Character Base

• Character Name: Mike Enslin
• Age: 41
• Canon (Date/Year Released)/Canon Point: 2007. His canon point is post all four endings, plus the ending of the short story. So the answer is: mid film drowning and being trapped in the room's version of Hermosa Beach, thinking he was "out" only to end up here just as the post office illusion starts flooding OR post setting the room on fire in the theatrical release version (where he escapes, but might be on a reset of the room) AND the same version where Lily doesn't hear Katie's voice, but with a fleeting overlap of "I thought I died and reunited with my daughter", "I am an actual spectre who mailed a haunted manuscript" and "I set myself on fire, didn't I?"
• Items Coming Along: suitcase of clothes (an assortment of hawaiian shirts, tees, pants, hats and a wetsuit) ,a pack of cigarettes (the pack in his bag will continue to replenish itself one at a time), a bottle of $800 cognac, a book of matches, bag with ghost hunting equip including Sony mini tape recorder with tapes, battered copy of book, (his surfboard and lighter will wash up later).
• Content Warnings for Character: depression, alcoholism, cancer, child death, parental abuse/neglect/issues, child abuse/neglect, sibling death, unstable memories/reality.

Character Background

• History: Here. In the short story, he escapes the room by setting himself on fire. In the film he has four endings, two where he seems to escape but it could be a clever room reset, two where he dies, one of them reuniting in death with his daughter.
• Core Relationships:
Mike is super isolated, and goes through the film estranged from his wife, having buried trauma and repressed grief for his dead daughter, more repressed trauma and anger from a father that is implied to be abusive, a once-mentioned dead brother in the short story (also cancer), and only having surface interactions with other people, namely his agent. His interactions are a very "hi, bye" sort of thing. He is not shown with any friends, and doesn't try to connect with anyone. His relationships will reflect this below.

Lily - In the short story, Mike is said to have been on good terms with his ex-wife, who had given him a Sony/Sanyo (short story vs. film) minicorder as a gift five years before the story opens but is unclear on how long it has been since they divorced.

The film depicts them as separated for a year, with Mike walking out suddenly after Katie died, possibly to go get cigarettes. And like the cliche, he never returned. Not a lot is stated about his marriage, other than it was assumed to have been good until his daughter was diagnosed with terminal illness (probably cancer), as also evident by a small flashback the hotel room gives him via television screen where they seem to be a chill, playful family making faces and having an "Ugliest Person" contest. Mike expresses a wounded, soft-voiced moment of "nope" when asked by his agent if he is going to phone Lily to let her know he is in New York to stay at the Dolphin Hotel. What can be pieced together is that Mike felt deep anger at himself (which he tried to project mostly onto Lily) for telling Katie there was a heaven and a God waiting for her, when he himself didn't believe in any of this, it was something that came back to plague him, a thing he could blame for Katie's death, a balm that caused her to give up and stop fighting. Things were bad enough that Mike left New York to live in Hermosa Beach, California, in an attempt to restart and also run from his old life.

He clearly still cares for her, as his "shadow self/dopplelganger" in the hotel room plays on her remaining affection to try and get her to come to the room (to die) while his real self looks on in horror, and is willing to put himself in harm's way (or even die) to keep her away from the room's clutches. But when she's tossed into the phone conversation re: The Room Calling, he very calmly tells it that no fucking way, it doesn't get her.

In one ending of the film, Mike and Lily are shown to be reuinited and rebuilding their life (possibly in California) together. Again, this could be a fakeout before it resets.

When he's "out", believing he's escaped the room, she appears in his hallucination to greet/comfort him at the hospital, and there is obvious affection between the two of them when they go to dinner. If the ending where they reunite <i>is</i> a fakeout by the room, then Lily appears in the hospital twice.

Katie - The one thing the hotel does in the film - the line it crosses that causes him to go ballistic, and to go from Despair Event Horizon straight to Gives Zero Fucks and You Burn With Me, is to essentially re-create the death of his daughter with the added flair of her body crumbling to ash in his arms. This is Mike's breaking point, and an indicator that Katie was the person who Mike loved beyond words, beyond anything - it's the first time we see him break down into sadness. Almost all of his worst scenes are tied to these memories, whether it's the hotel faxing him her sundress, or seeing her in flashback/hallucination.

Katie's death not only affected his marriage, it was likely the impetus for his drinking (or at least did nothing to make that any better), and in one narrative, it's implied heavily that's why he started investigating the paranormal to begin with. As much as he likes to disprove the idea of the afterlife, a part of him is chasing it in desperate attempt to "find" his daughter.

Father - Most of these scenes are in the director's cut, but there is a lot of trauma with Mike's father - enough that he both writes about it (and it resonates with fans) and also that the hotel room chooses to taunt him with it. That room does not choose its hallucinations at random. They are seen arguing in flashbacks/hallucinations, and it's implied he may have left the man to a care facility, and that his father had been abusive enough that he'd based a character off of him regarded as a "bastard" by Olin, and mentioned by a fan. 'The Long Road Home' is implied to be autobiographical, though we never get that story.

