAT THE FUCK' my inner fan -girl screeched in agony. 'HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE A SEPARATE PAGE FOR THE GODS KNOWN AS MY CHEM' stuff like that. So I looked to another search engine result.

"Fikwod," I pronounced slowly. I was a little surprised; using bad words in the site name. COOL. "Fresh picked original and....FAN FICTION!"

For the record, I have actually been perusing FicWad since late 2006/ early 2007. I have read every fic in the My Chem section, mainly that's the most active on the site. It makes me indescribily sad when I see a category that hasn't been updated in months/ years. For some reason I didn't join the site until 2010 because I had always wondered why some stories are boxed in little pink cages. That have a little blue question mark next to the title. I first discovered what those were when my cousin logged in on her friend's account.

Oh Lord, lads. I had never even read/seen something sexual before. I come from Northern Ireland and that shit (pornogrpahy and sexual imagery and shit) was banned.

And then...then there came Frerard.

From that day on I wrote about Frerard in my school work. Weird, I know. Fucked up, I know. MOTHERFUCKING GENIUS, I KNOW. One title - annoyingly simple yet again - My Summer's Day. This featured a teenage Frank and Gerard lying in the sun, contemplating why people were so against homosexuality, why people called them such disrespectful, ignorant names. It was set in the twenties, and then a policeman came along and arrested both of them for 'being in homosexual contact'. The locals in the town beat Frank to death and made Gerard watch.

That's right. If you were wondering when Lornaigh Ni Ionnrachtaigh become so fucked up, it was right about there. I was fucking thirteen.

Handing that up at a very strict, Northern Irish Catholic school got me a F, but I didn't care. Happily, I wrote away to my heart's content about touring and vampires and Mikey being gay and stuff like that. I think I actually wrote the first, rather rough draft of Full of Holes (a touring story set in 2005) when I was fourteen. By 'first' and 'rather rough' I mean that oh sweet zombie Jesus guys it was so fucking bad and I probably didn't know what a fucking comma was and I didn't spellcheck and I'm pretty sure I called Gerard Gerald.

Writing is weird; it's the only thing in my life that actually move me without being tangible. That makes me sound like an emotionally retarded bitch, but it's true. I don't cry at chick flicks; I love music, but I don't get specifically moved by it, not even Radiohead, my fucking Gods. Writing, however, gets me every goddamn time. Some make me laugh so much my dad stares at me over his newspaper like he does so often, mumuring 'oh Lornaigh, where did your mother and I go wrong'; then some of them...oh Lord, I end up crying like a little bitch at them, rubbing at my eyes and weeping 'WHY OH WHY DID YOU MAKE GERARD DIE AND THEN FRANKIE IS SO SAD OMGZ' and then...

...the smut. Woah. *wipes sweat from brow*

What can I say, guys? I come from a place with a VERY strong religious influence (Northern Ireland, thank you, thank you, you're too kind) and porn was banned and violent movies were banned and all this shite was banned and I was such an innocent little kid. Some blond, blue eyed, five foot nothing little kid who was so nice and so kind and oh God isn't she just lovely. And then BAM one day, fuck, she gets an eyeball fulla man smut.

Seriously, I remember when it happened and everything. I was about thirteen and was perusing FicWad as per freaking usual and I came across this story. I can't remember the title, and in any case it was pretty shit, but I got a little weirded out when they started getting a little into it and then the kissing got a bit heated and the moans a bit louder and then, because fan fic writers never really use the words 'dick', 'semen' or 'ass' (usually replaced by 'himself', 'come' and 'entrance'; you need goddamn experience fo dis shit, fo shizzle) I didn't realize until I read the following line, which I remember to this day:

"AHHH!" Gerard screamed suddenly, and came inside his lover.

My innocent little mind was like 'I wonder where Gerard went to and OH MY GOD IT'S A SEXUAL REFERENCE OH SWEET LORD I HAVE TO TELL ALL MY FRIENDS I READ A RUDE WORD!!!!!!1111one'

Yup. I was an idiot.

