thoughts on luo bingzu, airplane, and moshang
luo bingzu is a being of absolute despair and loneliness. an omnipotent god in a self-made inescapable abyss. and i have ZERO empathy for him. ancestor-bro, if the pain is too much, either fix it yourself or just self-annihilate like a man. don't delegate your self-actualization to a third party. don't CREATE SEVERAL NEW TIMELINES ABOUT IT. making another person responsible for the happiness of his new self, tossing him away like trash when that new version doesn't please him either? dude, write your OWN book.
like, seriously. LBH is a god who reached through time and space to latch onto airplane, commanded him psychically to write him a better life story for him, got mad when airplane caved instead to the much realer need for money, killed airplane and sent him into that world to make it better from the inside, got mad at airplane again when airplane instead followed his own needs and wants again, gave up on him entirely and just left him there, went to look for a second victim because starting over would've apparently made him break too much of a sweat, killed shen yuan because his appreciation was flattering, almost restarted the world anyway when it looked like that second attempt wouldn't work either, then finally settled down as he got what he wanted. bingzu is an ogre who had to devour entire timelines and countless lives before he was finally happy. bingzu absolutely sucks.
bingzu is also a very interesting representation of inspiration. there was Bingmei, the fandom version of the author's intent. there was Bingge, the bastardized version of the author's intent. we never saw Binghe, the author's intent itself, since the outline never came into existence. and now there is Bingzu, the author's inspiration: this distant formless shadow, this inexpressible idea that gave rise to the intent, who in turn gave rise to the bastardization, who in turn gave rise to the fan version.
it's really no wonder that airplane has such a terrible relationship with all versions of LBH. what use is inspiration to a starving artist? what will save him is marketability! what use is a starving artist to an unrealized idea? what it needs is a fan! because a creative fan does not do it for the money. fan creation is motivated by pure passion (be it positive or negative). LBH was never going to be happy with his author, only ever with a fan.
and so airplane was literally forced into inventing PIDW, then living in it. but even when bingzu/the system tried to force him again from the inside, airplane still wouldn't bow. he had no idea he was resisting an omnipotent god, and he probably still doesn't: in the extras, bingzu/the system accuses him of being passive and defeatist. airplane sees himself as 'subservient', after all: not trying to please people, as he doesn't have any hope they'll like him. just trying to get them not to hurt him too much. he was rejected by his family - by his father - and then he was rejected by god himself. he is a constant disappointment to authority figures because he won't cave in to them, even though he is for all intents and purposes the weepiest coward who ever lived, just hoping the pain will stop. he is a profoundly queer figure: the universe itself bends around him, rules distort around his person. the sheer fact of his continued existence is an affront to order. and so he is berated and hounded and belittled from all sides.
and yet he is not passive at all. he is in fact the least passive character of all, the only one who resists bingzu's intent. he focuses not on LBH, but on mobei-jun, an irrelevant side character who could've died at the start of the story for all bingzu/the system cared. airplane did not create MBJ, but he singled him out. out of this entire universe that was downloaded by god into his brain, airplane chose him. and then airplane went against god's will to save him. mobei-jun was not the point, but airplane decided he was the point until god gave up. the entire universe was calling for him to obey, first as a divine command when he was writing PIDW, then as atonement for his failure when he was transmigrated into it. instead of obeying and atoning, he clung with all he had to the only person who ever accepted him. for all the hardships MBJ visited on him over the course of their relationship, that was their first interaction: my king, please accept me! and MBJ did. MBJ, a character deemed as irrelevant by that same universe, clung back.
