#bartseq

[tarragonthedragon]

Time to limber up your writing fingers, the Bartimaeus Fic Exchange 2025 is open to signups!

You can register or see our FAQs at the link above. Signups will close at 10am on the 15th of July.

You’ll have until mid-August to write your fic or produce your fanwork! All types of fanworks are allowed, including shorter fics (min. 1000w), art, crossovers, and podfics. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here on tumblr or over in the discord server here. Hope to hear from you soon!

[green-grinning-glitter-ghosts]

[lady-charlemagne-the-third]

is the Bartimaeus Trilogy seriously set in the 2000s? Like. I mean. I guess that makes sense.

But I remember, after reading that book for the first time, I asked my sister this:

‘When was the British Empire in power?’

she told me: ‘the 1800s’

I’ve been thinking that it was all set in the 1800s (yes, I was ignoring that, in the books, they had airplanes).

[oneeyedmagi]

Echoes of the Other Place

[jewishicequeen]

Bart: Well one of us is gonna have to change and it’s not gonna be me

Day 4, guess the prompt:)

[narinick]

Bart prompt week 2025, day 2

English breakfast

Hi, it’s baby Nat.

[ironyscleverer]

sometimes I look back on the Bartimaeus Sequence and marvel at how well developed the system of slavery was, to the point where, in order to uphold the system, the magicians had to base their whole society around dehumanizing themselves and policing each other.

Think about it. Nathaniel was bought as a toddler, and stripped of his name, his family, and every other piece of humanity he could’ve possibly possessed at six years old. He was then handed over to a magician who taught him to depend on slave labor as not only a source of power, but also an integral part of his identity. He was taught to be dependent on slave labor in every way, and yet constantly fear the beings that he enslaved.

He was taught value political power and safety above all else in order to assuage that constant fear, because the oppressor always fears the revenge of the oppressed.

He was taught to use the differences between humans and spirits to justify their enslavement, because there must be a reason they deserve it and you don’t.

He was taught to distrust kindness and altruism, because if a world exists where kindness and altruism have value, then there exists a world where slavery is wrong. Where all the abuse and pain that generations of magicians have put themselves through to uphold the system of slavery was for nothing.

And in this context the metaphor of the true name as a source of both extreme power and vulnerability for spirits and humans alike, to the point where magicians hide/destroy/forget their birth names and by extension their humanity in order to contain that weakness is just so achingly perfect and scrumptious and I just-

Idk. Sometimes I think about that.

Edit: I think I may have unknowingly plagiarized this from @agape-emo-eros so uhhh, just gonna tag them here. Idk it was in my mind palace or smth. Sorry dude.

[jutenium]

THE COVER OF THE UKRANIAN EDITION OF THE RING OF SOLOMON IS SO INCREDIBLE!!!!!! BEAUTIFUL AMAZING MASTERPIECE

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH 🛐🛐🛐🛐🛐

I CAN'T WAIIITTT TO HAVE IT ON MY HANDS OHMYFCKNGOD

AS ON THE OTHER COVERS, THERE IS A FAMILIAR ARRANGEMENT IN THE COMPOSITION: A LARGE, CONTRASTING BARTIMEUS AND A SMALL, FADED HUMAN FIGURE NEXT TO HIM:

AND JUST LOOK AT FIRST BOOK COVER. AND ROS. THE ALLUSION IS INDISPUTABLE I'M GOING CRAZY MY DEAR FELLAS CAN YOU SEE IT!?!??

AND THE HUMAN FIGURE IS IN THE SAME PLACE, ONLY IF LITTLE NATHANIEL WAS STANDING NEAR THE MAEUS AND LOOKING FORWARD AS IF TO NEW ADVENTURES SIDE BY SIDE WITH THIS SPIRIT, THEN THAT MAN GOES DEEPER INTO THE BOOK WITH HIS BACK TO THE BARTIMEUS AND YOU CAN ALREADY SEE THAT THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THE PAST I'M-

AND THE COVER IS LIKE A STORY IN THE SAND AND THE CITY LIKE A DISTANT MIRAGE AND-

Bartimaeus, who literally turned from a lively burning phoenix into a petrified gargoyle. LITERALLY.

