earlgreytea68 | The Chaosverse Book Club: Week Six (Reply)

Chapter Eight of Chaos Theory

There's a sex scene in this chapter, and then there's a fade-to-black in this chapter. I admit I kind of like the fade-to-black better in this particular chapter.

It's a bit remarkable to me to go back and read about baby!Brem and see so much of adult!Brem in him. It's not like, when I originally started writing Brem, I thought I'd still be writing him as old as I've written him these days, so I didn't really stop to think what sort of adult this baby would grow into. But the independent baby who likes to be cuddled, who doesn't say much out of sheer stubbornness, whose opinions are decided and whose affections are fierce--that baby is so much the Brem I've come to know that I am astonished how fully formed he showed up in my head, from the very beginning. He is the only character I've ever written--original or fanfic-wise--who has been so very clear, so very much belonging to himself, from the first time he showed up in my head. The gimmick of Chaos Theory is the idea that it's all Brem's journal--which is not, of course, true, since it starts before his birth--but it makes sense that, in the end, he somehow won himself the naming rights over the story.

Questions for Discussion:

So, future fics about Brem and his father explore in great detail Brem's lost faith in him, Brem's inability to fully trust him the way the girls do, Brem's constant determination to be more of his equal than just his son. (I think, actually, that it might be a huge breakthrough for the two of them, that moment in "Something About Stars" when Brem tells the Time Lords that he's his father's son. I think the talk Brem has with his father after that settles a lot of the Doctor's doubts about the mistakes that he made with Brem. They certainly seem to have an easier relationship after that, and Brem is not afraid to let his father take the lead in "How Fortuna Saved the Universe." But I'm getting ahead of myself.) Anyway, I never really thought about it before, but I wonder if a little of Brem's wariness with his father started way back here. I wonder if Brem started to harden a little bit right here, until the little boy who did what he had to and held the Vortex open. Thoughts?

Chapter Nine of Chaos Theory

Here, in this chapter, is a long paragraph about Brem's hero worship of his father...and how he tries to hide it from his father. I find the fact that I wrote that fascinating. What is it about a year-old baby that would cause him to hide the fact that he adores his father, to pretend indifference and even annoyance? I think partly it might be the suffocating telepathic nature of their relationship at this point, I think Brem might be looking for some air. But I wonder if it isn't one of Brem's most Doctor-y traits in the end, this caution when it comes to his emotions, this terror at the imminent heartbreak that could follow. Sometimes I think Brem might actually feel more than the girls do, in a deeper way than the girls do. It is difficult to imagine Brem being the one born alone, instead of Fortuna, and recovering from that the way Fortuna has. Brem is the only child I still can't envision falling helplessly in love, and I think it's because it will be crashing for him when it happens. He may need nine hundred years to brace himself for it, the way his father did.

And the Doctor is harsh to Brem in this chapter, over the new baby thing. I think it's understandable--I think he overreacts, not able to put himself in the shoes of his very happy child, instead of the shoes of the lonely Time Lord that he remembers being--but it makes me wince as I read it. If the Doctor had any idea what a perfect big brother Brem would turn out to be...

What I love best is Rose's insight into both of them. Rose is the one who sees immediately that Brem and the Doctor are so incredibly alike that they may always be a little bit at odds with each other. And she sees that this early on.

Brem comes around to Athena when he realizes that Athena is basically a companion. He is so much like his father it's absurd.

Questions for Discussion:

I think Brem as a baby is pretty much a smaller version of Brem as an adult but Athena as a baby seems different to me than she is as an adult. Thoughts on that?

Chapter Ten of Chaos Theory

Ah, one of the rare Chaosverse fights occurs this chapter. I actually really love to write arguments, I don't know why I don't do it more often! And I admit I am particularly proud of this argument, because I think it's a very real one, one that starts small and simmers and simmers and is born out of the completely different worldviews of Rose and the Doctor, which seldom come into play but flummox both of them when they do disagree this strongly. It's interesting that it's a fight they never really stop having, because it's the same discussion that opens "College": Brem shoudl go to school and make friends and develop social skills.

Much is made in this chapter of the fact that they've never encountered Weeping Angels. Hmm...

In fixing the Doctor's loneliness, Rose inadvertently makes a lonely life for herself. And I'm not sure it gets better for her, in the huge amount of time that stretches in front of her. They have each other, and a family that keeps growing, and it helps, of course. But Rose has chosen a life where she can never really have friends, and I think the first dawning realization of that happens here. They are better at trying to have friends in the future, because they really both need such things, but a TARDIS life is an essentially lonely life, in the end. It can't really be anything but.

I have no questions for discussion on this chapter! So, questions for me?

Next week: Chapters 11, 12, and 13 of Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space