A Shakespeare and Twilight Crossover

A Cullen Story

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What if a formerly
sixteen-year-old human and now three-year-old vampire, Niella Esme Aron, her
newly-turned vegetarian vampire boyfriend/husband/brother, Edwin Aron, or Ed
Aron, as she calls him, and their two young half-human/half-vampire children,
Rosalinda Marie Montoye Fiore Aron and Ari Aron, all moved in with the Cullens
and then the whole family, including the Pack and the Denalis, goes on vacation
and ends up in Verona during the Montague/Capulet feud?

…I’m not sure what to say to that.

Other than: put on your shit-waders, kids!

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I just couldn't believe it. Ed wanted to move in with a group of vegetarians, the Cullens. I had heard of
them, they were the main vegetarian vampire family in my favorite book series, The Twilight Saga.

Characters referring to the very series they’re in—it irked me when Anne Rice did it, and in terrible fanfic it makes me facepalm hard enough to give myself a black eye.

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We all packed our things into our moving bags and got into our two cars. Ari rode with his
father, and Rosie rode with me. I was going to miss our Vermont home, but we had my parents look
after it, so if we decided to return we'd have somewhere to live, here in Vermont.

And your parents are perfectly ok with you waltzing off across the country with your vampire boyfriend while they “look after” the house. Do they even know that you’re a vampire? Do they know that you have children? I swear, parents these days take apathy to a whole new level.

Apparently there’s not even a reason for them to move in with the Cullens, they just feel like it. Seems like they’re the house guests that never leave; it’s been four weeks now, and they’re just not getting the hint.

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Then I saw Leah Clearwater, one of the Cullens' werewolf pets, imprint on my son, but I was
hoping she could get him to come out of his shell and socialize a little more,
and Collin, another werewolf pet, imprinted on Rosie, who didn't like his best
friend and she took Brady, his best friend, to 'the scary dimension,' as we all
called it, and when they returned, Brady knew that eventually he would become
her best friend, if they could get along, but he was hoping to become her
friend, first. Tanya asked, "Why do you call it the scary dimension?"
"Because it's your worst nightmare come true. You face whatever it is that
you're most afraid of—spiders, snakes, rats, cages, bowls of dog food, you name
it. You will see it." "So, Caius would see werewolves?"
"Yep, wait, who's Caius?" "He's a member of the Volturi, the one
who murdered my sister in cold blood."

At least this sounds like a potentially interesting plot thread. Oh wait, no—let’s hear about how Niella is so much more powerful than Bella!

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Then, Tanya's sister, Kate, discovered that I was far more powerful than Bella.

*facepalm*

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I also was a mental shield, but I could project both
a mental shield, but also a physical version of the shield, but unfortunately,
sometimes, even though I was more powerful than Bella, my mental/physical
shield would sometimes snap, and when it hit me, it felt like a grenade
exploding in my head, and it hurt a lot.

Your own shield smacks you? I bet that’s really convenient when fighting enemies. You’ve got Bella’s penchant for self-injury, yet strangely none of her capacity for entertainment.

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I grinned and
pointed out, "Yeah, but you're pretty much a part of the family too."
Seth, Leah, Jacob, Nessie, Bella, Edward, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, Alice, Carlisle, Esme,
Sam, Emily, Embry, Collin, Quil, Claire, Brady, Paul, Rebecca, Jared, Kim,
Carmen, Eleazar, Tanya, Kate, Ari, Rosie, Ed, and I all burst out laughing
after that.

My eyes glazed over about four names into that sentence. Holy shit. This happens in every other paragraph too, but I’ll spare your brain cells and won’t bother copying it.

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Of course, one
day, when the Denalis were visiting with us, and the packs, along with Emily,
Claire, Rebecca, and Kim, were there, we all agreed that we would go somewhere
on vacation. We weren't sure where to go, but we'd figure that out later. Then
Rosie said we should go to Italy.

It’s like Desperate Housewives, vampire style. They can travel anywhere in the world, yet it's still the same inane shit no matter where they are. But something in their travel plans goes amiss!

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"Where in Italy are we?" He looked
around and then a couple of people walked by, talking about some feud, between
these two families, the Capulets and the Montagues.

Forget where in Italy, where in the space-time continuum?!

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Then we learned that our family had to split up, and
so Carlisle made all the girls stick together
and had the guys stay with him.

