Oblique Strategies

"Destroy nothing or the most important thing"

This gave me the idea to create a world where there's no sun, the "most important thing."

"Define an area as `safe' and use it as an anchor"

Because of this, I decided that there could be a city that is somewhat safe, because they are able to produce some limited amount of light.

"Emphasize the flaws"

I already had the idea already that this city would have a very obvious class divide, but this made me think to focus the story in on the systemic issues of this world.

"Into the impossible"

This prompt made me really think about the emergent possibilities of this concept, which is what got me to thinking about the scarcity/high demand for light sources and thus the birthday candle.

"Distorting time"

From this, I had the idea to focus on how the character and their family members have changed with time without them being conscious of it, and how that would affect them.

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