#Bartprompts24

[narinick]

The Hanged Man

Ptolemy gave me a small salute, then his head fell back gently against the wall… All light around me vanished, my consciousness departed; the Other Place pulled me away. Furiously, against my will, I accepted Ptolemy's last gift.

[dragon-djinn]

Day 3: The Hanged Man

A card about self sacrifice just hits different when framed with the Bartimaeus story.

The pose is inspired by one of my favorite John Singer Sargeant sketches.

[tarragonthedragon]

hi guys! it’s us at the bartimaeus discord server with another prompt week for another year. fanworks of all kinds are welcome, but the event is usually pretty art focused.

we’ll be running from monday the first to sunday the seventh of april, and this year, we're doing something a little different. all of our prompts will be tarot themed! those of you not familiar with tarot, we've included a couple of suggested interpretations, but if you do want to look up more meaning, they can all be found here.

prompts are:

Monday 1: the fool innocence, new beginnings, free spirit which scene is funniest to you?

Tuesday 2: the star reversed faithlessness, discouragement, insecurity is there a twist that stung your heart?

Wednesday 3: the hanged man sacrifice, release, martyrdom which story has your favourite last moment?

Thursday 4: the tower sudden upheaval, broken pride, disaster can you imagine a bad ending for us?

Friday 5: the magician reversed trickery, illusions, out of touch which spirit's form which captured your imagination?

Saturday 6: the lovers partnerships, duality, union show us your favourite relationship?

Sunday 7: the devil addiction, materialism, playfulness which villain caught your interest?

please tag all your contributions with #bartprompts24, and have fun!!!

[asexualreptile]

Day 5: The magician reversed

A spirit's form that captured my interest

This form is not described in any of the books but the concept won't leave me alone.

The first shape that Bart ever took:

I imagine it's the first living thing that he sees aka his First Master. I know there is a footnote about it being some blonde, angelic and innocent looking form but... come on, how does that make sense? I'm fully comfortable putting that down as an instance of his unreliability towards us as readers.

From the Bartimaeus wiki, Bart's first summoning was 3010 BCE in the city of Ur.

Unfortunately, I couldn't for the life of my find a visual reference for this exact time frame and location; at least not one that was detailed enough to actually serve my purpose, so the reference for the drawing above is slightly later (2600 BCE, Ur), namely the Queen-Priestess Pu A Bi (written in Akkadian at the bottom left corner).

Please look at the absolutely gorgeous real-life ornaments at the Penn museum: https://www.penn.museum/collections/object_images.php?irn=1138#image4

This fantastic paper helped me figure out the rest of her garments (at least I hope I got it right xD):

What lay beneath: Queen Puabi's garments and her passage https://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=what+lay+Beneath+Queen+puabis+garments&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1710439461867&u=%23p%3DJlQNlOGQ3iMJ

For the spear I loooked at Google images, the tip should be Bronze (because we're looking at a Bronze age civilization, how mind-boggling is that; he's so old it's hard to wrap my head around)

And look at these details; I'm really happy with them!! Nope, not even royalty was wearing shoes at that time yet I learned!

The four butterfly wings were inspired by some throw-away comment by Bart that they were trendy at some point, no idea if the timelines add up, they just looked cool to me.

[fauna-a]

I The Fool

Here we go friends :) Some young Bart (at like his first time on Earth) to start with him all happy and curious.

«What is it?»

The creature (a man, it had said; it man, me spirit) looked at me, amazed. «It’s the sun».

«And what is it for?»

«It warms us. It makes the seeds you helped to plant sprout».

«Who put it here?»

«The gods did».

I decided I liked the sun. It felt good for my essence and counterattacked against the heavy and burdensome ailment from the Earth. Even the soil was nice when it was touched by the sun, and so it was the great mass of water and all the creatures that worked over there.

I pointed towards some creatures smaller than others. «And those?»

The man – the one who had taken me away from my home to bring me in this place, so different and strange – looked at me confused. «They are children… They are like us, just younger. We were all like this, then we have grown up. As animals do. Were you born like this? Have you always been like this?»

«Well, not this this». To adapt myself, I had been trying to imitate the man as best I could, but I had the feeling that I hadn’t done a great job. Anyway, I wanted to change: I made myself smaller and tried to copy those children: chubby limbs, coloured faces, some missing tooth… Not the most beautiful, nor the most functional.

I didn’t understand; everything that had been shown to me until now was necessary to something in this strange world where everything seemed to be where it was needed to be. Here the point was to do, not to be, like at home… And yet, here there were these ridiculous beings that seemed to have been made just to be useless. Mh…

One of the children pushed another one, that ended up in the mud; from below, it grabbed its assailant and from there a rather hilarious, seen their dimensions fight unleashed, but it caused a lot of chaos between the bigger creatures around there.

Oh.

Maybe I was wrong: maybe there was something that could make that world more alike to mine, and leave untouched all the nice thing there were already there.

