#fake anecdotes

[josefavomjaaga]

An apocryphe anecdote about Kléber and Eugène

Émile Marco de Saint-Hilaire (actually Marc-Emile Hilaire) was a journalist and novel-writer during the July monarchy who provided the public with a bunch of fake memoirs and other texts related to the napoleonic times, occasionally inspired by actual memoirs but usually simply inventing them himself.

One of these anecdotes takes place in Egypt, during the siege of Saint-Jean d’Acre:

All the arrangements for the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre were made, it was said, with the thoughtlessness and carelessness that too much confidence in success always inspires. The trenches were barely three feet deep, so that many soldiers were not sufficiently covered and fell victim to this lack of foresight on the part of the engineer commander. One morning when General Kléber was walking through the lines of the camp with Eugène de Beauharnais, whom, as captain commanding the guides of the general-in-chief, some of these cavalrymen always had to escort, he was heard to express his dissatisfaction at the fact that the trenches were not pushed further forward and deeper.

- "Look, Blondin," he said to Eugène, "at your stepfather's funny trench; it only goes up to my knee." This general loved Eugène as one loves a son. Eugène was barely nineteen years old, and by familiarly calling him "blondin", Kléber was alluding to his magnificent hair; but no sooner had he uttered these words, than a bullet fired from the accursed tower tore a part off his cuffed boot and broke the thigh of the guide who was standing next to him. With a movement as swift as lightning, the general threw himself in front of Eugène and stretched out his arms as if to protect him; then he turned his head towards the wounded man and said coldly to Eugène: - "Well, Blondin, wasn't I right?"

This action, these words, this gesture of Kléber opposing his broad chest to the blows of the enemy to protect his young friend, are sublime; and it must be, because afterwards Prince Eugène could not recall this scene without tears coming to his eyes.

Of course Eugène would do that – except he does not recall this scene at all in his brief memoirs. In fact, there are several hints indicating that the whole anecdote is made up: Eugène’s age is wrong, he was not 19 but 17 during the siege of Saint-Jean d’Acre. Plus, he was not a capitaine at the time but a mere lowly lieutenant, also ADC to his stepfather and surely not commanding the guides (yet) – that was Bessières’s position. While it is not completely impossible that Napoleon would have given his stepson an escort (to avoid death by strangulation if on returning home he had to inform Josephine of her son’s demise), I doubt that was the case. Eugène’s job mostly consisted of taking orders to Napoleon’s subordinate commanders, and there is no indication that he received special protection at similar occasions. In fact, Eugène had already been wounded in action during the first attack of the siege. I’ve also never heard Eugène being called blondin before (a nickname that I do have read in some books was chérubin but I am at a loss as to the original source).

Finally, while Eugène does talk quite a bit about general Kléber and his alleged rivalry with general Bonaparte, he does not mention having been particularly close to Kléber himself.

Still, it is a nice story. And I particularly love the idea that yet another general from the former Armée du Nord/Sambre-et-Meuse was rivalling with general Bonaparte about his stepson’s affection 😋.

[peachdoxie]

There are many things I hate about job applications but the worst is that the whole process is so full of utter bullshit that I have a very hard time believing anyone actually buys it enough for it to work. Especially for like, entry level jobs. "It's always been my dream to be an assistant shipping coordinator and I'm soooo excited to work for Your Company and help send plastic parts around the country! I have these special skills that the 258 other people applying for this job also have! Please hire me because I'm the best person ever for this super generic entry level position!" Like, I'm supposed to believe that process works? Press x to doubt.

[julie-finlay]

Finlay Friday

13x07: "Fallen Angels", script extracts

[einsteinsugly]

November 2003. An Unwelcome Blast, From The Past.

@hydesjackiespuddinpop, in my verse, bottle blonde distinctly reminds Donna of 1979. A year that is seldom talked about, in both the Forman and Hyde abodes. See more below, and in the tags. I remembered something. :)

*****

It's a quiet Thursday night in a near-wintry Wisconsin, with only the television blaring and the heater humming away. Until...

"They found the photos," Jackie hisses, furiously tapping Donna's shoulder, "1979."

The peace has suddenly been broken, as Donna dutifully dashes upstairs.

Jackie leads Donna to Eric's old bedroom, where Leah and Kate have apparently been snooping. A yellowing photo album is spread out on Eric's old bed, and they're fixated on a particular page. A photo of a blonde Donna, and a porn-mustached Hyde.

They glance up, only somewhat alarmed. Instead, Kate's notably disappointed, and Leah's strangely intrigued.

Not in a good way, though. Like she's watching Kelso trying to canoe down a hill, anticipating a bloody heap at the bottom.

But Kate surprisingly pipes up first, as Leah further examines the wreckage, tracing the porn mustache with her pinky finger.

