#magellanicclouds

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

@magellanicclouds is an absolute gem! Starting off our spotlight series strong with a master of anatomy and one of the sweetest people I've had the luck to meet! You can find her here on tumblr as well as her ko-fi.

[infinityactual]

POV for the writing meme? ' v '

Giuseppe's POV of this bit:

So far he knew three things about John: He was very large, his eyes were alarmingly blue, and he was very quiet. All things Thomas had mentioned beforehand in some form or fashion. But Giuseppe was also expecting something more in line with other UNSC personnel he'd met through his wife, who usually came in two flavors: outrageously foul-mouthed bawdy people who loved a good, loud party and meticulously well-mannered creatures of habit. 'Starched', he called them.

John was neither. Despite his size he kept to himself thoroughly enough to lack the sense of presence everyone else had, and in a way that made Giuseppe want to try and gently pry him open more than he had when they'd first met. John wasn't aloof...he might look it, but his eyes betrayed him: he was anxious and uncertain, so far out of his element that the only thing he could think to be was completely and utterly benign.

Giuseppe attributed this insight to having married an ODST; while Audrey was 'starched' to a degree after fifty years, he'd seen her through her worst episodes of PTSD, during which he'd noticed similar (but far less pronounced) behaviors whenever her anxieties would get to her. So, Giuseppe did what any dad would do in his mind: gave the big man something to do.

So far, it was working. As he watched John methodically cut the carrot into near-perfect cubes, his movements became a little more organic, a little less robotic, less rehearsed. He still watched Giuseppe demonstrate each task with that carefully-cultivated neutral expression, but getting him to feel comfortable with something was a start.

As he left John to make sure he hadn't missed any bones in the chicken, Giuseppe decided to check in on his family and rounded the corner to see his two sons engrossed in a semi-argument about something involving cheese and plastic wrap.

"Cadmon, get your fucking feet off my table." Giuseppe sighed.

"Oh come on, dad. It's a table. And my feet are clean."

With remarkable speed for his age, Giuseppe pulled his foam-sole sandal off his foot and slapped the Spartan-IV in the back of the head.

"OW!" Cadmon yelped, and jerked forward in surprise.

"Oh, don't 'ow' me. I know for a fact the UNSC made your skull thicker than it already was."

There was a quiet snort from the kitchen, almost inaudible over Cadmon's sheepish apology and Tom's barely-stifled cackles. Before Giuseppe could check on John, Audrey appeared from the bedroom. She paused and looked from her half-shoeless spouse to Cadmon - who looked for all the planet like a kicked puppy - to Thomas, who had a fist pressed to his mouth trying not to laugh.

"The hell did I miss?"

"Just some light percussive parenting." Giuseppe replied as he put his sandal back on.

As Audrey sat back down, Giuseppe returned to the kitchen to check on John.

"All good?" John paused.

"Yes, sir."

His face was still a mask of neutrality, but there was a faint crinkle at the corners of his eyes that hadn't been there before.

[bellygunnr]

'Stars', for the word prompt, please. (I wanted to do both these and the flower, because I love everything you write.)

The Warthog sputters and dies just a mile out from their own “home.” As far as breakdowns go, it’s easily one of the better ones Fred has been through, but he also knows that deep inside his bones, this one’s not his fault. He was driving normally this time. 

“It’s not my fault,” comes out of his mouth regardless though, an expression of determined defiance on his face as he turns to look at Veta Lopis. “I swear.”

She just raises her eyebrows. She’s not quite disbelieving... just amused. Her eyes sparkle with it. 

It’s distracting.

“I wasn’t going to say it was,” she says. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”

He puffs his cheeks out. The vehicle rocks as he climbs out of it, glad to be free of his weight. An armored Spartan was taxing on any engine, and this particular one had been working double-time under Blue Team’s command.

Fred pauses to look at her. Was there something he was forgetting? Maybe it was his fault. Hold on, what did the Ferrets do with it yesterday...?

“It was Kelly,” he says, snapping his fingers. “She took the ki-- the Ferrets out yesterday.”

He turns around to pop the hood of the Warthog open while Veta climbs into the back, no doubt getting the toolbox and other assorted hardware out from their holdings. His eyes strain a little-- the sun is going down and fading fast, leaving nothing but a burnished coppery finish on the horizon, and an impossible-to-penetrate darkness. Before the thoughts can formulate, his armor hums, switching the polarized visor and vision assistance on.

That’s much better.

“Stars are coming out,” Veta says, her voice suddenly much closer.

He cocks his head back, not to look at her but to look at the sky, seeking to confirm.

“Where?”

“By the moon. Look.”

Fred searches the sky for a long moment until he finds the moon. It’s a very different moon than what he instinctually always looks for, but it’s big and round and full of craters. It hovers close to the opposite horizon, half-obscured by trees. Beside it, in a narrow cluster, are a pair of stars. Or planets.

