#Thats kind of a testament to maybe how he really sees John

[twomystdunstans]

something about John becoming more "human" or "softer", gaining more compassion and humanity while Arthur becomes more bitter and cold, trying to "keep them safe" and immediately seeing the bad in people. not giving someone a chance and doing anything he can for answers.

something about when John said "we may very well end up switching places"

[ao3gingerswag]

Witnessing violence has a huge impact of kids, often more so even than being physically abused themselves. I could see Dean and Cas starting to notice that with Sammy. He could draw scenes of Dean hurt or draw revenge against John. When he’s playing, he could act out things that are similar to real events, or play with themes of being able to save people, because he could never protect and save Dean.

When he’s playing with kids who come through the inn, he could try to talk them out of going to their parents if someone gets hurt, especially if their parents have had some ale.

He could also project his own feelings onto their animals. Luna doesn’t like sleeping alone. His cat hates it when people yell. When he’s talking with Pastor Murphy about the books he reads, it’s always through the lens of the world being unsafe, and people being violent just because they can be.

But he could also play out the positives too. He could be playing with another kid and the kid is pretending to be wounded in battle and Dean sees Sam kneeling down and saying “don’t worry, it’s going to be okay, it’s not too deep, you’ll be okay” (like how Dean remembered helping Sam in KYIS when he was getting glass out of Cas’s foot) and Dean can see that Sam only knows to play that way because that’s how Dean has talked to Sam.

-Ace

oh god why was i cursed with emotions. yes yes i so agree with u!! how much witnessing violence fucks kids up is a really big theme in my stories, bc i think it lowkey is a really big theme in canon dean and sam’s traumas. like the show makes it pretty clear that dean has always been the Protector and has bore the brunt of the abuse in their household, but. that fucked sam up so much. that survivor’s guilt baby!!! its fucking powerful!!!

so YES thats def gonna come up in Wander Home. oooomg i love all of these ideas!!! dean and cas watching sam play “pretend” of really really fucked up things, reenacting things that he’s witnessed, but like changing the endings so that he saves the person being fucked up or whatever (its always dean, really, even if in sam’s games it’s some random unknown figure). and both of them r like :/ bc they know whats going on but like have no idea what to do about it.

maybe sam starts doing that thing where the playing pretend starts to merge with compulsive lying- like, cas will see a horrible scar on dean’s body and be like oh my god! what the fuck happened! and sam jumps in before dean can say anything and ramble out some fantastical horrific story in which sam saved dean from some even worse fate than what happened in reality, and dean escaped with only that scar. (like a huge rabid dog broke into the inn! john threw dean towards it bc he didnt care about dean and wanted the dog to eat dean bc then it wouldnt be hungry for the rest of us! it almost got him but i stabbed it with my knife before it could eat him!! so now he only has that scar!!)

ugh maybe this happens with a scar on sam’s own body that he got in a really tragically mundane way, like john just hit him with something and it left a mark. but he again makes up some story about how he got it defending dean against the Bad Guys how he got hurt but managed to fend everyone off, and his scar is now a testament to his bravery. cause that’s what he WISHES happened. and he cant really process what actually did happen, and the guilt he feels about all of it. and like....he Knows he’s lying, ya know, but also he doesn’t, bc that’s what compulsive lying is, he’s not like “oh i’m gonna tell a lie now” but he’s also not like “hm yep that is 100% what actually happened.” he’s just like. not evaluating his own thought process at all.

and yes!! he def thinks all adults are scary and bad, so assumes that parents will hurt their own kids like his own hurt him. he def freaks the kids out sometimes- like generally he’s actually a nice kid who’s fun to be around, so kids play with him easily, but he’ll say horrifying offhand shit or take their pretend games in alarming directions or yeah like freak out when the kids want to go get their parents. so the can freak unabused kids out.

yess projecting emotions on to animals. ;~; goood luna doesnt like sleeping alone! my cat doesnt like it when you yell! hes so transparent but he doesnt realize it at all, and he gets really pissy on “the animal’s” defense. he’s like excuse me the chickens do NOT appreciate you being loud rn. meanwhile the chickens r not noticing at all.

