#spock framework

[xiaq]

The Best Fic I read in 2024:

K'diwa: A Steamy Novel of Interspecies Romance, by Jim Kirk

@branwyn-says

Fandom: Star Trek

Pairing: Kirk/Spock

Rating: Explicit

Words: 103k words

Possibly my favorite fic ever. Hurt/Comfort. Banter. Found family. Frankly no description I give will do it justice. Just. Go read it.

Children Will Look to You [series]

Fandom: Star Trek

Pairing: None—McCoy being a resigned, grumpy, guardian to a bunch of Vulcan kids 

Rating: General

Words: 68k

Fantastically wholesome. A+ characterization all around.

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love 

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Draco/Hermione

Rating: Explicit

Words: 200k

Utterly charming enemies to friends to lovers and some of the best writing I encountered this year.

All That’s Said in the Low Light

Fandom: COD Modern Warfare

Pairing: Soap/Ghost

Rating: Mature

Words: 168k

Holy shit. The recovery hurt/comfort fic to beat them all. I don’t even go here. I’d never played the game, nor had any idea who these characters were, but I read it at the behest of a friend whom I trust implicitly. Then I spent three months afterward absolutely devouring the Soap/Ghost tag trying to find something that lived up to this story and, alas, I could not. Tragic. 

Must Brave the Thorns

@inexplicifics

Fandom: Witcher

Pairing: Lambert/Female OC/Aiden

Rating: Explicit

Words: 240k

Listen. Inex’s Accidental Warlord series has my heart (and was probably my favorite 2023 read) but this Witcher offshoot fic was an equal delight and I adore the OC, Milena, who is dainty and pretty and abhors violence while still kicking ass and taking names.

Twenty-One Rules

Fandom: Stranger Things

Pairing: Eddie/Chrissy

Rating: Teen

Words: 88k

Laugh out loud funny. Fake dating (but is it??), anxious perfectionist girl /awkward infatuated boy, lovely banter.

Robin Buckley's Extremely Normal and Heterosexual Friend Group [series]

Fandom: Stranger Things

Pairing: Steve/Eddie

Rating: Teen

Words: 6.5k

I love an outsider POV and I love Robin Buckley and the author has her internal voice DOWN. 

Layer by Layer, the Framework was Formed [series]

Fandom: Stranger Things

Pairing: Steve/Eddie, but more generally Uncle Wayne getting to be a father figure to to both Steve + Eddie

Rating: General

Words: 14k

I love an outsider POV, I love Uncle Wayne, and I love Wayne getting to parent. Perfection.

And that’s a wrap!

[raisinchallah]

actually i am quite vexed how my popular star trek posts have been used to spin a tale about fandom history on this stupid site unrelated to my works of amateur fandom scholarship and frameworks please do ur fujoshi homework before gazing upon my kirk spock posts

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 2, Wave 2, Poll 7

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

T’Pol-Star Trek Enterprise

Qualifications:

She canonically has an addiction to Trellium-D, as well as a neurological disease that is an allegory for HIV/AIDS within the show. She is interpreted by some fans (including me) as autistic, due to her usage of nasal numbing medicine in order to handle living with humans, her insistence on only eating certain foods, her struggles with her emotions within Vulcan society, etc. What's more, she holds a woman's hand in one of the first episodes of the show! (In Vulcan culture, touching hands is akin to kissing, and this has been established since the 60's). Later, she mind-melds with a woman in order to cure her Space AIDS, and within the thematic framework of the show's AIDS metaphor, mind-melds are allegorically sex. Yeah! She also goes through Pon Farr at one point, a process which only happens to "male" Vulcans, meaning she is semi-canonically transgender.

Propaganda:

T'Pol is the best character in all of Enterprise. She used to be a bounty hunter, and has at least one confirmed kill. She has allegorical gay sex with Spock's grandma in season four. She leaves her position in the Vulcan government to join Starfleet, and then later temporarily joins a commune in the desert to fight corruption. She takes down a full grown Klingon warrior with her bare hands in five seconds flat. Her great-grandmother brought Velcro to Earth. I love her so so so so much.

Submitted by @convenient-plot-device

Andrew Minyard-All for the Game

Qualifications:

He’s gay and has some sort of trauma disorder probably.

