I was a bit on the fence about whether or not I should purchase the next game in the special updated version or if I should just wait for the late release mass market version, but they were clear that there were a bunch of things in the special version that would never be available again. It wasn't on the free-net, either. Yes, I checked, and I know I shouldn't. It's just--I was a little leery about purchasing anything that came packaged in an actual, verified and certified, human skull. Seems like bad juju, you know. Sure, sure, you can laugh at me for living in the modern century and having a bit of the old world superstition, but it's how my grandma raised me. And believe you me, after you've seen the bad (or good) come back around on the person who did it, you get a little more careful. It's reassuring in a way. The police, the government, and society in general might not be able to regulate anyone anymore, no matter how many surveillance cameras they put up, but no matter if you think they got away with something, it's all going to circle back on them. So that's why I hesitated before I bought. Some bad juju you get from doing something blatantly bad. Some you get from doing something that you can kind of whitewash to yourself to try and make it look good, but it really isn't. Buying a human skull had the latter feeling. But my granny died a good ten years ago, and I'm a grown woman, and I really, really, really wanted that latest, greatest, never to be repeated game. So I sprung and bought it. Unfortunately.


Inspiration: Googled "Flaming" -> http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2013/04/16/the-flaming-lips-explain-new-album-the-terror/ (Yes, they're selling a 24-hour-long version packaged in a SKULL.)
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Eh.

I'm laughing discreetly. He defied me completely. How--entertaining. It's been centuries since somebody had that kind of brass balls. Of course they all wait to see my response, and I musn't show my amusement or they might get the wrong idea baout what's allowable. And if they do that, it would all fall apart. The pain would sweep back over me and I'd be in agony for centuries. Or minutes that felt like centuries. At a certain point, they said the pain would kill me, and it was getting steadily worse, so it all depends on whether it continued to accelerate during this pause, or if it resets. I like him, so I don't want to kill him, and I *definitely* want to keep him around, but--I know. Though--

Inspiration: "Red Light Go" by Mea.
Story Potential: High--tentatively.
Notes: It's not a horribly new idea, but I feel it unrolling, so it gets high potential anyway. His punishment is that she makes him her companion--and at some point, she'll have to choose the pain as a way to save him from--something. Or to save herself. Or something. Though that seems too predictable, so something will have to muddy the waters.

He abandoned me. He ruined me, seduced me into loving him, and then destroyed me utterly by leaving me alone. The village folk knew. I'd strutted past them with head held high when he'd been with me, believing that true love had elevated me above them all. I'd thought that I'd never have to go back to my family, such as it was. So when he left, he ruined me utterly. I took the ashes of the love letters he'd written me, the cover of my pillow that I'd soaked with tears as I waited endless nights for him to return, and I stole off to the grove of dark wishes. I wove a curse there. I wove it hard and fast with all the pain and sorrow and heartbreak. I slit my wrists and used my blood to seal it. I expected to die, and I did not care as long as he was destroyed as he had destroyed me. I never expected to live.

Inspiration: She's abandoned, heartbroken, she gains her revenge, and the story ends. Sometimes she dies, sometimes not. It doesn't matter. The story ends there. There's a huge gaping void of after that I think could be interesting.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Not because of this snippet, but because there's more to the story.

Fyodor saw the white deer from the window of his tutor's studio. Instantly he was seized with a desire to hunt it to the ground. He shivered a bit, feeling a draft of cold air that sprang from nowhere. He was on his feet and heading to the stables before he knew what had happened. It was only when he found himself pulling out tack that he realized what was happening, but his hands kept moving of their own accord. He hated to hunt, always had. He was nervous around horses, ever since his father had been trampled to death while on a boar hunt--and not by the boar. Fyodor was not one to see a beautiful animal and feel the urge to slaughter it, to eat its flesh, and to stuff its hide for his trophy case, but that was just what he--

Inspiration: "Fyodor" Sounds Russian, so I started to think of Russian fairytales--think this one's actually English, but am not sure.
Story Potential: Medium-high
Notes: I like the idea of a non-hunter caught in the spell, because the spell would expect him to be a hunter.

The oranges glowed in the evening sun as the sun descended from its ladder in the sky and sank to sleep beneath the blanket of the sea. She sighed, watching it go, watching the oranges slowly dim from brilliant orange to dull reddish black. The color leached slowly from the orchard, as if with the going of the sun, all life was being sucked away. The first convulsion hit her before the last ray of sun had faded from the sky. She cried out in shock and barely managed to hold on to the limb of the orange tree that was supporting her, lest she fall to the ground and dash her brains out. Many things changed in the orchard with the setting of the sun, not the least of which was her, but a death was a death, and it did not change--

Inspiration: "orange juice" on a grocery list
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I think the setting is high potential, but there's not enough story here. Yes, it's a Cursed Orange Tree Orchard! Wooo-ooooo.... No ghosts, though. A sort of fairytale kind of curse, perhaps. Yes, it's not the whole world, just the orchard. Symbolism involved in planting the orchard to contain a greater evil, though it could not be completely mastered, perhaps? Just don't go the stupid "and then Everything Was Evil, omigosh!" route, ok? Right.