and then ;~; he’s so fucked up and so transparent about it, dean and cas can see 100% thru him. and it worries both of them but it makes dean feel guilty, bc he thinks it means he didnt do a good job protecting sam. but then yes!! he sees sam playing pretend and showing kindness in exactly the same way dean always did, clearly mimicking him, and dean is like oh! oh. maybe i did have a positive impact ;~; <3

[goldtips]

okay so ya girl is back at it again. this was originally going to be a reply to someone but well. it got out of hand. i shat all over babylon the anime a while ago and honestly kind of feel bad. there are definitely things that the show does that makes it stand out, esp as a seasonal anime bc you dont expect dir. to spend much time on them!!!! like if we’re comparing this to shows like fanservice anime or any .. mediocre seasonal isekai then ofc this show is better lmfao. the only reason i shit on it is because i expected this anime to be Better ;;;;;;;

mind, i’m not rescinding my statement - as far as i’m concerned, babylon is still a hella frustrating anime because it tries to showcase humans as nihilistic, utilitarian robots that don’t seem to consider the topic of suicide emotionally even though thats supposedly humanity’s defining trait ??? and it deals with the topic of suicide with the care of elephants gallivanting in the fucking savanna :))) the whole show has also been pretty lacklustre in terms of characterization, trying way too hard to be intellectual and feed edgy plot points instead of giving any development - the plot feels reactionary overall and placid rather than exciting. also, the fact that the anime started as a mystery / politico-legal sort of show just makes the transition from that to abstract theory even more forced...........

HOWEVER im promised im going to stop shitting on babylon so lets talk about what the anime does right shall we. more specifically,,, the biblical imagery!!! is great !!!! : D

the show is called babylon. in the old testament (ot), babylon is humanized as a “brutal, callous and proud” woman who “believed that she would reign over the earth forever.” in the new testatment the phrase “she who is at babylon” refers to the new world culture currently at war with the covenant community. in such that rome, as a mistress or whore of the new world, is seeking to seduce and subvert people of god, enticing men to fall “drunk with the wine of her fornication.”

yes,,,, a whore who uses sex to entice innocent men into complying with new culture? who believes herself to be akin to god and also in this context, above the law and morality - im gonna say its not too far a stretch to say that magase was intended to symbolise the whore of babylon.

however, that’s not all - links can be made between the enactment of the suicide laws and the seduction of new culture. who exactly is leading the front? kaika itsuki ( 齋 開化 ), who’s name literally means culture. that aint a coincidence. also, that weirdly-placed reference to roman law / norms during the suicide debate as a way to convince the masses to revert / adopt roman ideology??? also not a coincidence. :))))

in addition, there are two other major biblical events related to babylon:

the book of revelations; and

the tower of babel.

its safe to say that both narratives are being pushed atm.

revelations:

in revelation 17, the spirit of babylon decends upon earth through the whore. she arrives on the back of a beast with 7 heads, “arrayed in purple and scarlet”, “drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” “seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.” the revelations also prophesizes that she will be defeated by a beast, but it is unclear as to which. there are two beasts in book of revelations. the first beast comes "out of the sea" given authority and power by the dragon/serpent. the second beast comes "out of the earth" directing people to worship the first beast, a "false prophet".

in a similar vein, nomaru had secretly vouched for itsuki’s, providing itsuki with the necessary resources for him to rise up in ranks and become the new mayor. the kanji for ryuichiro nomaru ( 野丸 龍一郎 ) contains both the kanji 野 and 龙 which respectively mean field (i.e. earth) and dragon. they are key references to the beasts of revelation

plus according to nomaru, it was also purely because of magase that the political struggle turned out the way that it did, meaning that she is ultimately the one controlling the entire operation. this mirrors the way she is sitting on the heads of the beast (i.e. the proverbial brains of the campaign that itsuki is heading) 

we also see that when magase uses her powers her eyes and hair glow in a sort of purple/burgundy color to support the imagery as well! 

