Hmmm. I find this interesting-- if anything, because I have seen so many people using 'slash' to mean both the 'original' & 'fanfic' variety-- in their answers, a lot of people just said, 'it's all slash', which was the root of my problem. I just want a differentiation between the two kinds, because I think it's a rather significant/deep one in terms of both origins and practice.
I still don't think there's that large a difference, but that comes down to how you and I perceive slash. To me, the main difference is that one type of slash is based on an external text created by someone else, whereas the other type is based on an internal text created by the writer of the slash. However, I do agree the difference is enough of one to warrant differentiating terminology. Hence, original slash.
This differentiation of audience is also interesting and new to me. That is to say, it makes sense, but I haven't seen it generally used.
It's not something that seems to come up much in intrafandom interaction, but I've spent a lot of time exploring and discussing "meta-fandom," if you will, and audience is a common factor in such discussions. What a story was intended to accomplish, and whom it was intended to interest, has a fair bit of impact on analysis and criticism, so I'm used to taking it into account.
Because for me, the very act of 'slashing' is different in 'original' and 'fanfic' variety slash. But the unity of audience adds a new axis, definitely. Basically, I can see your point-- and this whole time I wasn't arguing with you, really, just trying to clarify.
The main difference I see in the act is how much is external versus how much is internal, but in my own writing, perusing, and discussion of original slash, I've found that intended audience is key. And I can see why the concept of original slash doesn't quite click for you if you don't take the intended audience into consideration.
The concept of a fannish act that transcends fandom is an interesting one, also, and I believe there is something to that, though what precisely that would be outside of a particular fandom seems hard to pin down.
My fannish career began in the speclit segment of the pro-writing world, and I continue to participate in that arena. Basically, I originally came to fandom as someone who had been fannish for a long time without having a specific fandom (beyond sf/f/h) to which my fannishness was attached. At first, I thought media fandom to be a different beast, with some overlap in terminology and members, but a different structure. I've since found that's not the case, and perhaps it's because there's more overlap than there used to be, so both the speclit world and media fandom have changed shape, but I'm finding more and more parallels between the two. I suspect the separation of the two will continue to blur as more and more fanfic authors realize their plans of writing profic. And I suspect we'll see more co-opting of media fannish terms, just as there have been many speclit terms co-opted by media fandom, to correspond with that growing overlap.
Re: Part 2
I still don't think there's that large a difference, but that comes down to how you and I perceive slash. To me, the main difference is that one type of slash is based on an external text created by someone else, whereas the other type is based on an internal text created by the writer of the slash. However, I do agree the difference is enough of one to warrant differentiating terminology. Hence, original slash.
This differentiation of audience is also interesting and new to me. That is to say, it makes sense, but I haven't seen it generally used.
It's not something that seems to come up much in intrafandom interaction, but I've spent a lot of time exploring and discussing "meta-fandom," if you will, and audience is a common factor in such discussions. What a story was intended to accomplish, and whom it was intended to interest, has a fair bit of impact on analysis and criticism, so I'm used to taking it into account.
Because for me, the very act of 'slashing' is different in 'original' and 'fanfic' variety slash. But the unity of audience adds a new axis, definitely. Basically, I can see your point-- and this whole time I wasn't arguing with you, really, just trying to clarify.
The main difference I see in the act is how much is external versus how much is internal, but in my own writing, perusing, and discussion of original slash, I've found that intended audience is key. And I can see why the concept of original slash doesn't quite click for you if you don't take the intended audience into consideration.
The concept of a fannish act that transcends fandom is an interesting one, also, and I believe there is something to that, though what precisely that would be outside of a particular fandom seems hard to pin down.
My fannish career began in the speclit segment of the pro-writing world, and I continue to participate in that arena. Basically, I originally came to fandom as someone who had been fannish for a long time without having a specific fandom (beyond sf/f/h) to which my fannishness was attached. At first, I thought media fandom to be a different beast, with some overlap in terminology and members, but a different structure. I've since found that's not the case, and perhaps it's because there's more overlap than there used to be, so both the speclit world and media fandom have changed shape, but I'm finding more and more parallels between the two. I suspect the separation of the two will continue to blur as more and more fanfic authors realize their plans of writing profic. And I suspect we'll see more co-opting of media fannish terms, just as there have been many speclit terms co-opted by media fandom, to correspond with that growing overlap.