Missed the Saturday Dance - 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]

[more here about text vs graphics]

References

1. ↑ cathexys: "yes, this is entirely new, a multimedia installation"
2. ↑ Flesh Mechanic
3. ↑ zoetrope: New Fic: Missed the Saturday Dance 17th October 2006, , accessed 15th October, 2008
4. ↑ Open Doors and otw_news announcement, accessed October 10, 2008.
5. ↑ | del.icio.us: People have saved this 208 times, and 131 wrote notes.
6. ↑ astolat: holy shit
7. ↑ cesperanza: sga rec
8. ↑ cesperanza: More thoughts on Missed the Saturday Dance
9. ↑ laurashapiro: So not tooting my own horn here, but...
10. ↑ cathexys: "It really is about exploiting and exploding and challenging the texhnological tools"
11. ↑ RatCreature. accessibility... Posted on 18 October 2006. (Accessed 2 November 2008).