YOU LOST ME HERE

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

Looong rant about chapter 16 Ptolemy's Gate and how being passive can add to the cycle of ab*se.

oof so I just read when Nat goes to see Ms Lutyens and I can't help but be absolutely furious at her??

I know that's maybe a little bit unfair given she's frightened of him as a magician and is obviously angry when she finds out the department he's responsible for, but honestly it kinda brings up the problem with inadvertent bystanders to child ab*se in my mind.

And I'm definitely not blaming her solely for who Nat becomes but it makes me think of all those people in huge child ab*se cases who give interviews to press about all the things they noticed that were wrong but they just...never do anything?

She stood up for him against Lovelace, and when Nat thanked her- "I wanted to say that I know you were trying to save me, and-"

''Yes, and I'm sorry I didn't" Like girl be for real did you really think that alone would undo the years of indoctrination and abuse he's already suffered and prevent years worth of the same in the years to come? And she won't take responsibility - "My job is with children, not the adults they become" and again while it seems harsh to blame her for who Nat becomes, it's so much easier to pass the blame to people who are more directly responsible rather than acknowledging you also play a part.

I think it hurts so much more because it's her specifically- Nat goes to her in sheer desperation, it almost seems like a goodbye- he wants to thank her, tries to set her up in a job that will pay well and struggles to communicate he's trying to help. At this point he thinks Bartimaeus has been summoned by another magician and his birth name will be revealed. He's sure he's about to die and if not he'll be stood on trial and lose everything.

He goes to her because she represents the peaceful moments from his childhood when he got away from his master. He's scared and feeling lost and really it's call for help; but he doesn't ask for anything he just wants to make her feel proud of him- he's looking for that validation that he's been chasing since childhood.

And that shows he still does have that little bit of childhood innocence in him; he thinks she will be proud, thinks she'll see him as the same little boy in the garden gazing up at his teacher in adoration. He can't quite grasp why she's separated the man stood before her from that little boy. Because in that moment the child inside Nathaniel is seeking comfort AND THAT'S WHY it makes me so angry. She's completely given up on him when he's at his lowest ebb, because she doesn't want to be associated with the magician he's become. As if it isn't a massive step in the right direction that he saught her out in the first place- what other magican would bother? I wonder if that's why she reacted so strongly to seeing him again? Before that moment she could go about her life wondering if /pretending her attempt to protect him was enough, and now she realises it wasn't, of course it wasn't, and the image she had of Nathaniel's childhood innocence is completely ruined in her mind.

Or was her contempt for him even grater than Nat realised? She was naturally disgusted by the rhetoric he'd started to repeat from a young age, and gently tried to correct him although she was clearly angry- was she just resigned to the fact that there is little else she could do to change his future? I always thought- couldn't she have looked for him? The Underwood house fire was in the papers and they mentioned the apprentice was being searched for. Did she ever worry about him? Surely something must have been in the papers since- an announcement of new ministers, ANYTHING! Look at how much research Kitty did to find out about Bartimaeus and Ptolemy. I just don't think Rosanna Lutyens cared enough, realistically Nathaniel wasn't hard to find- but he was no longer her responsibility so she could turn a blind eye.

And sadly it's not just her- I know everyone loves Martha Underwood including Nat; but I think her submissiveness to her husband has a negative effect on Nathaniel as well. In AOS when Nat is locked in his room for ages after setting the mites loose, and is forbidden to have any contact with anyone and she won't talk with him. I know she's been told by Mr. Underwood she can't, but it still boils my blood. She's an adult and going along with ignoring Nathaniel because her husband told her to...I can't even begin to imagine the psychological damage that would do to a 10 year old child. (It could be argued she's frightened of the consequences if her husband finds out she's disobeyed him which is fair, he could always be watching through magic- but this is Arthur Underwood we're talking about. He's lazy, oblivious and weak I doubt he'd expend all that energy each day to check up on her.)

And It's even more painful that Nathaniel is often described as fiercely loyal to her and I think to Ms Lutyens as well- he doesn't expect to be treated well by Arthur Underwood but he loved Mrs Underwood and Ms Lutyens so much he started to view them through a rose-coloured lense. He never feels betrayed by either of them, even though they absolutely let him down, because the pedestal he's put them on is too high AND THAT ABSOLUTELY DESTROYS ME.

