#deep space static 📡
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does Lockwood have aspec swag?
He has bi and aceflux swag!
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You know what? Give me the swag for the main 5 (Nat, Bart, Kitty, Ptolemy, Asmira.)
I personally tag Nat as ace/demi, Kitty as ace/grey, Bart as aroace (possibly ace/grey depending on how you read his relationship with Faquarl), and Ptol and Asmira as both aroace.
Nathaniel: gray ace and lithromantic. He seems kind of content to have a crush on people from afar, and it fades when they show interest.
Bartimaeus: ace and quiromantic. What even is romantic attraction?
Kitty: aro and demisexual. This one is mostly just vibes.
Ptolemy: aro and ace
Asmira: aro lesbian
#deep space static 📡#shadowy-dumbo-octopus#headcanons#nathaniel#bartimaeus#kitty jones#ptolemy#asmira
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Phase 2 of Skullduggery Pleasant sure is... something. I haven't read very deeply into it before I fell out but I'd love to hear your thoughts about it! 🐙
I’ve read up to book 13 and then just purposely had the last two books spoiled for me because I didn’t care enough to read them, but Until The End doesn’t sound too terrible so maybe I’ll see if my library has it.
That being said, phase 2 in general just feels like all of my problems with the series cranked up to 11 and without any of my favorite parts. The whole magic system just makes less and less sense as the series goes on, the new characters feel really flat and boring, and a lot of people also say the books feel really ooc, but I think it’s more than that. It kind of feels like Landy just doesn’t know how to write character development, like he’s trying to have Valkyrie process her trauma, for example, but he keeps missing the mark. Her character arc doesn’t have the emotional impact it should, and any time she makes even a little progress, it’s undone by the beginning of the next book, with no real explanation. Her friendship with Skulduggery has basically devolved into them being very reluctant coworkers, but again, the book avoids addressing this change, why they might need space from each other, how dysfunctional their original partnership might have been, etc, in any meaningful way.
Skulduggery himself also continues to just. not get any emotional depth. and it is so frustrating, especially because Valkyrie trying to deal with her own issues could have opened up an opportunity for Skulduggery to start trying to do the same in order to help her. And a lot of what’s been happening in phase 2 should have had some emotional impact on him, but again, I feel like Landy doesn’t know how to write that.
#gah. i am Frustrated with phase 2#deep space static 📡#shadowy-dumbo-octopus#skulduggery pleasant#it could have been good!! and instead we got this bullshit
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Bart headcanons??? Pls?? I wanna hear all!!
This has been sitting my inbox for literally forever, and I’m so sorry.
Bartimaeus and Queezle headcanons because why not:
They first met in Prague, when they were both summoned there for the first time
Originally, they were both going to work on the walls, but Queezle’s master was moved to a different assignment so she moved as well
She and Bart still messed around together though. They were those kids in the group project who never do anything except sit in the corner laughing and mess up everyone else’s work. You know what I’m talking about.
One of Queezle’s favorite things to do was to steal random objects from the magicians and keep them as long as she could. Eventually she and Bartimaeus started daring each other to steal specific items and it became a game.
They would fight as training and usually both end up on the ground laughing
They’re pretty evenly matched, since I imagine Queezle as an earth and water djinni whereas Bartimaeus is a spirit of air and fire
Queezle is agender (she/her)
She and Bart are usually in panther and leopard form around each other
#deep space static 📡#<- new ask tag#a-piece-of-that-kitkate-bar#the bartimaeus sequence#bart sequence headcanons#queezle#bartimaeus#surprise everyone i’m not dead
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Oh hey you're taking writing prompts! You know, Queezle and Jabor are underrated, so how about something about either of them?
In The Cave
Summary: Queezle’s master charges her to find a powerful artifact.
Words: 1847
read on ao3
It was late at night, the time when, by rights, the mountain goat perched precariously on a narrow ledge of rock should have long been asleep. But in truth, the animal there was no mountain goat at all. It cast a nervous glance around itself, and seeing nothing obviously amiss, collapsed its form into a snake, the way a candle might collapse into a heap of molten wax. This snake then slithered through a barely perceptible crevice in the rock of the mountainside.
