Mock. Mockmockmock. Mockity-mock-mock

11:50am: Some genuine vintage FFVII wank
If you've been in the Final Fantasy VII fandom a long time, you may have heard this story. If not, settle down and I'll tell you the tale of one Ben Lansing, the alleged Squaresoft employee who duped FFVII fans all over the internet into believing that the company intentionally left incomplete the means to resurrect Aeris, the beloved last-of-the-Ancients who dies in a dramatic fashion partway through the game.

Quick disclaimer: A couple of the links are from the FFVII Citadel, which I currently host and have been on the staff of for several years. Though it wasn't directly involved (and neither was I), the Citadel maintains a decent archive of Lansing-related materials; the ones linked here were donated by Tony Destro, who was involved. My intention is not shameless promotion, but to share the history of this kerfluffle, and for that, I needed some of the Citadel's links, which I've done my best to keep to a minimum. Anyway, let's get started.

( A SQLA rep hits the discussion! )

10:29pm: Slash Kirk and Spock Together For Great Social Justice!
As reported by a mousie on wank_report...

...a mousie who wisely notes this eventually devolves into unfunny business. But I'm going to omit those bits. Tra, la, la; pay no attention to the wank behind the curtain. Stick close to me, my pretties.

SEE (Social Equality Effort) is:

[A] pending non-profit organization that advocates the fair and balanced representation of sexual minorities (that being women and LGBT persons) in the mainstream media, specifically focusing on the genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Currently, SEE only has one project: SEE Trek Love.

What is SEE Trek Love? It's a campaign to convince the creators of the new Star Trek to make Ye Olde Grand-Daddy of slash pairings, Kirk/Spock, into a canon relationship. To this end, SEE has a petition for you to sign.

The petition is pimped on a few slash communities, including on LJ's newtrekslash by tinuelena, where the response starts out both civil and quite supportive of the spirit of the petition.

The reaction to the petition itself, however, boils down to:
Why push for Kirk/Spock instead of LGBT in general?
Why split Uhura/Spock when there're plenty of other guys in the series to slash?

envyofthestage thinks s/he sees the logic and attempts to explain: Kirk/Spock is the classic pairing, and besides, the writers only invented Spock/Uhura to discourage the Kirk/Spock slashers.

Oddly, when asked, envyofthestage fails to provide a direct citation to validate that second claim.

However, the OP tinuelena shows up to say: Good golly, Kirk/Spock would be the most prominent choice, but really, we'd be thrilled if the writers included any LGBT romance--even though they're totes using Uhura to discourage Kirk/Spock slashers.

tinuelena also addresses the question of why Kirk/Spock MUST BE, and it boils down to: I don't personally get Spock/Uhura, therefore it doesn't exist. The resulting (rather lovely) thread includes such highlights as darkrosetiger and abydosangel wondering How come, if you say it's OOC for Spock to be dating a student, it's not OOC for him to be screwing his commanding officer?

tinuelena blames everyone else for all the wank, and daniela_lynx again repeats the rumour that The writers are putting the "break" on Kirk/Spock! I totes read it somewhere. Like, recently.

And again, no one can find a link to support this. (Um...have any wankas ever come across this? Now I'm curious.)

yahtzee63 takes things tip-toeing toward unfunny, but tinuelena saves the day (temporarily; no link provided, because things turn ugly right after this) by saying "I didn't come here to discuss ships." When nam_jai points out that, dur, she already has, tinuelena claims that doesn't count, because "obviously it's fruitless to attempt any sort of logical debate here, so I've washed my hands of it."

But, my pretties, read the comments no further than that. Tra, la, la.

Edited to add: SEETrekLove has adjusted their petition to remove the demand for Kirk/Spock. Now, they simply ask for a LGBT pairing in New Trek. Thank you to the_taminator for mentioning the change!