Propaganda:

Very gay, pretty commonly thought of to have some sort of trauma disorder, he’s neat. I have many thoughts about him as a character but I don’t really feel like writing them.

[emonydeborah]

Why I love Spock's song

I'm sure someone has made all these points already but I love Spock's song so much so I will make them again

Christine worked on him for two seasons about expressing his feelings, and he ventured out into human experiences and feelings with her guidance. He learned to express himself from her example and at her encouragement. She gave him a blueprint/framework to work off of.

Courtesy of The Naked Time, we know that Spock tries to process/handle his feelings with math. Math is always true and always reliable and obviously it's a very important part of Spock's life as a science officer.

"I'm Ready" and "I'm the X" have the same melody. It's a different tempo and mood, but they have the same framework.

BUT the actual content of "I'm the X" is a math pun (wanted to be kind and call it a metaphor but. it's a pun) and it is how he comprehends what he's going through.

Man is processing his feelings as best he can IN THE CONTEXT OF WHAT CHRISTINE TAUGHT HIM.

At least that's how I interpreted it and I hope I'm right. It had to have been at least partially on purpose and kudos to whichever screen/songwriter came up with it. I love it so much.

[cybercultnzicd]

Chaos magick had swung as far the one direction as it could and the pendulum stopped. That’s when the ‘chaos scene’ had reached beyond its function in its openness. Optimization of systems had boiled over into “anything goes”. I think that the practitioners who remained started looking back to the existing traditions and getting better results- thus the pendulum changes direction. There is a renewed interest in Chaos and it remains results based, but there is the understanding that while everything is connected, that doesn’t mean that everything is the same thing. Having seen that working with Hecate or Paimon is more effective than Mr. Spock and Naruto, Chaos is back but with a different (more Neo-pagan/animistic?) flavor- plus with existing frameworks it’s easier to do a spell we don’t have to build from scratch. Also the West was relatively stable in the 90’s. It wasn’t the ‘Blade Runner Future’ we thought we’d get. The edge lords are landlords, the Goetic dude you met at Barnes and Noble and the card divination bird from Waterstones have jobs and mortgages now. Who needs magick when you make six figures? Now things are getting a bit hinky in the West and when there’s unrest, out of the smoke steps the magician- with hopefully a well developed tool kit to navigate the coming wasteland we thought we’d already have.

[itsactuallycorrine]

Buddie is so Kirk/Spock coded it makes me physically unwell when I really think about it

It’s like they studied the framework for one of the most enduring and beloved slash ships and just built from there, and it worked

[stillarobyn]

I understand the intention behind this post and I don't disagree with it. I don't.

If you're writing a period piece or something with a certain dark tone, then yes, you absolutely want to keep to that, give your gruff sailor a mumbled line about not being like most other men, or your scattered workaholic scientist can say she never felt like she was missing out on anything by not having a partner while they save the world.

But do not limit the reach of fanfiction by expecting it to be held to the same standards.

Because we need both. Because the target audience for a lot of works that employ this are young, they're disconnected from community, and they're lost. They think they're broken or they don't fit or they are made wrong.

I, a millennial, didn't know about bisexuality until I read about it in fanfic somewhere around 2003 (I was 13). I didn't know any out gay or queer people growing up. It was still scandalous on tv, and my parents didn't have any problem with it, they just didn't talk about it. I can't imagine how isolating it would have felt if my parents prevented me from watching anything with gay characters or spoke negatively about them.

My first discovery of nonbinary identity was in a bandom fic I read in 2010 (I was 20, for those playing the home game). It was maybe two years after that that I began to talk with nonbinary/genderqueer/genderfluid people online. I knew a couple of binary trans people in college, and one in high school, but this was my first time meeting people who weren't a binary gender. In 2012! It took another two years for me, at this point a full-ass adult, to start describing myself that way.

All of this oversharing to say...my understanding of queer identity was not hand-held by anyone in my life, but boy I learned to accept these foreign ideas I saw in myself because I had a safe fictional environment to explore these concepts and terms.