You have to split up…why? Because of some terribly contrived plot device? Alright then. Girls on one side, guys on the other, time for vampire spin-the-bottle, ancient Verona style! Dear lord, I need a drink.

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We met Lord Capulet's only daughter, Juliet, and
learned that he wanted someone he could trust, who would take care of her and
protect her, to marry her. Of course, Alice said that she was sure that most of
us and she could see that most of us, except for maybe Leah, Nessie, and Rosie,
would become good friends with Juliet.

More completely random characterization. You know, I would think that maybe the patriarch of one of Verona’s
most important families might be concerned with a bunch of odd-looking newcomers roaming about their city, but what the hell. I’m still not even sure how we’re in ancient Verona, logical behavior at this point would probably just add to the nearly intolerable dullness. Next our vampire entourage makes its way to the Capulet party!

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Of course, we all behaved ourselves and during the
dancing, danced mostly with our guys. Seth and Brady were the only two, besides
Romeo who didn't dance. Of course, Romeo saw Juliet and fell in love with her
and she fell in love with him.


Alice had foreseen this happening and muttered to the rest of us, "What happened
between Romeo and Juliet is exactly like imprinting, except I could see it. I
saw those two together. So we know they're human, and that they're
soulmates."

Forget star-crossed lovers; the sign of true love in the new millennium: imprinting.

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That night, Romeo snuck into Juliet's garden, and of
course, Alice saw Romeo sneak in and saw him talking to and kissing Juliet. Then Alice saw Juliet decide to marry Romeo secretly and Alice started pestering Juliet. "Juliet, don't you love me?" "Of course I do. You know
that." "Then why do I see you sneaking off to secretly marry Romeo
without inviting me or the Denalis or the rest of the Cullens or the Quileutes?"

The scandal! Look Juliet, it's fine and all if you want to go get married against your parents' wishes and the decades-old feud that your families are in, BUT HOW COULD YOU NOT INVITE US?! *sniff*

Next we enter a Run-on Sentence Passage of Doom, and I'm not quite sure what's happening. It sure as hell isn't Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, at any rate. Bella pops up and injures herself again. Wait, I think I've found Juliet!

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One day, Juliet vanished in the middle of one of Alice's visions of her
future. Alice, Esme, Bella, Rosalie, Carmen, Tanya, Kate, Emily,
Rebecca, Claire, Kim, Nessie, Rosie, and I all ran upstairs to Juliet's
room and we all realized that Juliet was pregnant with a half-vampire.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]


Hang on for the whiplash-inducing transition!

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Then, one day, we learned that Bella was debating to jump off a cliff,
when Alice saw it. We all froze and, then, Leah ran and told the guys,
Jacob told Edward, Carlisle alerted the Montagues and the prince and
Paris, and Esme told the Capulets. Then we all raced for the beach
cliffs. We had to stop Bella. When Esme was directly under the cliff,
she paused for one second and then ran up to the top. When she reached
the top, she yelled, "ISABELLA MARIE SWAN CULLEN! DON'T YOU DARE JUMP
OFF THIS CLIFF!" Bella hesitated, but then, seeing the prince under the
cliff watching and trying to figure why in the world she was standing so
close to the edge, she flung herself off the cliff.

I find it really telling that the one trait of Bella's that is consistent throughout fanfiction, even when she's not involved in the actual plot of the story, is her predilection for self-injury. Not her love for Edward, but her self-centered suicidal impulses. What does this say about our generation?



Part two coming up soon, maybe. If I can take any more of this.

So that's what that rumbling sound was that my parents heard on their trip to England--Shakespeare doing 500 RPMs in his grave. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

See, if I were Lord Capulet, and vampires were showing up in my court, my reaction would be:

"Montague, I know we're supposed to be feuding, but a bunch of undead creatures from Hell are in Verona, trying to chat up our children."

Montague: "The sparkling pitspawn of S'Meyers?! By God, Capulet, we have no time to waste--we can get back to hating each other after we destroy these horrors!"

EileenK98 wrote:

So that's what that rumbling sound was that my parents heard on their trip to England--Shakespeare doing 500 RPMs in his grave. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

More like 50,000 RPMs. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

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What if a formerly
sixteen-year-old human and now three-year-old vampire, Niella Esme Aron, her
newly-turned vegetarian vampire boyfriend/husband/brother, Edwin Aron, or Ed
Aron, as she calls him, and their two young half-human/half-vampire children,
Rosalinda Marie Montoye Fiore Aron and Ari Aron, all moved in with the Cullens
and then the whole family, including the Pack and the Denalis, goes on vacation
and ends up in Verona during the Montague/Capulet feud?

