A Beginning Without A Story

[This is something that's been in my head for a while. I picture this as the beginning of a novel length book, with nothing that is said here becoming even remotely relevant, or even being alluded to, until much later in the book. The trouble is, I don't actually picture of much of anything else about the story.]

Before we get going, there's something I should tell you. Not because it's important for understanding the beginning of my story. It isn't. Not because I knew it at the time. I didn't. No, I have to tell you now simply because if I waited until it was important it would seem to come out of nowhere, and it's the kind of thing that you can't just have come out of nowhere. It needs some kind of warning, so I'm giving it now.

So, for the record, I'm an alien.

I don't mean that I'm from another country I was born in Lewiston, Maine and I've never ventured farther afield than Boston, Massachusetts. I've never left the country I call home and I'm definitely a citizen. I also happen to be non-human. If I understand correctly my species comes from a small planet orbiting a fast moving sun somewhere in the vicinity of the galactic core where radiation is high and space isn't quite empty, but truth be told astrophysics gives me a headache so that could be way off.

Also, I can create multipurpose balls of energy. When I make them they appear about a half an inch from my palms. Just so you know.

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[Original Work Index]

Basic Math - Division Rules

When people find out one is a math major they always seem to expect it means one can do math with incredible ease and knows all kinds of neat tricks. That... isn't quite... true. It's rather far from the truth actually.

But there is a trick that most people find neat, I've never found much practical use for it, but I've seen people, even adults, regard it as if it were magic. You almost certainly know this trick yourself. It's how you tell if a number is divisible by nine. Should, someday, you find yourself in a situation where the fate of the world hinges on knowing whether or not a large number is divisible by nine, you just add up all the digits, and if that's divisible by nine the original number is. Repeat as necessary.

People naturally wonder if there are other such rules. Yes. There are. You already know some of them for example the ones for 2, 5, and 10 are probably ones you use without thinking. Here are 14 such rules, along with explanations for how they work. Guaranteed to bore you.

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0

Is the number zero?

If a number is divisible by zero then it must be of the form X = 0 * Y for some Y that is a whole number. For any number Y, 0 * Y = 0, so X is only divisible by zero if X = 0.

I have a tendency to forget about super special special cases that aren't intuitive.  Zero is, by definition, a divisor of nothing.  This means that zero is the only number that doesn't divide itself.  It also means that the only number that doesn't divide zero is zero.  Pick any other integer.  It divides zero.  The sole exception is the one number you would most expect to be a divisor of zero.

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1

Is it a number?

I should probably be more specific since divisibility only applies to integers, but basically if the question, “Is this number divisible by [whatever]?” makes any kind of sense that means the number is definitely divisible by 1.

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2

Is the last digit divisible by two?

This is because two is a factor of 10, so when you hit the next number divisible by ten it's like you reset the last digit, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and then you're back to 0. So anything ending in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 is divisible by two, and anything that doesn't end in one of those isn't.

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3

Add up all the digits, is the result divisible by three?

This is tied up in something called modular arithmetic. It it's a lot like if you took the idea of even and odd and then generalized it. If I were going to ask you if the result you got when you added or multiplied two numbers was even or odd, you wouldn't need to know what the two numbers were, you'd just need to know whether they were even or odd. All you need to know is if the remainder when you divide by two is 0, in which case the number is even, or 1, in which case the number is odd. That's mathematics, modulo two.

In this case we're doing sort of the same thing, but we're looking at the remainder when you divide by three. 10 is 1 modulo 3. (Three goes into ten three times with one left over.) This is what we can do with that knowledge:

I randomly punch a number into my keyboard 1987346543197864.

Is it divisible by 3? I don't know. Let's find out.

The number is actually 198734654319786 * 10 + 4, but since we're doing this modulo 3, that ten can be replaced with a 1, and one times anything is itself, so we can simplify to, 198734654319786 + 4. Repeat and we get: 1+9+8+7+3+4+6+5+4+3+1+9+7+8+6+4 = 85.

Then we can test 85 by repeating. 8+5 = 13. 1+3 = 4. It's not divisible by three, it's off by one. If it had been 1987346543197863, it would have been divisible by three.

The process can actually be simplified a bit more than that. We know that 3, 6, and 9 are all divisible by three, so there's no need to add them up, we can just get rid of them. So if we started with 1987346543197863 we wouldn't need to add up every digit, just the ones that aren't 3, 6, or nine:

1+8+7+4+5+4+1+7+8+3 = 48.

4+8 = 12. 1+2 =3. The number is divisible by 3 just like we thought it would be.

In theory you could make it even simpler, since you never really need to deal with a number larger than two. (4 and 7 are one modulo 3. 5 and 8 are two modulo 3.) But there comes a point where what's theoretically simplifying is actually making things more complicated. While I'm on the subject of making things more complicated, 2 is equal to -1 modulo 3. So really you don't need to even deal with something as big as two.

So 1+9+8+7+3+4+6+5+4+3+1+9+7+8+6+3 = 84 becomes 1+0-1+1+0+1+0-1+1+0+1+0+1-1+0+0 = 3. At which point we're just being silly. Moving on.