I think it was 2014-2016 when fanfic spaces had a boom of "everyone is trans" AUs and headcanons, and they were often rose-tinted and a bit twee, but that's the point of them. I saw identities I had to look up, and when I asked in follow-up "okay, but what does a person who feels like that look/act like?" it was all crickets, except in fiction, and specifically fanfic.

"But the world is different now, not knowing is no excuse" NOPE. not with anti-lgbtqia legislation passing in the US, or in other hostile countries around the world (I'm from the US, my argument is US-centric based on my experience and knowledge, but by no means exclusionary of people in other countries), or even family situations or rural upbringing or any other circumstance that isolated young queer folk from other queer folk.

A popular live-service video game introduced a nonbinary character and I saw twitch chats full of people who were just confused and uneducated. Ignoring those who were hostile was easy, but the uninformed, especially the non-English-speakers and people who didn't come from Western cultures, were largely open to learning something they never had framework for. Made all the more frustrating in a game environment where the characters didn't make a habit of having these discussions on screen, but that's a different rant.

I don't know if OP intended this in reference to original media, or toward fic, but I saw a lot of established characters in the reblogs so I just want to address that. I'm a characterization first fic reader, so I get it. "Everyone is trans" fics aren't for me, but there's a space needed for them if someone needs to see Captain Kirk and Spock debating the application of terminology of human gender and sexuality in interplanetary cultural settings...now actually I kind of want that fic so I played myself.

Dragon Age Veilguard came under attack for daring to openly and forwardly use the term "nonbinary" in its fantasy world, as though something about the word is inherently incompatible with the fantasy genre? But the game was pretty clear in its goal to create a safe gaming space for marginalized folks when so often their experiences are erased, ignored, tokenized, or stereotyped. The narrative, therefore, had to be hostile to the unaccepting, educational for the ignorant, and validating to the vulnerable. Getting to play in a world where people are referred to as nonbinary (just like me) and where people use they/them pronouns (just like me) and where no one ridicules or attacks them specifically for this? It felt comfortable and safe and the world was ending in the game, but I felt a personal empowerment in my immersion.

More complex and nuanced discussions by characters about their queer identity add to the picture. It shouldn't be in every work because every author has their own angle and their own philosophy about it, but they have just as much a right to a seat at the table. You can have your fics where Tony Stark's sexuality is a smirk and a wink, and you can have your fics where he explains that he used to call himself bisexual but the world is bigger and weirder so he considers himself omnisexual now. And if you don't like that, scroll past it. The author didn't write it for you, but someone else needs to hear that.

Maybe this is just a personal vent that escaped containment, but I feel the need to remind some folks that some people need the LGBT center brochure version because they didn't get one in the mail. It's a tough time for everyone in this community, no need to make it tougher.

he would not fucking say that but it’s he would not fucking talk about his queer identity like he was reading out of a college campus lgbt center brochure

[eimearkuopio]

The real reason Catholicism worships a Trinity is that they want to use the simplest conceptual model possible that avoids the issues of a dictatorship or a two-party system, and at least with a Trinity you can have a rock-paper-scissors model. Unfortunately if you then insist on reducing the Holy Spirit to a silent partner who is responsible for providing you with all sustaining gifts but is completely lacking in identity or individual nature, you've defeated the purpose of your framework AND you may have pissed the Holy Spirit off enough that they are insisting you at least learn the rules of rock-paper-scissors-serpent-Bones, which are very similar to rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock except that when a player chooses Bones and another player chooses scissors they are both out but the Bones player is awarded a moral victory.

[allmyevilplans]

Further thoughts on "Star Trek: Discovery" upon re-watching

I re-watch Star Trek as my... comfort watch, I guess? Cycling through the series every few years, and watching some things with my wife on her first time through.

I've just recently made it all the way around to ST: Discovery for my second time through and a noted a few things while going back through season 1:

1) The first season is a lot better than I remember - BUT, I think a lot of my change in opinion stems from knowing a few of the plot twists that made some of the more uncomfortable 'doesn't feel like Trek' decisions early on more understandable (e.g. Lorca's origins and his tactics/attitudes). A dropped hint to the audience would have probably really helped with this, at least. Also, although it remains The Michael Burnham show, they spend more time with other characters than I remembered. I think what probably stands out to me the most significantly is when they go way out of their way to structure a scene where two characters say 'fucking cool' to point out that "THIS AIN'T YOUR DADDY'S STAR TREK WE'RE BAD BOYS WHO CURSE NOW." It's still uncomfortably violent for Trek and full of change-for-the-sake-of-change (e.g. the backpedaled Klingon redesign, I would argue the Spore Drive, Burnham being Spock's sister for no reason, etc.).