The Montagues and Capulets would end their feud in favor of killing vampires, so Romeo and Juliet would live happily ever after until they discovered they couldn't stand each other, at which point they would play out a 14th century version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, thereby making this story a whole lot more interesting.

Lady Anne wrote:

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What if a formerly
sixteen-year-old human and now three-year-old vampire, Niella Esme Aron, her
newly-turned vegetarian vampire boyfriend/husband/brother, Edwin Aron, or Ed
Aron, as she calls him, and their two young half-human/half-vampire children,
Rosalinda Marie Montoye Fiore Aron and Ari Aron, all moved in with the Cullens
and then the whole family, including the Pack and the Denalis, goes on vacation
and ends up in Verona during the Montague/Capulet feud?

The Montagues and Capulets would end their feud in favor of killing vampires, so Romeo and Juliet would live happily ever after until they discovered they couldn't stand each other, at which point they would play out a 14th century version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, thereby making this story a whole lot more interesting.

"Good, better, best, bested."

I hate-love the nondescript title that gives no clues to the insanity that lies within. The fic reminds me of 'Cloud Mows the Lawn' in that way.

When we rejoin the story, with your choice of alcohol beverage in hand (believe me, you will need it), our protagonist Niella has conquered her shielding power! I assume this is the author’s attempt at character development. One sentence in a fic that’s… several thousand words long. And Juliet, despite her half-vampire pregnancy, is stirring up trouble between Romeo and Paris.

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We all froze and watched as Romeo challenged Paris. "She's
mine." "No, she's not. She was promised to me in marriage."
"Slight problem, she's already chosen me." "And your point would
be?" "She wants me."

This, folks, is the true art of repartee, in all the graceful glory of Shakespeare’s language. I’m rooting for someone to get stabbed already.

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Romeo attacked, sinking his teeth into Paris' neck, killing him.

Well that was the most boring death scene ever. And woah, wait, Romeo is a vampire?! How did I overlook this? Apparently that Run-on Sentence Passage of Doom was a miserable rendition of the most contrived scene in the entire Twilight series, Edward dumping Bella and Bella going apeshit. Oh, and Romeo is now a vampire—sort of… half vampire? Sparkle-pire! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

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Everyone thought that Paris was still alive, until he was reported
missing and no one could find him and they thought he was dead.

I…what? You can’t—for god’s sake. Let’s add history fail to the growing list of plot fail, grammar fail, characterization fail, and general Shakespeare fail. At least she’s spelled everything correctly?

Then Juliet gives birth to her half-vampire spawn, and their brilliant plan to avoid the consequences of 13^th century teenage undead pregnancy is—drumroll, please—to run away.

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Lady Capulet told Lord Capulet that Juliet was
missing and had been kidnapped along with

some thirty-odd vampires. Vampires that have been living with you for months. Ignoring the logistics of kidnapping thirty plus vampires, which I’m sure Lord Capulet realizes, how is this a solution?

Then the whole troupe flees to…Niella’s house back in Vermont?

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We left Isle Esme a few weeks later, and hurried towards the mainland. We ran northward and, we were sure to stop to hunt along the way, and Ed and I soon saw several familiar landmarks. I yelled
back to the other Cullens, the Denalis, the packs, Romeo and Juliet,
"Follow us!" We soon came across the house that Ed, Rosie, Ari, and I
had once called home.

WHICH CENTURY ARE YOU IN?!

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Juliet realized that Brady had done the
unthinkable—he'd imprinted on her daughter, Angelina Victoria. She flipped out
on him and nearly killed him, but with Jasper's help, was able to regain
control of herself.

So a thirteen-year-old girl nearly killed a werewolf? Damn, what has she been eating? And apparently she has no problem hurtling through space and time, so she must be one tough little cookie. I get sick on the half-hour flight to Minneapolis.

Now please bear with me, as I feel I must quote the next two paragraphs. The insanity must be read to be believed.

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We then had planned to return to Italy, in a year's time to tell
Juliet's parents and Romeo's parents that she and Romeo were okay, along with
their child, Angelina Victoria, or Angel, as most of us called her, but then
the Capulets and Montagues, along with the prince caught up with us.

