#vampire animals

a bunch of commissions for my friend @namakemono-kun​! click for full art and better quality!

What if animals could be turned into vampires too? (for @ilovetabicat)

Lil’ Renesmee: Yay, a puppy that will live forever!

Emmett: *immediately travels to Kodiak Island*

Vladimir: Gifted shmifted.  The Volturi will fall before our army of vampire vampire bats MWA HA!!!!

Charlotte: Peter, from now on let’s only hang out with vampire animals, not people.

Peter: okay

Garrett: *gallops past the camera on undead stallion* The Volturi are coming!  The Volturi are coming!

Aro: You plebians are so quaint, pardon me while I prance circles around you on my immortal unicorn

(a half-birthday present for @volturisecretary  in response to this post)

Get ready for a wonky, Socratic discourse on dragon-making that I swear is not my real headcanon. Ahem.  Mostly.

So ever since I posted the reply to your reeds question the other day, I’ve been bothered by one of the lines I wrote: “…venom (or venom-y things) acts differently on inorganic matter than on human or animal tissue.”  I literally was lying awake last night because of this: WHY? Why do the humans turn into sparkly vampires and the animal just die? Why does venom treat humans so differently from animals? 

Answer: It doesn’t.

The only observable difference between the human and animal responses to vampire venom is death itself.  If that death did not occur (as it apparently does in many attempts at human transformation, too), would the transformation actually take place, considering the genetic and gross structural similarities between human and animal tissue? Assuming that it theoretically could, the question is: why doesn’t this happen?  Why does the animal die and thus the transformation halted?

I propose that the venom’s processes themselves do not kill the animal directly; its death is a secondary result of the pain and resultant panic. If a deer gets bitten and feels the venom start to work (plus being freaked out by the vampire’s presence and behavior in general), it literally just has a heart attack and dies. Animals do this. (I refer to the expertise of Emmett Cullen, who You Know has tried wrestling deer before.  It didn’t work; the deer just fell over and died.)  Sometimes, humans do this too.  But in a successful case, the human defense against this fear cascade is higher order brain function, i.e. sentient self-awareness, i.e. “It is my destiny to be with this adonis-like sparkly vampire forever and therefore It Will Be Okay. Kill me but don’t really kill me.”

Therefore!  If, theoretically, an animal could be found that is both intelligent and brave and generally awesome enough to withstand the torment of transformation… could it happen?  Let us discover this mystery together.

Thesis: Dragons do not exist; therefore Caius cannot have a dragon.

Premise One: Was Aro intrigued-to-near-insanity at the end of Breaking Dawn by the startling existence of actual shape-shifters and vampire/human hybrids?  He was.

Premise Two: Would this make Aro scurry back home to his subterranean library and reexamine his dusty Legends of Extraordinary Creatures scrolls with a fresh eye? It would.

Premise Three: Is the Twilight universe ruled by the Fates and their handiwork, Le Destiny? It is.

Premise Four: Is Aro a spoiled immortal brat whom the Fates have given everything he ever wanted, only for it to come back and bite him à la Midas later on? He is.

Premise Five: Therefore, will Aro discover proof that dragons are indeed real, probably concealed in some ancient poem that he is now magically able to translate? He will.

Premise Six: Will he find a genuine dragon after a decade of searching?  He will.

Premise Seven: Are dragons awesome? They are.

Premise Eight: Would said dragon, therefore, theoretically be able to survive the transformation? It would.

Premise Nine: Can Aro help himself in these situations? Come on this is Aro we’re talking about.

I agree, this is one quality Sillycanon we have going lol!  And your even-better sillycanon of gifted vampire animals needs to be thoroughly explored.  But yes. *cough* Back to semi-reality. 

In even my real headcanon, I am positive that one of the first things Caius did as a vampire was to try and transform horses.  I mean… if the average human can run twenty times faster when they become a vampire, imagine how fast and powerful a war horse would become.  He tried and tried and tried, unfortunately for several poor horses.  When he met up with Aro and Marcus they confessed they had tried and failed at the same thing.

Aro has experimented with a few other animals over the years (mainly elephants, camels, and carrier pigeons), but without success.  So if you think about it, he had tasted animal blood several times before Carlisle came along, which is why he was so delighted with Carlisle’s innovation- because he hadn’t thought of it himself.  But it’s actually not that strange.  We humans taste all kinds of things that aren’t food for various reasons, and it’s pretty rare that we think “hmm, I wonder if I could survive by eating just this thing?”

Amun totally attemped to transform a cat once.  He was scared to death, partly because he had been ordered by his superiors not to try it, and also because he feared what godlike powers it might have.  But his curiosity won out, and then he was left in the strange position of richly bribing a human slave to smuggle a cat-corpse out of the temple. (Who knows?  Maybe it was Kebi, and that was their first meeting.)

It’d be hilarious, but Maria would never stand for the chaos of newborn vampire animals.  Can you even imagine?  The sheer speed that they could run at would mean you would lose them in like, a minute.  So for Maria, no way.  But Stefan and Vladimir have wistfully made AU Plans to release all kinds of vampire snakes into the streets of Volterra, and they happily accept your idea to use newborn vamp!snakes.

But when I think of vampires wanting animals, the main one that comes to mind is Jasper.  As a cavalryman, Jasper’s horse was, without a doubt, the most important “person” in his life.  Jasper’s absolute favorite human memory is of riding his horse, Patch (I have Many Headcanons About Patch, if anyone’s interested), flying through the wide terrain of Texas and the West.  The soothing, quiet drumbeat of Patch’s hooves eating up the miles, leaving everything else- especially the war- behind.

He remembers the synergy that he and Patch had during battle. He remembers the “conversations” they would have, how he would spend hours tending to Patch’s coat and hooves at night, telling him things he would never tell any of his fellow soldiers.  And, like Caius, of course he’s wondered what speed a vampire horse could theoretically run at, and what that would feel like to ride at that speed, the wind ripping through his hair… and this time he’d have Alice in his arms.  Every time she encourages him to pick their next date, this is what he thinks of.  But he knows it’ll never happen, so he smiles and suggests something else.

Jasper would even settle for a real horse.  He’s tried more than once to befriend one, but like most herbivores, the horses either spook or just stand there and shiver until he gives up out of pity. (I actually have a post-BD one-shot planned in which he does finally get to have a horse because Renesmee figures out how to make it work.  It’s regular one, but it’s still the Best Birthday Gift Ever. He and Alice will finally get to have that date.)