Sometimes I feel I am not a creature of earth, either.

DID YOU SEE THIS??

DOES THIS MEAN WE'RE GETTING A NEW BOOK SOON?!

(Screen from QsA (interview?) with Johnathan Stroud)

I dimly recall talking about this on our tiny fandom discord, but I don't think I ever posted about it here.

Remember this tidbit, back in AoS? Yeeeaaah you do. I know that you do. I know that you too lie awake at night and stare at the ceiling while thinking about this. Anyway.

That line about Ptolemy's ashes having been carried away by the Nile is curious, because it implies cremation and scattering of the resulting ashes, which... Mind you, I'm not an expert on ancient Egypt (idk, maybe I'm missing some context on the Ptolemaic period), but as far as I know this isn't how your soul gets into the afterlife.

The reason why Egyptians take such care to preserve their dead via embalming and careful mummification so that we can still see their remains today, is because the way you are buried is how you respawn in the underworld: if you were prepared correctly, you respawn as your old self and make your way to the Hall of the Two Truths. If you're buried without a leg, you respawn without a leg, and so on.

So the fact that Ptolemy, a notorious grain of salt in the eyes of magicians and his powerful cousin, with his radical ideas of treating spirits nicely and not enslaving them to gain riches and power, was cremated implies that someone really didn't want him to live forever. Someone wanted him to be forgotten. Which would make sense, since - again - his views weren't exactly popular and he had assassins hounding his steps back when he was alive.

The problem with this is that, with no body to be reborn in, Ptol might as well not exist, meaning that he never reached his afterlife, never went into the Field of Reeds, and - crucially - if Bartimaeus were to kick the bucket eventually, he wouldn't see Ptolemy waiting for him on the other side.

In fact, it's possible that Bartimaeus is the only one who actually knows what he looked like, and one of the few who remember him at all.

Gone. Poof. Ashes on the Nile.

Saw the Inktober Prompt for Day 1 (Gargoyle) and immediately thought of my boy, Bartimaeus. Made this, even if it’s completely out of my usual comfort zone in terms of lineart, since i wanted to keep with the spirits of Inktober. Probably not gonna do any of the other days, because life is too stressful but still.

Bart!

Yes he is my beloved baby son boy whom I cherish deeply and unconditionally.

Yes he did bad things he should answer for.

Yes he deserves to chill in a house with a big garden and draw and take naps.

Yes I want to make him worse.

Yes I want to forcibly drag him into therapy.

Yes I love his character arc and how it ended despite how much said ending destroyed me emotionally.

Yes I refuse to believe that he's actually dead.

All of these statements are true. All of these statements can coexist.