Would things with Nathaniel have been any different if Mrs Underwood hadn't died? I don't really think so. Do you think she'd see Nathaniel's temper at 14 years old and be reminded of Arthur Underwood? He was awful, absolutely awful to Nat and to her; but he was under so much stress in an underfunded departement, where pressure was being put on him by superiors to accomplish far more than they knew him to be capable of, and he took it out on the easiest target. Nathaniel ends up in exactly the same place and he starts to take it out on the only person around him- Bartimaeus. Would he snap at Mrs Underwood all the time if she were still there? Because he's learnt that behaviour from his father figure, and subconsciously learnt from his mother figure that she'll put up with it. He learnt from the woman he loved so deeply, that if you don't resist, people will walk all over you. So you have to maintain control even if it ends up hurting people you care about because no one will step in to stop the suffering no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you want them too.

It's easy to blame Arthur Underwood and Simon Lovelace and the magicians that actively hurt Nathaniel but I just feel like it's a bit disingenuous not to acknowledge the role of those doing passive harm. It's really mean to say it but even Bartimaeus plays a role- he knows Nat is clinging on to him because he can't 'bring himself to break this last connection' (to his childhood) but instead of bringing it up properly he 'taunts' Nathaniel- a boy who has been taunted for his weakness by his master for years. And even in AOS when Nathaniel tells Bartimaeus he was beaten for the mites incident Bart just kinda shrugs it off. Like I get it, why should Bartimaeus do anything, he's suffered way worse due to the system so he doesn't owe Nat anything right? But from Nat's point of view this is the first and only time he's mentioned to anyone what has happened to him and nothing changes. It's like another lesson learnt: telling someone about it doesn't help. Another nail in the coffin.

And I like all these characters, I feel bad for them. They're all victims of the system, I think the chapter with Ms Lutyens is just the straw that broke the camel's back for me. All of those little opportunities that are insignificant to the narrative over all; the commoners have it worse, Nathaniel is in a privileged position in society, exerting control over others. He's very morally grey, crossing over into objectively bad person territory but I love him with my whole heart and all of those insignificant moments would have been massive to him whether he was conscious of it or not.

And it goes all the way back to the beginning with Nat's parents giving him up to the magicians at 5 years old. I can't get the image of that little boy sat crying all alone in the government building. And he's not going somewhere safer, or somewhere he'll be happier and more loved. Giving your child over to a total stranger, oh he'll be totally fine won't he? He'll grow up to be a magician and far richer than you'll ever be, he'll be happy and comfortable and be grateful he got to grow up in luxury. There's no way a stranger you've never met, who the majority of society is terrified of would ever hurt a vulnerable little kid right? And if they do? Well you aren't responsible anymore, how could you know? What could you possibly do against the magician taking care of him?

Every little thing is another grain of sand tipping the scale. Did anyone else have to analyse An Inspector Calls in school? It feels like that to me- those BIG moments and all the little moments in between that add onto the pile.

And it goes on to cause problems in wider society too- ab*se is so normalised to the magicians, they casually ask Underwood if he hits Nathaniel like it's nothing. Because to them it is nothing, they've all grown up in the same circumstances and are repeating what they've learnt as children. I can't help but feel a little sorry for them all, especially when they aren't looked at through the black and white lense of 'argh these people are the evil arseholes look at how they treat everyone around them, screw these guys.' When we see those little glimpses of humanity like Simon's anxiety with the amulet; looking to his master and father figure Schyler for reassurance, and what's sad is that Nat is "reminded...of his own master's cold impatience" It's clear Simon looks up to his master, wants to make him proud and loves him. But it seems like Schyler has just trained Simon up so he can get power through him later on. I love the little hints of similarities between Simon and Nathaniel; the anxious mannerisms like fiddling with his hair that Nathaniel starts to develop, the way their master's talk to them. Even though they're actively working against each other in AOS and Simon is placed firmly in the baddies category and Nat in the goodies category at this point in the series; these things always hinted to me they had similar childhoods, how was Simon treated? When he had the imp beat Nat into unconsciousness, was it because he'd had the same punishment used against him? Did he know the magicians in the room would do nothing to stop him because no one stopped it from happening to him? Did he ever have a teacher stand up for him only for it to change nothing in the end because all the negative influences were so much stronger? Is the reason he loves Schyler like a dad because he's almost developed Stockholm syndrome? It looks like love because he's never known anything else.