2) I stand by my assessment that ST:D is inherently too narrow and isolating in its plotting and story construction. The USS Discovery is the Only Ship That Can and Michael Burnham is The Only Person Who Can. There's no sense of a broader universe - or characters as more than set dressing - with very few exceptions. The season arcs also tend to be too narrow and too vague at the same time, e.g. the 'red angel' in season two. There's a lot of faffing about and hiding the ball to draw out suspense where the whole season is focused on one overarching mission rather than the traditional episodic but with continuity that Trek typically dealt in. Again, the narrowness feels stifling.

3) At its heart, there was not really way to save ST:D from it's premise. ST: Strange New Worlds is perfect proof that Trek didn't need to throw away the recipe book to be good again, it just needed to engage more modern problems in its parable framework. I think it's worth looking at ST:D as suffering from the same problem most of 'bad Trek' suffers from: becoming fixated on in-universe problems and technobabble elevated above morality tales, allegory, and metaphor to present-day societal issues and concerns or broader elemental morality issues. ST:D more-or-less started out trying to explain the Klingon/Federation hot war that led to the ST:TOS Cold War parable. Which is essentially irrelevant. In the same way, ST: Enterprise was almost entirely built to contrast against ST:TNG, ST:DS9, and ST:VOY by being 'lower tech' and showing lots of 'first meetings' - again, it was reflexively structured to be concerned with separating itself from other Trek by focusing on in-universe issues and fewer analogy/allegory choices. Trek is, by design, a mirror to society; when Trek is bad it forgets this in lieu of navel gazing and nostalgia.

[calvinreadscomics]

Upside Dawn is another collection of excellent short comics by Jason. As usual, Jason's presentation is top notch (read my review of Camino by Jason for more on that). In this collection, the premise is everything, as Jason puts together some of the most left-field genre mash-ups, retellings of classic stories, and style experiments put to print. Jason has always seemed really interested in genre fiction, particularly noirs, westerns, and weird science, and that interest is in full force in this collection, joined with more pure sci-fi and, interestingly, takes on classic literature. On one hand, I think the most compelling endorsement I could give this collection is to list the premises of each of its seventeen individual stories. I think that this would remove too much of the pleasure of reading the stories, however, so I'll only list a couple. Its always interesting when Jason plays with story presentation: my favorite example is the story Perec, PI, wherein an investigation thriller is told entirely through wordless panels, each panel with one sentence of first person narration which has had the last couple of words removed in a box at its top. The truncation of the sentences makes the story basically impossible to track outside of broad strokes, and as things intensify in the story, the disconnect leads to a strange hollow anxiety in the reader. Like many of the stories, this one is the result of a direct mash up of two preexisting stories, story conventions, or otherwise conventional frameworks, but like many of the stories, this was only revealed to me on researching the name Perec, which was not familiar to me. The craft of the stories are such that recognizing their assorted elements only leads to greater enjoyment and is not generally necessary to feel one has got something away from the story. One story that I got great enjoyment from was The Prisoner in the Castle, a combination of the older British tv show The Prisoner, which is only familiar to me through my partners interests, and the Kafka story the Castle. Not familiar with that specific Kafka story, I still delighted in the familiar story of The Prisoner being presented in a Kafkaesque manner. I will also mention a fairly straight forward retelling of Crime and Punishment but with somewhat the format of a true crime story, with interviews with various characters interspersing the various events of the classic and The City of Light, Forever, in which Spock from the Star Ship Enterprise, beams into Paris in 1925 to take on the identity of a Japanese painter, as further representation of the myriad sources Jason draws on to make these shorts. Not every comic is so explicitly referential, with comics like Vampiros Dyslexicos (as far as I know...) drawing on genre conventions rather than individual stories or characters. I'm struggling to wrap this up, as I want very much to give each comic it's time, as I think very much that each is worth a certain amount of time, but I will do so for my own good and for the good of anyone who happens to read this. I think concluding thoughts, if I could complain, it would be to say that Upside Dawn isn't exactly more than a sum of its parts and all these stories, for all that they're connected in broad referential format, could be in a different collection more or less the same as this one. I find this collection incredibly playful and inventive, but deliberately unoriginal in some way; I wouldn't want every Jason collection to have this format, certainly. Still, Jason continues to prove himself one of the most adept and interesting comic artists today, and I can't wait to read whatever he comes out with next.

