Weekly Prompts By Ruby

January 15–21

Welcome to your next week’s worth of prompts, Prompt Warriors!

I hope you’ve been enjoying them and I also hope that they’ve been somewhat torturing you… because I’m like that.

Each week I give you three prompts. Two intended to break open your mind and see what the goo inside is made of. The third will always be in some way about animals.

I base the first two on psychology, philosophy, criminology, a combination of them… or just some random thing that I spend an obscene amount of time thinking about. You used to get all of this multiple times in the month. Now that it’s week to week — some may come up less than others.

So that means there won’t be murdery topics each week.

Don’t breathe a sigh of relief… it will come up and now it will happen just when I’ve lulled you into a false sense of security.

Which I find highly amusing.

With fewer prompts to think about, you have more time to spend with them so take time to really think them through. Let them burrow into your brain and take over. See where they decide to lead you. The results may be surprising and are completely and utterly not my fault.

If they ever offend you in any way… I want you to know from the bottom of my blackened, shriveled, cold, unfeeling heart — I genuinely don’t care.

Whining at me that you’re offended is utterly pointless so don’t bother. I will ignore you. If something is causing the prompt to go up your ass instead of into your brain — remember that you’re a writer and create a cohesive and well-constructed argument.

I respect that. Whining is just ridiculous.

Please remember that playtime in my sandbox will leave you feeling dirty but nothing I do is accidental nor is it ever quite as it seems.

You may publish your responses in any publication that accepts them, you may self-publish them, or you publish them where they live — in Read or Die! Most people do the latter. I do the latter. But no one ever said you had to be awesome. You can be something else.

Prompt responses should be as long as they need to be. You may respond in any format or genre you choose and there are no word/time minimums or maximums. Just make sure you answer all of the questions involved. There are always follow-ups. And if I give you rules… follow them. Both things are there for a reason.

Don’t forget to tag me in your responses so I can see what you make of them. But PLEASE remember that I lowered the number of prompts this year to work on my book, I’m not on Medium for as long as I once was, and do not send me comments asking me to read them. I WILL. I always do. Sometimes it’s a month later — but I always do. Pushing me may get me to do it just to stop you but it will also annoy the hell out of me.

I don’t recommend that.

These prompts are designed to push you to analyze yourself. Not for me to analyze, judge, or approve of them. Consider them carefully. Consider yourself carefully. Respond carefully. If you do that — you have pleased me. I hand out cookies at midnight in the depths of the forest. Figure out which forest, get a cookie.

Also please include a link to this post so others can play with my mind if they want to.

This list will remain at the top of Read or Die! from January 15–21. But my prompts never expire so all of them can be found at the bottom of this post as well as in the list on my profile page or linked in any of my own responses.

Let’s see what you do with these…

Prompt One.

How fluid is human sexuality?

There are people who believe that all humans are, at least in some way, bisexual. Especially… women.

Even if people do not believe that all men are bisexual, many believe that all women are. Even if it’s solely on the basis of curiosity or simple willingness to experiment.

Many women, at some point in their lives, have at the very least — kissed another woman and thought absolutely nothing of it.

So let’s discuss this idea, shall we?

I will not force you to state where you fall on the sexual fluidity scale… though it is allowed and perhaps encouraged. But I do want you to think about it in terms of not just yourself… but of humans as a whole.

Is there an innate curiosity about what sex would be like with the same gender?

Is there a discrepancy in that level between men and women and if there is — why is there that discrepancy?

Think hard on this (pun intended). Men vs women. Is there a difference in the fluidity of sexuality between genders? Or are all humans fluid but deny it? Or is there no fluidity and you are what you are?

Oh and… if you write something hateful… you deal with me. You don’t want that. 😎

Prompt Two

Physical cheating vs. emotional cheating.

Are they equal? If not — which is worse and why?

Have you been involved in either… or has either happened to you?

This week is very based in psychological assessment of not only what you think about the world and people around you — but how you view things for yourself.

This seems so simple. Cheating is cheating, right?

Or… is it?

What would it take for you to have an affair of either kind? Most people think they never would but what you believe isn’t always correct — even when it’s about yourself. You should actually never believe everything that you think. So turn it over in your mind a few times before you commit a response to the written word.

What. Would. It. Take?

And why choose this over simply leaving?

There are many reasons for it. Some people justify it all kinds of interesting ways that start with, “It’s not cheating if…”

Include at least five of those in your response. They can be things you actually believe or things that are absolutely ridiculous but don’t tell which is which. Let people wonder.

And do not use dogs and peanut butter because I actually will judge you for that.

Think.

Animal Prompt

Humans are animals. But we separate ourselves from all other species.

I want you to link the two.

Pick an animal (that is not a great ape) and anthropomorphize it. Tell us how we’re not as different as we’d like to believe we are.

And then tell us what we could learn from said animal if we took the time to pay attention.

Dogs and cats are easy answers and you absolutely may use them.

If you go elsewhere into the wild — I’ll be more impressed.

Or do both.

Both is always an option.

Except for in the prompts that I say it isn’t. 😁

And so we end another week. The responses have been amazing, keep them coming… question everything… and always keep thinking.

Until next time…

Copyright Ruby Noir 2024 

Brett Jenae Tomlin, The Sturg, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Trisha Faye, Karen Schwartz, Michelle Jimerson Morris, Amy Frances, Julia A. Keirns, Tina, Pat Romito LaPointe, Brandon Ellrich, Misty Rae, Karen Hoffman, Susie Winfield, Vincent Pisano, Paari, Marlene Samuels, Ray Day, Michael Rhodes, Pluto Wolnosci, Paula Shablo, Bruce Coulter, Ellen Baker, Leigh-Anne Dennison, Carmen Ballesteros, Marlana, MSW, Patricia Timmermans, Teisha LeShea, Rachella Angel Page, Lynn L. Alexander, Adrian CDTPPW, Lisa Guard, Rampath, Sweet Honeylu, Zaq Cass