Once inside the cave, Queezle changed shape again, this time relaxing into her preferred leopard form. There was no one to see her in here, and so any disguise was unnecessary. She closed her eyes and reveled in the cool, damp air of the cave. This was not her first time in a cave; she and Bartimaeus had explored several before now, but it was her first time alone in one, without his incessant complaints. Queezle, a djinni of earth and water, enjoyed feeling the weight of the earth around her. It reminded her of the gravity of The Other Place. Bartimaeus, made of fire and air, had found this weight oppressive and sickening, and had made no attempts to hide this.
Queezle was just as insufferable whenever they went out flying together, so she sympathized, though privately she found being within the earth’s gravity far more comforting than the powerlessness of being suspended above it.
Now she was alone, and she had a job to do. She opened her leopard’s eyes and gazed around at the paths branching off the cavern where she had found herself. Queezle sent out several Pulses, one down each tunnel, and waited for them to return. She was in search of a powerful- and if her master’s research was correct, very unstable- artifact. Its aura would be extremely strong.The Pulses returned, though not all at once. The first to come back had simply rebounded from a rock wall at the end of the leftmost passage. Just a dead end that way.
The second and third arrived in quick succession, and showed no traces of any magic whatsoever.
The fourth did not return at all.
Queezle sighed and started down the fourth tunnel. She had heard of earth entities that could absorb magic, and though she had never run into one, Bartimaeus once had. The way they told it, they’d escaped with half their essence dripping off their form and they’d been lucky. At the time, Queezle had teased them for being dramatic, but now a shiver ran up her spine as she checked the seven planes for signs of danger.
The first and second were clear. The third revealed burning hot paw prints on the rough tunnel floor. Someone-or something- else was down here. The other planes showed her nothing except clearer, warmer images of the paw prints.
She thought she heard a faint whisper echo through the tunnel, but when she listened again, it was gone.
Queezle followed the paw prints until she reached a point where her head brushed the roof of the passage. She changed into a lizard, but kept her leopard’s eyes. The paw prints continued for a few more feet, until the ceiling grew low enough that whatever had made them had had to change shape as well, apparently into something that left no traces.
The tunnel continued get shorter and narrower, until Queezle squeezed through the very end- and dropped off the edge of a precipice towards a rushing underground river. She changed into a fish on impact and dove down into the water. It was the right choice. There was a presence down here, with a gravity that she couldn’t help but be pulled along by, and the whispering had started up again. This time, she thought she could almost make out the words.
She found it after only a few minutes. The ceremonial dagger was hidden within in a deeper indent in the river bottom. Though it had been lying there for over a century, it barely looked tarnished. Odd, but not entirely unexpected. Enchantments of that sort were common enough, but somehow the sight of the dagger sent a chill through Queezle.
“So long…” something whispered. “It has been so long…”
There was power in this artifact, perhaps a power beyond her master’s wildest imaginings. She grabbed its hilt in her mouth and swam back to the surface, where she leapt out and transformed into a leopard once more.
There was a jackal standing near the riverbank. Its red eyes met Queezle’s as soon as she broke the surface. For the briefest instant, jackal and leopard hesitated.
Then the jackal sprang, Queezle dodged, and any hope she might have had of a clean escape dissipated. The jackal was smaller than her, so she had a momentary advantage. She lunged, her claws tearing a gash in its side. It howled in pain, and then reared back, elongating into an eight foot tall warrior with flame-red skin and a jackal’s head.
She recognized it. Bartimaeus had spoken of this djinni before.
Jabor.
Queezle staggered back, well aware that her opponent now had the upper hand. His form was larger, he himself was more experienced, and having to keep the dagger clenched in her teeth robbed her of any use of her fangs.
The warrior spoke for the first time. “YOU HAVE SOMETHING I WANT.”