And Arthur Underwood- who doesn't think his upbringing, and being taken away from his family ever did him any harm- doesn't realise the harm done is that he doesn't even know another way of raising Nathaniel, because he was never shown another way. His childhood may also have been filled with people who hurt him and the people that didn't do enough to intervene.

There are so many psychology studies that show children copy everything they see the adults in their life doing. Nathaniel copies the magicians behaviour towards spirits and on a subconscious level I think he copies all the submissive people in his life. How many times does he end up upset and frustrated with the fact he seems to be going nowhere and how many times does he just hope things will be different rather than taking postive action.

I dislike the actions the magicians end up taking but I also find them fascinating to analyse. I tend to prefer villains in media because they're usually slightly more complex individuals and I love to think about how they ended up that way. They can all be seen as victims of their circumstances in a way, despite all the power and privilege they have had terrible and traumatic childhoods, and if the commoners had no valuable worldy possessions at least they had a sense of togetherness; of love and understanding and selflessness. I wonder if the magicians hated them at least partly because of that. Because out in the sea of faces of the commoners talking about nothing important, doing nothing great and noble- could be the parents that abandoned them. And when your life is on the line daily because of working with spirits, and your colleagues want to stab you in the back, sometimes not being responsible for anything important looks good. But you can't leave your life as a magician, it would be too difficult; you have nowhere to go, no real friends, no one who really loves you. So it's better to stay and be a submissive bystander in your own life because it's so much easier.

Doing nothing is doing something- being passive can be just as harmful.

[asexualreptile]

Day 3

From the evening menu: Faquarl- AU: roleswap- favourite spirit (not you Faquarl, sorry babe)

Remember that scene in AoS where Bart is stuck at the Tower of London and Faquarl gets him out on order of Lovelace? Yeah, that one. Except that now it's Faquarl stuck in the bowl and Bart getting him out with the ring-thingy. No way Bart will ever let him live that one down lol

Faquarl being stuck and still absolutely towering over Bart amused me.

References: Glowing coconut octopus for Faquarl

Spur winged lapwing for Bart

[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

[lunyselene-art]

I wanted to make his earrings really pop but I don't think they're saturated enough haha. anyway here's bartimaeus in AoS.... i love him

[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.

[alex-lif]

So another stupid au bc there's too much of Epic: Musical in my tiktok fp

So Greek mythology AU

Nathaniel as Hero

Bartimaeus as some lower god who accidentally picked him as favourite

I have so many thoughts

[oneeyedmagi]

A small djinni, but a big fire of the heart 🔥

[jewishicequeen]

Unpopular opinion, but out of the London trio, Nathaniel is the one most likely to get your pronouns right

Bartimaeus is the queerest of the bunch but he's STRICTLY so because he's not human. He's very obviously seeing spirits as a saparate thing from humans, and authomatically uses it/its for them if he doesn't know them personally, but he's ALSO quick to gender humans, have the straightest shipping mind ever(you are a boy and she is a girl obviously you're gonna go and make a bunch of tiny magicians instead of saving the world if i'm not here to bother you) and ALSO. Just. Awfull with names I mean can you imagine that guy letting your deadname actually die? We have canon evidence that he WON'T

Kitty will be accepting of you but she's constantly calling Bartimaeus a demon even after knowing him. She's the kind of person who supports you idealistically but fails in action. She's very kind, but won't pick up on your discomfort unless you scream it to her face

Nathaniel however? He's gone years with a different name(not the right name for him, but nevertheless), he treats Bart the same in boy or girl guises, AND. AND. Ever since Bart told him not to call him a demon he DOESN'T CALL HIM THAT. He uses the word to refers to other spirits but actively CORRECTS HIMSELF when using it for Bartimaeus.

My point is. John Mandrake may be a fucking asshole and a magician but he would respect your pronouns AND your name.