#writing with kellan

[cagenewman]

WHO: Cage & @brooksienewman

WHEN: August 4, 2024

WHERE: Newman Family Farm

This felt like old times. Cage and Kellan, the back porch rocking chairs, a couple of beers, lightning bugs flickering in the fields of bushes... and long, long conversations about life. He had spilled every last detail of the past week to his older brother, filling him in on the events of the past week without sparing anything, and when he was done, he felt... moderately better, he had to admit. And the silence? The chirp of crickets, the hoot of the owl, it was welcoming. As things always were back home. "I swear I didn't ask to talk just to unload on you, either," Cage laughed, looking over at his brother as he took a swig of his beer. "I have a favor to ask."

[jaceeverett]

WHO: Jason & @brooksienewman

WHERE: Harmony Ranch, countryside

WHEN: Earth Week (April, 2025)

Hopping out of his Jeep, Jason closed the door behind him with a thud and turned to the person that had pulled in next to him... beaming when he recognized Kellan. "Bee keeping?" he asked, figuring that he didn't need to elaborate. Unless Kellan was there to ride horses. Jason knew a lot about gardening, composting, did his fair share of cleaning every day at the park, but bees were one of those things that eluded him. Until now.

[stellylee]

WHO: Stelly & @brooksienewman

WHERE: The Swimming Beach, coastal area

WHEN: End of Summer Bash (August, 2024)

"Well, well, well," Stelly grinned as they looked up to see Kellan approaching the athletic pit area. And really, they should have known. It only made sense for a former pro-athlete to be hanging out among other sporty nerds, after all. "Haven't come face to face with you in a hot minute, partner in crime." Granted, Stelly saw Kellan every time they went to the market and stopped by the Newman Family Farms booth for blueberries and jam, but. Still. "Up for some frisbee?"

[rafaelcb]

"That's been my secret all along… I'm a horrible lawyer." Actually, it would have made sense if he had been fired for being a bad lawyer, rather than careless due to a personal low point in his life -- move to Merrock, start over, no one knew how bad he was. But, not the case. He'd clear Kellan's record, just the same that he had for Cage or any other siblings that had needed it growing up. "Yes. Your dad," he laughed, "but just for your brother, and obviously that was a different time. Now, it happens now and then, I've gotten friends out of stupid traffic violations or little things as favors. But I call in those favors, too."

"I fully trust you to get me off of shoplifting charges if the time comes, or else you're a shitty lawyer, Raf," Kellan teased. He didn't even have the criminal urges of a rebellious teenager back in his day, largely because he never had a chance to be particularly rebellious. "Does anyone ever make you do that? Help them not get charges for really petty crimes and stuff? That feels like a waste of your big and important lawyer skills."

[nautilusdrake]

Curse of Strahd PC | Sir Rhys Kellan - (1489 DE)

‘The Valiant…’

It may have been a bit silly, but Argynvost himself had strived to give everyone a title.

Rhys rarely ever felt like he deserved it. He had become a rather decent Exorcist in his time, but he also just played his dumb little flute or swung his swords around.

Despite it all, in his brief moments of addressing his order, the Silver Dragon was always so proud. His laughter would bellow over the keep, and he always greeted everyone with kind words or a scaly smile.

Rhys’ march came to a slow as more reminders of his failures drowned out any other thought.

His chest tightened and he held back a sob, ‘How did everything go so wrong?’

He was supposed to save them...

Godfrey had been teaching him how to keep the dead at bay. He was supposed to ward them off—let everyone else escape!

They had already lost half of their team: Caleb, Fern, Gwen…

His brother…

It was all he could see—A veil of memories billowing before his eyes: The blood, the screams, the fiery storm…

‘Argynvost falling from the sky…’

Of course, by the morning, these memories would fade; just like they had countless times before. He would wake up looking for their camp. He would ask anyone who would listen if they’ve seen armor like his…

And then he’d continue his patrol of the valley, his cursed memory completely oblivious to the years he’d already spent here.

[serpercival]

Guy who's seen approximately fifteen episodes of star trek ever across several different series: haha yeah I can write a convincing mash/trek fusion

[jasper-the-menace]

Kellan and Amalia are traveling together again for the first time in a while. For their first night together in Thunder Junction, their usual feeding routine is altered slightly when Amalia asks to bite Kellan near his neck instead of on his arm.

[thebramblewood]

You know, a dark, filthy ranch animal stall wouldn't be my preferred woohoo location, but I won't stop them from having their fun...

Kellan: Now, where's the motherfucker who started the party without me?

Lu: Who is that? Wait, that's not your...

