#hava? meant to say ‘haha’ of course but i’m leaving it in- that last tag made my fingers numb

[whatudottu]

Any headcanons on the Andromeda family?

Hmm let’s see- I had to sit on this one because I’ve only recently been especially thinking about them. Yes, they were my favourite folk for UA, but only retroactively am I actually beginning to really have any thoughts on them. @thistlehawk ‘s the one to really talk to about Andromeda 5, I just come up with the art for it.

Still though, I’m not afraid to give it a whirl- let’s do a cute and cursed hc each shall we?

Bivalvan

I do not know why- Bivalvan gives me heavy Mom Vibes™️, and I don’t know if it’s because of my recent shitpost or not, but he feels like a bit of a parent??? Like- chiding because he cares, sarcastic but affectionate, and if like actually parental-child relationship (don’t mind me slipping in some father-daughter content) understands when and where to intervene or let breathe? Applied to everyone else in Andromeda 5 you’ve got bickering competitions between him and P’andor, bonding over being both aquatic AND most of the brain cells with Ra’ad, getting to talk about random things with Galapagus, and being the strangely sturdy pebble to Andreas’ shaky mountain. The vibes- they compel me-!

Though, if ever there is a piece of technology that ISN’T bolted down, with Bivalvan around it inevitably goes missing. If you ask he definitely won’t say- it’s not like he’s taking anything vitality important anymore, he’s just tinkering with a few household items, Bivalvan WILL not return whatever lost device to default working order. Whether or not it’s a ‘being prepared’ thing or a ‘needing those claws to constantly be on the move’ thing has been long since muddled by time and also maybe slightly a little bit of criminal activity maybe possibly- Asking for permission is a relatively new thing for him to try out.

Galapagus

Though he won’t engage in violence unless deemed otherwise necessary (like of course his attempts to garner the attention of Ben Tennyson), Galapagus had undergone a little bit of a corruption arc. By Aldabra standards- Galapagus is a villain most foul, but really he only partakes in the occasional heck word and one little ‘cookie jar’ lie as a rare treat.

But did you know he had retractable claws? i didn’t know that at the time of drawing :(- I just couldn’t resist thinking about cats when I realised- and soon that thought turned to scratching posts and perhaps the need to just claw into something and… I don’t know? You’d like to think it was Andreas tearing cushions or Bivalvan itching seams of fabric or even P’andor peeling out the stuffing on a varying scale of nervousness, need or boredom- but you’re wrong. That is Galapagus’ urge- he is the one to scratch up the couch-! there’s a few trees on aldabra surely one can contemplate philosophy while giving the bark a good scritch

Andreas

Being a big lad himself, Andreas can bench-press everyone in the Andromeda 5… but not at once- not that Andreas himself would be the type to use them as weights, haha! Ra’ad and Bivalvan are easy to lift for obvious reasons, P’ander’s weight is all in the armour rather than matter (especially if he’s still stuffed in there), but Galapagus is at top difficulty, mostly due to his shell which for 1) doesn’t offer any flexion, so it’s not an easy hold and 2) is a dense mother heckery for full on bone.

Also, that isn’t just simple armour, those are technically densely packed plates. Andreas has layers upon layers of thin but durable scales that pack in and come across as armour, so outer layers can break without effective the overall integrity of the plates. That uh… DOES mean that shedding happens at some point, even if it’s less Andreas getting bigger and needing larger fit armour and more just ‘refreshing’ the quality of the scales. He’s just lucky to not need it seasonally, else Earth might’ve futzed with something with its no doubt different seasonal cycle.

P’andor

You’ve probably already seen my redesign of P’andor’s true form - the fucked up deer-taur look - but if you manage to find a large, flexible AND relatively thin rad suit (or just find it more convenient to get 4 different suits), P’andor when well fed and significantly more ferret/centipede-y is at his least bastard and most pretzel. Don’t get me wrong- he’s still one heck of an ass, but without the constant annoyance of eating his own bones for enough energy, he’s got a lot of warmth and totally not radiation to share- with only the Andromeda 5 + 1.

Though, speaking of eating, because most of the time being out of his suit is off-limits, on most occasions when P’andor is just hankering for something to naw, hearing clanking coming from the suit isn’t all too unusual. Don’t you worry, that’s just P’andor shifting and maybe accidentally forgetting how cramped the suit is, sometimes one gets a little sneak peek at his fingers as they claw out the slots for that day’s surplus intake. The best kind of ‘sustenance’ that can fit through the slits is probably overwhelming energised energy drinks- to the toxic slutch degree, heart-palpitations degree.

Ra’ad

Saying that Ra’ad is an empath isn’t exactly right, or at least gives off the wrong vibes. Yes, being able to read the minds of folk with a proper nervous system has a little more uh… actual mind reading than trying to understand based on what one may or may not know. But- you could say that Ra’ad is a great listener, so even if he pretty much has exactly a mind to know what you’re thinking (though only if you DO have a nervous system), listening and responding seems to be what Ra’ad would do instead. Though- in place of thoughts, he gets the joy of listening to a constant hum coming from P’andor’s direction- like listening to a microwave.

The bonus to being able to float is that Ra’ad gets to have some degree of control over how much it LOOKS like he has bones, but sleeping breaks all illusions. While he’s far from the level of jellyfish liquidity, the most bone he has in his body are some cartilage plates segmented in his main body, so while his body looks like it does when Ra’ad is consciously aware that folk don’t typically lack a skeletal structure, his many limbs can end up twisting up on themselves- not quite in knots but most certainly in positions most skeleton folk can’t get.