#or some fucking warlock equivalent because there’s some shit with addwaitya we have to unpack for aldabra that shit will not escape

[whatudottu]

Ough I’m thinking about the Andromeda 5 again and about how they feel about physical affection (specifically one on one going down a table of person a hugging person b, everyone getting a turn) and I thought about it being a short post until I mega tag rambled my last A5 post-

P’andor is very much a fucking ‘do not touch me’ kind of person all times of the day and almost all days of the week, with the only exception to that rule being Bivalvan who is the only person in his life that he cares about enough to consider being physically affectionate with that he won’t end up hurting or even killing with his radioactive vibes. It’s a very fucking big point of contention that you do not talk about P’andor’s suit, mentioning it in passing or even suggest the whole ‘necessary evil’ of it, and like the other four don’t have to be threatened with death to know that it’s just a thing they’ve collectively agreed upon.

So like, even if the whole ‘don’t touch me’ rule is waived for brief little moments of affection, P’andor doesn’t cuddle unless he’s out and about sipping in lingering radiation of places with no honour. The absolute starvation this man experiences is not just in his hunger but even the simple concept of holding and being held by someone he remotely cares about has been robbed from him as he robs from others, and the fact that a well fed P’andor could easily tower over Bivalvan - his head alone reaching the size of half of his fucking body - just submitting to being an entire bowl-sized little spoon just; this man needs therapy but noodle cuddling his husband is close enough.

Someone who follows the ‘do not touch me’ rule has very opposite reasons for doing so, and that certain someone is Ra’ad ‘cursed with visions’ himself. The entire problem with his new Mutants and Magic brand deal is that this man is already naturally overstimulated because he got no clue that reading minds isn’t actually normal for amperi, he doesn’t need to have sensory overload viewing an entire person’s memory either when he touches someone with a by-the-books nervous system for the duration of a hug.

So when Galapagus came along with his magic immunity and ‘does not contain a nervous system you can directly touch’ shell, the immense fucking relief he felt when all the thoughts and memories just stopped plaguing him, this undiagnosed autism creature had just the one moment he has ever had in his entire life of pure fucking relaxation and nearly collapsed on the spot in Galapagus’ hold. And just for the moments he spends laying across the shell of Galapagus, you can very visibly see that the only ‘bones’ in his body is his mantle and his hidden beak, even if the details are muted under layers of muscle.

But the funny thing is, with the magical power of psychic mana and memory reading mutations, technically Ra’ad can know exactly why P’andor is so strongly against physical contact and equally live through Bivalvan’s memories of this hidden facet of his husband.

Something something, Ra’ad cannot read P’andor’s emotions because he isn’t based in electrical neurological functions nor read memories because that requires direct physical touch on someone who HAS a nervous system to begin with, yada yada psychic magic just affects those that have a life force (mana) that aren’t built to resist it (becoming even more mana) or adept at absorbing it (becoming anti mana). This means that if Ra’ad just so happens to be in the room where someone just quickly hugs (or maracas in Andreas’ case) P’andor, he can see exactly how much P’andor wants to reciprocate but simply cannot.

P’andor does in fact notice Ra’ad’s piercing looks.

And in addition, I believe that it’s only far for the water lads to sleep together, as it probably saves on having two rooms dedicated to essentially a deep salty bath. Bivalvan often finds himself waking up quite literally tangled up in limbs as, despite falling asleep separately, as Ra’ad has ‘instinctively’ cuddled up around him. The twist? This fucker wanted to learn what he and P’andor got up to and found a nearly different person all together.

It’s become a bit of a nightly tradition, to dream Bivalvan’s memories of an affection starved P’andor, who clings so desperately yet softly to the eye of the beholder. To see and hear what P’andor cannot say in any other state, to have words spill directly from him confessing the deep seated desire to just- be himself as him and not the [banned discussion topic] that he has to be, and to be that with not only Bivalvan who’s memories Ra’ad watches, but for his husbands who he just so utterly loves and even his daughter who he wishes he can just- ruffle her hair and maybe just pass that fucking entry level barrier of fussing up someone’s do and getting them to whine with an affectionate ‘daaaad’.

