Piles of innocence, rearranged. The caption made him shudder before he even saw the photograph, though he wasn't quite sure why. Fear of serial killers? Fear of modern art? He rather thought that the latter was more terrifying to him on a personal level. And so--braced for dead babies or artistically arranged rubbish--it took him a while to understand what he was looking at in the photograph. First reaction: relief that there was no blood, no body parts, no death. Second reaction: confusion. Maybe it was art, but if so, it spoke to him in a way that modern art didn't usually. There were a few things that he remembered from his own childhood: a magnifying glass (perfect for frying ants with!), a pair of his mother's underwear (and how had they gotten those). Some things he didn't remember at all. Some things he vaguely remembered seeing one of the other kids playing with. But it was *his* childhood there, *his*!


Inspiration: Misreading and grouping together a couple of subject lines in my email inbox.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I think this could be a very good story, rather Bradburian, but I don't think it's so much my type of story. And it would be a lot of work to get it shaped right. There is also the grimdark in here, since innocent children are monsters, but there is shiny in the grimdark.

Death's mum had made him a sweater. It was fuzzy. It was a shade of peach that she probably thought was quite masculine, it was fuzzy, and it was a sweater. It looked very comfortable and warm and the sort of thing one would wear to be hugged. Death sighed. He'd tried explaining, "But, Mum, I'm Death!" before, but it never worked. He might be Death, but she was still his mum, and he looked cold as, well, cold as Death Himself, when he went out on his rounds. He might be Death, but he was also Sam Frampton, and his mum didn't want to see her Sammy get cold. Such frightful places he ended up--

Inspiration:

Potential: Actually, high perhaps.
Notes: It's an interesting character, at least, which is not necessarily the same as an interesting story. But this is definitely a character that could be in an interesting story!