#the bartimaeus sequence

[lejay-the-impossible]

Happy late birthday to @jonathanstroud. Bartimaeus got here from the Other Place to say hi, Lockwood got you a cup of the finest tea and Scarlett is gonna try not to swear much (she pays extra today)

[silverfeatheredserpent]

I hope the translator will help me tell this incredible love story of the Bartimaeus Trilogy❤

This summer, I accidentally found out that the artist of one of my favorite Trilogy @oneeyedmagi artworks lives with me in the same country. It took me a long time to decide to write to her, and that's what happened.

We started chatting - there were a lot of conversations, jokes and ideas to do something interesting for the fendom of the Bartimaeus Trilogy. She was very supportive of me in cosplay, and I even decided to register on Tumblr to show it.

The drawings and drawings by other authors, as well as your kind words, inspired me so much that I invited her to come to me and do Nathaniel's cosplay.

And it happened.

Jesus, I still don't believe that someone traveled 800 miles for cosplay. We took incredibly cool photos and videos. 800 MILES!!!

Damn, just look at this!

@jonathanstroud - look HOW Much We Love the Bartimaeus Trilogy❤❤❤

[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.

[rosie-tyler]

[the-nameless-wacky-inventor]

thinking about Ms Lutyens like what other people did she work for how many magicians apprentices did she tutor how many of them did she have to watch grow up into terrible people how many of them was she deeply patient and kind with because she knew she was the only person to be kind and patient with in their lives like. how much did she see. how much of the system did she witness she probably knew exactly how bad it was. she was ready to hit a man over Nathaniel how many more times was she in that position.

[hapalopus]

This is one of my favorite parts of Ptolemy's Gate. It reminds me of Ursus Wehrli’s "The Art of Clean Up"

[bblueraven-and-fandoms14]

Re-reading Bartimeus Triology and actually dying inside. Guys I'm on chapter 5 of AoS and I'm going to kill everybody in the room and then myself because Nathaniel did not DESERVE THIS. OUGH. OH. UNDERWOOD WHEN I CATCH YOU!!!!!

[jewishicequeen]

They occupy a similar space in my brain

[ID: the “gotta be one of my favorite genders” meme. It is a picture of a black person in a white tee and blue jeans holding their hands together in front of them and looking to the right, while standing in front of a car. The top text says “ shout out to shapeshifting immortal beings wearing the shape of their long-dead human friend(possibly partner)”. The bottom text says “gotta be one of my favorite genders”. The person is surrounded by PNGs of Venti from Genshin Impact, and Bartimaeus from the Bartimaeus Sequence. End ID.]

[ashesoriley]

Nathaniel in the golums eye

[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.

[lejay-the-impossible]

The memory of Ptolemy

[silverfeatheredserpent]

We tried very hard to convey the atmosphere of the Trilogy, this is a small spoiler~

THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORDS😭❤️

Nathaniel @oneeyedmagi

Song: Halsey - Gasoline

[haematicmagic]

He is 5000 years old. He is a 14 year old boy. He cannot touch silver without physically melting. He eats pigeons that think he is handsome. He measures distances in rat ass lengths. He has three boyfriends. He is deeply traumatised by lions. He can belly dance. He hates the cops. I didn't say his name but he popped into your head, didn't he?

[rosie-tyler]

Nathaniel when he realised that Bartimaeus had been summoned by someone else:

[the-nameless-wacky-inventor]

okay okay okay- let’s say the bartimaeus sequence was made into four (possibly five if they split the last one like they always do but let’s go with four) pg13 movies, that means you get one f bomb per movie/book

who are you giving it to and when would you use it?

[hapalopus]

I love the scene where Bartimaeus destroys the Rosetta stone for all it's implications. Like. 1) the Rosetta stone was completely unguarded, not even in a glass case. 2) it was in the British Museum, meaning it had historical significance. We see a lot of other Egyptian monuments that are far more impressive, so its significance doesn't lie in its role as a symbol of Britain's colonial power, which can only mean 3) They actually for real used the Rosetta stone to translate hieroglyphs instead of just fucking. Asking one of the hundreds or thousands of spirits who were in Egypt at the time it was made. Bartimaeus can read the Rosetta stone, they could've asked him. Faquarl was in Egypt at the same time as Bart, they could've asked Faquarl (so was Jabor but lbr, Jabor can't fucking read). Why did they spend years trying to translate that stone instead of just asking a spirit????