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 machine whirred noisily in the background of the room. She tried to pretend that it wasn't there, but that would have been impossible. The guests, certainly, could not ignore its presence, as it was entirely noticeable. *She* might ignore the lines of the IVs that wove their way across the room and buried themselves in her veins, the steady mechanical hiss of the iron lung that did her breathing for her, the medicinal reek--to tell the truth, she couldn't smell it any more, though she knew that others could--but her guests, not having had two hundred years to accustom themselves to the spectacle that was her very existence, could not. That was the point. She had used enough power behind the scenes; it was time for these ingrates to see just what it was that she truly had become, to understand just how far removed from their petty humanity she was. Above them, in the ceiling, hundreds of images flickered in continuous replay--

Inspiration: My Roomba whirring in the background.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: hmm.

The mikado had been restored to power by the invaders. Nobody really knew what to think of this, least of all the mikado, who had been only a little boy when the invaders had come and fought a decades long war that destroyed the world, killed his entire family, and left him living on the street and singing for his keep. Singing, he insisted against the raised eyebrows of those who knew how young boys forced to live on the streets usually earned their keep. Yet, when asked to sing, he would only ever shake his head and say that there was no need, and the singing was only for if there was need. Some wags made jokes about "flesh flutes," but though the mikado had no experience with ruling in the past, those who made the jokes, and those who laughed at them, had disappeared--

Inspiration: A historical entry about the mikado being restored to power.
Story Potential: High? Ish?
Notes: It might be too much of a jumble of things. The Japanese emperor, an alien invader, a royal heir restored, some magical singing power...or all these disparate elements might be a good thing.