July 2025 IC Mingle

[folkie]

July 2025 IC Mingle

Introduction

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This IC Mingle is open to all.
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly IC Mingle! Please feel free to post with any characters regardless of whether they joined this month.

All IC Mingles are game canon and work like "mini mini-events". They're a great way to gain new CR and immediately jump into the setting.

IC Mingle threads can be used for spoon spending at any time.

Current players are always encouraged to tag new players on the IC Mingle!

[ Prompt]

Meet Me in My Dreams. ★

Content Warnings: Dreamscape/Dream Logic, Potential Violence, Potential Memory Sharing, Potential Mind/Power/Etc Swap

In most of Folkmore, it's impossible to tell how deep the cracks go, their black void and nature to swallow whatever enters them evading the answer. On Never Fade, an island in the sky, one crack breaks through the bottom of the island. It devours the space it occupies and grows little by little by little. When it reaches a foot wide and crosses a third the island, Lavender declares enough is enough! Whatever Star Children decide for the rest of Folkmore, this threat must be stopped. Lavender sends chickadee spirits in dreams and reality to invite Star Children to join them.

Star Children can ease the process by coming to Never Fade with someone who matters significantly to them. People need to space themselves out on either side of the divide and connect. Star Children with bonds—soul mates, Familiar/Unfamiliar bonds, adoption, etc—are asked to go into the tunnels. They must use their bonds to find each other in a dreamscape, which will thin the void until they can see each other again. Star Children with emotional connections—non-formal bonds—are asked to face each other on the surface. There they will knit the energy of Folkmore together with yarn. They can toss the yarn back and forth to each other or even exchange yarn with someone next to them, to tighten the weave. Lavender goes hazy but walks above the crack on the woven yarn. The void fades until its blackness is gone.

The space remains empty, a chasm across Never Fade. No one will disappear from Folkmore should they fall down it, but if they cannot fly, teleport, or otherwise recover themselves from a fall, it's a long way down to go. Mildly problematic when it traverses so much of the island. Lavender asks for Star Children to come up with ideas for how to solve it. Either, Star Children will fix the problems in the process, or it can generate enough Lore for Lavender to heal the island.

Lavender creates a lucid dreamspace around the crack. The dreamscape allows Star Children to use any of their abilities, native or Role or something completely different, and to physically manifest challenges to build the Lore needed to succeed at this healing. It requires both physical and relational (Lore) elements. The greater the differences between Star Children, the more effective their challenges are at healing Never Fade. Differences include amount of time spent in Folkmore, Roles, regions they live in, worlds they are from, species, etc. The greater the gap(s) between Star Children, the bigger the impact.

The challenges manifest themselves based on the approach pairs of Star Children take to solve the issue. They follow dream logic. Success depends on both material means and emotional success.

• Add material to fill the gap > find common ground. Examples: walk across a rope bridge toward each other, with each slat requiring saying something you have in common; fighting an enemy together with teamwork.
• Pull/push the island together > understand a significant difference. Examples: complete a maze/obstacle course that requires skills of both people; walking through a memory that shows why the other person is the way they are.
• Magically connect the sides > switch places and succeed. Examples: complete a challenge with a power swap, body swap, or Role swap; fight an enemy in a mech where one person controls each side or each set of limbs.

• A crack in Never Fade gets so big, Lavender decides to banish it.
• Lavender invites Star Children to help:
• Star Children with bonds (in-game or from canon) go into the tunnels on opposite sides and focus on their bonds to thin the void.
• Star Children with strong relationships face each other atop the island and toss magical yarn back and forth, weaving it together. Toss it to your neighbors too!
• Once the void is vanished, the empty gap remains. Lavender creates a lucid dreamscape where Star Children can face different challenges based on their solution so close the gap:
• Fill the gap with material > challenges to find common ground.
• Pull/push island together > challenges to understand significant differences.
• Magically connect the sides > challenges to switch places and succeed.
• Wildcard (got another idea?) > ask below!
• The effects/impact of successful challenges are bigger, the more differences there are between partners: time in Folkmore, Roles, regions they live in, worlds, species, etc. The challenges are just as hard.

