#frog breeding

To wit, he's trying to make it so that all life in the universe is immortal (somehow without all the problems that would obviously cause?), trying to make computers in that universe run faster, trying to make it so that any planet that plays Sburb will have developed a meteor defense system ahead of time, and so on (he had a really long list, it was all like this).

A lot of his ideas sound kinda good to me, but our Space player says that it's not possible to just make changes like that, and that any fuck-ups would be catastrophic.

But our Light player is our only god tier, and none of the rest of us seem even *close* to ascending, so we can't really overpower him, and he's just not willing to listen to the Space player.

Since it's not likely that any frog he makes will be viable anyway, I guess we could just deploy new copies of the breeding equipment, but he took all the stuff the Space player *had* done already. I don't know the details, but the Space player says he'd basically be starting over more-or-less from scratch, and we're not sure we have time before the reckoning- especially since the Space player legit *is* kinda slow and bad at it.

Basically our Light player an overpowered control freak with a god complex who refuses to listen to the one person in the session who actually knows how to do anything with frogs. I mean, what the hell are we supposed to do???

This is pretty bad. Your Space player is absolutely right in that most of what this Mage of Light is trying to pull is genuinely impossible. I have no idea why he thinks he'll be able to dictate the technological progression of a civilization that doesn't even exist yet, just because he's creating the universe the civilization will eventually exist in. And that's putting aside the fact that most people who get into making the Perfect Frog concern themselves more with fixing the bug that forces replays, and not dicking with the game's progression system like he is. If anything that would cause more issues, but he doesn't even seem like he's intentionally trying to break things.

To deliver an armchair diagnosis that isn't just "he's insane", which to be fair he kind of is, I can see a few possibilities here. Light Players deal with probability, mainly in terms of good luck and favoring good outcomes. Normally a fine thing, however this constant fixation on guaranteeing the most favorable outcome can often manifest itself as a desire to force the 100% best possible outcome to come to pass, which leads to perfectionism and short-sightedness. To speak of Classes for a second, Seers sometimes act like this, as do Sages with less mental fortitude than I. However, he's not a Seer or even a Sage, he's a Mage. Cryptical classes are intended to act in bewildering ways in order to reach favorable outcomes, with the passive Mage prancing around like some sugarplum fairy, leaving "triggers" for the other Players to activate without knowing that they lead to positive outcomes.

My initial read of this is a man who, out of fatigue towards playing and replaying SBURB (join the club, buddy), is now taking direct control of the situation, abandoning his role as a Mage and abusing his aspect of Light in order to genetically engineer some sort of utopia. Between his acting like a nutter and the fact that he isn't a Space Player or even a Time Player, this frog venture is doomed to end in failure at worst and mega-cancer at best. This being said, a second possibility did dawn on me as I analyzed this. This might be part of the plan.

If he is a Mage, his role is to interpret mysteries relating to his aspect and "pass it down", so to speak. Taking over Frog Breeding and making the dumbest plans is pretty inscrutable, it's safe to say. I would say "you're weird and disconnected from reality in an unwholesome way" which is basically what Mages are meant to do. So it's possible that this is meant to provoke the other Players into action, and this action will advance his plans and the plans of the session as a whole towards a favorable outcome. I would believe this further if there was a Player whose role aligns with stopping this scheme (like a Protector or Champion), or if his fucking with the Frog-Breeding equipment leaves the Space Player in a more advantageous position once they recover it. If this is the case, then he's still bonkers because in addition to this being very straightforward behavior for a passive class, the crux is acting antagonistic and setting himself up as a "villain" to be taken down. If you do end up killing him, it could very well qualify as Just. My purpose in pointing this out is to say, you should still treat him like he's unstable, but keep in the back of your mind that he might be operating on a level higher than yours.

The nonviolent solution is to stage an intervention, of course. I would advise against the Bard of Space leading, as the Mage of Light seems to have a low opinion of them in general. But the following are threads to hit upon.

We all despise SBURB and its brokenness and its shittiness, but this is essentially trying to fix the game by hacking it. That never turns out well.

If he's still willing to listen to reason, point out that attempting to influence technological development via the Frog is flatly impossible. Liken it to planting a garden and expecting a pumpkin seed to grow and be able to speak. Once you create the Frog, things are "hands off" at that point. AND ALSO THAT CREATING IMMORTAL LIFE IS CLASSIC "hubristic bad guy" STUFF.

