Brambonius
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brambonius.bsky.social
Brambonius
@brambonius.bsky.social
1.8K followers 900 following 3.2K posts
Officially an Earthling, creative in several ways and possibly out of the box (is there even one?), might use English, Dutch and other languages. Beware!
Human rights and the golden rule are a minimum!
All social constructs might need deconstruction...
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brambonius.bsky.social
For the #WIPsnips
She was running, but she stopped when she saw him, and that's how they met (and how she was too late in school)...

(Yes, both the beginning here and the end of this first chapter that I posted recently use the 'Ghibli bird technique')
A grey landgull circled over the market square of Seventh City Ghost Town, casting a slowly-moving cross-shaped shadow on its cobblestones which were half overgrown with grass, while it peered in vain for trash to feed on. After a while it landed and shrieked, still ignored by the locals who just went on with their daily business on this lazy Wednesday afternoon. A young woman drove her carrier bicycle full of robot components and was passed by a few shoppers from the City, looking for fresh vegetables and other specialities at the local shop. Another woman in a flowery dress walked hastily, almost ran, to the little town hall office while she nearly bumped into the big bird, which flew away again in protest. No one took any notice of the boy either. He just stood there, all by himself, without doing anything, and he clearly didn’t belong there. He seemed rather invisible. The only one to notice him was a girl, roughly his age, who was running too but when she passed him she unexpectedly stopped to look at him. ‘Hey, I’ve never seen you here before.’ The boy looked at the newcomer. She was very different from the girls he knew in the City, with wild red curls and intense blue eyes full of curiosity. She wore no make-up or jewellery, and was dressed in old-fashioned ragged blue-cotton pants combined with an over-sized T-shirt in dark green with the words ‘Planetary Council’ and the PL-logo next to it. But the most important thing was her warm smile, and the fact that she came quite close. She put out her hand to shake his, which he awkwardly accepted. ‘Yeah, I live in the City. First time being here.’
November 16, 2025 at 8:53 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
I like all of these in books indeed
November 15, 2025 at 11:33 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
for the #WIPsnips
Pyra and Ronan, back from the country with no men, and Pyra is in activist mode about specifics in the system of The Nation (she's not wrong tho) while Ronan is naturally doing things he'd never do at home...
‘You two look like you didn’t sleep at all.’ ‘Yeah, we needed to talk about things. And he needed to know that he’s worth hugging. Boys don’t get enough hugs in The Nation. Actually none at all it seems. Confounded troglodytes! And then they dare to say they made progress with human rights in the last 25 yeaes. Everyone has the right to get hugs!’ ‘Ah’ Fergo certainly wasn’t awake enough himself for Pyra in activist mode. ‘They always said I don’t like hugs, because of my supposed condition and all’ Ronan added, ‘they were very wrong. I just hate being touched by the wrong person. And now I’m the only Nation boy ever to be hugged by a Hévan girl in Héva. So much for the patient being averse of physical contact and touch.’ ‘Oh, another thing from those autism books? They are rubbish indeed.’ Pyra said, her blue eyes even more fiery than her red hair now. Fergo looked from Pyra to Ronan, and sighed. ‘Actually I came to tell you that there’s a truck going to Seventh City tomorrow. So you’ll have to wait one more day…’ ‘Ah, fun. One more day of vacation… We can use it.’ Pyra yawned. ‘Shouldn’t we help in the community if we receive their hospitality?’ Ronan asked. ‘That’s the other thing I had to talk about. Are you comfortable with a presentation in our community school to tell our youngsters about Héva this afternoon? I suppose a lot of our adults want to hear the story too by the way. Including Amber herself.’ ‘Ah…’ Ronan said. ‘Do you think we can do that? Are you not too shy?’ Pyra looked at bit unsure at him. ‘Eh, if it’s together with you, and only here, I think it’s okay.’ He said, a bit unsure. ‘We haven’t had an international learner couple as guest speakers in ages.’ Fergo said. ‘Hey, what did you call us?’
November 15, 2025 at 9:21 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
Old and damaged book maybe, but Wells is always a fascinating read!
The first men in the moon by HG Welles, slightly damaged book
November 14, 2025 at 5:34 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For the #WIPsnips
The significance of weeks here is that female Ghist Town outlaws traditionally ate meat (usually just chicken) once in a week, usally on thursdays... The rest is ecology and politics.
