#bartimaeus au

[lejay-the-impossible]

More of Ukrainian Bartimaeus AU now featuring Kitty as well. She's a part of a rebel team against the shlyakhta. Women weren't allowed to dress in masculine clothes or carry a weapon in Ukraine at the time, but there were always exceptions.

I don't actually have an idea about what exactly is going on so I'll leave the context to @nadiajustbe

[jewishicequeen]

Post PG AU where they’re stuck together after the fight.

I call it “the Greedling Situation” because that’s basically how I picture them.

The gist is that a moment before Nathaniel finished the release, Bartimaeus released the staff, triggering the explosion. Then when it tore through Nathaniel’s body he repieced it together, shaping the hurt tissues with his essence, effectively saving Nathaniel’s life but also sticking them together more severely.

Because Bartimaeus isn’t fully protected inside Nat’s body but is forming some of it outwards, silver and iron do have an effect. They also use a cane because I’m NOT making a post-PG AU where Nathaniel just walks it off, sue me. CHRONIC PAIN FOR THESE BITCHESSSSSS

Another important note is that Bartimaeus isn’t truely bound to Nathaniel here- he can change shape or leave at any time. Doing so would very much kill Nat though

Some doodles of it too. Bart has gotten control over makeup and accessorising because Nat wouldn’t budge on the clothes.

It’s all very much still up in the air and I’m still thinking. Might use it as a baseline for the bartprompts week works.

[asexualreptile]

Got around to fleshing out my idea for the Bart/Nat fusion inspired by your Greedling Situation AU @jewishicequeen

I dont know what posessed me to draw something like this; designing outfits is not at all my strong suit.

I literally sat down and thought "what the actual fuck would an outfit look like that they could both agree on??" Bart is so flashy and extra in everything that he does and we know for a fact that he hates what magicians wear in general and what Nat wears in particular. For what their clothes represent if nothing else. And Nat wearing anything even slightly outside what the British upper class considers appropriate for a rich and powerful man? Uhhhhhh, chances not looking great.

But then! I remembered that that boy had a whole (repressed) Gothic phase and that he might want to explore that when he has the freedom to.

Still a suit thrown in there because I dont think hed let go of that kind of clothing anytime soon. But married to and deconstructed through a Gothic lense.

Gold and lapislazuli jewelry for Bart from an old design for him that I still havent posted here. Also, the glasses. A staple of all of my magicians designs. They dont need them anymore but I thought Bart would find it hilarious to put fake frames on anyway.

I think this turned out really cool actually, Im happy with it. And I hope you like it too!!

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

You know what Nathaniel Underwood needed?

A three hour session in a rage room.

[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.

[kostantina]

I love watching and listening to videos in Czech, I love how they help make my imagination alive about the Holy Roman Empire in the Bartimaeus Sequence and its personification from Hetalia. It's so fun imagining Holy Rome speaking the language. It's beautiful-sounding, and it has magical/sorcery/witchcraft vibes for me, both in how it sounds and how it is written, fitting for a dominant realm of magic that had been HRE in the book series before the fire- British nation attacked. It also sounds cool and sophisticated, fitting to be the lingua franca of such a powerful Empire or possibly Europe in general, considering its reach compared to its real-life counterpart. Alsoooo, it's fun to imagine England/Arthur speaking in Czech like a native, having learned it well, considering that Czech-based HRE was his rival empire which dominated Europe. At the same time, it's fun to imagine him speaking it badly, whether on purpose or not. Reminds me of that moment in The Golem's Eye where Nathaniel was said to be speaking it with a British accent.

[whumpster-fire]

Bartimaeus AU where everything is the same except Clem Hopkins has an invisible chronic pain disorder and within a week of taking over his body Faquarl goes "well this sucks, how do these people even live like this?" and cancels his taking over the world plan, but then has to spend the next two months trying to convince Makepeace that the experiment was a bad idea without revealing that he isn't Hopkins.

[silverfeatheredserpent]

Another illustration of fanfiction

John Mandrake accidentally got into an extremely unpleasant incident and now he is facing serious charges in court (he is not guilty).

No one wants to take on a case involving a government employee.

No one but a strange lawyer with the most idiotic advertising and reputation…

But John Mandrake has no choice but to call Bartimaeus.

(The fanfiction is NOT my authorship, I just wanted to draw it, AU Without magic)

[lejay-the-impossible]

Got a couple requests for Bartimaeus Ukrainian AU. Nathaniel as a shlyakhtych (a Ukrainian nobleman) and Bart could either still be his spirit if you stick to the canon, or maybe a cossack that he hired.

Really enjoyed doodling this one, got so inspired by Ukrainian culture that I put up a Ukrainian history lesson on the background while drawing

[alex-lif]

In this night before going asleep my brain give me not such funny thought

Nathaniel in modern au not going to be able to do art study or something bc he most likely will be forced to go in some law college or shit

(Just like many creative kids who was forced to study medicine or become lawyers bc "those drawings will not earn a roof on your head for you")

[jewishicequeen]

Bartprompts 3: Roleswap

Young magician apprentice Clara Bell, a blue-eyed djinn, and a mysterious boy from the resistance…

[tarragonthedragon]

Greetings, fellow Bartimates!