She shifted the dagger in her mouth. “Then come and get it.” Queezle raised a paw and shot a gout of water straight into his chest. The force of it knocked him over, and she turned into a hawk and soared upwards to the ledge.
Jabor recovered quickly, and a pair of red wings sprouted from his back. He chased her through the cavern, around stalactites and through arches, hurling Detonations all the while. Queezle fired back with more water, a Maelstrom, and a few bolts of ice. Jabor dodged most of her attacks, but a chunk of ice knocked him to the side, and Queezle again made for the ledge. She was getting away-A Detonation clipped her wing, and she fell end over end towards the rock floor below, dropping the dagger from her beak. The Seal on it nearly snapped, but it held firm.
“…since I have been free…”
Queezle’s neck, on the other hand, was not so lucky. There was a sickening crack as she hit the rock below. As the injury was to her form and not her essence, all she had to do was change shape, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
She skidded across the cave floor, her body screaming in pain and her mind screaming in frustration as she watched Jabor pick up the dagger. Queezle changed shape again, this time from a hawk into a human. Her neck was healed, but her shoulder throbbed where the Detonation had struck. Magical injuries were not so easily mended.
Flying was out of the question, and probably climbing as well. Attacking from the ground might be her only chance.
Queezle raised her hands, took a moment to aim, and fired a Void straight at Jabor.
He fell, letting go of the dagger in a desperate attempt to catch himself on a ledge or stalactite or anything to slow his fall. Queezle caught the dagger. Jabor righted himself in the air and came swooping down at her.
Queezle raised the dagger and plunged it into his chest. Decorative though it might be, it was still sharp, and the aura of entity within was certainly powerful enough to do damage.
He dropped to the ground, writhing in pain. “YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!”
She pulled it out, ignoring his scream, and became a hawk once more. She flew back to the ledge above, swooping in an odd side-to-side motion thanks to her wounded shoulder. When she looked back, Jabor was starting to rise.
Queezle raised both wings above her head and sent a stream of water at the ceiling, one that was powerful enough to knock several stalactites off and send them falling onto Jabor.
Anyone awake very early that morning might have seen a hawk over the mountains. To say it soared, however, would not have been entirely accurate. Rather, it awkwardly flapped its way across the sky, unbalanced by an injured wing and by the object in its beak that seemed to be pulling the hawk towards the ground like a magnet. A particularly observant early riser might also have noted that the hawk did not appear to enjoy being in the air at all, and kept looking at the ground with an anxiety that did not at all match its majestic form.
“…I have not been free in a hundred lifetimes, little djinni…”
Queezle would have preferred to sit outside the cave and await her master’s summons, but Jabor was strong, and the collapsed stalactites would not hold him for long. So instead she landed outside her master’s tower and abandoned her hawk form for good this time.
A few minutes later, the leopard curled up on the magician’s front step jumped to its feet, grimacing in pain, and then vanished. It had concealed itself on the first plane, but this sudden disappearance startled several cats.
Queezle collapsed into an unceremonious heap in the middle of her pentacle. The woman across from her raised a critical eyebrow. “Have you got the dagger?”
Queezle spat it out onto the floor. “What did you think this was?”
The magician pursed her lips and made a gesture. A series of sharp shocks made Queezle’s fur stand on end.
“What are you going to do with it?” Queezle asked once she had recovered.
“None of your business. Hand it over.”
“…you cannot imagine what it is like, such torment…”
Queezle bared her teeth. “No.”
“I’m sorry?”
Before she could think too hard about what she was doing, Queezle picked up the dagger and hurled it against the stone floor as hard as she could.
The already weakened Seal finally splintered. There was a sound like the earth itself splitting open, and essence began to flow like blood from Queezle’s nostrils. Her master raised a hand to her face, and Queezle saw her nose was also bleeding.
The magician raised a hand to inflict more pain on the djinni across from her, but then stopped. There was a presence in the room now, something greater than either of them. The air hung heavy with it.
“Little djinni,” a voice rumbled. “You have freed me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I have just one question: Would you also like to be free?”
Queezle nodded.
“Then you shall have your wish.”
