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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1000 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 16, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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There's a reddit specifically for this kind of thing, but I will put it here anyway.

Also google and chatgpt are no good.

I am trying to find a story I heard long ago - it goes like this:

The son of the king won't speak.

The king goes round all these people who try to fix him. For example, he goes to a musical band, who perform the most grooviest dance you ever saw, it was so cool, everyone was dancing, like even the villagers, the king, the king's son. Next they sing the catchiest song you ever heard where everyone immediately joined in the singing. Except the king's son.

However no-one can fix him.

But then, the chicken comes around and is able to fix him. I can't tell you how he did it, because that would be a spoiler.

Could it possibly be a misremembered version (or local variant) of Temiya, the Mute Prince? The overall story arc is there for sure, where the son pretends to be mute despite many many attempts to shock or persuade him out of it (not singing though), all in order to get out of being made king so he can do Buddha things instead. He eventually speaks after the king orders his death and he tries to fake his own death, and he successfully sheds the responsibility.

The other candidate I have for your consideration, more of a long shot but still fits the general pattern and with a sudden twist involving a chicken, is The Decapitated Chicken. A woman has 4 mute, unresponsive, almost insensate sons, who are only entertained by loud noises and bright lights, eventually neglected, and then finally a normal daughter is born who gets all the attention. Later, the sons witness a chicken beheaded and get fixated on the blood, and re-enact it by suddenly murdering the daughter, horror-style. It's not clear if this is truly a "fix" though.

Both seem like decent bets, considering how memories can be altered, misremembered, or conflated if it's been a really really long time. Or, could it have been more of a joke than a story? A children's book of some type? Dunno if I would have found it if so.

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