We all returned to Verona and we all were allowed to return, and the guys
still stayed with the Montagues, but came to visit us girls as often as possible
at the Capulets. A few days after we returned, though, Lord Capulet made Juliet
angry, and Leah shifted to wolf and slammed Juliet up against the wall and soon
the guys all arrived and working together, we managed to calm her down again.
Of course, from that day on, her father vowed to never anger her again. So, we
really didn't do anything that would make Juliet's father have to argue with
her, until her first year as one of us was up.

The bumbling attempt at a 13^th century custody settlement…the inexplicable time travel…the apparent resolution of an ancient family feud, mediated by vampires…the senseless brutality…all related in the most inane prose I have ever read in my life. Ladies and gentlemen of the court, I don’t believe it can get any better than this.

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"They're coming for us—all of them, even the wives—the Volturi soon, in less than a month.”

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"It's all of us. It's over. We've all been sentenced to die.”

Finally, someone is going to put an end to this madness! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

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Our main goal was keeping the human members of the family from
learning of the danger we were in. We could handle the Volturi.

Yes, not keeping them safe, but hiding the fact that their lives are in danger! WTF is wrong with you?!

But of course we can’t end this mess without at least the semblance of a half-assed resolution, so Niella rounds up their “vampire friends,” including one Alistair, who is understandably upset by the situation. Niella, ever tactful:

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"You're the Puddleglum of the vampire world."

Can anyone who is more familiar with Twilight explain this line? This deserves to be made into an icon.

The lot of them attempt to formulate a plan against the Volturi, although only five of them contribute anything; apparently out of more than thirty vampires, only five of them have any sort of functioning mental capability.

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One day, the Romanians came and told us that they wanted to help us
fight against the Volturi. We now had two more vampires fighting on our side,
but secretly Bella, Juliet, and I made plans to destroy the Romanians after
we'd finished dealing with the Volturi.

Yes, form a secret plot to destroy the only allies you have, while fighting for your lives. Brilliant. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

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I suddenly suggested something that no one else had thought
of—challenging the Volturi to a singing contest.

And we’re going to call it “Undead Idol!” This shit is going to be bigger than American Idol and all your European talent shows combined, y’all. EPIC. Tune in to Fox, Mondays at 9!

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We'd send out our best singer and they send their best and if we won,
the Volturi leaves in peace, if they win, a fight breaks out. Everyone thought
it would be a good idea, and Carlisle told the Volturi to be prepared for a singing contest.

And the Volturi laughed in their faces and said, “we’re going to obliterate you anyway!”

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Juliet was almost a better singer than me and since we'd couldn't
figure out who was the better singer, we decided we've have two separate
rounds—round one would be duets and rounds two and three would be
solos.

What a perfectly logical solution.

The day of the competition comes, and we are treated to a full paragraph of italicized lyrics, presumably Niella’s carefully chosen solo song, a heartwarming song about love and friendship… how sickening. Or maybe that’s all the alcohol I’ve consumed. Excuse me. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

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The Volturi went next and I have to admit they did okay, but it could
have been better. We'd gotten the prince to be the judge to avoid any unfair rulings.

Where’s Simon Cowell when you need him?

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Juliet stepped forward and said, "This song is for all of the
people in my life that I've hurt over the past year or so."

Juliet: “Goddamit why didn’t I use that happy dagger when I had the chance?!”

The “competition” proceeds with the author showing off her vast, and I mean VAST copypasta skills, and quotes an astounding number of songs which I can’t even identify, as she’s not given credit for them anywhere in the story. Apparently it’s not a singing competition so much as a lyric-finding competition, because all that matters in music is the lyrics, right? Each contestant gives a heartfelt, bile-churning dedication before their song, even to ex-lovers and murdered competitors.

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At the end of the final song, everyone turned and looked at the prince. He took a deep breath and said, "The winners are the Cullens."

Surprise surprise, the Volturi don’t play fair!

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Caius stepped forward after the humans left and said, "You cheated, Cullens."

“Yeah, you had DSL speed! We’re only on dial-up here, obviously you had the superior internet-searching capability. I demand a do-over, and fast, reliable internet service for all!”

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I knew that during this battle, everyone in among the Volturi was a key target. We even had to kill the wives.

Thus our author has reduced the complexities of total warfare to a single concise sentence.

Luckily, all of the thirty plus vampires are paired up evenly with the evil Volturi! This conveniently satiates our author’s need to make endless lists of names, while resulting in the most boring epic battle scene you can possibly conceive.