the book of revelations is the final chapter of nt. it is merely an allegory of struggle between good and evil and doesnt refer to actual people or events. kinda like the show huh. nyyy way, we see that the protag john the apostle writes down what is revealed to him through visions to send it to the 7 churches :))

kinda like how zen keeps on seeing magase through visions and has to document !! his findings and report back to admin? ik this isnt exact but there’s a bit where he has to write down her confession and it really struck me as weird until this bit popped up, maybe that was included to as a way of tying in :))

tower:

according to the myth, there were plans to build a city and tower high enough to reach heaven - god who observes this confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other. why? because “now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

while not entirely similar, we see recurring themes in babylon that deal with miscommunication and new ideology. the conflict mirrors the myth in that unity of language (or ideology in this case) and its subsequent discordance once differentiated. 

the interrogation scene in ep 4 deals with reconciling differences. magase asks whether those with different values should be accepted, despite them being contrary to norm. all this time, society has been developing an ideal set of norms - the entire country shares the same values and priorities with no deviation. growth has stagnated. in similar fashion to how god commands for many languages to be created, magase sows the seeds of doubt towards long-standing assumptions and moral values in order to create discordance and push japan into a state of new development

in the new campaign, itsuki proposes to apportion shiniki city from japan and instill new values. this confounds the population and sends them into disarray - the tower that they have created is crumbling, in similar likeness to the parable of babel.

SO TL;DR this show has a really cool starting concept i cant lie?????  i for one am not shitting on its supernatural elements (even though the flow was a little inorganic) in hindsight there’s no point in expecting a show called babylon not to delve into supernatural/biblical elements lol :)))

as a right hoe for imagery and philosophy/ethics, this gave me high hopes but the execution of everything else was way below average. why bring in a discussion about suicide that’s poorly researched + try to be edgy abt it and have the citizens to have support it so easily???? ruins the immersion so much

if the anime really wanted to focus on philosophy there should be some mention of ethical theory to justify his point. like, being aimlessly philosophical only ends up being flowery and pseudo-bullshit lmao. one of hte reasons why i was so frustrated with magase and zen’s discussion in the interrogation room. like woman what was your fucking point. its only wasting screentime if you don’t get anything from the conversation. the philosophy was so fucking unnecessary - babylon could have been executed as an in-depth political/psychological anime instead. WITHOUT THE SUICIDE.

this and the lack of good characters really bummed me out. i think that the show was expecting me to connect to some of the characters before they were fucking killed off but i didn’t end up giving a single shit about any of them so. :) the whole show feels more about the shock factor and gore than about interesting plot.

concept 10/10, execution 1/10

[unpunny]

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Brilliant question. Let's find out why.

Historically, the chicken crossed the road to get to the other side.

Has anybody ever laughed at that joke? Why has it become so famous? And, for that matter, who cares? Why would you want to investigate why things are funny?

As E.B. White said: "analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog - few people are interested, and the frog dies."

But I want to dive into the guts of this chicken joke because today it is so famous, it is practically shorthand for comedy. And people frequently consider it either the worst joke of all time or the oldest joke.

But neither of those is true.

But first things first. The chicken joke isn’t technically even a joke. It’s an "anti-joke". It’s a joke about jokes. You see, we expect a joke to surprise us, to flip things around or use word play. But to get to the other side is just obvious, its mundane, which,by itself, can be pretty funny.

To make this more clear, let’s take a look at anti-joke chicken. "What's blue and smells like red paint? Blue paint."

You see, you expect a typical joke-y punchline, but instead what you get is hilariously serious.

Anti-Joke Cat is another good one.

"Knock knock." "Whos there?" "Lettuce." "Thats impossible."

"Yo mommas so fat, we are all extremely concerned for her health."

Anti-jokes can also be used for psychological experiments right at home. You may have heard of this one already, the "no soap, radio" joke.

