when push comes to shove, this is Doctor Who, basically

That one Romanov apologist audio really grinds my gears, let me tell you

If ever were I to become a famous author, I’d jot down every work I was influenced by, either consciously or, as is common when thinking on one’s own work and one’s favorite fiction, subconsciously. And I’d share the list. Of course I would. And I’d tell others to do the same.

This is why I find creators like Toby Fox compelling. Inspirations firmly on sleeve, and unafraid to admit that whole plot points of Deltarune will parallel Mother 3. This sort of thing has long been the rule. The past few centuries? Exceptions.

Frankly, there are big stretches of history where it would have been stranger to write non-derivative works. Or at least works that don’t explicitly try to parallel and reference earlier ones, as even the original works of, say, Shakespeare make heavy reference to just about everything ever.

At any rate, this creates this idea of originality to the point of ex nihilo creation being the only truly valid way to create. Of course, any actual writer will understand that this is silly, but lesser versions of this extreme permeate our society ubiquitously.

It can all ultimately be boiled down to a materio-economic matter which is superstructurally enforced. Of course, fanfic writers, like most writers, are often petty bourgeois themselves by their nature as artists. Not exclusively, but often. So it isn’t all black and white. Still, notable.

There is no argument under the sun against derivative works that cannot eventually be boiled down to “copyright is good” and/or “I personally dislike this and will project that by pathologizing you,” the latter of which is usually a consequence of the former mindset anyway.

I certainly don’t think the Enemy is some grand revolutionary vanguard. But I do think this says a LOT about the Time Lords in this scenario

This is a very Time Lord view to have. Makes sense if you’re the one who shaped the world in the first place to call it the best, I think.

“the best of all possible worlds” as a phrase is rather telling, I think. It’s a notion from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz which claims that the current world is the best possible outcome. Almost an End of History, if you will.

The idea that the Enemy proper, rather than just the rank and file, is “a different experience of what it means to be” is perhaps most telling. If the Enemy is not just a wartime force but a revolutionary one, all revolutionary philosophies see themselves that way, some even being right.

Particularly, the notion that the Enemy is some kind of dissatisfied upstart that can’t accept things as they are. That’s how people strawman revolutionaries. The simple answer to this kinda hodgepodge analysis of them is that the narrator is unreliable. Which they are, of course, being of Gallifrey

This is why the identity of the Enemy can literally change. Because the primary contradiction in a scenario can change.

Purely on a philosophical level, it’s now basically a useless term. All it means is “not a modern right winger,” and even then, it barely even means that given the rightward trend of mainstream liberal parties in the first world.