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

[ Hmmm. Not sure if the oddest thing Stede's seen since people started coming down with awful afflictions, but definitely up there. Or, he supposes, if this fella's been afflicted with becoming a ghost, the long and short of it is that he's just afflicted with "being dead." Assuming he's really there at all.

Can't get caught up in all that, though. God. Ghostly until proven hallucination.

There's more boring places to get stuck having to haunt, he thinks.

He just kinda stands next to John for a few seconds, also looking down at the food, letting him get the thought out. ]

Well. [ Because obviously he has an opinion and that opinion has been sought. ] I feel like, worst case scenario if you're hungry enough to try, you just can't pick anything up to start with. So it probably doesn't hurt to feel out your boundaries.

[ Maybe he'll pick it up and it'll just fall through his hand to the ground at some point. Anything is possible, so, SHRUG??? ]

And if it helps, I'm absolutely not staying put if I see a digestive system turn up. I'll give you a distraction by very loudly going towards anything else in the building.

That's true, but...

[Horrifying that he's losing the ability to touch things and y'know, have any impact on the world at all but it's a good point. He tries not to think about it too much because he knows he's gonna have to worry about it in a big way sooner or later. It's much easier to just complain and joke about it to cope.]

Well, if we're going by ghostly rules here, you might not see an actual digestive system, just, like, the food slowly going down a tube and getting all mushed up and--

[You know what, maybe he should...]

Then again, won't most of it get absorbed except for the...

Huh. Well that sounds disgusting either way, doesn't it.

[ What a time to be alive. What a conversation to be having.

Sort of like, scientifically cool. There's probably someone who studies biology who'd love that. ]

Slightly related. Did you really have a set standard on ghostly rules back home?

EVENT #1: SAY CHEESE

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