A morose expression is still plastered on Kate's bewildered face. "I can't believe you were blonde, even if it was only for a year. You always told me to be true to yourself, even if Aunt Jackie called you Raggedy Ann or Little Orphan Annie."

Donna forcefully chuckles, swallowing her immense shame. The memories come flooding back, and she notably winces. "It was a tough time. I was trying to figure out everything, and it was the only thing..."

"You could control?" Leah blurts, and Donna uncomfortably nods. "See, I think I'm being totally reasonable. You did it too."

"A tattoo is permanent..." Donna dangerously combats, before reluctantly wavering. "Usually."

Leah loudly scoffs, with immense pride. Hopping off the bed, as Jackie ushers them both out of the room. "And I think my belly button ring is totally reasonable..."

"Your thong is showing," Kate hisses, "It looks like black dental floss."

Leah feigns ignorance, surprised that Jackie and Donna have failed to respond. "What thong..."

Jackie shuts the door, as soon as they reluctantly depart. They wait several seconds, for both of the kids to be truly out of earshot.

Donna lowers her voice, to a mere whisper. "Thank God they didn't ask anything else."

"See? I told you it was a good idea to put them through a shredder," Jackie quietly proclaims, "That's what I did with the two pictures of me and Fez."

[electricguitarhasmyheart]

i get to yell this at my ex during our play 😜

it's very theraputic

also @asuryanshallwatchyou gets to beat him up

[muskmelon-enjoyer-199x]

Ive been reading a lot of african history lately (mostly late-colonial and early-postcolonial stuff about politics, conflicts, and social movements) and this came up in my amazon.

Like i get that it's an important topic to have records of (especially from an author involved in the events) and that this is a self-published thing but

Did this guy literally have no one with any taste around to critique his font choice?

[peaceeandcoolestvibes]

.

[rig-a-rendal]

thinking about the time there were a couple of german spies sent to the isle of skye during the second world war to try and get to grips with the code language (gaelic) these heathen brits were using and there was a mix-up in their language training so immediately upon arriving in skye these germans were noticed and set to be executed. but not because they sounded german. because they sounded like they were from lewis.

[arah-fren]

I realized recently that I’m actually getting depressed.

I didn’t notice at first because I was like “if I was depressed I wouldn’t have turned in all my past assignments” but then I started being too harsh on myself while being stressed over all my current assignments being due soon and thought “well that’s not ideal innit”

But now that I recognized it I’m gonna try and feel better so don’t worry about me I’ll be okay

[peachdoxie]

I'm looking at a distress tolerance ideas sheet my therapist sent me, and under "Relaxing Activities" is "Exercise Hard" and I'm like. hmm.

[luchicm04]

5 things I used to believe about Pokémon

The mind of a 6 year old can be really something...

1) Rival's starter

To put it into context, I started playing Pokémon quite late, back in 2014. A friend from school had AS and let me play it. And I loved it. So, I asked my parents to buy it for me a few weeks later. I couldn't hold back my desire, so I opened it and started playing in the car on the way back from the store.

I had no idea about the basics of the game or the story, so when it came time to choose my starter, I didn't know which one to choose. In the end, I chose Treecko (my first Pokémon ever and one of my favorites) and in the first battle I saw that my opponent had a Torchic.

However, I hadn't had time to save my game when I had to get out of the car and later had to start from scratch. I then thought that my opponent was programmed to always choose Torchic, so this time I took Mudkip, thinking that I would have the advantage. Obviously I then saw that this time he had a Treecko and I finally understood that the opponent chooses the one who has the advantage against you (or at least, they used to). A pretty dumb rookie mistake. Still, I beat the game with Swampert, and in the following games I went back to using Sceptile to do nuzlocks.

2) Pokemon BW; swapped titles

This is something I only recently discovered, as until a few months ago I had never played the black and white saga. A few months ago I decided to download the games to my computer, as my Nintendo DS was a bit broken, and I had decided to choose the black version, because I wanted to have a ZeKrom, one of my first cards and one of the strongest I had.

As you may have noticed, I mistakenly thought that the black version was the one that had Zekrom and the white one the one that had Reshiram, when the reality was the opposite. In the end I discovered my mistake when I started it, but as the differences were few, I decided not to download the other version. Also, in the end I preferred Reshiram's design because it seemed more elegant and majestic to me than Zecrom's. Indeed, I ended up choosing my preferred version of both games by mistake.

3) First cards, then anime and game

When I was still in elementary school, pokemon cards were extremely popular. To the point that it didn't matter if you liked pokemon or not, everyone had one to trade. In fact, I discovered pokemon thanks to them, and I still have all my old cards, with some more recent ones.

The thing is, I was a very innocent little girl back then, and I thought that cards were the first pokemon product ever created. At that time I also watched the anime on TV, and a few years later, I discovered that games existed.

