I decided to re-read the Airplane Extras and make notes/analyse as I go but I only have it as paperbacks, so I'm going to have to type up every line of note by hand. Joy.

Let's go.

PART 1:

First thing: he's a "somewhat well-known author of stallion novels" - and yet he's also "a legend only to be glimpsed, not obtained, a myth one could search for endlessly but only meet by chance" to other authors. (V4, P139) This implies that either isn't willing to chat with other authors - not engaging with the writing community, or not really social online in general. Which, at 10k words a day every day for 3 years (V4, P139) makes sense. The dude has no free time.

Next, despite the fanon: most people have a positive reception to the novel "It's indisputably a popcorn novel! But what a satsfying read!" (V4, P139), meaning that it's probably not as bad as Cucumber bro makes it sound. Which makes sense: SVSSS is from the perspective of a rabid hater. Cucumber's basically one of those people leaving serious critiques on Sharknado and wondering why the hell anyone likes it. It's definitely not good, don't get me wrong, Airplane describes the integrity of his plots being fed to the dogs as the defining characteristic of his style (V4, P139) but we do need to peel back the Shen Yuan POV glasses somewhat. If the quote had been that everyone was reading it watching a trainwreck style then Yuan's description could have been taken at face value, but with the knowledge that outside of our unreliable main narrator most people enjoy the book, we have to reconsider how bad it actually was. We're looking more at a Xianxia Twilight - [popular, yet known for being bad] than a Xianxia Lightlark [hyped but DOA for most of the people who were hyped when they had the chance to actually read it]. (Which isn't to say either is good, just that on a gradient scale of badness PIDW is clearly not as rock-bottom as Cucumber-bro thinks. Like, it's bad but it's not popular Tiktok book trends bad.)

Wow, we've done a whole page! This ...is gonna need one of those divider thingies.

On to the second page!

Keep reading

Airplane Extras Analysis Pt2 (part a)

Part 1

Direct quotes will be in purple because I have to type them up by hand (there are some downsides to physical books).

Ok, now the more fun stuff.

"Internally, he waved a thousand middle fingers... ...but when he turned around he wore a flowery smile." (p149) Airplane being fake with people in person from the get go.

"The older-than-average outer disciple Shang Qinghua, who currently occupied a seventeen-year-old-body" (p149) Multiple points of interest here:

• most outer disciples in at least An Ding if not CQMS are younger than 17 - however it's an average, so 17 is probably not egregiously old.
• He's calling himself both Great Master Airplane and Shang Qinghua which could mean he holds no attachment to the cuurent given name of his body or that he really does have the same given and courtsy names or that in his first life he was called Qinghua. Anyway, he still thinks of himself as his penname.
• He probably doesn't feel that attached to his cuuent identity, since he's describing himself as in a body of an age rather than that age again.

"who were unloading goods from the ship onto the dock." (p149) Interestingly, I never see these docks remembered when people do fic rewrites of this scene, yet after a few more pages of Airplane's internal waffle, we will meet a badly injured Mobei-Jun. Could the ice king have been heading for a large source of water?

"Indeed, "Great Master" Airplane could now be referred to as Shang Qinghua." (p150) This is really interesting, because it reinforces the idea that he does not consider himself to actually be Shang Qinghua. After all, as this is from an extra of a transmigration novel that was already finished, there is no need for MXTX to make it extra clear what has happened. The readers know, ergo this is how Airplane thinks of himself. This also maks narrative sense, as Airplane is a narrative foil to Cucumber: the main narrator falls into the stanard behaviour of a transmigration character and immediately divests himself of his prior identity - becoming the character - while moving through the narrative with absolute confidence that he knows exactly what is going to happen and only the changes he makes will alter that. As his narrative foil, we see Airplane retaining his identity and sense of self after SEVENTEEN YEARS as Shang not-yet-Qinghua. As we will see later (p156), Airplane knows he is neither in control of the narrative nor knos everything - despite having more reason, as the writer, to believe he knows everything about what he wrote than a fan would. Which is to say, while the plot of SVSSS reveals to Shen Yuan that he doesn't know shit and that the characters are actual full people pretty much in the climax, Airplane bro has gone through his second life with a much more realistic understanding of his limits and place in the world. But we'll come back to that.

"That wretched reprobate... ...that treacherous spy who toiled assiduously for Mobei-Jun all his life, only to be thrown aside by his coldhearted and unfeeling boss as soon as he lived out his use." (p150) Ok, a lot to unpack here.

• It's unclear whether the wretched and reprobate are correct descriptors of Shang Qinghua in the novel, or whether Airplane - now that he is doomed to play that role - views the character as miserable and unprincipled/depraved. I would wager that it's wretched as in Airplane is unhappy and reprobate as in the character was canonically amoral, but that is still a guess.
• Shang Qinghua was canonically a tirelessly duituful spy - he "toiled assiduously" - which leands significant credence to the fan interpretation of him as, like Airplane, genuinely loyal to Mobei-Jun as opposed to playing all teams as much as he could. The treacherous in this case probably ties to the fact that he's a mole in the organisation he's supposed to be working for, not because he'd backstab Mobei if given the chance. Of course, all of this must be read through the lense of Airplane viewing himself as a separate person yet currently having great sympathy for the man whose life he is forced to live. This is evidenced by:
• The description of Mobei-Jun as coldhearted and unfeeling. We know from the outside perspective that this is untrue, Mobei has a lot of feelings and he's spent a lot of time trying to punch Airplane into acknowledging them, and as the author who created Mobei as his favourite, it's impossible for Airplane to not also know this. Knowing what your characters are thinking and feeling is critical to being a writer. So this is a case of Airplane feeling bad for himself and re-imagining Mobei-Jun as worse than he actually is.
• Fanon interpretation of what happened to end the life of the OG!Shang Qinghua usually revolves around him betraying Mobei-Jun, but here - in word of internal god - we see that that is not true. Once CQMS was destroyed there was no longer a need for a CQMS spy and so Mobei - wielded by Airplane - eliminated the useless character for the sake of tying up loose ends. This also means that Shang Qinghua was not doing any of the paperwork for the Northern Desert, because then he might still have been useful enough for Mobei as puppeted by Airplane who was working for the fans to keep around as a potential useful reoccuring character.

And this is... getting really long and I'm only two pages in, so it's time for a cut thingy so I don't break everyone's scrolling.

Keep reading