At that point, the children were covered in wet soil from head to toe; a man and a… well, a not-man were yelling at them and they were looking down; but, as soon as they locked eyes, they did something that the man by my side had never done: they turned upwards their lips, opened their mouths as they were about to speak and instead made a sound I had not heard  yet. It was beautiful, strong, resounding and made me want to mimic it, even if I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

«What are they doing?»

«They are laughing».

This time, I didn’t ask what it was for or why they were doing it: I wanted to figure it out by myself.

[saint-oleander]

In the end, as it had been in the beginning, Ptolemy wakes up. But that comes later. Before, there are three things: a ring, a staff, a necklace. And a boy, closing his eyes in the Other Place and opening them amongst trees.

For one moment, between the Other Place and Earth, Ptolemy finds himself somewhere else.

Written for the first five prompts of this year's Bartimaeus Prompt Week

[narinick]

The Magician Reversed

One spirit, thousand faces.

My favorite Bartimaeus guises from the first book.

[narinick]

The Stars Reversed

Kitty’s story is dear to me. She’s belittled, misinformed, abused, threatened, robbed of her rights, used, played and betrayed by almost every adult in her life. And yet she’s resisting like the badass she is. I love her.

The chase in the crypt is my favorite horror scene in the books. Run Kitty, run!

[narinick]

The Lovers

Bart and Kitty is my one and only. I love the chemistry. The real talk. The impact they had on each other. I think they could have achieved anything together, bringing down an empire was only the beginning.

[narinick]

Happy Bart Prompt week 2024 everyone!

Starting with day 1:

The Fool

A tarot-inspired interpretation of my favorite funny scene

[narinick]

The Tower

A bad ending. The sacrifice isn’t enough. Nouda rises from the palace. There’s nothing left to do and everything’s shattered glass.

That’s actually the starting point of one of my favorite fanfics, Monomyth by conception.creation.

[narinick]

The Devil

Khaba the Cruel and his *checks notes* boyfriend.

[asexualreptile]

Day 3 Hanged Man

Favourite Last Moment

Queezle, need I say more?

I suppose, technically this isn't her last moment, but it's the last time we see her so I think it counts.

This drawing is intentionally drawn in conversation with the one I did last year which was also for day three.

[fauna-a]

VI The Lovers

¡Reincarnation AU! Who knows me knows I have a soft spot for these two.

Life has its own way to slam doors in your face. You lived for millennia and millennia, dodging death with virtuosity and grace; when your time came, you accepted the Dark Lady’s hand with the same grace, almost looking forward the upcoming rest.[1]

And instead, the universe had found a way to tell me one more time how incomparable and unique was my presence on Earth; and, if that wasn’t enough, had made me human.

Talk about good luck.

It was a very different Earth compared to the one I’d left: no magic, no spirits, no Other Place to my knowledge. In other ways, instead, it was sadly the same, see wars, violence, assorted spite.

In my other life, I had met humans who believed in reincarnation, but no one had ever applied the concept to spirits, maybe because no one thought we had a soul. And instead, look at this: until now, I had met only spirits transmuted (can’t find a better word) in humans.[2] Maybe things  were going like this: in the other world humans went on and beyond, while we had to do all the procedures. Bah.

The gust of wind preceding the metro coming distracted me; the train came, the doors opened, people came out… A girl bumped lightly into me with her shoulder; she had long dark hair gathered in cornrows whose tips were dyed green. That green made something spring in me, a recognition.

Without thinking twice, I turned around and followed her,[3] hoping to not receive some pepper spray (very much justified anyway).

«Excuse me!»

She turned around suddenly, and I recognised her without a doubt. Don’t ask me why or how, but I knew it was her.

«Queezle?»

«Bartimaeus!»

In my other life, I had never been used to hug people; it wasn’t something you did among spirits, that usually don’t have a body. And, well, it’s not I was going around hugging humans.[4]

But Queezle had always been particular, different; and I wasn’t surprised to find her in my arms. She was very thin: I could feel her shoulders’ bones under my hands.

«I was wondering when you’ll show up» she muttered; she had those stupid airpods on her ears, with a cascade of earrings. «You have to tell me everything».

«Nah» I shrugged. «Nothing much to say. Saved the world once or twice, dead, came here. Nothing more».

Her bony arms couldn’t let me go. «Idiot. I’ve missed you».

Hugs, huh. Maybe a thing that humans got right in all the world there was.

[1] Some humans believed there was a place after death, sort of reward (or punishment) because of your conduct during your life. I had never thought about it. But maybe it would be nice getting some rest in company of some old friends… Even if I doubted that spirits humans could end up in the same place, if it even existed.

[2] Yes, I had met Jabor. No, it hadn’t been pleasant. No, I won’t elaborate because we both were in a phase of a life when humans are barely sentient.

[3] I just had to go to work, after all. A human nonsense.

[4] Unless it was a way to stab them in the back.

[dragon-djinn]

Day 5: The Magician (reversed)

Struggled to get one done on time

[dragon-djinn]

Day 1: the fool

I've wanted to do a Bartimaeus Tarot for ages, this is the best excuse to sit down and start the ground work.

One down, 77 to go.