So, gradually, in about a year, the following changes happened from 2006 to 2007;

2006 (aged thirteen)

1. I had no ear piercings

2. I had light ash blond hair

3. I didn't wear make up

4. I didn't swear, AT FUCKING ALL

(Can you actually imagine that? You guys have never even met me and I bet ye can't imagine me not fucking swearing, for shite's sake)

5. I had never written fan fiction

6. I was social

7. I never fought with my teachers

8. I didn't know the meaning of the following words: 'anarchy', 'shite' or 'cunt'

9. I had never attended a protest rally

10. I went to church

11. I had never been to a rock concert

12. I was clinically sane

2007 (age fourteen)

1. Nine piercings in one ear, one in the other, a lip stud, an eyebrow ring

2. Bleached white hair

3. I wear THE WORLD'S AMOUNT OF EYE MAKE UP (Mac eyeshadow ftw)

4. I fucking swear all the fucking time bitch what the shit is your fucking problem Jesus Christ piss off

5. In total I had (and still have) about four friends, mainly due to my weird obsession with fan fiction

6. See above

7. Daily Congress-worthy debates with the fortified sick demons called my teachers

8. My most commonly used words: 'anarchy', 'shite' and 'cunt'

9. Attended anarchist, socialist and anti - Iraq invasions in Belfast, London and NYC

10. Protested against the Church

11. Radiohead, My Chem, White Stripes, Green Day, Radiohead, Elbow, Oasis, Radiohead...

12. Haha sanity what is this you speak of?

Anyway, yuh huh. You could call this my farewell to writing, my royal family wave (wtf Lornaigh? Anarchist much?) to the world of fan fiction, at least for a little while. I think over the course of my writing (I'd call it a career but that would sound majorly pretentious) thingy I've become so introverted and just so generally weird. I have my own sense of the world, and to what I said before, writing is probably the one thing I properly can feel anymore. I recently stumbled back into a deep pit of depression, and to be honest (and I am aware how pathetic this sounds) writing my recent fiction, First of the Gang to Die (you may or may not have read it) has become my therapy, since phychiatrists piss the fuckin hell out of me.

Now, I am not going to repeat myself and say I don't own MCR and all that shit, but to be honest, I put my life and fucking soul into that fucking story. I know it's all made up and completely fake (gay, Mafia, 1930's, the list goes on) but hell, I've never worked so hard on anything, ever. Four or five months of dedication and hard work, wrestling with Google Translate and learning the real names of suit parts. (I bet you don't know the name for the metal tips on laces worn on loafers; I do. Aw yeah, fucking SWAG.) It was really, really good therapy and made my head straight. Gerard and Frank's relationship was the main thing I tired to focus on. I've read so many fics where it's like:

so gerard walks into a room and looks at frankie and seyz 'omg frankie ur so hot' nd tehn walks over to frankie and kisses him and frankie seyz 'ur so hot 2 i want you gee' and then dey fucked and the end

Yeah. Literacy genius, I know.

Whether, I really much prefer actual, I-will-never-fucking-leave-you-I'd-fucking-give-you-my-last-Oreo-man love, not exactly fluff, but just authentic and real. I like that I could get Gerard and Frankie being so sweet and cute, just the perfect fucking relationship between a quite fictional Don of the Mafia and his husband. I feel like I should just inform you guys that I recently had to write an essay on the Mezzogiorno, including the Mafia. Most people wrote two pages.

Me? I wrote eleven.

Dedicated? I think so.

In depth and detail about la Cosa Nostra, including the Omerta, (the pledge they make when they're induced) the structure of command (Dominus - Underboss - Consigliere - Capogierme - Footsoldiers - Associate) and the references. I got fucking seventy out of seventy and everyone was like 'woah you must be fricking IN the Mafia' and I was like 'heh heh' *cue nervous chuckle as Lornaigh hides Beretta under table*

Rambling. Anyway-

I write basically everywhere. In my classes (if you send your kid to Catholic school, I am a prime exmaple of how they will turn out) on assorted public transport (who knew the five o' clock train from Cork to Belfast was so good for writing fan fiction?) on my friends' computers (did you know the smut scene in FOH was written in my guy friend's house? Yeah, awkward much? Ugh, can I not fucking write something without fucking rambling? Serioiusly, Lornaigh, this is getting bad.

I don't quite know why I'm writing this. It started as a little autobiographical thing but now it's just me rambling on endlessly. However, that is quite signature Lornaigh Ni Ionnrachtaigh/unitedsuck007, isn't it? Pretty authentic shit, right there. So...lemme just speak to you guys out there.

I think everyone on this site should write. Of course I'm not forcing you, not gonna fucking put a gun to yer head and physically pump your fingers on your keyboard, but I personally think everyone on FicWad should write. Funny or serious, short or long, My Chemical Romance or Death Note. Whatever it is, ya might as well write. (Prepare yourself for corniness) You can actually really fucking find yourself in writing. I care more for writing than music, than acting, than reading. It's actually fecking changed me as a person, honestly.

So what are you waiting for? Stop reading this pile of rambling shite and get a-writing, my friend.

xoxo Lornaigh Serica Stiofain Ni Ionnrachtaigh - Ni Choinealla

(With a name that long you gotta believe me.)