4/5

[gamebird]

I used to think Spock was so super cool until I realized logic wasn't a philosophy. It was just a framework. It was like the scientific method - a system of arriving at a conclusion, that might be totally bonkers if that's the problem you set it to.

"Rationalism" is up there with "Objectivism" in terms of "definitionally funny things to call your own belief system".

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 4, Poll 15

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Dezi-The Sunbearer Trials

Qualifications:

He’s Deaf and pansexual.

Propaganda:

Man I love him so much, having deaf queer representation in books is always something I really like, and he’s really neat. He’s the son of Amor who is the Diosa (sorta like a goddess) of love which comes with some fun powers. He’s one of my favorite characters in the book even though he doesn’t show up as much as some characters. Also the second book is coming out in September so that’s exciting.

T’Pol-Star Trek Enterprise

Qualifications:

She canonically has an addiction to Trellium-D, as well as a neurological disease that is an allegory for HIV/AIDS within the show. She is interpreted by some fans (including me) as autistic, due to her usage of nasal numbing medicine in order to handle living with humans, her insistence on only eating certain foods, her struggles with her emotions within Vulcan society, etc. What's more, she holds a woman's hand in one of the first episodes of the show! (In Vulcan culture, touching hands is akin to kissing, and this has been established since the 60's). Later, she mind-melds with a woman in order to cure her Space AIDS, and within the thematic framework of the show's AIDS metaphor, mind-melds are allegorically sex. Yeah! She also goes through Pon Farr at one point, a process which only happens to "male" Vulcans, meaning she is semi-canonically transgender.

Propaganda:

T'Pol is the best character in all of Enterprise. She used to be a bounty hunter, and has at least one confirmed kill. She has allegorical gay sex with Spock's grandma in season four. She leaves her position in the Vulcan government to join Starfleet, and then later temporarily joins a commune in the desert to fight corruption. She takes down a full grown Klingon warrior with her bare hands in five seconds flat. Her great-grandmother brought Velcro to Earth. I love her so so so so much.

Submitted by @convenient-plot-device

[mrkakashi22]

Too much work these days , too hectic too much expectations going on After sometime I have tried new learning, java spock framework interesting #spockframework

[mandysings24by7]

Trust: The Cornerstone of Humanity's Progress

Quotes about Trust...

"Trust is the glue of life; it's the most essential ingredient in effective communication." - Stephen R. Covey

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." - Benjamin Spock

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved." - George MacDonald

"Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved." - Wm. Paul Young

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"Trust is built when no one is looking." - Seth Godin

"Trust is the key to the heart." - Muhammad Ali

Introduction

Trust is a word that carries immense weight, significance, and value in the tapestry of human existence. It is a concept that transcends boundaries, cultures, and languages, weaving itself into the very fabric of our lives. Trust is not merely a word; it is a force, a foundation upon which relationships, societies, and civilizations are built. In this exploration of trust, we will delve into its profound meaning, its overarching significance, its transformative positive effects on humanity and the world, and the ways in which trust can be nurtured to create a brighter, more beautiful world.

The Essence of Trust

At its core, trust is the unwavering belief or confidence in the reliability, integrity, and honesty of someone or something. It is the assurance that when one extends their hand, it will be met with warmth and not treachery. Trust exists on a spectrum, from personal trust in individuals to broader trust in institutions, governments, and even the fundamental systems that underpin our society. Trust can be fragile, easily broken, and yet, when nurtured and preserved, it forms the bedrock of harmonious human relationships and thriving societies.

The Significance of Trust

Trust is not a mere nicety in our interactions; it is a cornerstone of progress and prosperity. Imagine a world where trust is absent, where every promise is empty, every word spoken is a lie, and every action is driven by self-interest. Chaos would reign, cooperation would crumble, and society would regress into a state of perpetual conflict.