The difference was marginal. Also, Veta would smack him again if he pointed that out.

Silently, he reaches out for her, winding his fingers delicately around her wrist. She coaxes him into holding her hand properly. It’s...

It’s nice.

Neither of them move. Veta only leans against Fred and he opens up his frame some, trying to become as comfortable as possible. More stars are creeping into view overhead. Huge swathes of them.

The Warthog can wait. This would suffice.

[etacyygnii]

I have come for your headcanons, frand! ' W ' Please - ☆: for Natalia / ☾: for Linda / and ★: for Mark

☆ - for Natalia

When John was Natalia’s mentor, he got her an ice cream after a training session went well, it’s the only thing he’s ever bought out of his own money and the moment Natalia realised how much she meant to him. It’s a very small gesture to any outsider but to them it means the world :3

☾ - for Linda

Linda likes to make a nest out of her blanket to curl up in and she’ll sleep silently, like a contented cat.

★ - for Mark

(why a sad headcanon what’d he ever do to you lmao)

Mark is always scared that everyone he cares about will die but he doesn’t tell anyone this bc he’s been taught to expect just that bc he’s a Spartan 3 so he worries in silence, hoping against hope it doesn’t happen✨

[arctic-the-archaic]

🌹 (💙)

Imagine having a fandom legend pop into your asks to want to see your terrible writing 👀

————

“Sierra-117 to Infinity. Target is marked. Fire on my position.”

The bridge crew froze, and Commander Sarah Palmer blinked. No....

“Repeat your last, Chief?” Tom asked- pleaded more like.

“We can’t let the Flood escape. I say again: Fire on my position.”

The bridge was silent aside from the assault rifle fire and rage-filled howls of the Eternally Damned coming from the comm channel. Lasky rested both hands on the holotable in the center of the bridge and leaned on them slightly, knuckles going white and eyes squeezing closed.

“Captain?”

Sarah felt her heart rate pick up. She wanted to cry and tear apart the entire damn ship at the same time.

“Captain!” John’s voice came more urgently.

“Weapons Officer.....” Lasky began, looking up and opening his eyes, making eye contact with Sarah. The look in his eyes said it all. “..... fire.”

The deck shook, and two blinding golden flashes erupted from Infinity’s bow, 600 ton slugs rocketing into the atmosphere towards the Forerunner facility. Then came the energy projectors, and thousands upon thousands of missiles.

I’m sorry.

—————

For context, I came across a Sarah/John fic about six months ago and have not been able to stop with this ship since.

[shapooda]

Please go read “Cheeky Intruders” by MagellanicClouds D> Please! Kitties and pining and coffee and kickass skill

[500pxpopular]

Kim Henry by ericpare

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

I crave your brilliant writing, Stumpy. How about #14 for the Things You Said prompt, "...when I wasn't meant to hear." ' v '

Very much inspired by your art and writing! My brain fully derailed on the tone but I love the Gammas and I bet they will have issues adjusting to the SoF and letting their walls down while they lick their wounds. I did crack open D*vine Wind again and that was a mistake so apologies for the tone.

-

Being a Spartan, an alive one, meant having near perfect situational awareness. It was beaten into you at a young age. Like a lot of other things.

You and your siblings were the last of your unit. Your pack, your family after the one that borne you died in fire and plasma, were clinging to life by the skin of your teeth.

You looked out for each other. You learned from your elders. And you always knew where the exits were and who held the keys. You and your siblings watched the docs and nurses and orderlies. You watched your mom sleep heavily under the drugs keeping her from feeling the skull fracture. You watched the IIs with open curiosity - how could they be so similar and different from Blue Team. You all knew it was time, but seeing it in person was strange. They were rough around the edges, eerily similar to you and your siblings, not fully tempered like Blue Team. Not yet.

You heal fast. The doctors whisper. You try their synthesized smoothers, under observation, and feel the world slip into focus a little more with every adjusted dose. You feel their eyes on you. You hear their fascination muddled by fear and discomfort. They're not a green crew but they only had 3 Spartans before and now they have 6.

And you're not like other Spartans. Not even like the rest of your generation. Gammas were something else. IIIs aren't as polite as IIs, there wasn't time in the suicide trainings for manners or etiquette or scholarly discussions.

Your team has specialists in stealth and information so it's only a matter of time before you heard it all. Gross devaluation of human life, ethics violations, just kids with scarred tissue aged at least a decade. Ticking time bombs, drain on resources, maybe not in so many words but hearing what they didn't mean to say, reading between the lines, knowing who on staff would break first was important to keep them alive. None of them were in top fighting form.

But not for long.

Still when you are welcome and abhorred by the same doctors that had one of your own under observation you had to play it safe.

The fighting was never done. Playing for time and breathing room was standard operating procedure at this point. ONI had made them see enemies in allies and vice versa.

All they could do now was wait. Time would iron out the rest of the details.