Here's how it works. Get a couple of your friends together and tell them to all laugh when you're done telling the joke, no matter what. Then, go find target whos not in on it and tell them some version of a joke like this: "Two polar bears are sitting in a bathtub. The first one says "pass the soap." The second one says "no soap, radio." At this point, you and your friends should start laughing uproariously, meaning the target has one of two choices- either be afraid of looking dumb and laugh along anyway or say they’re confused, at which point you should tell them "what, you don't get it?" and keep laughing. You wait until the target gives into peer pressure and succumbs to mob mentality and joins, despite the fact that "no soap, radio" is actually nonsense.

As for being the oldest joke in the book, "why did the chicken cross the road?" is far from it. Its only about 160 some odd-years old. It first appeared in print in The Knickerbocker as a conundrum that really isn’t one - an anti-joke.

If you want to look for the oldest joke ever to appear in print, we’re going to have to go back 4,000 years to read some ancient Sumerian Proverbs. The joke is essentially a cautionary tale to never expect anything to be perfect. It goes like this: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband’s embrace."

So... yeah, the earliest known joke is a joke about a woman farting in a guys lap. So... cool!

All I’m sure of is that our proverbial chicken did not have Agyrophobia. That’s the fear of crossing streets.

But maybe the chicken should have.

I mean, crossing the road could be quite dangerous for a little bird, which leads us to a quite darker interpretation of the joke.

Maybe this chicken knew of the danger of crossing the road.

Maybe he knew what could happen.

Maybe he was sad or lonely or knew what his fate was.

And so he decided to take control and end it himself and crossed the road to get to the other side.

If you want to continue being morbid, check out DeathClock.com. Answer a few questions and the site will generate a countdown of the number of seconds you likely have left to live. You can just sit there and watch them tick away.

But let’s get back to the joke.

Perhaps a better question than "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is "Why wouldn’t chickens be crossing the road?" I mean, to be sure, the Earth is a big place and less than 1% of it is even paved, but there are quite a few chickens on Earth.

To put this in perspective, there are about 500 million cats and, as far as we go, there are 7 billion humans. But chickens? There are 24 billion chickens. We’re outnumbered more than 3:1. But if we cooked up every single chicken alive on Earth right now, we could fill enough KFC 16-piece buckets to form a stack of them going to the Moon and back three times. Unbelievable, right?

I mean, they all fit so nicely here on Earth’s surface, walking around with their characteristically lean meat, which, because fat contributes so much more flavor to a piece of meat than the muscle does, may explain why chicken is such a great generic meat flavor and why so many other exotic meats we try later tend to taste like chicken.

But let’s get back to the question in this video’s title.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Well, to get to the other side, sure, but there are many different motivations a chicken could have for going to the other side. Maybe it was looking for food, maybe it was being chased by a predator.

What matters though is that we can never know because there is no chicken.

It’s purely hypothetical, as opposed to the equally famous "Mary Had a Little Lamb," in which the lamb, and Mary, were real people. Mary Sawyer was an actual student at The Redstone School in Massachusetts and one day her brother encouraged her to bring her lamb to school. Her fellow students were amused, as was visiting student John Roulstone who wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

We have actual documentation of those real people and events, but this chicken never even really existed.

So, asking why the chicken crossed the road is just like asking "Why did the original writer decide that it should be a chicken crossing a road?" Which means that the chicken crossed the road because some comedian in the 19th century decided that you would probably think about it too much, making the mundane "to get to the other side" answer quite surprising.

To explain this, let’s look at a computational neural explanation of humor. In order to effectively manage resources, our brains stay a few steps ahead of what we’re hearing, estimating what kind of outcomes are possible. But when we discover that were actually being told a joke, and none of our paths were the correct version of what was being told, all of that neural network energy needs to dissipate and according to some theorists, that energy moves into motor cortex, causing convulsions - laughter.

Unfortunately, our poor chicken friend doesn’t illicit that response from us anymore because we’ve all heard the joke. We know what to expect when the joke begins.

But we should be proud of our chicken friend and the unknown author who thought him up, because even though the joke is so famous it’s no longer funny, even at a neurological level, it still stands as a testament to just how complicated and clever our comedy can be.

Keep laughing.

And as always, thanks for watching.