143 Days to Christmas! The number ran ceaselessly through her head as she scanned the want ads.143 days to Christmas meant 120 days until she had a job that would come naturally to her, with her short height and chin-length hair, her pixie features and even the delicate curl of her (docked) ears. It hurt, at first, to clip the artificial points onto her ears and be reminded of what was lost, but now it was once again just a sign that her favorite (or at least easiest) time of year had come around again. The rest of the time, the job market was killer. Sometimes she could get a bit part in a TV show, but she knew well enough that she was no actor. She was pretty, but not model-pretty, and way too short. She was too short for almost all behind-the-counter jobs, and she didn't have the education to get jobs sitting behind a desk and tapping away on a computer. She kept meaning to save money from her Christmas jobs to put away for a little more education that would allow her to figure some of that sort of thing out, but it was such a relief to have any free money again that she found herself buying extravagant groceries and going out to dinner or seeing movies or getting a lovely dress that actually fit correctly instead. It was hard to live like she did the rest of the year, existing on $1.50/meal menus and living in the cheapest basement apartment that she could find, never buying new clothes, only used children's clothes from the second-hand stores, never buying new books or new art or handmade items--nothing that would make her soul sing. About the only thing that she could afford, she figured out, was to plant and grow things (highly unusual for a wintery creature such as she had been) and to fold origami artwork from discarded newspapers. Once she figured out how that worked, she loved it. She used natural dyes--by which she meant she used dyes that she could, made from her kitchen refuse or scrounged from her garden--and newspaper origami creations hung from her apartment ceiling and decorated the shelves and made long, festive garlands that crisscrossed above the furniture. She knew it would make her look insane to anybody who came inside, but--


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27357821@N00/9428560231/ - And yes, I was a bit startled by the extremely random nature of this Flickr photo, too.
Story potential: High.
Notes: I like this character, and it would be an interesting way to have a disabled character who is not less than she is supposed to be.

We didn't see the stars until the moon went away. Our giant glowing moon, which rose and cast its light across our land by night, letting the mushrooms grow tall and strong for the harvest, letting our girls dance among the trees and find their own mates. Then one night--gone. Poof. No explosion or big boom, just no moon. And then--then we saw the stars. We huddled in our homes, frightened of the true dark, of the things that usually came out only during the eclipses. We hoped it was an eclipse unpredicted by the astronomers, but it seemed unlikely. We became twilight people.


Inspiration: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120625.html
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: The cliche here would be to make this due to human intervention, so avoid that.... Generally, no story here. Pretty picture, though!