Bonnie: Goddamn him! Can't he go one day without ruining everything?

Lu: Come on, he can't be that bad.

Kellan: My, my, my. Whatcha doin' in a place like this, lil sis?

Bonnie: That's none of your business.

Kellan: And this must be yer special lady friend. Fuck me, she's a looker. Here I was startin' to wonder if she even existed! Would ya look at that? The view from behind is just as nice as the one in front.

Lu: Keep your eyes to yourself, slimeball.

Kellan: Hey! Where do ya think yer goin'?

Bonnie: I'm not gonna stand here and listen to you hit on my fiancee! Some of us have a modicum of self-respect, you know.

Kellan: Oh, here ya go with the moralizin'. In wolrd record time to boot!

Bonnie: Fuck you!

Kellan: Aw, Bonnie? Where'd yer sense of humor go? We had fun together once!

Lu: At least it's a beautiful night.

Bonnie: Marred by an ugly mouth.

Lu: I'll bet we can salvage it yet...

[heartbreakincident]

me: man i wish my writing got more engagement :/ it's kind of discouraging and makes me feel like i shouldnt bother sharing my fics :/

also me: pretty much exclusively writes in tags/fandoms that don't get a lot of visibility

[starlit-mansion]

the funniest thing about kellan is that he looks physically different in every set (by which i mean his hair texture and skin tone and overall look do not quiiiiiiiite match) but at no point does he ever look like oko

like absolutely i've been nursing a headcanon about kellan that his hereditary shapeshifting manifests less as physically morphing and more by him very easily fitting into a dovetail of what people expect of him and what he's trying to be that changes between different planes and situations, which is also why his color identity and mechanic function has changed so much over the sets

but it would also be. honestly really funny if he didn't look like oko because he never knew what oko looked like and so his subconscious half-fae shapeshifting never had anything to latch onto and manifest

[cagenewman]

WHO: Cage & @brooksienewman

WHERE: Newman Family Farm

WHEN: June, 2023

"How's the netting holding up?" Cage asked, before narrowing his eyes at the piece of fence that he was working at fixing, shifting the slat back through the hole to make sure that it would stay, do its job, keep the deer and bear and anything else out of the gardens. The conversation had come up over dinner, a few odd jobs that Kellan needed to work on before harvest, and Cage knew his older brother could handle it... but he also knew that they didn't spend nearly as much one on one time together as they had in the past. And he had a good tool box to get the jobs done. "It looks like you're going to have a good harvest this year, though. Another month or so, you can start picking some of the more mature bushes."

[jaceeverett]

WHO: Jace & @brooksienewman

WHERE: Community Center, suburbs

WHEN: Mardi Gras (March 4, 2025)

"How much of an adventurous eater are you?" Jason asked curiously as he accepted a heaping portion of jambalaya into the bowl in his hands, shooting the server a grateful smile and turning back to address Kellan again, "I mean, are you going all in for the spicy food, or are you sticking with corn bread and king cake all night?"

[monorayjak]

Lost Caverns of Ixalan Thoughts

Ok, so, I just finished reading through the Lost Caverns of Ixalan Story plus the side story that's been released. I just wanted to share some thoughts. (Spoilers ahead)

All in all, an interesting story, with lasting repercussions for both the plane and those who were a part of the story. But, the set leaves a lot more questions than answers, and seems to have added some things just because they could; looking at you Leonin - they were literally in the story for like 10 minutes and then promptly forgotten about.

The story of Kellan continues as a small piece of this plot, and I enjoy that it was woven in without him becoming a key player. He was just passing through and got pulled in, he wasn't a deus ex machina or a big part of the ending, he was just there. Really enjoyed the idea of Kellan building a rag-tag multiversal adventuring party throughout his travels, seems like it would be fun, IF they don't just make it him and Amalia. Because if they leave it as just them its just going to turn into a love story, and I'm fine with a love story, but it just feels shoe-horned in if that's the only reason.

Quint's search for the "Coin Empire" seems interesting, but also seems to come out of absolutely no where, like… last we saw of him his spark ignited. When and when did he learn about this empire? What seems so special about it? How is he so sure it connects across planes? How the hell did they travel across planes in the distant past? How did they end up where they did? What caught his attention about them? It just feels out of nowhere, and it would be fine if they had made him have the revelation of "Holy shit, these things are exactly the same as another site I was working on… could it be some kind of multiversal empire??" but no, they have him already fully aware of it out of nowhere. It could have been better implemented I guess.

