~~ reading for parallel vs. AU slash

I have to remember that there -is- another world sometimes (not "real", just-- "other"), with people in it who're not obsessed with Harry Potter stuff. I feel so deeply wrong saying that, because well-- I'm not obsessed with the -books-, per se. The idea that so many people know me as a person obsessed with this boggles me. It really does. I've spent most of my life a) not caring about slash & Harry Potter; b) disliking HP and anyone who contributes to the hype (that went on for about 3 years). So it's just -really- strange to realize-- hey. I've become one of "them". The people with the funny hats. Those people. Yeah. I see people mention `Sandman' and Tori Amos and photography and fairy tales and the zillion-and-one things I'm into, and well-- no one knows. All that's very clear is that I think about Harry & Draco sittin' in a tree, f-u-c-k-i-n-g, like, 99% of the time, right. (Although it's funny, the sorts of things people would use to define "having a life", alternatively.)

( Myself, I do have other interests besides angsting whether I count as 'a fan' or not. Maybe. )

~~

I was thinking about why I slash (again), especially reading bonibaru's response to Ivy's post about her slashy novel-in-progress, saying that without "het combined with lots of homoerotic subtext, you don't have slash."

I've often thought that I don't "slash", if slashing were defined as focus on subverting the text; gaining satisfaction from an undercurrent, some parallel narrative to the main one I see played being out. I really wonder how that's supposed to work-- if you're supposed to be able to enjoy the story on two levels at once or whether this means you priviledge the "slashy" level (which is a type of meta-level) over the actuality of the events. It seems deeply frustrating to me to be so invested in an aspect of the story that's never going to materialize. It seems to go counter to the source of my joy as the audience-- the sensation of getting lost in this world, identifying with these characters, allowing the author to tell me the tale (rather than the more active process of writing in that universe).

I suppose this is where the separation of reader-as-slasher and writer-as-slasher comes in. As a writer, I'm definitely a slasher, but not so much as a reader/viewer. But by bonibaru's definition, I would say you can't really "slash" as a writer, because whatever you write is what's -there-. The readers can slash or not slash (you never know what people will see in your work), but to you, hopefully you're telling the One True Story. It might be ambiguous and it might be contradictory, but that's how it is, and if you change it, it's not Your Story anymore. So it would seem to be a contradiction in terms to then write a "slashy" original story yourself, even though both Ivy and Maya are apparently doing just that.

( So I guess I'm trying to get at the basis for the idea of `original slash'... )