Comments

[ms3meters]

"Haha, well, either way, I guess that makes you unique," Mitsuko says, grinning cheerily. "It's neat. Something I wouldn't threeally expect otherwise." Based on appearances anyway.

"Ohhhh, but you've been to space? Humans haven't invented space travel just yet where I'm from. Was it for fun or business?"

[saisdoesmatter]

"I guess I'm just patient enough in that regard," he says, shrugging lightly, but he's smiling at it. He does love animals a lot - they help calm him down.

The smile wavers a little bit but he shakes his head. "Business, sadly. We had to go into space to figure out how to prevent Earth from getting destroyed. Again."

[ms3meters]

"Ahh... Yes. Unfortunathree, that seems to be the case for most aliens. Space travel is a necessity, usually," Mitsuko said. "But wow. Really? Again? You're heroes of Earth?"

[saisdoesmatter]

He nods at her question about being heroes. "Yeah, kind of comes with the territory. There was always something trying to hurt people back home - my brothers and I fought a lot of things that wanted to take over Earth, or destroy it."

[ms3meters]

"... It makes sense. Earth seems to be a hot spot for aliens, from what I've heard from other universes. But... You must hide because of your appearance and yet you're the heroes of Earth? Sounds like a rough time... Yet you look little worse for wear! You must be some threemendous heroes indeed." Mitsuko is very much not the hero type, her status as a Myth can attest to that! She always was in awe of the selflessness of others.

[saisdoesmatter]

"I figure it must be somehow really important out there in the universe or something, since people seem keen on wanting to take over it or blow it up. Humans got better about our existence when we had to team up with them on the bigger events though. Kind of shows their resilience too, you know?"

He laughs a little. "My brother would love to be known as a hero. I don't really consider myself one honestly. It wasn't easy when we had to hide all the time but it got easier."

[ms3meters]

"Indeed... Where I'm from, humans started being better about aliens once we were revealed to them. They're quite inthreesting people."

She tosses the yarn over again. "Hm? Why don't you class yourself as a hero? You seem like one to me."

[saisdoesmatter]

"Well that's good to know. When my brothers and I first had to show ourselves to people, they got scared. It got better though."

He reaches to catch the ball, pausing when he sees that it knits more of that crevasse together before he considers the question. "Hmm, well, I mean...I guess I just don't? There's a lot of responsibility put on 'heroes' and while like, I get that we've got the power to help and should, sometimes it feels like it's too much?"

[ms3meters]

"And you don't think heroes should feel that way? Feel like it's too much?" Mitsuko asks curiously. "You help others selflessly, even when things get threeicky or tough. That seems pretty heroic to me."

Mitsuko's gaze follows his and she looks at the knitted crevasse. Honestly, they're doing well with the bonding. In Mitsuko's opinion, they only needed to toss it a couple more times and then give the yarn a good pull to finish up here, but she could be wrong.

[saisdoesmatter]

Raphael pauses, listening to her as she asks about the feelings and what constitutes being a hero. He blinks a few times, then scratches his cheek with one hand, holding the ball in the other. "Well... sometimes I don't want to? Like, I'll question why we're doing something to my brothers sometimes - usually because it don't feel right to me. I dunno if you could consider that to be heroic."

He looks the knitting over - it does look to be almost done. At least from his experience with yarn. "I think we're definitely helping this problem though."

[ms3meters]

"Different people have different instincts. If it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right. But what people do is three hundred times more important than what you think. You're still heroic if you do heroic things, even if you don't want to be. ... At least that's what I think." Mitsuko is rather simple in her thinking but she definitely believes it. She's not too committed with trying to convince Raphael though. If he denies it again, she'll drop it and not ask a third time.