It’s almost enough to forget that he’s kind of been blatantly avoiding being alone with Andreas ever since he noticed that there were no more thoughts in his head that used to be so loud and ANDREAS!

Ra’ad had been originally paranoid about Galapagus, who he could not read and trust because he was unaware of the magical methods he used, but it soon became familiar because he had always known Galapagus to somehow just hide from his perception. When Andreas suddenly didn’t have a thought of his own, he was utterly terrified, because how can this dumb brick of a man suddenly hide so well that even the direct thought-to-mouth ‘Andreas does as he thinks’ process was unseen to him just suddenly disappear!?

On first impression, he assumed that Andreas was dead oh how almost right he ended up being-

But Andreas is one of the most physically affectionate member of the Andromeda 5 (P’andor tries to compete for how affectionate he can get with Bivalvan but Andreas does it far more often with far more people- even outside the Andromeda family), and even though he only took one moment to hug or touch those under the ‘don’t touch me’ rule plus moist squid skin and never went any further, Ra’ad didn’t particularly get any flashes of memories.

Andreas’ techno-organic circuitry may act similarly enough for Ra’ad and other amperi to read his emotions, but functionally it is not a nervous system that is defined BY the psychometry mutation that Ra’ad specifically has (ask Cooper and he’ll probably get access to Andreas’ memories, that little technopath). Even though the sudden barrier - and he would later discover it was a barrier in addition to all the dread that would find its way in at the fact - worried and concerned the living hell out of him, it was the silencing embrace of Galapagus that let him wonder closer to Andreas and maybe even lean into his next hold.

Then one day, the physically affectionate ‘i love my husbands’ Andreas is just, not doing that. Instead of having to brace for nor even just waiting expectantly for a surprise run-in with Andreas, the already mounting concern he had for him developed into full blown panic as the amperi/Tesslos-based assumptions about death or fucking murder rushed into his mind, sending him into a fervour - however brief - into scouring for Andreas. Didn’t have to look far to find Andreas hadn’t even left his room, but is very much not in the mood to leave it.

Good thing Ra’ad can still read his emotions, because it wasn’t anger, fear or even pain that kept him in his room, but immensely deep grief, mourning and a feeling of saddened reminiscence. And not knowing anything more, nor even having the potential to just pry further with only a circuit to read, Ra’ad approaches with a ‘what’s wrong’ and an invite to hold.

Turns out, Andreas is feeling terribly homesick, at least an entire galaxy away from his entire colony, of siblings, mum and grandparents, of aunties and uncles and of cousins to the millionth degree, all gone without even a goodbye and a little message saying ‘hey, I’m alright, I’m safe on the planet Earth an entire galaxy away’. Aside from never even wanting to think of a crowd the size of what Andreas describes as his family, Ra’ad too shares that he has siblings that he hasn’t heard from in so long, though even far before Aggregor happened and under the assumption that they might already have passed someway or another. The idea of little younglings walking around (even if amperi spawnlings do not even have the power to resist currents let alone walk on one foot-equivalent), the thought of little siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews he might not ever see grow up, he perhaps the first time hesitantly drags Ra’ad into a hug, but this time with full knowledge that he could hold on for as long as Ra’ad lets him.

And Ra’ad does so, for so long, that neither of them could keep track of time. It only really stopped with the tremor causing purrs kinda became loud enough for like folk to later come home and see the two of them just gathered in a corner of the room.

So that’s what I have to share with you- I have some thoughts about Galapagus and Bivalvan specifically, but then I realised that I haven’t had that much in the way of ‘here’s their planet and here’s how it affects them’ yet and even then Andreas just recently got this ‘Andreas misses family, Ra’ad’ moment from the tag rambles agdkadfkl-!