Trust serves as the lubricant that allows the gears of human interaction to turn smoothly. It fosters cooperation, enabling individuals to come together to achieve common goals. Trust enables trade and commerce, underpinning economic systems that benefit entire nations. It facilitates the establishment of laws and governments, providing the framework for peaceful coexistence. Simply put, trust is the glue that holds societies together.

Trust's Positive Impact on Humanity

The positive effects of trust ripple through humanity, transcending borders and languages. It is the trust between parents and children that nurtures love and growth. It is the trust between friends that allows bonds to deepen and flourish. It is the trust between nations that fosters diplomacy and peace.

Power of trust: A Story

Once upon a time, in a small village nestled in the heart of a war-torn region, there lived two young men, Ahmed and Ravi. Ahmed was a Muslim, and Ravi, a Hindu. Their respective communities had been locked in bitter conflict for generations. Despite the animosity around them, Ahmed and Ravi forged an unlikely friendship, founded on trust.*

One day, when violence erupted in their village, Ahmed and Ravi stood together, protecting each other's families and homes. Their unwavering trust in one another served as a beacon of hope in a sea of hatred. Word of their friendship spread, and soon, others began to question the deep-rooted prejudices that had divided them for so long. Ahmed and Ravi's trust in each other sparked a movement of unity and peace that eventually spread across their region, bridging divides and healing wounds.*

Their story serves as a testament to the transformative power of trust, proving that even in the most challenging circumstances, it has the potential to unite people, transcend boundaries, and bring about positive change.*

Real-Life Anecdote

One of the most iconic examples of trust's impact on the world comes from the life of Nelson Mandela. Mandela, the anti-apartheid revolutionary and former President of South Africa, emerged from 27 years of imprisonment with an unwavering commitment to reconciliation and trust-building. He chose to embrace his former oppressors, advocating for forgiveness and unity instead of revenge.

Mandela's decision to extend trust to those who had once been his captors and oppressors set the stage for South Africa's peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy. His actions inspired the world and showcased the extraordinary power of trust to heal wounds, dismantle systemic injustice, and forge a path towards a more equitable society.

Inculcating Trust in Our Lives

To make life more beautiful and the world a better place, we can all take steps to nurture and inculcate trust in our lives. Here are some key pointers:

1. Lead by Example: Trust begins with each individual. Be a person of your word, uphold your promises, and act with integrity in all your interactions.

2. Active Listening: To build trust, we must listen genuinely to others. Understand their perspectives, concerns, and needs. Empathy fosters trust.

3. Transparency: Be open and honest in your communication. Concealing the truth erodes trust, while transparency strengthens it.

4. Forgiveness: Learn to forgive and let go of grudges. Holding onto past grievances hinders the growth of trust.

5. Consistency: Trust is built over time through consistent actions and behaviors. Show reliability in your relationships.

6. Extend Trust: Take the first step in extending trust to others. Trust often begets trust.

7. Resolve Conflicts Peacefully: Conflicts are inevitable, but trust can be maintained by resolving them with respect and understanding.

8. Community Engagement: Get involved in your community and participate in initiatives that promote trust and cooperation among its members.

9. Educate and Advocate: Spread awareness about the importance of trust in society and advocate for trust-building efforts at all levels.

In conclusion, trust is the invisible thread that weaves together the tapestry of our lives and our world. It is the catalyst for progress, the antidote to division, and the key to creating a more beautiful and harmonious future. By understanding its meaning, recognizing its significance, and actively nurturing trust in our lives, we can collectively contribute to a world where trust knows no boundaries, and humanity thrives in unity and cooperation. Trust is not just a word; it is a legacy we can leave for generations to come.

Love and Light 😌💛💚❤️😇🙏

Mandy

[implausiblyjosh]

Building a TTRPG

Fuck it. What if every time I open this word doc i take screenshots and show the world what I'm doing while making a TTRPG.