‘Deer stew?’ Ronan asked, looking at the brown mass on his plate. ‘I’ve never had it before. No-one in The Nation I think.’ ‘Oh, it’s quite rare even in Ghost Towns, but sometimes deer are hunted, yes. And it’s great! It’s made heavy Manfred beers, but it has no alcohol.’ Pyra said, gobbling up as as much as possible. ‘You’re lucky indeed, it’s not every week that we have it. But yes, the deer population has boomed in this part of The Nation, and some minor hunting is allowed now. Even the panthers and an occasional bear are not enough anymore to control it if I’m honest.’ The man scooped up potatoes for both of them. ‘But I’ve always heard that it’s strictly forbidden.’ Ronan said. ‘Oh, that’s the silliness of Manfred originalism. In his days animals were rare, but almost two hundred years without hunting has had their numbers explode again while the wilderness recovered. I’m quite sure that some of your Nation hunters are back to shooting deer again illegally, but officially no innovations or amendments can be made to Manfred’s doctrine are allowed, and he was very strict. Plus those conservative Manfredists are still angry about all the changes they had to accept in the days of Eliza te reformer to be able to trade with the Planetary Council, and they seem hellbent on not having any new innovations ever.’ ‘Well, at least shooting deer is better than shooting feral men, like they used to do.’ Pyra said. ‘That was also part of the reform. But there still less ferals than there used to be. A lot of the hopeless men joined the female outlaw system and became Ghost Town citizens too. And those that didn’t avoid us like the plague for some reason…’
November 14, 2025 at 1:17 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For the #WIPsnips
All builds in Pyra and Ronan's story for now are part of buildings.
The purists of the 'creative writing course school' might not like my use here of what I call the 'Ghibli bird interlude' technique (or zooming in/out in 3th omniscient in general) but I think we need it more..
And then the moment was over. The grey landgull shrieked again and landed on a grassy patch on the market square for the second time. People walked to and from the little store on the market of Seventh City Ghost Town, and the girl, who had written the name Pyra on his paper, still stood there, looking at the place where he had been. Her thoughts ran wildly in all directions. She hadn’t asked for his name, but his mother had called him Ronan. She repeated that name in her mind to practice it, silently. Would they indeed see each other again? She looked at the pen in her hand and only now she realised where she had been going. Aunt Leya wouldn’t be happy with her being too late again for class. But at least she had an actual excuse this time. She started running towards the small school building, only one street away. ‘Oh shut up!’ she mumbled to the grey bird, when it shrieked once more to protest her sudden movements. It took off and disappeared to the City itself in search of some food scraps left by people who were less clean than the Ghost Town outlaws.
November 13, 2025 at 9:24 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
November 13, 2025 at 7:37 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
Eh...
November 13, 2025 at 6:50 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
Random Labyrinthodon of the day: the Mastodonsaurus of wikipedia

just because of the way this dude is looking...
November 13, 2025 at 6:24 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
That one day in 2011 that I looked blackmetal...
November 13, 2025 at 2:54 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
Ah, communication...
November 13, 2025 at 2:14 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
In numersil verb tenses are indicated by the vowel the verb gets after the root: -e- for present/neutral, -o- for past, -i- for future, and extra particles can be added like -vi- for a sort of perfect tense. One word subjects like a pronoun are added directly after that.
('to eat' is the example)
November 12, 2025 at 3:11 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For the #WIPsnios
No, the usual sort of misunderstanding in this sort of 'take it off' conversation isn't even on the radar for Ronan, but getting a bit of a panic attack when you accidentally arrive in the land where men don't exist is... Maybe the Planetary Council shirt works.
November 12, 2025 at 2:03 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
Some #ConlangNovember examples: I am Bram, I fall asleep, I love you (genitive for 'you'), I eat (an) apple
November 11, 2025 at 10:06 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For the #WIPsnips
No burgers as we know it, and I don't think it's a culinary delight to Ronan and Pyra either, but it's a form of ultraprocessed food in fancy shapes... Héva is a strange place to be, and not just because they don't have any men...
