The #impact of the sword in her gut was so slight that she didn't even feel the pain for a moment, just a sharp, searing heat. Steam hissed as her flesh quenched the blade.
"Ah, yes, this is a good one," the smith said, smiling.
"Will she live?"
"Maybe. Who cares?"

Inspiration: impact
Potential: high
Notes: She does live, maybe because the person who asked cared enough to try and save her. And she does have a weird magical link to this evil (well, it's forged that way, at least) sword, which would complicate some things.

Mascots, they call us, and I guess they're sort of right. For certain sure, they don't think of us as the shamans at the ritual sacrifice sports, channeling the power of the watching millions into great works of magic for the benefit of all mankind. but let me tell you, if there wasn't a goofy gopher jumping around in the middle of the football game, global warming would have wiped out all of humanity by now. Sure, you can say what you like, but it's a damn hard field to get into. A young magician’s game, or at least a game for a magician who's mastered the Stone and can keep him (or her, but like all the physical, it's more likely to be a he) self in good enough shape for the full scene. Sure, you hear that it's usually just a team of different guys from the cheer team or whatever they call it, switching off inside the suit. That may be true sometimes, but it makes weak magic. Some of the sacrifice has to be ours, in sweat and vertigo and the exhaustion that comes after the dozenth triple-flip. Sure, we can prank the players--after all, the joker and the jester have their places in magic--and we can launch small prizes into the air for random fans who are not, after all, as random as you might think, but it comes down to the flat out exertion, the sweat and the synchronized chanting, the risk of permanent damage, and the managing to focus the will and the energy of the crowd watching as well as the tenuous links to all the home viewers.


Inspiration: Hulu screenshots from "Behind the Mask"
Story potential: Medium.
Notes: This is probably actually high potential, but not for me. I'm not enough of a sports fan to do a decent job with it as a main thing.

They ate their father-host before they knew him. Before they knew themselves. Before they were themselves. It is only with the consumption of the host that they could take knowledge, understand forgiveness, realize the depth of their transgression, and how much their father-host had forgiven them. He knew. He knew that they would eat him and kill him, quite painfully, and that it was the only (only?) way they could be born. He had--they found out, as mandibles chewed through the brain stem, as the meat writhed around them and screams filled the air--he had been able to kill them, if he wanted. He had chosen not to, despite knowing it would be his death (and salvation? they were confused by that part, as they were confused by so much). They were nearly full, the host-father being larger than--than the herd animals that were traditional, and how had they known that? Still, the little bits of knowledge they ate made the whole more urgent, and they arrowed into the braincase, jaws gnashing, as around them the meat-host-father convulsed one last time and lay still, the electrical impulses dying.

Inspiration: I haven't done anything organic/creepy/gritty in a while, and I miss it.
Story Potential: High
Notes: And then they make their way in the world. A world that has barely survived the battle to exterminate their kind? The power of the willing sacrifice, etc. Be subtle with the religious metaphors.

They greeted the rising sun with the joy of children unsure that the darkness would ever leave them, though they didn't know how close it had been. The sacrifice on the stone closed his eyes in joy, as his blood ran down the runnels and then slowly trickled to a stop as the rising sun painted everything the red of his blood. His body's heat cooled as the rest of the world warmed from his sacrifice. The wreath of holly on his head fell to the ground, leaving pin-pricks of blood along his brow. His fight done, the spear fell from his slack hand. He died, and passed from life into legend.


Inspiration: High
Story Potential: High. Really high!
Notes: This is the ending, so it should be the beginning. And it's real. He's the sacrifice, and he goes and does what he needs to to make the sun come again and stay longer. Lover, scholar, warrior, which? All? This is a story best told circular, which will be an interesting challenge for me. Of course, naturally I think of this *after* when I should write it to get it published this year. Because this is a winter solstice/Easter(?) story. So I should have written and submitted it last October. Ah, well, adding a note to the calendar for next year.

The riparian nomads were known to the water spirits, and vise versa. This did not help their popularity in the communities that they visited. Anyone untouched by the same kind of drownings, sudden floods, and other waterborne calamities was not viewed popularly, no matter that their caravan barges held all manner of useful things and their plays, put on by torchlight on the wide boards of their barges, brightened dull lives. Oh, they were looked forward to, but they were not exactly trusted. Who knew what evil bargain they'd struck with the sylphs to allow them free reign of the rivers? The sylphs knew. So did the nomads. They knew, and their eldest sons knew. Sometimes the boys came back from their year beneath the water moonstruck and unable to concentrate on anything else until they fell over the railings--

Inspiration: "riparian" - related to or living on the bank of a natural river or watercourse.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: I like the idea of a culture of water-gypsies with a dreadful bargain, but that's background, not a story. Basically, I was writing along and naturally the locals are suspicious of the outsiders, and the outsiders are poor misunderstood--but no, wait, what if there *is* a dreadful bargain?