cursedrp | EVENT #1: SAY CHEESE

SAY CHEESE

The Rundown

Starting on September 8th, all characters will find themselves transported to White Pines Mall. During this time, the mall is closed to the public for renovations and no one suspects a thing! The power is on and everything is mysteriously functioning, but all the doors to the outside world are locked and no amount of pounding on them or trying to break windows will work. About an hour after arrival, an announcement will come over the PA system:

"Attention shoppers! Thank you for visiting White Pines Mall. We're excited to announce a new line of very special cameras available at Cutting Edge Electronics. For one week only, we're offering them for the low, low price of FREE! Present your photo at the front door to exit the mall, and have a wonderful day."

At Cutting Edge electronics, a row of Polaroid cameras will be on display, one for each character. All you have to do to leave the mall is get someone to take your picture with one of these cameras! Easy, right? Well...

The only issue is when the photo develops, there's something wrong with it. And that's not all: whatever's in the photo starts to come true! Effects from the photo can come on as quickly or as slowly as you like, and will wear off within the week (again, player's choice as to when exactly they wear off). If multiple photos of a character are taken, you have two options: have them be normal photos with no effect until the character's current effect wears off, OR have a new effect that replaces the old one. Characters cannot have multiple effects at one time.

Every character in the mall will need to present a photo in order to leave (and they won't be allowed to sneak out or piggyback with someone else). They can leave right away, or they can stay and try to deal with their new problem away from prying eyes until the event is over. The food court is fully stocked and anything your character orders will appear on the counter in front of them even though there are no employees there, so don't worry about starving.

The opt-out options for this event are as follows: one, say that your character was overlooked and not transported to the mall at all. They can continue to hang out in the city as normal but will not be able to enter the mall until the event is over. Two, have them be transported to the mall and end up with a "dud" photo where nothing has changed. It happens sometimes, lucky them!

Everyone will be kicked out at the end of the day on the 12th regardless of whether they took a photo or not. Any damage done to the mall will be repaired when it re-opens for business the next day.

After this event, the cursed camera item will be permanently available to purchase from Cutting Edge Electronics and can be used at any time. Why would you want to buy that? Revenge, maybe. Or maybe some meddling employee accidentally mixed the cursed stock with the regular stock. TL;DR if you want to play with this effect again after the event is over, the item will be there.

Extra Information

The effects of the camera are highly flexible. The effects don't have to be tied in to any specific fear they have, but of course you can use that as inspiration if you would like to. Some examples of effects can include:

Characters appear wounded in their photo, and the wounds start to manifest on them. Even wounds that should be fatal won't actually kill them during this event, but they sure hurt like hell and it may feel like they're dying if they keep progressing.

A character appears faded in their photo, and they gradually become intangible, unable to move anything or even let themselves out without help.

Characters who took a group photo to try and cheat the system find themselves fused together, or that they've swapped bodies.

There's a shadowy figure in the background of the photo, and for the rest of the week the affected character keeps seeing someone - or something - moving in their peripheral vision that feels like it's getting closer and closer.

Any of these effects are fair game but they are just examples, so feel free to make your own! Try and keep with the tone of these prompts and not go too big, some degree of transformation is fine but don't turn your character into a kitten or a three-headed dragon.

Characters can choose to leave right away or stay for a while, but they won't actually be told they'll be let go/kicked out on the 12th regardless.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When has started regretting giving in to the demands and taking a photo - those that stubbornly refused to play ball clearly had the right idea. All the injuries their photo depicted have been happening. Not... truly so? At least, they know they should be far worse off by now if they were real, because all these injuries have been real for Wren in the past. Lost fights against supervillains or wanna-bes, or the far more common pyrrhic victory to win but at what cost? The pain though, shit, the pain is very real.

It's partially luck, really - those silver arrows Alec brings with him really catch the light spectacularly, it's enough of a flash even for barely a moment for Wren to take notice, trained to look for the glint of light off of a gun or a sword or some other weapon. Wren doesn't have their danger sense anymore - but there was a damn reason it took years of them having it for anyone to notice. They've always been good, it was a seamless transition into a supernaturally good level of it.

Ducking away, they feel the air current of the arrow passing close enough to be a miss far too close for comfort.

What. The. Fuck.

Wren's ready to demand answers from Alec, but - okay, they definitely would have noticed all black eyes like that before, and their heart lurches to remember when V - their V, back home, Vivienne - when she briefly lost control to the demon that wanted her.

Clearly, they'll have quite a lot of questions for Alec. Later. Right now, it's important nobody else gets hurt. Which is why Wren grits their teeth against their own volley of magic injuries and just bum rushes Alec to start with, aiming to close the distance to make his bow useless and knock him down if possible. All that height doesn't help much against someone with a lower center of gravity.

The demon had clearly been expecting Wren to run and hide, so it's ill prepared for when they come charging instead. The second arrow it nocked clatters to the ground so he can sweep the bow defensively into the space between them like a buffer. Luckily Alec isn't home right now, or he'd be downright appalled at the treatment of his weapon—and also the extremely ineffective way it's being wielded. The bow goes clattering to the ground shortly after, knocked aside easily due either to the demon's distaste for it (its preference is to be up as close and personal as possible, which is decidedly a clash with Alec's specialty not being hand-to-hand), or the body's fatigue after so many days straight spent awake.

But whatever handicaps the demon is working with, Alec is still highly trained and it has all of his muscle memory (and regular memory) to work with. It crouches to lower the body's center of gravity at least a little bit, accustomed to Izzy coming at him from about a foot below with sharp limbs and sharper heels, and throws its considerable weight forward as soon as they clash like it's hoping to knock Wren to the ground and take advantage of their (admittedly less significant) size difference with grappling.

EVENT #1: SAY CHEESE

['Thriller' by Michael Jackson begins playing]

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