Character Personality Through Key Moments

(2+) Positive Experiences:

Mike is resilient. He is put through mental, physical and psychological trauma again and again in the hotel room, and what likely cause the deaths of some 56 other guests, he endures, sometimes with witty commentary and rage rather than fear. He gets past fear and moves into chill "I am not playing this game anymore" resignation. He is able to withstand moderate physical and extreme mental/psychological torture for an undisclosed amount of time, as the room distorts reality to make him think he was out for *weeks*, only to find out he'd been in the thing for an hour. When it dredges up the worst of the worst - making his daughter die in his arms, he crosses from rage and terror into absolute "no fucks and I am taking you out with me". Though the room does scare him, he is extremely hard to scare, and once rattled, becomes absolutely blase in the face of the rest of it. He laughs hysterically as he fucks the room over with fire.

Mike is creative.He is playful in the phrases he uses, the campfire tale narrative of his supernatural guide/review books, in the way he banters (both honestly and as a deflection), and shows a genuine flair with words where it is even remarked upon by people who are pointing out what they consider to be "shit tier" writing. Olin does it when he recites a bit of Mike's prose from one of his Ten Haunted Fill In The Blanks books, calling out the fact that the books are bargain bin material, but that Mike has flair, and also bringing up The Long Road Home, remarking on its realism and indirectly pointing out how insightful he is with his narrative when he's writing a different sort of material.

In the short story, his spooky road trip books are bestsellers, while the film kind of makes fun of this by showing him with barely any attendance at his book signing/Q&A, and the customers in earshot of the announcement being pretty uninterested.

Mike is still able to wisecrack in the room right til the end, and in the flashbacks and the fakeout, we see his creativity turn to playfulness with both Lily and Katie. Especially Katie.

(2+) Negative Experiences:

Mike is cynical. He wants very badly to believe in something - anything, but he is so far past that point, so actively disbelieving that he tries to drag other people's faith down with him so they can wallow the same pit of cynicism and misery. This can be seen a little in the glib comments he makes about ghosts toward the small B&B proprietors at the beginning of the film. While he can seem playful here, there's a small bit of meanness behind it. It's shown during his author's Q&A session at the bookstore, where he pokes a bit of fun at a woman (that is one of maybe three attending fans of his books) for believing in material that he wrote. It's evident when he speaks to Olin, because of this quote:

"Just give me the key! Listen, I stayed... at the Bixby House. I brushed my goddamn teeth right next to the tub where Sir David Smith drowned his whole family, and I stopped being afraid of vampires when I was 12. Do you know why I can stay in your spooky old room, Mr. Olin? Because I know that ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties... don't exist. And even if they did, there's no God to protect us from them, now is there?"

In the short story, Olin points out that Mike's disbelief makes him a prime target for the room.

Mike is stubborn. The whole film is an ode to Mike Enslin not being willing to take no for an answer. I don't even know what else to say about this besides gesturing wildly at the plot. He gets a postcard that says "don't go into room 1408" and then ...movie proceeds to unfold. He is unmoved by bribes, by pleas, by a pretty rad deal, where Olin, the hotel manager is willing to give him all the files (sizeable) of the deaths in that room, access to $800 whiskey (the whole bottle, in fact) and a stay in a room with an identical view so that readers of what would be Mike's next book would never even have to know that he hadn't actually stayed in the supposedly cursed room. Mike would rather set himself on fire (which he does in the short story) than back down, and he does eventually beat the "evil room" in both endings of the film, though he has to die in one version. In the short story, the room essentially kicks him out after he sets himself on fire. Not quite a win in that one, but punching out Cthulu a couple times and getting evicted from a CURSED ROOM is a pretty great testament to this.

"if something should happen, if i should slip and fall, i want it to be known that it was an accident. the room ...did not win."

Mike is angry. Several times the room elicits great amounts of rage from him - where his wisecracking exterior crumbles - usually having something to do with his daughter. He attacks a mini fridge after it gives him a Reasons Why You Suck speech via Olin. He attacks the room several times, releasing a lot of repressed anger that he has been dulling with drinks, hiding behind sarcasm.

Olin: Why do you think people believe in ghosts? For fun? No, it's the prospect of something after death. How many spirits have you broken?

Deer Country Attributes

• Canon Powers: Mike has perhaps a +5 to supernatural bullshit in the face of true horror. He's just a guy.
• Blood Type: Darkblood
• Omen: Rat, female.
• Blessed Day: October 10
• Patron Pthumerian: Cloverfield.
• Blood Power Manifestation: Mike can cause people to experience small doses of the room, with time distortion, small time 'resets', mild hallucinations and reality shifts ranging from uncomfortable to terrifying. this can happen both unintentionally and/or intentionally, and is at the beginnings, dependent on his mental stability and corruption levels. He can also regard things with such disdain that they break down, and such apathy/disbelief they fail to affect him - as if he puts himself in a little bubble. (such effects would still be a problem for others around him.)

With great effort he might be able to learn to manifest a positive version of The Room, but that is unlikely to happen.

Manifesting objects is a thing, but it likely to be unreliable and relate to his mental state. He also has latent fire abilities (fireproof, ability to manipulate and amplify fire) that can be strengthened/manifested through in game mechanics. Any meditation/training that teaches elemental power will always result in fire being his strongest and most accessible element.

Writing Samples

Here: on the TDM

The Player

• Player Name: Aeri
• Player Age: Over 18 under 100.
• Player Contact:
• Permissions: Here.

Other Characters

Vi : Arcane

Link to Character 1 overall AC: here.

deer country application