I'm finally working for real on this Star Trek TTRPG I've been wanting to do forever. I own a copy of the modern official one, but it's just not what I'm looking for. I feel like the design philosophy is focused too much on "numbers," and I wanna focus on "bullshit."1 What I want is to feel like we are making episodes of Star Trek TV at the table, as opposed to filling out the Memory Alpha wiki. There's a focus on numbers and "canon" stats in that game that I simply don't care about, it reminds me of the Dragon Ball Z Anime Adventure Game and how Power Level was a for-real stat in that game. It's a fundamental disagreement on what the designers like about Star Trek and what I like about Star Trek.

With all that said, I really like Powered by the Apocalypse as a framework for this kinda thing. I feel like the way "Moves" work in that framework helps focus on the narrative you're building with your friends, and also the "When this happens, do this thing" approach is really easy for me to wrap my head around.

First thing I wanna think about is who the characters are. At this point I wanna think about this on two vectors: what you do on the ship, and who you are. With Star Trek these are both really easy to map out, especially if you're considering this from the perspective of the TV shows. My current list is split like this:

Position:

Captain

Number One

Science Officer

Security Chief

Chief Engineer

Head of Medical

Communications Specialist

Helmsman

Heritage:

Human

Vulcan

Klingon

Android

Romulan

Mixed

The way I imagine this is that Position is the Playbook, the one-per-table aspect of the character that gives you level-up Moves and the like. Heritage gives you two Moves that are unique to the Heritage, but they aren't limited to one-per-table. Everyone can play Androids, only one person can play Captain. Also, "Mixed" is there so if you want to play someone like Spock, someone who is Human & Vulcan, you can take one Move from both sides of your Heritage.

Next I want to outline what each of these means and what they focus on. For example, Number One says "Second in command, moves provide boosts to the rest of the crew." When I start making Moves, I want to keep that in mind for every Number One Move I create. Similarly, Android says "Constantly exploring what it means to be a person" and I will keep that in mind when making the two Android moves.

One other thing I wanted to notate on this doc real quick before I forget is this idea I've been thinking about, which is "To be [BLANK] is to [BLANK]". I want this to be something that gives XP, similar to the end of session questions with Fellowship. Something I did in my Pokemon TTRPG WIP is have end of session questions where answering yes marks XP on your character sheet, which will help encourage certain types of play. For example, "Did your actions improve someone’s life?" was a question, because that's the kind of Pokemon stories I wanted to encourage. If improving someone's life gives you XP, players should do that more often.

Anyways, I want to start thinking about that now, and I want this aspect to be something defined by the Player. Thinking back to Fellowship, something I love about the Bonds in that game is that you're encouraged to describe your Bond in your own terms. In a game I'm playing I have a one-word bond with one of the other PCs and also some pretty silly ones with NPCs and I'm encouraged to make those Bonds whatever as long as they resonate and help tell the story of the game we've been playing. With the "To be [BLANK] is to [BLANK]" aspect, I want Players to think about what being Vulcan/Android/Romulan/Etc. means for them as a person. Data's idea of being an Android and Lore's idea of being an Android are very different, Pike's idea of being Human is different from Picard's, and Tuvok and Spock have different ideas on what it means to be Vulcan. I want that to help be a driving force to play, and to help mimic the ideas presented in the source material.

There are two more things I want to at least name & outline: the flow of play and starship creation.

Starting with Starship creation, I'm taking another page from Fellowship. In one of the expansions there are rules & mechanics for creating a ship and how every PC gets to choose an aspect of the ship from a big list, and I think it's a pretty fun idea. In a similar vein, while everyone can pick one optional room/add-on/upgrade for the ship, there will be a set of standard rooms/features. For example, The Bridge or Transporters are standard features of starships, but a Holodeck or a Theater are optional and add a Move. I feel like the standard features don't add Moves so much as just let mundane things happen, like the Mess Hall allows for easy and free access to food of your choice, whereas the Hydroponics feature might give you a Move based on using plants or growing things to solve a problem. Additionally, I'd like to tie the features with the HP system, where if the ship gets hit you mark HP lost by disabling a feature of your ship.