‘Ah, our little stowaways. They’ve allotted some food for you too.’ Lanova came in with a big tray two plates filled with mostly round, rectangular and cubical objects in strange colours and put them on the table. Pyra jumped from her bed and Ronan stood up too from his to find their place at the table. ‘Ah, so this is supposed to be food?’ Pyra asked, staring at the weird geometric shapes on the plate. ‘What else would it be, sisterling? And you’re lucky, they’ve given you a whole mix of protein blocks. The red ones are lab-beef, the white ones are lab-cod. The green ones are just watermeal.’ She pointed at the strange cube-like things. ‘Eh, ok? And those tiny white bricks?’ Ronan said, poking a white bar-shaped object.’ ‘You don’t even have gnokbok on Nation Island?’ ‘I have never heard of anything like gnokbok, or of any of these other abominations. Food shouldn’t be so rectangular!’ Pyra said, trying out the initial gn-sound. ‘Gn…, Gn…, Gnokbok? It’s the carbs I suppose?’ ‘It’s made of starch from potatoes and rice. It’s chewy. You best eat it with the tomato sauce.’ Levona said, looking amusedly at the perplexed young Nationers. She pointed at a cube-shaped container with red sauce. ‘But why the shapes?’ Ronan asked. ‘I suppose it’s how the machine cuts them? Does’t food always have those shapes?’ ‘Eh, not even labmeat looks so perfectly square in The Nation. This is just creepy.’ Ronan said, and then he pointed at the coin-shaped orange things. ‘And what’s that supposed to be?’ ‘Those are just carrot slices, manling. Pure organic veggies. Don’t tell me you don’t even have carrots on Nation Island?’
November 11, 2025 at 10:00 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
Dat wezen ziet er zoogdierachtig uit, zou hij niet eerder een miereneter moeten worden?
November 11, 2025 at 9:54 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
still a bit shadowbanned on X I think, or is my opinion about jazz so controversial?
November 11, 2025 at 9:45 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
Humans are fascinating...
November 10, 2025 at 9:40 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For the #WIPsnips
The story of Ronan and Pyra begins with a random bird and the scenery before it zooms in at the characters...
(Which is probably completely wrong according to Amer/English 'creative writing' coaches, but I like Ghibli over Hollywood too if you know what I mean...)
November 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For the #WIPSnips some random lore dumping through the posters on the wall of Pyra's classroom...
In the back of the class Pyra was attempting to work her way through her natural sciences course. Her brain refused to cooperate though, as she stared at the Afropean circular periodic table of chemical elements before her. Around her the others were reading the text or taking notes, but while the subject was technically easy for her, her focus just wouldn’t turn on. She looked from her teacher to another version of the periodic table on a poster on the wall, and then at a diagram with a naked man and a naked women -drawn in the most clinical and unsexy way possible and with all the right names added to all the important bodyparts- and then her eye stayed on the grey landgull that was pictured on another poster containing the important bird and mammal species of The Nation. Important because it was only found on Nation Island, not because anyone particularly liked it. Her gaze then went to a poster named Alphabets of the World, which showed the ‘Latin-English Alphabet’ next to the neo-Arabic, standard Himalayan, and ancient Hebrew and Greek ones. She looked at the latter one, which started with the letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon… Like the male ranking system in The Nation. It was all total twaddle and unfair in every possible way! She put up her hand. ‘Aunt Leya, is it possible for me to do something else? My brain isn’t in the mood for chemistry today.’ ‘I have told you already to call me teacher, or Miss Leya or so, I’m not an aunt while in this class.’ Leya sighed. She knew what state her pupil was in, but finding what did work might prove not as easy as discovering all the possible things that weren’t working for her today. ‘And as long as you catch up with your natural sciences later you can do something else now. But don’t forget that we have a curriculum to follow. We need your diploma to be worth something when you’ve graduated. The Elders take education and your future very seriously.’
November 9, 2025 at 5:01 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For #Lovember

"Love is a mystery, but you recognise it when you see it", from the conversation of Michael and his final LI and the priestess of the (formerly only) female outlaws about an outlaw 'Love Ceremony' (certainly not a Nation Marriage) in the Wife School dystopia.
November 9, 2025 at 4:58 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
For #BookVember
Everyone should read Joan Slonczewksi's 'A Door into Ocean', with its deconstruction of gender and even biological sex, plus the theme of nonviolence against violence too, in very patriarchal violent planet against one with non-violent women-only inhabitants... Intriguing book!
November 9, 2025 at 4:48 PM
brambonius.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 10:05 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 8:38 AM
brambonius.bsky.social
For #Bookvember
I've already mentioned women like Thea Beckman and Astrid Lindgren, but for example Ursula Le Guin is also an important example for me as a writer, in her variations of describing the human experience in her aliens and fantasy settings...
'The Telling' has an interesting female MC.
November 8, 2025 at 5:49 PM