(round and round we go)

Okay, sekrit confession time: sometimes I like H/D fluff. :( It... doesn't happen often, but. :( It's the -cuteness-... it's like... the way I read fluffy shoujo against my WILL. I cringe and groan and yet... there it is-- drawing me in, mesmerizing me. Fluff... fluff is truly evil.

But yeah... there are times when I just have to look at myself sternly and say: Reena, you -have- to start liking more nice people. And, you know, in reality, I have a number of friends I'd say are, um, even -too- nice, you know, so kind and generous and considerate it hurts (though honestly, they tend to have rather killer dark sides, too-- I should know, I look for them). I mean, many people also think -I'm- a Hufflepuff (and yes, you're all wrong, muwahaha, etc).

Anyway, it's less that I don't like lovingkindness in a person and more that I hate any sort of lip-service paid to it, perhaps. So when people -praise- another person's lovingkindness, I get suspicious. It's like, if it were genuine, somehow I feel you wouldn't need to speak of it-- or, I dunno, preach it, maybe. You wouldn't need to isolate it as if it's intrinsically superior to say, oh, -logical thought-; point and coo, so to speak. Like, oh, he's so -sweet-, I wish -I- had a boyfriend like that, waaaah. Bleh. That really puts me off my supper, actually. (Not that the sexualization of cruelty is any more appetizing, really.)
    Though possibly this raises the question of what -doesn't- turn me off (but then, I'm feeling particularly grouchy at the moment.)

Regardless, I suspect I see kindness differently than most-- as in, I don't either worship it like the touchy-feely types would or scoff at it like rationalist types would-- at least, I don't think it has to be the opposite from justice or reason or -truth-. As in, the so-called cold truth. As far as I'm concerned, either you have honesty -and- kindness, or you have neither honesty -nor- kindness.

All of this is to say, I love Lucifer and I'm not about to say, 'even though he's unkind'.
    ( ...Lucifer the comic, that is. )

~~

By the way, seeing this post by kindkit really put a finger on a disturbance I've had for a while-- namely, the equating of slash with m/m subtext itself-- basically, the complete focus on subtext as exciting and satisfying and... -enough-. I guess this whole mindset would only bother one if they saw the fanon pairing of choice as the most 'right' for the characters. If one, in fact, believes that Kirk and Spock or Harry & Draco or what have you -should- be together, then any storyline where they never -could- be becomes... well, unsatisfactory, doesn't it.

Just as kindkit said, the problem becomes "subtext being treated as though it's a perfectly acceptable substitute for text".

( ...I guess I do have an ideal way for how subtext should be used. )