It is once again almost that time of the year: time for the annual Bartimaeus Sequence Prompt Week!

This year, it will run from Monday 7th April to Sunday 13th April with further reminders closer to the date. As for the prompts, we've partnered with Kitty's old workplace - "The Frog Inn" - and whipped up not one, but two prompt menus for you to pick and choose from!

Every menu offers a choice of 5 different daily prompts for you to play around with (counting the drink itself as well). You are free to interpret them as you wish, combine different prompts or stick to just one per day, and hop between lists depending on what gets your creative juices flowing.

The medium of choice is up to you: fanart, fanfic, cosplay, aesthetic boards, music, paper crafts, everything is welcome - go frogwild, remember to tag your delicious creations with #bartprompts25!

MORNING MENU:

Americano - 07.04 slice of life, bittersweet, AU: meet-cute, Kitty

English Breakfast - 08.04 hurt/comfort, canon-compliant, library, Nathaniel

Hot chocolate - 09.04 cuddling, warm & cozy, AU: everyone lives, Mr Button

Frappé - 10.04 casual, banter, pre-canon, Rebecca Piper

Smoothie - 11.04 domestic fluff, costume ball, AU: animals, Asmira

Fruit juice - 12.04 comedy, action/adventure, AU: sci-fi, Queezle

Soda pop - 13.04 fluff, friendship, AU: fix-it, the resistance

EVENING MENU:

Champagne - 07.04 elegance, jealousy, AU: high fantasy, Jane Farrar

Wine - 08.04 drama, character study, AU: royalty, Solomon

Gin and tonic - 09.04 blood & injury, favourite spirit, AU: roleswap, Faquarl

Vodka martini - 10.04 crack, post-canon, mythical creatures, Bartimaeus

Jägerbomb - 11.04 London, fire, fight/violence, Jabor

Suffering bastard - 12.04 hurt/no comfort, horror, sickness, Honorius

Blood and sand - 13.04 character death, grief/mourning, bad ending, Ptolemy

[nadiajustbe]

The other thing I immensely love about Bartimaeus of Uruk is how inhuman he is. Usually in media authors tend to "humanise" inhuman characters, by giving them stable human appearance or/and character traits. This vampire is actually a 17yo guy. This devil is a 30yo man. This magical god is a always teenage girl and they act accordingly. This is an easy route. Johnathan Stroud doesn't chose it.

Bartimaeus is not a woman but nor he is a man (even despite using he/him pronounce primarily it is canon all spirits are genderless out of nature, some just stend to stick more to one gender than the other). Sure he is not a "child" but nor he is an "adult", because he was never a human in the first place and was never fully presented as either of this. He doesn't devide love in platonic and romantic and doesn't feel a need to clarify. He struggles to explains the way he thinks and difficult for it to translate it to a human reader. He doesn't act as someone of a particular age in "human" understanding as well. He knows thousands of languages and switches between them. He loves humanity and yet still has an unique outside perception of it because he's not a human. He doesn't fit in any of human boxes to check, he's everything and nothing at once. He can look an act of any age or gender or feeling and perhaps fit none of those in your mind.

And this gives so much freedom for creating and fanfiction. Go on make him a young adult college student! Make him a middle aged man who has thousands of jobs! Make him a fourteen year old Ptolemy's twin! Create an AU where he as an anger or a cupid or an ageless God and none of it would be OOC to him! Human!Bartimaeus can be a traveler, a performer, a coffee shop barista, a hired killer! Perhaps don't make him a human at all, what If he is a tired cat who Kitty feeds on her way to work in a shop?

The possibilities are endless because instead of being a human with some cool flashing eyes and superpowers he is not actually a human. He's Bartimaeus of Uruk and that's it.

[praazlwurm]

magvolo lorepostinggg

justifying the thought in 'every ship wants to have a "Will You Fall in Love with Me Again?" moment' last night but

was pre-sleep ideating on what happens when magpie finally gets back to volo after -- to him 10+, to her possibly hundreds of -- years in her jumpchain

bc i imagine its. terribly easy to Not Talk About It when she first pulls him into the pmd au, and if he ever pushes her on it she actually just ghost-vanishes for a while and has a very private meltdown before pulling herself back together toward their goal of working hard enough to evolve that she can get access to her magic again and get them back to pokeworld proper

but after that, when theyre face to face and he finally sees the weight her gaze has taken on, something two hundred years on pokeworld never gave her...

thats when he asks what she went thru and, in bits and pieces -- relayed in bed, whispered into his chest, wept into his shoulder, screamed into the dead air of the distortion world because she cant trust herself to be in their home anymore -- she tells him about the enslavement of djinn in Bartimaeus and the obliterated empire of Foundryside and the desolate ruin of 9 and being trapped in lumiere and fucking yarnham and....

