The Vault: Morituri te Salutant -- Those about to die, we twihard Part 1: A Cullen Clan History

So this week's VAULT will be on an unfinished series called 'Morituri te Salutant.' And this reworking is special in two ways: first, this is the official start where you can actually read along with me (if you even want to) and, second, this is actually going to be a month-long series.

So this was a.... Twilight FanFiction.... Yeah, I know. I know. I hate Twilight. So why did I write about it? Well, keep reading and you'll find out...

MtS got its start from some friends in high school and a combined roleplay.

The Original 'clan'

Originally, six of us got together both from real world friendship and our enjoyment of using online messenger to create our jointly written stories in the form of RP's. The 'Cullen Clan' as we called it was loosely based off of Twilight... When I mean loosely, I mean we added other vampire novels into the mix (like Anne Rice's novels, one person in particular really liked Vampire Kisses) and magic (eventually, some of our vampires were able to reproduce and aged one of their children who imprinted on a 'werewolf' into a teenager via some spells)

The first few months the 'Cullen Clan' was active (1) (2), the six (Rose, October, Aryna, Anatolia 'Ana,' Elizabeth 'Ellie,' Lydia) of us had a very turbulent friendship. We had three admins: first was my then-best friend who handled Rose (among others) and her then-girlfriend who handled October (others), I (Lydia and co) was made the last admin sometime between the first thread and second thread. Of the remaining three: one (Aryna) was working quite frequently meaning she only ever joined when we were online, and the last two (Ana and Ellie) two of were besties with each other. At first, it was pretty good but it didn't last long...

Characters handled by 'Rose,' 'Ana' and Me

Eventually, when the couple had a very ugly and public breakup, four of us (Rose, Lyd, Ana, Ellie) split off and created our own. It didn't last very long and sadly, there isn't anywhere public you could read this aside from past Yahoo IM logs or a private guild (which sorry not sorry neither are being made public). Of the four of us who started, only three really got it going and even then only two of us were actively working together with it. Ana mostly kept me (the scribe of the group) in the loop with photos (above) or the occasional passage from her character's origin story. Ellie on the other hand rarely talked much.

Remember when I said the second coming didn't last long? Yeah. Rose and I had a very ugly and public 'bestie break-up' to the point we still don't talk (I hear second hand that she's married and has a son now so good for her) and... keeping issues out of this, I'm still okay with that. Ana and Ellie also had a bestie break-up though they recently started talking again. Ana and I still talk from time to time (especially seeing as my fur baby was originally hers) but, seeing as she moved to Northern Wisco, we don't see each other often.

There are many reasons as to why I'm doing this most recent piece of FF. First, because it's FF--it's horrible. I wanted to see if I could do a better job writing Twilight than SMeyer. Eh. It's still kinda shitty so I guess I failed (especially seeing as this hasn't been picked up by a Traditional Pub company or spawned a series of movies).

Second, each time I read it, I just want to work on it. I strongly dislike some of the memories associated with the 'Cullen Clan' (the constant drama especially) but there were some awesome story plots that were in the Cullen Clan that don't get into MtS but do get into the Followers Universe. Lydia and Braden's romance was and is easily one of my favorites I've ever written yet it doesn't actually get into the MtS series.

Finally, this was almost the precursor of the Follower's Universe novels. Avanell, Lydia and Braden's love child, is a half-shifter/half-vampire and her plot was supposed to be about how she could fit in--this though was never fully explored as, by the time Rose and I shelved it for an extended turned-indefinite hiatus, we wanted Ellie and Ana involved. Avanell was the precursor to Abraham...only she was more a lost soul with full control over her mental capabilities and less insane predator. Lydia's story does actually become a novelette--she's also featured later in the Van Helsing Legacy.

And now that I've gotten the history of this done. Part two will feature the actual series starting with Book One: Ars Morendi.

See you next week!

Always,
Ali