I don't know what was going on in my six-year-old mind, but since I had been introduced to anime, cards, and games in that order respectively, I thought that that was the order in which they had been created, something that had also happened to me with other sagas like Inazuma Eleven, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one to believe this kind of thing.

4) TCG vs reality

I'll talk about the Pokemon cards again, because I'm sure I wasn't the only one who believed this. As I mentioned, I had a lot of Pokemon cards before I bought my first game, and the little I knew about Pokemon I got from the cards, which led me to interpret a lot of information incorrectly.

This included the types and their weaknesses and resistances. For those of you who don't know because you've never had them, not all the existing Pokemon types appear on the cards. For example, Psychic, Ghost, and Poison were represented as a single type, as were others like Steel and Flying, Grass and Gug, Water and Ice, and Rock, Fighting, and Ground.

Because of this, some Pokemon appeared with types they didn't really have, and with weaknesses and resistances they didn't really have either. I didn't find this out until I actually played the game, but up until that day, I actually believed things like Steel was weak to Electric and that Fighting was super effective against Ground because of those uninformative cards.

5) Erasing my cousin's game

This is more of an anecdote than a fact, but I decided to include it anyway because it's something that happened to me due to my limited knowledge of games. Let me explain: I was four years old and I was at my cousin's house, who was six. He had a Nintendo DS and he really liked playing Pokemon. In fact, I remember well that he had one copy of the black edition, and FIVE of the white one. I don't really know why.

The thing is that I wanted to play the black edition, because since he only had one cartridge of it, it seemed more interesting to me. He refused at first, saying that he already had a saved game, and my baby self started throwing tantrums to get him to let me play, thinking that the game was one of those that allowed you to save several games at once and that he simply didn't want to let me play.

In the end, because his mother saw me like that, she forced my cousin to delete the game so I could play, and that's how I left his house that day, leaving him with his only version of black pokemon with a tepig and several patrat stored inside. To this day I regret this a lot because I don't know what I would have done if it had happened to me, but since I hardly see my cousin, I hope he has forgiven me or at least I hope he doesn't remember that and doesn't hold a grudge against me.

Most of the stuff here came from my own thoughts and beliefs when I was little, so forgive me if they sound somewhat stupid and obvious. Back in that time, pokemon had just become popular on my school, and I knew nothing about it except what little I was told and what I imagined in my head since the Internet was still a little primitive and you couldn't really tell what was true and what was fake. Still, hope you understand my pov and pls tell me if any of these apply to you as well...

[secretcherimaybe]

two nice things happened to me this week

First, I was setting up my Extra gift bag, just in case I run into folks during the holidays I didn't expect, I will have a gift for them:

I got abig mixed bag of hand lotions and decided, whichever random lotion is left I will keep for myself, just hoping it wasn't a honey or avocado one. And low and behold! I get to the bottom and it's the best one! 💙Blueberry💙

Hurray for blueberry!!!! 🫐🫐🫐🫐

Wrapping more specific gifts I hadn't really prepared much more then the lotion for a gal I know I'm going to see but I don't really know, you know. Trying to think what could go well with the lotion I remembered I had just gotten myself a really cute bath bomb the day before that would match perfectly, A little sadly because now I won't get to bomb my own bath but relieved I have something proper for this gal who I really should try to get to know better I wrapped up a nice bath set for her.

The next day my guy insisted on giving me one of my gifts early because the smell was really getting to him; LUSH BATH BOMBS!

My absolute favorite!

So alls well that ends well ❤️‍🩹

[homunculus-argument]

I always love when people explain something in an anecdote by saying "because it was the [decade story is set in]", because it either really puts the story into historical perspective, or sounds hilariously unhinged simply by implying that this was ever the norm. Like

"They were playing darts while using one guy's back as the target because it was the 50s and there wasn't anything else to do."

"She named her baby Moonshine because it was the 60s."

"So he sailed off and faked his own death in Argentina because it was the 70s and people could just do shit like that."

"My aunt pulled a switchblade out of her hair - yeah her hairdo was big and puffy enough to hide a concealed weapon in, because it was the 80s - and"

"They didn't like each other but got married and had kids anyway because it was the 90s and everybody else was doing it."

[sklerbkl]

People will share the most mundane yet enjoyable stories on here like "a stranger told me something weird and flattering at the hardware store" or "I'm trans and someone online said something funny and gender affirming about me" or "when I was a little kid I wrote angry letters to the president" and people in the notes will be like, "things that never happened," "and then everyone clapped, right? 🙄"

Like, what is your life like that these ordinary interactions are unbelievably outlandish to you? You've never had a stranger say something kind of weird to you? You never did anything funny as a kid?

[clown-around-and-find-out]

thinking about the time i was going through my english professor's supplemental readings for the course and one of them linked to an essay on tumblr and i nearly fell out of my chair

[nerdvi]

In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.