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I glanced at Carlisle and then one by one we all walked back into Verona, as if we had won a
great battle, which we had.

Somebody doesn’t understand what a simile is. Then the entire vampire entourage moves to Volterra, and assumes power over the entire "mythical" world, which apparently encompasses both 20th century North America and 13th century Italy.

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Now Alice could see that everyone in our family was somewhat happy in Volterra, as long
as we stopped at the towns or villages that had once been our homes. The
Cullens would go to Forks, Ed, Ari, Rosie, and I would go to Vermont,
Romeo and Juliet would go to Verona, and the Denalis would go to, obviously, Denali. We
were mostly called upon to resolve differences between different vampires and
stop conflicts. Every year, Juliet and I would give a concert for our family
and any visitors who came to Volterra that year.

Have a massive mishmash of Disney songs and Demi Lovato lyrics! In italics! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

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We all soon grew used to being the most powerful vampire coven and
here is where I shall end my story of love, pain, betrayal, and family, or
perhaps this part of my story for there is more, much more, if you know where
to look to find the rest of this story.

At the bottom of my bottle of JD? In my padded room in the mental ward? I’m assuming you mean the bowels of Fanfiction.net, because this sure as hell bears no semblance to any kind of Shakespearean writing that I know. I'm going to curl up in my bed and weep for the English language now.

Owlish wrote:

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"You're the Puddleglum of the vampire world."

Can anyone who is more familiar with Twilight explain this line? This deserves to be made into an icon.

That's actually a Narnia reference. Puddleglum is a Marshwiggle, a species of chronically depressed, pessimistic froggish people. While a massive downer compared to most humans, Puddleglum is actually a quite cheerful example of his people. He was also played by Tom Baker (AKA the fourth Doctor) in the BBC version of The Silver Chair.

myeerah wrote:

Owlish wrote:

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"You're the Puddleglum of the vampire world."

Can anyone who is more familiar with Twilight explain this line? This deserves to be made into an icon.

That's actually a Narnia reference. Puddleglum is a Marshwiggle, a species of chronically depressed, pessimistic froggish people. While a massive downer compared to most humans, Puddleglum is actually a quite cheerful example of his people. He was also played by Tom Baker (AKA the fourth Doctor) in the BBC version of The Silver Chair.

Ah, thank you! Narnia is one of those things I always wish I had gotten into...

You know, I was honestly waiting for The Doctor to pop in at some point and bring them all before the Shadow Proclamation for crimes committed against space and time. Then I realized the author would most likely turn The Doctor into a vampire and pair him up with one of her millions of vampire friends, so I gave up all hope and sank into apathy. It's not a bad place, really.

Rabid Badger wrote:

You know, I was honestly waiting for The Doctor to pop in at some point and bring them all before the Shadow Proclamation for crimes committed against space and time. Then I realized the author would most likely turn The Doctor into a vampire and pair him up with one of her millions of vampire friends, so I gave up all hope and sank into apathy. It's not a bad place, really.

What you said. One of the terrible things about badfic is that it doesn't just make you weep for the fandom involved, it makes you weep for all fandoms, everywhere.

myeerah wrote:

Owlish wrote:

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"You're the Puddleglum of the vampire world."

Can anyone who is more familiar with Twilight explain this line? This deserves to be made into an icon.

That's actually a Narnia reference. Puddleglum is a Marshwiggle, a species of chronically depressed, pessimistic froggish people. While a massive downer compared to most humans, Puddleglum is actually a quite cheerful example of his people. He was also played by Tom Baker (AKA the fourth Doctor) in the BBC version of The Silver Chair.

He's kind of the precursor to Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Even out of context, and without reading the whole story, this line has to be the cleverest in it (unless the author, perish the thought, actually READ and added a line of... *gasp* Shakespeare!). I want to call someone the Puddleglum of his/her world.

I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that the author only knew the names of Romeo and Juliet and that their families were feuding. They probably watched New Moon, which references Romeo and Juliet, then decided that they would be clever and combine the two. Thus, we get this crappy story.

God, what do they teach in schools these days?

At least it wasn't Hamlet. Repeating that until I forget... whatever this is.

No, seriously, what is this? I... I keep trying to read, but the sentences just don't... why? Why would anyone think this thing was a good idea?

Why is everything so... condensed? I know they say that less is more, but seriously? Whole fight scenes are reduced to less than a sentence!