Missed the Saturday Dance
| Fanwork | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title: | Missed the Saturday Dance | |
| Creator: | Zoetrope | |
| Date(s): | 17 October 2006 | |
| Medium: | fiction, art, audio, video | |
| Fandom: | Stargate Atlantis | |
| External Links: | hosted on Open Doors / Original LJ announcment post | |
| Click here for articles related to this fanwork on Fanlore. | ||
| ||
Missed the Saturday Dance (MtSD) is a McKay/Sheppard World War II AU in Stargate Atlantis fandom, created by Zoetrope. It's told in parallel storylines -- one set during WWII, and one set in present-day.
MtSD can be understood as a multimedia installation[1], in the sense that it consciously or theatrically plays to the viewer in its scene setting, that it is immersive or universe creating. It literalises the AU in a similar way to documentation fic like the popslash story Flesh Mechanic[2]. It's possibly the first fanfic story/piece of fanart to incorporate so many different mediums; it included a video trailer and two audio trailers that set the tone and mood of the whole piece, and a written story that was told partly in images. The video trailer included WWII footage and footage from other roles played by the actors who portray John Sheppard and Rodney McKay; likewise, the audio footage wove together radio broadcasts from WWII with audio from Stargate Atlantis episodes, recontextualizing the show's dialogue.
Zoetrope herself described the piece as fic when she published it.[3]
It was the first fandom-specific project to be preserved by the Open Doors project.[4]
Critical Reception
"It really is about exploiting and exploding and challenging the technological tools" ~Cathexys
MtSD, though massively popular[5], sparked debate. Rec'd on the day it was released [6] by Astolat, it was soon talked about all over LJ SGA fandom. When Speranza rec'd it[7] later that day, some comments expressed dismay at the privileging of visual storytelling over text. In a follow-up post[8] Speranza argued that MtSD, and the technological environment in which it was created, represented a paradigm shift in the way stories could be told in fandom. Some people disagreed, citing audio slash, fancomics, and documentation!fic as earlier multimedia installations [9], but others argued that no previous work had realised its universe so comprehensively[10].
Other fans were concerned about the fact that the multi-media piece was less accessible to fans who use assistive technology to navigate the internet, in particular that the letters were presented as graphics only, with no text alternative.[11]
References
- ↑ cathexys: "yes, this is entirely new, a multimedia installation"
- ↑ Flesh Mechanic
- ↑ zoetrope: New Fic: Missed the Saturday Dance 17th October 2006, , accessed 15th October, 2008
- ↑ Open Doors and otw_news announcement, accessed October 10, 2008.
- ↑ | del.icio.us: People have saved this 208 times, and 131 wrote notes.
- ↑ astolat: holy shit
- ↑ cesperanza: sga rec
- ↑ cesperanza: More thoughts on Missed the Saturday Dance
- ↑ laurashapiro: So not tooting my own horn here, but...
- ↑ cathexys: "It really is about exploiting and exploding and challenging the texhnological tools"
- ↑ RatCreature. accessibility... Posted on 18 October 2006. (Accessed 2 November 2008).
