Everybody expects bar stools to be built #sturdy, to support regular patrons and quickly end irregular fights. In Pat's bar, you might notice the extra-wide windowsills and wonder why. It's because of the vampire bats' conservation of mass.

Inspiration: sturdy
Potential: Low. As a setting, this is just funny to me.
Notes: Magic makes them fly, but it doesn't make them light. Urban fantasy or possibly humorous regular low fantasy.

The spybirds flew above the rain-slicked street, the million eyes nestled between razor sharp feathers watching everything, their mouths open to connect with their home roost and send the updates to be filtered and parsed, and planned. One of them shat on Don's hat. He cursed it under his breath, but he didn't look up and he didn't take off his hat. As soon as he could, he ducked under the awning of a love palace and scrubbed furiously at his hat without removing it. The shit might have been just shit, or it might have had a tracker imbedded in it. Or it might have been an attempt to get him to take off his hat. Or it might have a visible marker that would get him followed. He needed to ditch it as soon as possible, in a way that wouldn't expose him too much.


Inspiration: Searched "cyberpunk" on ArtStation, found https://www.artstation.com/artwork/k420J0
Story potential: Low
Notes: More of a setting moment than a story idea.

The no-parking signs no longer stood sentinel against cars. With the incoming tide and the rising of the water level up to a good three feet in the former parking lot, they had become anchor points for people to tie their canoes up against. It was one of the benefits of living in a former city, everybody agreed--the sheer prevalence of signs for parking and driving and light poles and all the infrastructure that used to be used when the city still remained above the water and everyone drove cars as a matter of habit, without thinking much about it. The overpasses remained dry spots, good for anchoring below and walking up to trade goods, or for those things that needed to be done on dry land, or could be done best there. The houses had mostly crumbled as their foundations rotted away, but some of the brick houses still stood, as did the stone, and in a few cases, their upper floors were even livable and safe. Careful inspections were needed, of course, but the best hotels were in former libraries--and usually the books still were, too, those that the custodians had not decided to be worth moving to the drylands as the waters encroached upon their city.


Inspiration: Photo of a flooded car park: http://www.flickr.com/photos/terry-and-nikon/12328347314/
Story potential: Medium.
Notes: Setting. Also, I accidentally typed "fantasy" here, which is an interesting idea. Take a sci-fi trope and write it as fantasy.

The sashimi sold at the shared restaurant was delicious, as one would expect with a cook who'd sold his soul to the devil to gain his skill, and who, from all accounts, felt it was a worthwhile bargain. She'd heard that the devil agreed, and was pondering ways to escape the bargain so that the cook could continue to perform his art and perhaps expand franchises into more places, ideally ones near crossroads where at midnight the devil could appear. The devil was, she heard, getting a bit tired of the blood of a rooster and some cheap rum, and he thought a nice offering of sashimi would be much more the thing. She ate the tentacles and claws, delicately nibbled the thin flowers of white flesh, and managed not to vomit until she was two blocks away from the restaurant. She knew full well the source of the "seafood" that was served to customers--she supposed that was part of the appeal for many of them--and she didn't have any interest in demon-flesh being allowed to absorb into her own. She might be more than half demon herself, but the part of herself that was demon was a pureblood, not mixed by reproduction, breeding program, or regrettable eating habits (all too easy to acquire in the netherworlds).


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37102051@N00/10422965504/ plus a bit of "Drones in the Valley" - Cage the Elephant
Story potential: High.
Notes: Something appropriately creepy for Halloween season. And I like the idea of this kind of setting.

Insomnia can be a serious problem when you've got an alien parasite living in your head. For one thing, consciousness or semi-consciousness allows a kind of access that the dreaming mind blocks out. Sure, once you accept a parasite, you're going to have weird dreams. It's kind of how they communicate. You’ll have weird dreams and strange impulses and other things that you'll believe really shouldn't, couldn't come from your own gray matter, and you may be right or you may be wrong. There's some preliminary research on the kind of people the parasites willingly choose that suggest you may be wrong. Insomnia, though, that can be a problem. If it carries on long enough, it can blur the boundaries between waking and sleeping to a degree that allows the little beasties to communicate in live fashion, and maybe even to alter your perception or to guide your movements. No helpful sleep paralysis here! So we're supposed to report it and get drugs and psychiatric diagnoses to help with resolving it immediately, and in the meantime they like to check us into the special "sleep hotels" that are really a lot more like a jail. Good luck getting out on your own unless you can show them a sleep scan printout that certifies you got your needed REMs for the night. They just aren't going to listen to you any other way.


Inspiration: Google "heart don't beat" -> "12 Ways to Beat Insomnia!"
Story potential: Medium
Notes: I like this as part of the setting of a symbiote/parasite story, but maybe not on its own.

Raunchy like a hurricane is maybe not the first thing that most people would think when they saw a woman wearing tropical clothing sitting in a chair in the middle of winter, but it's all a matter of perspective. Think of the sand, wear the clothes, imagine hurricanes or both weather and alcoholic varieties, and think of being on a beach. If you lie to your brain convincingly enough, you'll succeed in something. What you succeed in kind of depends on how you've been trained or where your talent is or simply which direction the luck is blowing on that day. Maybe you'll transform the back 40 into a tropical paradise (it's been known to happen--the person in question then went on to have a very, very successful tiki bar in the middle of Wisconsin until the weather wore off). Maybe you'll transport yourself to Fiji without having to pay the extortionate airline fee. Maybe you'll just discover that you can work your way into a state of mind where the weather doesn't affect you. That can be pretty darn useful in some occupations, like snowblower operator on the interstate. Maybe you'll summon up a bronzed cabana boy who wants nothing more than a vacation in a snowy cabin with a cuddly woman. It just depends. One person to try it that I know of got beaned by a flying manta ray. I know that it really depends, is all. On the other hand, it's usually less potentially harmful than some other kinds of magic that people try with a lot less hesitation. Love magic. Employment magic. Healing magic. All of those things have one heck of a lot more possible downsides, again, depending on all the things I mentioned above. It's not like you can open a book to a recipe for something, cast the spell, and get the something. It just doesn't work that way, contrary to all our initial expectations. Frustrates the scientists who try to get some "cross-discipline synergy" working to no end, I'll tell you that.