She nods. "Mmm... Looks like we are. Hopefully, it will make things a lot safer but, if nothing else, it's rather pretty. Even though we've only been throwing it back and forth, the yarn patterns look so inthreecate."

[saisdoesmatter]

"That's true; I suppose you could call it 'selfish' or whatnot, but like...sometimes the whole 'save the day' thing is mainly my brothers and I'm going along with it. I don't regret doing it though." Raphael shrugs lightly but smiles regardless. He toes the line of being the good boy or the bad boy often.

He hadn't really noticed the patterns before - they were definitely there, as if it wasn't just a toss back and forth, but it makes him focus on it more. "Huh...you're right. That's interesting... usually you need to do different motions with yarn to make those threads go that way."

[ms3meters]

"Lore does interesting things once you connect with someone. I guess this just shows it's working by connecting with each of us," Mitsuko says. She then snickers.

"Or maybe it's because we're just that good we can do that without trying."

[saisdoesmatter]

"Huh. I didn't think about it like that. Actually seeing visual representation of it makes it all the more real," he remarks, then grins when she says that.

"Good point; clearly it's that we're awesome."

[ms3meters]

Mitsuko grins back at him.

"What do you say, Raphael? A toss or three more and we can call it there? We seem to be easily filling this gap up." Probably because common ground between people isn't that hard to find if you truly tried to find it.

[saisdoesmatter]

His grin widens as she deems that only a few tosses should finish up this gap between them. He might not understand this lore stuff all that well, but it's been an easy situation to deal with compared to when he first got here.

"You got yerself a deal, Mitsuko," he says, preparing himself to toss the ball back to her when she's ready for it.

[ms3meters]

She's ready and willing. She cups her hands to catch the yarn, and she smiles as the soft ball lands in there.

"Mmmm... If things weren't so dire, after this I would invite you to try some of my food. I love cooking all sorts of foods and I love watching people enjoy it even more. It's threerific, if I say so myself."

[saisdoesmatter]

The offer of food just makes him chuckle and grin again.

"If you're okay with a rain check after this dire stuff, I'd love to try your food."

[ms3meters]

"Ah, wonderful! What would you like to eat? I specialise in Japanese curry buns, curry and mochi but I can make just about anything. I am a Professor of Culinary Arts after all," She grins as she passes the yarn back.

[saisdoesmatter]

He laughs as her excitement to cook is infectious, reaching and catching the yarn ball easily enough. "I'll try anything once, but do you have a special gyoza?"

[ms3meters]

"Special gyoza? I wouldn't call it special but my gyoza and gyoza soup are pretty threerific, if I do say so myself," Mitsuko grins, her Myth ears wiggling with excitement. "I'll be sure to have a pot ready whenever you happen to come over. I'm usually at Amrita Academy - I have a lovely dorm on campus there."

[saisdoesmatter]

"Yeah! I wasn't sure if you had like, a signature dish or anything--that sounds good though! I knew a guy who made different kinds of gyoza for my brothers and me back home, so I have a soft spot for it."

He wasn't certain where that was - getting the lay of the land was hard without more scouting. "You're going to school there? Wait, they have schools here???"

[ms3meters]

"My signature dish is definitely my curry buns. You can survive off those by just eating them for three months. It's that nutritious~" Although she can't recommend that. Your taste buds sure as hell will get sick of them no matter how delicious they are. "Ah, I'll simpthree make both."

"We have... six... no, seven schools here. I'm surprised you haven't heard of them. Schools are a threemendous part of Folkmore."

[saisdoesmatter]

"Well then I'll have to give them a shot then~"

The mention of so many schools though makes him balk at it. "Really? That many? What--what do they teach?"

[ms3meters]

"Yep! It's far more than what I've known Earth towns to have." She knows one town. "The schools teach different things. The ones I teach at are Amrita Academy, for cooking, and the School of Thoth, for robotics. At those schools you can take any courses for anything related to survival and tech respectively. The other schools teach everything from fighting to magic to the arts to metaphysics."