For the flow of the game, as stated above I want to mimic the show in terms of this flow. My idea is that you start with The Mission, where the GM explains what the mission of the session(s) is (ex. make first contact with a planet). Then you go to the Officer's Log, where a character basically opens "the show" in-character by explaining what the mission is in their own words, what they're excited about, and how they're preparing for the mission. Then you Complete The Mission, where you play to find out what happens as the GM throws complications at you as The Mission progresses. Finally, you do your Downtime scenes where the Players do any small scenes they'd like with other PCs or NPCs and then your Wrap-Up where you ask your end of session questions, mark XP for every yes, and level up characters if possible.

And with that, I've got the barest of bones on what I want from this TTRPG. I want it to flow similarly to the TV shows, I want it to focus on characters and what they believe about the universe, and I want it to be driven by narrative bullshit over numbers. I think we're on the right path so far!

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1- Speaking of, I made a two-page JJBA TTRPG where "bullshit" was one of the stats. I think stat was some of my best design work.

[inextures]

Spock-Framework: The Logical Choice for Modern Testing

Introduction

We’ll look at Spock, a Groovy testing framework. Mainly, Spock aims to be a more powerful alternative to the traditional JUnit stack, by leveraging Groovy features.

By making use of Groovy, Spock introduces new and expressive ways of testing our Java applications, which simply aren’t possible in ordinary Java code. We’ll explore some of Spock’s high-level concepts during this article, with some practical step-by-step examples.

Prerequisite

You have some knowledge about spring-boot and testing concept like mocking, Stubbing, etc.

Here we learn the Spock framework with the Spring boot application.

To use Spock in spring boot, add the below dependency into pom.xml

<dependency>   <groupId>org.spockframework</groupId>   <artifactId>spock-core</artifactId>   <version>2.3-groovy-4.0</version>   <scope>test</scope> </dependency> <dependency>   <groupId>org.apache.groovy</groupId>   <artifactId>groovy</artifactId>   <version>4.0.4</version> </dependency>

And add a plugin for groovy support

<plugin>   <groupId>org.codehaus.gmavenplus</groupId>   <artifactId>gmavenplus-plugin</artifactId>   <version>1.5</version>   <executions>       <execution>           <goals>               <goal>compile</goal>               <goal>testCompile</goal>           </goals>       </execution>   </executions> </plugin>

Simple test using Spock framework

Make groovy class and extend the specification to it (spock.lang.specification).

For testing we made one simple method.

@SpringBootTest class Test1 extends Specification {    def "Simple Test"(){        expect:            1+1 == 2  } }

Here “def” keyword is used to define method after this you can add method discerption.

Now run the test

Output:

You see Test Case Passed successfully.

Controller Test-Cases

First, create a ‘Hello’ controller

@RestController public class Hello { @GetMapping("/hello") public String greeting (){    return "Hello World! "; } Now for this controller, we are writing test cases using Spock. class HelloTest extends Specification {   @MockBean   def cont = new Hello ()   MockMvc mvc = MockMvcBuilders.standaloneSetup(cont). build()   def "when get is performed then the response has status 200 and content is 'Hello world!'"() {       expect: "Status is 200 and the response is 'Hello world!'"       mvc.perform(MockMvcRequestBuilders.get("/hello"))               .andExpect(status().isOk())               .andReturn()               .response               .contentAsString == "Hello World! "   } } Output:

Keywords:

Expect: This is a way of performing our stimulus and assertion within the same block. Depending on what we find more expressive, we may or may not choose to use this block

When – This is where we provide a stimulus to what is under test. In other words, where we invoke our method under test

Then – This is where the assertions belong. In Spock, these are evaluated as plain Boolean assertions, which will be covered later

Important Tips

1) All the blocks in a Spock based spec are optional. However, if present “when” and “then” should appear together in sequence.

2) If you just need to validate an assertion (and you don’t have a need of when block), you can use “expect” block. It can be used to assert pre-conditions even before when and then blocks (and can be used multiple times in a test).

Important Functions

Here We Have 4 Methods used to define global or redundant code.

/** * Call only one time for all test cases * You can define a spec for static or whole test cases that have the same value * */ def setupSpec() { } /** * Call only once at the end of all test cases * */ def cleanupSpec() { } /** * Call for every test case * It calls for every time before the test case * */ def setup () { } /** * Call for every test case * It calls for every time after test case * */ def cleanup() { }

Originally published by: Spock-Framework