Also, what the hell was with the descriptions of "long necks" just being there??? Are they talking about fucking Giraffes? Why do they never mention them in more detail than "fuzzy, strange looking, long-necked creatures??" Why??? Where they trying to hide something??? What was the importance of it?? Are they trying to say BATS somehow have really long necks?? But it couldn't be that because people call the bats, well, bats! Just… what???????

Liked the political intrigue we got from every side:

Vampires having a kind of Reformation level split in the church/government

The sun empire being ruled by a literal 4-year old (ADVENTURE!!!!!!!!!!!) who is being manipulated by two relatives

Huatli working to start a coup

Huatli, Elenda, and Admiral/Governor Brass working together to form a powerful enough force to stop another war

Saheeli being sent in Huatli's place and the fact she is from another world is used in the story by having her keep notes in her home-worlds language, with her also being the voice of reason to everyone without even thinking about it

Enjoyed the fact that Huatli is becoming a tired veteran after the race for Orazca, the War of the Spark, and the phyrexian invasion, and now just wanting a peaceful life with no more needless death.

Enjoyed the moments of Saheeli and Huatli being together, even we don't get many and I'm still not a fan they were desparked.

I found some bits of writing a bit lazy, notably:

These lines are both in the same section about 3 paragraphs apart. There is no break between in the form of a viewpoint switch or anything. There was no reason to have this repetition beyond wanting to compare his use of it to something else and being too lazy to think up another one.

This joke just falls flat. I understand Malcolm has talked like this the entire story, but it just feels so forced and atonal. And it isn't like they couldn't have good jokes in tense moments, for example:

A funny and natural exchange in a very tense moment.

To top off the final bit, I do need to gripe about my BIGGEST annoyance in this set specifically. The discrepancy between both the description and depiction of the "Cosmium Eaters" and the multiple depictions we get of them. Like, this is the description of the lead-up to the transformations

We have a mental image of a large bat god giving this power to Vito and his followers. Which is followed by this image.

Which is fine. Its a great image showing the beginning of the transformation. The transformation, which is described as:

Ok, so they've turned into man-bat like creatures. Cool, good. BUT, then we see this image in the next article, one where Huatli kills Vito.

That isn't a Man-Bat like person... that's Vito with bat wings. Ok, so maybe the transformation was exaggerated a bit in the story... except

No, it wasn't. So why the hell does Vito, as the first person to transform, look like his normal self but is written as if he's become some kind of horrifying monster, one which the characters mention they really only make out its him because he's holding the same staff as before. Why does no one else look like that? What do these people look like?????

Long story short, the story is a mixed bag I think.

[cagenewman]

D'oh! I don't put hands on him and he respects me in public spaces, so I feel like we have a slightly better relationship than Homer and Bart? So that's something to be proud of, right? That's the whole thing, it's a rite of passage, so I guess I would just have to accept it. That, and he is fourteen now. We're at that point where I have to accept that he's not a kid anymore. That's basic Newman Family math and I get it, I've pulled that one on you many times while visiting you!

Look at you, dad of the year with your Homer Simpson impression. Hopefully the boy holds you in slightly more esteem than Bart does him. Realistically it would just be a reminder that he's a teenage boy, same as all the other teen boys out there, no matter what. She loves to offer me my own food, yeah, because what's mine is ours and what's hers is hers or something.

[remyfire]

Ship: Donna Parker/Charles Winchester

Note: This was requested by @cuddleswinchester! :D When I set out to write a series of vignettes about Charles and Donna's first meeting, I wasn't expecting Donna to give me so much interesting lore about herself. I hope you enjoy how I felt led to portray her.

"Excuse me, ma'am, if you don't mind me borrowing him for a moment?" The dismissal is clear. "Oh, no, not at all, General, don't let me interrupt you." "Donna," Charles says under his breath, hand lifting toward her. "It's been lovely speaking with you, Charles." And when she meets his gaze, she really lets herself look at him this time, not just his lovely eyes and the softness of his true smile, but a really good look. She sees the intelligence, the wit, even the edge of loneliness that he has no need to feel if he enjoys charming women like he attempted to woo her tonight. Though their lives diverge here, he'll be an interesting memory for a quieter time. "Have a wonderful evening." As she pulls away, Donna's mind oddly still lingers on him, on the flutter of excitement that stirred the air once he realized their common interest. And though she's quite practiced in pushing away thoughts of missed connections, his smile accompanies her all the same.

From the moment that Donna crosses paths with Charles, she's certain she knows his game. But as she finds herself surprised by him over and over again, a long-neglected piece of her heart begins to bloom.

[last-ticket-home]

another chapter of A Thief and a Prisoner is posted!