Whether or not he can listen to reason, let him know you all are there for him, and while you're willing to help him, he needs to listen to you as well. Basic therapy stuff, really, this might just be a very grand lashing-out.

If you strongly get the impression that this is some kooky Mage scheme, then call him on it and point out the self-sacrificial bullshit nature of acting so antagonistic. This might end things instantly if the "mystery" gets solved.

Mages are anti-explaining, so don't at any point try to make him explain why he's doing what he's doing. It might be worth re-iterating this if he tries to initiate an explanation.

If the nonviolent solution doesn't work, then you might need to try something more forceful. The fact that he's God Tier and you're not does complicate things, but the truth is that he's a Light Player. When you can manipulate luck, direct combat is doomed to fail. Your guns will jam, your swings will hit allies in the face at complete random, etc. I do know that Light-based luck manipulation doesn't generally stop oneself from getting hit in the face with a newspaper, since you don't need to be particularly unlucky for this to happen (and it's not that serious), so follow similar logic. Wrapping him up in a big hug is corny and awkward, but as long as you don't turn it into a suplex or whatever, this gives you room to talk. You could try a smash-and-grab to just take the Frog stuff away from him. In general, be thankful that Light generally lacks offensive capabilities, their main "attack" power is [Flare] and it's very inefficient at what it does. However, the luck manipulation is still strong. If he buffs his luck and starts shooting at random, he's going to score headshots. So if you're going to try and fight him, be tricky, be indirect, don't even "fight" him necessarily, but save it for Plan B if anything.

You are 100% free to ask nontraditional analyses. They're almost preferred. (i have 26 session requests in my inbox you know i'm not getting to all of them, but these, these are interesting) anyway:

They will not properly succeed. They might get a cancerous frog, or it might Just Not Work™ You're not supposed to do that. The space player breeds the frog, and without the space player you won't have a final frog. (The white one) A seer, i would trust to use the space player, technically involve them, but be the one telling them what to do. A prince, no way. Even if they ghost space, they can't replace the true space player.

A cancerous frog can be created by anyone. A healthy frog requires the dna from a white frog that you find in your dreams or something, and then probably send the time player off to collect. If the space player is so far from self actualizing that they might be better off not helping to breed, they're also not completing their quest, not talking to their denizen. A space player like that does not breed a good frog.

(I haven’t abandoned this blog exactly. My access to internet has just been very very limited. I really appreciate the concern though!)

Anyways, it is not actually canon that the Space player must be accompanied when breeding frogs. I believe that the idea that the Space player needs someone else in this role is simply because of the reoccurring images from Homestuck. In reality, I think it is a choice thing, and that Space players value the help of someone who inspires them. The job of breeding a new universe is undeniably stressful on whoever happens to be assigned the job. A little support is likely a choice thing. 

Think about the types of relationships your Knight of Space has. Who inspires them most? Which friend pushes them to their limits so that the Knight can grow? 

Perhaps the session’s Page is a good idea as the Page is one of the more inspiring classes. Or depending on the Time player’s mastery of skills, they could speed up the process, or give helpful insights from future knowledge. 

well, like all Space Players, the Frog Breeding Quest is also their Land Quest

and for everyone, the Land Quest is the mega challenge that shows a person how they are intrinsically valuable and able to do things through the vehicle of their classpect

aka, by achieving goals that need your classpect’s power to succeed, the game is trying to show you that you are awesome and needed and can all do all these great and powerful or niche things that nobody else can

so I imagine while the end Goal for all Space Players is the same = “end up with a viable tadpole frog”

I feel like that’s sort of the same as saying the end goal for a regular Land Quest is the confrontation with the Denizen

how you find all the frogs, how you wake up your denizen, both of these things I think are more important when you get into individual players and space players yknow?

The actual Journey of your quest to do the thing, how you go about doing it, is much much much more personalized

and then in the Space player’s case, it’s almost as if the Space player being needed in session is a given from the start, it’s a very impersonal sort of “need”

therefore the way they breed their frog I feel should tie in much stronger to their Class instead, put a larger focus on the methods they would naturally use to show them that their class (and by extension themselves personally not just any old Space Player around) is also personally and internally valuable and capable of doings things and needed in a more personal way

so yeah, to break it down here’s how I would think each Function Pair would probably go about

Creation: Their frogs need obvious additions of needed parts, they start with some big things obviously missing, even if they start with existing frogs at all, and not just separate frog parts. and try to add what they think is needed in order for it to grow. Possible ways to fail include adding unnecessary things like cancer.

