#Bartseq

[lady-charlemagne-the-third]

I bet Nathaniel is one of those people who has those really specific and complicated orders for his coffee.

Like. Okay. He has 'drinks black coffee' vibes. And yes, I also agree with that. That's most likely canon.

But just imagine...

He's drinking the most sugary monstrosity you can find on earth and hisses if you offer him anything other than that.

That's just 10 times funnier.

[oneeyedmagi]

Echoes of the Other Place

[green-grinning-glitter-ghosts]

[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.

[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.

[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!

[rawrijustlookatbartimaeusthings]

Hot take:

Kitty would definitely write BartNat fanfiction

[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

[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

[lady-charlemagne-the-third]

I love how Nathaniel is described as 'charming, decisive, powerful and smart' and 'has a rising career' at the start of PG and then proceeds to act like a complete dumbass for the rest of the book and completely flunk everything he has ever achieved. Including his life.

A* for effort, I guess?

[oneeyedmagi]

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

[csmelody]

Arthur Underwood to Nathaniel in chapter 15 of AoS:

“Ambition is all very well, my lad, but you must cloak it. If it is too obvious, you will find yourself brought down in flames before you reach your twenties.”

Stroud when I catch you-

[nadiajustbe]

Bartimaeus fandom is so cool because over the years there's like. ten active cockroaches on Faquarl's kitchen being active and yet the SHEER amount of content and events and yearly prompt weeks and fix exchanges and there was even a zine and. you can just see how people are absolutely crazy about this series and this is so damn precious.

[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.