It would make sense. She seemed to deal with Padraic way too easily for someone new to the Other scene. Then again, Laird didn't react to her beyond knowing she was there, so if she is in fact a Very Bad Thing in a mirror wouldn't he have been at least a little curious about her? It's a mystery and one I don't see being solved any time soon.

This story definitely has me hooked.

 

Laird and Padraic's response to Rose actually further cements the theory in my mind, though it may appear a stretch if I can't articulate it properly.

What I think happened is that part of the conversion process to create Rose from the Tower Other is some kind of working that disguises it as a human, even to itself. After all, Rose is clearly a magical being of some sort, but acts, thinks, and behaves very much like a human. I think Grandma's contingency plan involved a spell that didn't so much turn the Other into a human as enforce the perception of it (to itself) as human, but to do so required it to be so strong that it effects anyone nearby as well. That would explain why Blake never really questions how the fuck Rose is such a close, if gender-swapped, copy of him or how she wound up trapped behind mirrors and why neither Laird nor Padraic paid any particular attention to what appears to be a fairly rare kind of esoteric existence: the magic doesn't let them.

 

So yeah. I googled the name Barbatorem. Turns out it's a Latin word with the root barba, meaning "beard". -torem is an inflection of the suffix -tor, which is used to form a masculine agent noun. Agent nouns are 'agents' that do an action denoted by a verb. In this case, barba.

What this amounts to is an agent that inflicts an action on beards. In other words, a pair of shears.

The Other has not left the circle.

 

Yeah, I was looking up that name at work today and I came to basically the same conclusion, I don't think it has left the circle either.

Also, Rose is able to sense when things have a bad Mojo about them, so that's probably why she was saying not to go into the tower.

With regards to Rose's dealings with Padraic: Seeing as how she doesn't sleep, we can assume that she is more well informed about things than Blake. It's basically a watered down and more original way of the Harry Potter fannon cliche of "super awesome trunk with time distortion capabilities that are going to let Harry train/learn up on all these awesome magic books that he got on his Diagon Alley shopping spree" or "lol, got myself a time-turner, it's time to get 1337". Or I guess to draw a cleaner parallel, she's currently playing the role of Hermione or Bob the skull from Dresden verse. There are a lot of books to read and information to learn. In this hostile environment, Blake's lack of knowledge is as critical as his lack of power. Rose is already an asset as far as knowledge gaps are concerned. It looked like she was going to try an awaken herself along with Blake near the end of the chapter, so it will be interesting to see how she'll be able to interact with the outside world after she does so.

Anyway, I don't think she's going away. I also anticipate her becoming Blake's familiar or something along those lines... Blake/Rose OTP

 

I'm curious to how Barbatorem may react to meeting Blake, him being an heir and not an heiress. It's possible he may not recognize him and be hostile.

 

I agree that the demon is probably the shears. the internal circle that was severed may be an illusion much like the shears.

 

You know, with the notable exception of Harry Potter, I've never from gotten much into fantasy/supernatural fiction. This shit has gotten me hooked by the testes and it only just started three weeks ago. What have I been missing?

 

I found this story much easier to get into than Worm, and it's got a lot of elements of fiction that I love.
That said, I disliked the direction he took Worm, and I can't stand the is she/isn't she 'suspense' of Rose's character. Also, if I what I gathered from the first chapter is correct, why doesn't Blake seem to harbor any hostility towards the townspeople? From what I understand, they were outright bastards to him growing up and they've only gotten worse, but Blake doesn't even acknowledge it in passing after the brief mention in 1.1. I think that's my second biggest problem with this story, how passive Blake seems in regards to all this. You'd think a cornered guy would go for a metaphorical gun instead of a wiffle bat.
It's too early to tell if this will be better or worse than Worm, but for now I'll probably keep up with it.

 

What? As of now, the townspeople being jerks is not close to being as immediate as the existential problems he currently faces. Aside from the need to get groceries/food, the vanilla people aren't really a pressing concern when you've got mmonstrous creatures literally on your doorstep.

Also, the books are metaphorical nukes, not guns or wiffle bats. There seems to be a substantial difference there.

 

Laird all but told Blake he was doomed in every scenario were he didn't use the nukes: Either other Others manage to kill him, or Lairds faction establishes dominance again, destroys the line, buries the nukes and kills him. If he's doomed for sure when he doesn't use them, it's an obvious choice to use the nukes. Hence why I think Laird lied, his explanation leads directly to a choice he is supposedly against.

Maybe as 'just Blake', most people he met on the street didn't really know he was a member of that family, now that he has to live in the house it's kind of obvious.

 

I think that Blake, if anything, probably empathizes with the townspeople. He's fully aware of how utterly shit his family can be and no doubt wishes he could make it all go away. For now he'll tolerate the townspeople, but I'm betting it'll become a bigger issue later on.

Laird's chain of reasoning also makes one basic assumption, if you're correct. He thinks that Blake can be prompted to use the nukes. Drisful mentioned:

which I disagree with. Blake strikes me as the kind of guy who would sit back, look at his options, then make a decision based on the least number of people who would get hurt. Deploying the nukes would, I'm guessing, cause a lot of collateral damage. Possibly to mortals as well. This last part is especially important. I think Blake would be capable of throwing all of his strength against the supernatural. If bystanders were also at risk though I'm not sure he'd go for it. Or at least not yet anyway.

 

Eh. I find the townspeople's reactions to be entirely cunty, "You're not selling your property? I won't serve you pizza, jerk." Seems a little weird to me. But I still like this a lot, I'm even interested in further family drama, as I'm sure it will be lulzy. We've seen someone speed up time, I can't wait to see what else magic can do.

 

Eh. That kind of treatment is not at all unusual for something like the described situation. The town is apparently relatively small (from the descriptions, I'd hazard a guess it's somewhere in the 40-60,000 people range), and the mansion (and its owner) is basically the only thing keeping the town from industrializing and turning into a boom town (see: Detroit circa 1890). Every year that mansion continues to stand is millions of dollars lost to the city as a whole. Of course people are going to be bitter about it.

It's not exactly fair, but it is very human.

 

I think you have an extra zero in there. Unless 60,000 actually is considered a "small town," which would be odd because that's about the population of the nearest city to me. Granted it's a small city, but it's still a city. The town I went to high school at is what I'd call small, that has about 4,500 people.

Quick question, where's this set? Not the town name, but the state, or the country (I've been assuming the US). I don't know if he said, or if I just forgot reading it.

I don't believe that he would be so rudely refused business like that, no matter what small town BS is going on. Unless it's some Other trick or something I just don't see it happening.

The story's still not really grabbing me. Still think it's too much, too fast. There's lots of book titles and terms thrown around but it doesn't feel like the story's progressed to the point where they should feel familiar.

 

I think it's set in Canada, but I'm not sure what province.

 

It's definitely in Canada. Where, exactly, is still unclear.

 

My gut is telling me it's Northern Ontario/ Quebec.

 

Does it bother anyone else that this sort of reads like it's being narrated by Brad Pitt?
Blake is either the most unobservant person of all time, or he's seriously afflicted with prosopagnosia.

 

I think that's more of a byproduct of Wildbow's writing actually. He typically identifies character with minimal physical descriptors. In Worm it was mitigated by the unique costumes, which is not so much the case here.

 

The description of Blake's Wizard eyes was pretty sweet. I guess those dust mote things are Others on the same scale as what Laird used to keep their conversation at the diner private?

Also, Barbatorem is terrifying. Wildbow is pretty good with his allocation of unique abilities as well as visceral imagery.