Destruction: Their frogs start out with a lot of obvious defects, lots of unnecessary extras, and they need to try to get rid of things that make the frog unhealthy. Possible ways to fail is the removal of necessary parts like legs or organs, up to destruction of the tadpole entirely

Manipulation: Their frog starts out not as one frog, but as a bunch of unrelated frogs with varying neutral traits and states (like skin color, leg length, croak volume etc) they have to find the right sequence of neutral traits (red skin, short legs, high pitch and etc) changing things up like the order in which they appear of what kind per frog in order to make the correct frog

Understanding: They probably have to do things from the ground up, researching and understanding optimal frog traits through observation or just plain research in books, things like “this exact length of length gives them optimal jumping distance and height, not too long or short” or “this tone of voice resonates clearest” or “skin translucency at optimal thinness to allow water absorption but not organs falling out” a lot of more nitpicky millimeter adjustments tend to happen in this camp I’d think, but only because their seems to be less room for error in their own eyes, definitely much more involved in the Platonic Idea of Frog

Relocation: Relocation focuses on movement, either inwards or outwards, and this is one where I can see “the near perfect couple of frogs already exist somewhere, you just have to find them and catch them” is a possibility that could happen. With the catch that the frogs are trying to avoid you, and they’re very good at it, they can outspeed you or out teleport you or etc and maybe your only interaction really with the breeding mechanics is when you finally catch two such near perfect frogs and ecto out a tadpole from them at the end. I can definitely see how much time you spend finding frogs to breed versus breeding frogs that you find being variable between the functions

Application: Application focuses on function itself, the idea of using what you got for the purpose in which it’s meant to be used, very creative/intuitive and very jack of all trades-y, that’s selling it a bit short, but I do honestly kind of see it as Application being able to use whatever they have at their disposal in order to accomplish their task. Equally as likely to try bits and pieces of every previous method, as they are to invent an entirely new method all their own in order to end up with the right frog at the end. Their method may just simply be that “their is no set method, do it however you can with whatever you got godspeed” they definitely Life-Hack their frog in some way, and end up with maybe the most unusual sorts of frogs as a result.

Not vague at all and ily (sorry, i didn’t actually draw the planet)

So you’ve got one more Player than I anticipated, but still in hot water. Luckily, a Seer of Light might be just what you need. Probability and Luck is what Light is about, and you’ll need that for Frog Breeding with no Time Player.

Frog Breeding is about causing Paradoxes and capturing Frogs. Without the ability to time travel, you’re in hot water because the “standard” method is appearifying a bunch of Frogs as Paradox Slime, and then going back and capturing them so when you appearify them later (which you already did), they actually come out as Paradox Slime and not just regular Frogs. However, there’s bound to be a Sendificator somewhere in the Medium, or possibly a Transmaterializer. I’d suggest checking the big science lab on the meteor in the Veil, before scouring your Lands, and if that doesn’t work then maybe the Dream Moons or even a battleship on the Battlefield.

If you do get your grubby mitts on one, then you can use the Appearifier to get all the Frog slime, then use the Sendificator to send some of your teammates back in time (probably the Page of Space and the Seer of Light, although your or Hopeknight can replace the Seer) to capture the Frogs for Paradox purposes. Once you’re done, then you can use the Appearifier (someone is going to have to stand by the Appearifier and wait for the signal, or at least tool your chat client for communication across the timeline) to pluck your buddy out from the past. A Transmaterializer will work even better because it functions as both an Appearifier and a Sendificator, but those usually cost Uranium to use. Then again, damn near everything uses Uranium. If you’re not swimming in that stuff, I don’t know what to tell you.

With a Space Player on-duty (Space Players always get Frog-Breeding Duty, no exception) and a Seer of Light using their mystic woo-woo powers to map out where all the Frogs will be, you should have a pretty good chance of breeding the Genesis Frog. Having Echidna there helps too, she could give more direct assistance than I could (for a price of course). But definitely be diligent with your Frog Breeding. If you so much as miss one Frog then you’re just pumping cancer, mutation, and more horrible bugs out into the multiverse.

it’s less the powers and more the players- are they argumentative? Contrarian? Honestly if you have two time players you’ll probably need both of them, but it isn’t a bad idea to hold off breeding if they can’t all work well as a team just yet. But if they’re cooperative, Classpect should not be a factor in terms of how smoothly the breeding will go. You should be just fine, no matter the powers involved!

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