and how she's. not the same. not who she was when she left, and not the person he fell in love with

and i got 🥺🥺 abt him taking her face in his hands and doing the whole "i have fallen in love with you a hundred times since we met, and i will fall for you a hundred more, infinitely more" and a little bit of "you're still mine. (🫣) youre my magpie"

and thats what catalyzes it for her: in this multiverse shes been yanked around in, that shes only just learned to walk thru herself, there are likely infinite volos. but he's hers

[fauna-a]

I Americano [Morning menu]

Slice of life, bittersweet, AU: meet-cute, Kitty

He saw her every morning on the Tube, at ten to eight sharp. Earphones on, sometimes a book in her hand, dark hair down or up in a ponytail. Sometimes they were far from each other, other times so close they could brush against each other’s elbow, but Nathaniel had never spoken to her. He wasn’t the guy who chatted up girls on the Tube, especially if it wasn’t even eight in the morning and if the girls had a quite resolved face to deter anyone who wanted to accost them. Rightly so, said Nathaniel to himself.

His flatmate, who in some mysterious way always managed to get told everything, had laughed for five good minutes and then said: «That’s so you, Nat. Falling in love with a girl on the Tube. Very romantic».

«I’ve not fallen in love at all» Nathaniel had retorted crisply. «She’s got an interesting face, that’s all, and the books she read seem so, too».

«So, ask her something about them, why don’t you?».

Actually, trying to talk about books would have been the simplest thing, but Nathaniel didn’t want to. Or rather, he did not dare. And in the morning there was always confusion, most of the times he didn’t even see where she got off. No, it wasn’t a good idea making a slimy impression.

It was really a chance seeing her on the platform one evening, and not in the morning; it was late, at the office it had been a hellish day and Bartimaeus had texted him to say that he wouldn’t have been home for dinner and so Nathaniel had to make do; that meant turning to some frozen food.

While he was contemplating the desolation of his life, his eyes had moved to his right, and there she was.

She seemed tired too; she carried a paperback from which emerged a blue bookmark.

They got in the coach together; the rush hour was gone and there were seats for both.

Nathaniel sat in front of her. She didn’t have her earphones and didn’t seem to feel like reading: she kept the book on her lap and stared into the void with an absent face. She looked like she was struggling against sleep.

The train stopped abruptly. The book tumbled down from the girl’s knees and landed just at Nathaniel’s feet.

He bended down automatically to pick it up; he didn’t know the title nor the author, but he could guess it was one of those historical novels that were mainstream. He couldn’t remember the last time he had read a novel.

He held out the book to the girl; her pale face opened up in a polite smile. «Thank you».

She had a nice voice, a little hoarse. Nathaniel smiled back. «You’re welcome».

A voice that sounded bewilderingly like Bartimaeus’ echoed in his head: Talk to her! Make conversation!

«Is it good?» he ventured, gesturing towards the book, back on the girl’s lap. She looked surprised, but not bothered.

«Rather, yes. Some inaccuracies, but in the end it’s fiction, not an history essay».

Nathaniel nodded. He realized that he hadn’t tried to talk to a girl since Jane’s ages. For heaven’s sake.

«Your stop is a few minutes away, isn’t it?» she surprised him. «I’ve noticed you, some mornings. In the end, you learn to recognize the faces you see almost every day».

Nathaniel didn’t know what to answer except for «Ah. Really?».

She smiled at him with the corner of her mouth. «Yes. You look always very pissed off, if I may say so, but I must look like that, too» she sighed and, as talking to herself, she added: «But I’ll miss it. Even the Tube».

«Are you leaving?» Nathaniel asked impromptu. He corrected himself immediately: «Sorry, that’s not of my business». He didn’t even know her name, after all.

She didn’t seem offended, though. «I am: academic trip. In Egypt. Can’t wait, but I like London too much to not miss it, I know that. Isn’t this your stop?».

Nathaniel suddenly lifted his head. Shit. He said a rushed hi and hurried off the coach.

It was only when the train took off again that he realized that he didn’t ask her anything: her name, what she was studying, for how long she’d have stayed in Egypt. Nothing whatsoever.

Next morning, Nathaniel got in the train at ten to eight. There were a lot of girls and women, as always, but no one had a paperback with a blue bookmark.

NdA: this year I am sharing the prompts with my darling @saint-oleander, since we both were late. One day each other, so tomorrow it's their turn <3

[kostantina]

Thinking of Holy Rome calling and treating England like a kid while being centuries younger and his position as the dominant magical empire having been eclipsed by the latter amuses me. England annoyed him, and he knew he was annoying England with his actions. Also, his pride was just too big and he knew he was going to die either way. He might have suffered more for what he did, but an England annoyed by him was a win.

// Hetalia Bartimaeus Sequence AU