A cyclone of earth and rocks descended upon Queezle’s master, and when the air cleared, nothing remained of the woman who had summoned her on and off for the past three years. Already, The Other Place pulled her away from Earth, and when she looked back, the earth spirit in the dagger was gone as well, leaving only a voice lingering in the air.
“We are free.”
Thanks for reading!
#deep space static 📡#shadowy-dumbo-octopus#the bartimaeus sequence#bart sequence fanfiction#queezle#jabor#Arin writes#thanks for the prompt!
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Probably? I think that monsterfucking goes both ways: from the point of view of the alien you're dating, humankind is just as alien to them as their race is to you.
Though as far as the spirits' opinion about humans goes, I think they'd just think he has hella low standards.*
That being said, spirits are apparently naturally ace so perhaps this kind of physical attraction would be as weird to them as the idea of lack of physical attraction is weird to humans (speaking as a proud aroace, people really make it into a huge deal for some reason.)
Sure, romantic feelings are perfectly game - Bartimaeus did mention a pair of djinn who fell in love and, when they wound up on the opposite sides of the battlefield, one couldn't bring himself to hurt the other and was torn in two by their will and the charge placed on him - but I imagine that the idea of physical attraction would be seen as just as weird as the subject of said attraction.
Tl;dr: he'd probably be considered a monsterfucker, but while usually it's the monster aspect that's seen as weird, in the case of a spirit, both the monster and the fucker parts of the label would be frowned upon by his kin.
*I personally hesitate to say that he has low standards because I firmly believe that both Ammet and Khaba are so genuinely weird that the only beings in existence they can hang out with without the relationship crashing and burning are each other. It's a one in a million happenstance of a fuckup meeting someone fucked up in the exact same direction and their respective fuckups actually meshing well together. Talk about a match made in hell.
Yes! I’ve been thinking lately about how that would work. It’s just as weird for the dragon, for example, as it would be for the human.
Spirits being naturally ace/ace-spec is another good point; I think it’s just because they don’t reproduce at all, sexually or otherwise, they (generally) don’t have that instinct, if that makes sense? I imagine there have been spirits throughout history who weren’t asexual, but they probably either didn’t act on this or fucked other non-ace spirits.
Yeah they really are a one in a million fucked up couple, and we love that for them.
#deep space static 📡#shadowy-dumbo-octopus#the bartimaeus sequence#ammet x khaba#ask to tag at this point
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The deal with the black flamed candles is simple, actually. The chapter they are mentioned in is from Bartimaeus's POV - and since our beloved djinni is something of a notorious unreliable narrator, it's worth taking some things he says with a grain of salt. Which is what I did.
You know how fire can change colour depending on what chemical compound it's burning?
(it was one of my favourite experiments back when I used to do chemistry at school BTW - that and Ink chromatography. Pretty colours go brrrrr)
I think that the candles just had something in them to make them burn blueish-green - be it for proper magical purposes or because Khaba has a very specific aesthetic. And since his crypt workshop laboratory thing has blueish-green ambient imp-lights (as described in ch12, which I know off by heart don't judge me) it's possible that Bartimaeus simply didn't make out most of the actual color of the flame and only saw the dark-ish wavy bottom part of it, hence the mistaken assumption that the candles burned black.
It's either that or Ammet used some illusion magic to make them look like that because both he and his bf are goth nerds and I love them for it.
Oh that’s super interesting! I know different chemicals burn different colors but I never thought about it in relation to Khaba’s candles.
I think it’d be neat if it was both chemical candles and funky shadow marid magic.
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(also I had tried to put all my thoughts about these edgy bastards (affectionate) into one word doc to keep everything in one place but it just kept growing and growing and about 15k in and with no end in sight i was reevaluating my entire life and went to get a cup of tea to calm down. Might try again sometime, see how deep I can make this rabbit hole)
That feeling when you go to write something down and discover you have lot more Thoughts on it than you realized…
But yeah no pressure to post it anytime soon, there’s a lot to think about with these bastards (affectionate).
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