The object of the game was to capture the state, and the way it was played was by wagering everything: family, money, power, and love. Love, you say? Well, as much love as a person of discipline would allow themselves to have when they were playing the game of states. That is what I would have said before I met and fell in love with her, the gorgeous ragamuffin who (I thought) could never help me in the game of states. I thought I could keep her on the side, so that she wouldn't influence anything one way or another. It wasn't as if she would expect someone in my social position to marry her, after all, or to marry any other woman, for that matter. It might be legal now, but it would be a social faux pas. I had not built my life to operate as an "eccentric," and a non-standard spouse (to put it mildly) wouldn't fit in with the persona that I'd built since I was old enough to have it explained to me what a persona was and what the goal was and why I was one of the only people who could play the game and why it was so deadly important to win it.


Inspiration: Googled "Seize the Day" -> Policy Research Paper, "Seize the State, Seize the Day: State Capture, Corruption, and Influence in Transition."
Story potential: High.
Notes: Politics and power are always fun. Throw in a forbidden lesbian love and there you go! Novelish.

The shine was gone from the apple before her hand had lifted it to her lips, but by that time she wasn't even looking at it. Her eyes were locked on the beautiful sapphire eyes of the smiling witch who'd helped the apple out to her and bade her to taste it, with a lovely smile curling the edges of the long lips. She knew what those lips would feel like, knew it intimately, in a way that no other could--not if what the witch said was true, and her love was for her alone. She knew the witch was deep and true in love with her, and so she did not notice that the apple tasted a bit mealy, that the skin gave slightly beneath her fingers, and that the worm--

Inspiration: A weird combination of the last freewriting exercise I did--Barely Legal Lesbian Space Vampires--and the titles of Kool Keith songs on the more than a little icky and disgusting "Sex Style" album (highlights include "Lick my Ass" and "Stuck on Pussy Drive").
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Love betrayed, tied in with the whole difficulty-of-being-lesbian thing, retelling of Snow White or at least inspired thereby.