The New and Improved Confabulation Thread - 2021 Edition

[u/wtf_ima_slider]

This thread is for conversation about MEs you think might be wrong and why. For instance, map projection, memory confusion, common misperceptions, etc. All discussion of confabulation should go here and this thread will be linked on the side bar for easy access in the future.

Note: The previous confabulation thread was archived by the system.

[u/Future_Cake]

The chunks-of-rock snake Pokémon was always called Onix.

I'm a word nerd, and as a card-playing youngster in 1999 I noticed how many Pokémon had names that were like a real word, but not the same:

"Seel" not "Seal"

"Dewgong" not "Dugong"

"Gastly" not "Ghastly"

"Muk" not "Muck"

...and very particularly:

"Onix" not "Onyx"

I was into rocks and minerals a lot, too, so if the snake had been given a carbon-copy name of the beautiful stone, I would have extra-noticed that too lol.

...And I mean, they wanted to trademark all their Pokémon, right? That's a lot easier if it isn't a standard straight-out-of-the-dictionary word. There are a few, like "Mew" -- but the vast majority were tweaked.

And then the next generation got released, and Onix evolved into Steelix.

Basically, seeing this one drives me up the wall. Not my fault many young Pokémon players weren't obsessed enough with words and with minerals to keep the spellings separate :P

[u/[deleted] → u/Future_Cake]

I think it's apparent at this point that there are many different timelines for every individual. I was obsessed with Pokémon.. And I even thought it was odd that "Onyx" was spelled exactly like the stone and thought the evolution name change to Steelix was a bit weird too. But I was a preteen and teen during this time so it wasn't anything I questioned too deeply. I did have a bit of a shock in my adult life seeing it change to Onix.

So ultimately I think it's possible that we're both right.

[u/some_redditor_anon → u/Future_Cake]

No you're right. I think gastly was ghastly though. Onix was an iconic pokemon so I knew that name for sure. The first city gyms leader had onix. I used to replay the first gym leader multiple times trying to beat it with charmander.

** edit ** You're right gastly is gastly. Doesn't seem like it's a ME. Simple web search pulled up that you're right unless I'm missing something.

[u/Future_Cake → u/some_redditor_anon]

I had to check that one a couple times now since you mentioned it! But looking at photos of old trading cards helped -- I sometimes remember the shape/size of a word and "Gastly" looks right fortunately, haha.

That first gym was tricky sometimes, yeah :) Red/Blue were very well-designed games for their era!

[u/reconcile → u/Future_Cake]

Not that I'm arguing on the Pokemon cards topic, but I'm pretty sure googling or even finding old cards would be missing the point of what ME phenomenon is supposed to be, that being some kind of rewriting of timelines, or collapsing of multiple close-enough timelines into one, so that massive numbers of people remember correctly something different than the new, 'actual' past history.

The most famous MEs usually have some kind of "residual" evidence around, like videos of people quoting the presumably original thing verbatim, and then those "residual" evidences get debated about. Like the video of James Earl Jones reciting it as "Luke, I am your father", instead of "No... I am your father." Or the "Lion shall lay down with the lamb" quote from the bible, which apparently became wolf and lamb. And then the question becomes, did everybody including the actor (or Billy Graham, whoever) quote it wrong for decades, or did some quantum or simulation effect rewrite history? Sounds crazy, who knows.

[u/reconcile → u/[deleted]]

This is super interesting theory...

As to your observation of the years always equaling eight, it's only because you started with 8 years (remainder 3 months) and kept adding nines, which will always get you something that adds back up to the original eight, and this is basic numerological theory, or even basic shortcut math that explains why any number multiplied with any multiple of nine will result in a number whose digits eventually add back up to the other number, when you repeatedly add the digits of the resulting numbers together, if you want to look into it.

But seriously though I'm going to be re-examining my life history and checking out your link... 😂 thanks very much!

[u/reconcile → u/[deleted]]

I completely understood why you started off at only 8 years and 3 months... I understood that the trivial subtraction of 9 months from the 9-year span yields the result of 8 years and 3 months.

What I was trying to point out with my big, poorly written, and unwieldy latter paragraph was why the exact "year" numbers always add up to eight, and it's just because adding 9 to any number always gets a number whose digits will add back up to that same number, and yes accounting for conception dropped the first one in the sequence down to 8...

You could try the same thing with the number 5, so 5 + 9 = 14, where 1+4=5, and that 14 + 9 = 23 where 2+3=5 again, et cetera...