Inspiration: "Rock You Like a Hurricane" - Scorpions + http://www.flickr.com/photos/closetartist/8477937231/
Story potential: High.
Notes: I like the kind of screwed-up magic realism weirdness of this magical "system." Nice change from the more methodical and reliable kinds usually read about. Could be a whole hell of a lot of fun to write.

The clouds they came a-rushing in, she remembered that much. But no rain. That was the uncanny thing about them. All week, for a full week, storm clouds rushed past overhead, above the city. It was so dark that people took to carrying lanterns with them as they went about their days and all the houses burned candles all day long, but there was no rain and there was no storms. The market farmers complained that their crops were being ruined because there was no sun, but they only complained a little, quietly, as was their right. They never suggested that the wizards were in the wrong. There was a sudden bounty of baby potatoes and pickled green tomatoes and squash flowers sold because the farmers knew they'd never grow into squash, not with the light as it was. The worst of it was, she thought in retrospect, that none of them knew how long there would be no sunlight. The prime minister did, presumably, and the mages had a plan, she supposed, but nobody told the common people. The prices of lamp oil and charcoal and candles all tripled in that week, as people started thinking of how they would live inf the dark lasted beyond a week. Maybe it would last a month, maybe longer. Everyone was willing to sacrifice since everyone knew enough about the enemy and its nature that they didn't want to end up there, but everybody still hurt.


Inspiration: The weather. All storm clouds, no rain.
Story potential: High.
Notes: I do like this perspective on the whole war magic thing. Kind of an England during the Blitz, but different.

The pitter-patter of rain was what drew her out from under the leaves that she'd been hiding among since late that afternoon, when the ships came down low over the houses. Okay, be honest--not the pitter-patter of rain, the downright deluge of a thunderstorm pouring over her, drenching her to the skin and threatening the few valuable belongings she'd crammed in her backpack as she sprinted out of the door of her apartment and bolted to the park. That was one thing that every news broadcast had been clear on: go to the woods. Go to the woods, go to the fields, go to the prairies. The attackers would only bomb housing structures or areas that looked industrialized. Farms were not exempt--or, rather, farms *might* be exempt, but the way that exemption was discovered was so--alien--that analysts were still getting a handle on it. Farmers were advised in the meantime to evacuate their families to somewhere near fallow land and to try running to a fallow field or to a tree line in case of attack. Bunkers weren’t a good idea. The attackers seemed to specifically target them. She ran through the rain, back to her sheltered apartment. That was the other thing everyone agreed on. Nasty thunderstorms kept attacks away. It was a small mercy, and people had stopped complaining or worrying about flooding. At least it means there's rain to keep the flies off, they'd say.


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66738582@N07/9565989830/
Story potential: Medium
Notes: An okay idea for an alien invasion type, I guess, but not a story idea.

Nobody likes trees anymore. We still remember that they're necessary to clean the air and provide wood and food and shelter and all that, but nobody likes living near the trees and nobody likes going in the trees. Same thing goes for cities with skyscrapers or other tall buildings that block out the lights and leave only shadows. I think we've reverted back to the Medieval Age, when women and children were warned to stay away from the edge of the forest and where the men treaded cautiously, where half the stories around the campfire were of the bad things that could happen to people who wandered into the forest when they shouldn't. And of course, nobody would go into the woods at dawn or dusk or nighttime. Nobody goes anywhere at nighttime. We huddle inside our safe, warm, bright houses, with all the curtains pulled. Less because we don't want them to see us--what good would that do--than because we don't want to glance out on our yard and see a dark shadow scudding across it, only to look up and see a bright moonlit sky with not a cloud in sight. In addition to snow days, we now have cloud days. The weather forecast predicts how dense the shade will be, and whether it will be safe to go out and see. They're a lot more careful with their predictions these days, too, ever since that poor man in Boston walked into the studio and shot the weatherman he blamed for getting his family snatched.


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/josepha46/9369874988/
Story potential: Medium
Notes: I like the idea of this kind of adaptation, but it's more of a setting than a story idea--the whole story would need to be something else.

When you surf the waves at Remotown, you carry a speargun, and you're part daredevil, part hero. The hero part comes with the chance that you'll be attacked by a voidfish and kill it. The damn things have destroyed all our attempts to set up a protected nursery for smaller, gentler fish. They'll even flop across the land for up to a quarter-mile, just to get to a protected nursery. So far they haven't left the water to go after us mammals, but most people make sure that their house is at least a mile away from the shore, just in case they change their mind and smell the fish we had for dinner or something. Because yes, there are still fish. River fish and lake fish, we can set up protected nurseries inland without a problem, though there are just as many sharp-toothed nasties in the bodies of water that aren't salt.


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/juanrfabeiro/9079492120/in/explore-2013-06-18
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Mostly just a bit of setting.