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4

Are the last two digits divisible by four?

Of course, then you've got to wonder, “How do I know if the last two digits are divisible by four?” Here's how: Take the tens digit, multiply it by 2, and subtract the ones digit. Is it divisible by four? (For example, 68. 6*2 – 8 = 12 – 8 = 4, four is divisible by four, so 68 is divisible by four.)

The reason the first test works is because 100 is divisible by four, so every time you reach the next hundred it's like you've reset the last two digits and are starting over.

The reason the second test works is because of twelve. If you get zero when you do that test, then the number is divisible by 12, and everything divisible by 12 is divisible by 4. (Because 12 is divisible by 4.) When you don't get zero you're getting something that's kind of sort of like a remainder but not quite. It's kind of complicated to say exactly what it is. The important thing is that it's a number that, if you add it to the original number you'll get something divisible by twelve:

16 → 1*2 – 6 = 2 – 6 = -4. 16 + – 4 = 12

80 → 8*2 – 0 = 16 – 0 = 16. 80 + 16 = 96. 96 = 12 * 8.

And so on. If you've got a number such that X = A + B, and C divides both A and B, then C divides X. What we're doing with the second rule is breaking down the number we want to test into two parts, something divisible by twelve (in the above examples 12 and 96 respectively) and another number (in the above examples 4 and negative 16, respectively) we know that the thing divisible by twelve is divisible by four, we just have to check if the other number is.

I'm guessing that that makes even less sense now that I've explained it, but just like the rule with nine, the important thing is that it works, as if by magic.

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5

Is the last digit divisible by five?

Just like two, five divides ten so every time that you get to the next ten it's like the last digit resets. So all you ever have to do is to check the last digit. And since the only one digit numbers divisible by five are zero and five, all you need to do is check to see if the last digit is a zero or a five.

Another way to think about why we only need to think of the final digits when looking at things like two, four, five, and eventually eight, is not that the final digits reset when you get to the thing they divide (10, 100, 10, and 1000 respectively) but that the other digits don't matter. If we take the number 10943856873651387465 that I have just randomly typed into my keyboard (and was actually surprised to see it ended in 5) that's actually 1094385687365138746 * 10 + 5. Anything divisible by ten is divisible by five, so we can throw out the 1094385687365138746 * 10 and just ask if the remaining number, here 5, is divisible by five.

Both ways of looking at it are perfectly legitimate, and the important thing is that you can ignore most of the number.

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6

Is it divisible by 3 and 2?

That's pretty boring.

There are other things we could do. For example, we could drop the last digit, add together the remaining digits, multiply that by four, and then add the last digit. Sound complicated? It is. Here's how it works: Start with 54660. 5+4+6+6 = 21. 21 * 4 = 84. 84 + 0 = 84. Is that divisible by six? Who knows. Repeat. 8*4= 32. 32 + 4 = 36. And that is divisible by six. (You could repeat again to get 18 and again to get 12, and again to get 6, if you wanted.)

Or, we could do the same thing but multiplying by negative two instead of 4.

Starting, again, with 54660. 5+4+6+6 = 21. 21 * -2 = -42. -42 + 0 = -42. -4 * -2 = 8. 8 + -2 = 6.

Ok, so why do these rules work? For the first thing it's because six is two times three so obviously anything divisible by both must be divisible by six. This works because two and three are relatively prime. Which means that we don't risk tripping up the same way we would if we assumed 18 was divisible by 12 because it can be divided by two and six. Two and three don't have any factors in common, so anything divisible by both of them has to be divisible by six as well.

To be more formal. If X is divisible by A and B, and A and B have no common factors apart from 1, then X is divisible by AB.

As for the second rule, it has to do with the thing that I said was sort of like a remainder above which is actually tied in with almost everything discussed so far. Using the example above:

54660 is 5*10000 + 4*1000 + 6*100 + 6*10 + 0

10 = 6 + 4 so 10 = 4 modulo six. Which is often written: 10 = 4 (mod 6)

100=10*10= 4*4 (mod 6). Now 4*4 = 16 = 12 + 4. And 12 = 0 (mod 6) So 4*4=4 (mod 6).

So every power of ten is 4 (mod 6).

Thus 5*10000 + 4*1000 + 6*100 + 6*10 + 0 becomes 5*4 + 4*4 + 6*4 + 6*4 + 0

And that can be written as (5+4+6+6)*4 + 0. which is what the rule is.

The rule for two does the same thing with zero instead of four, as does the rule for 5, the rule for three uses 1 instead of four.

As for why it works with negative two, it's actually pretty simple. Negative two is four modulo six. Ten is equal to four modulo six because it is four more than six, it is also equal to negative two modulo six because it is two less than twelve.

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7

Seven has got to be the most annoying of the single digit numbers.

Take the three lowest digits, subtract from them the next three lowest digits, add to them the next three, subtract from the three after that, and so on. Is the result divisible by seven?

What if you only have a three digit number to work with and thus can't do that? Subtract twice the last digit from the rest.

To illustrate:

Starting with: 456897209752172. We get:

456-897+209-752+172 = -812

-81 – 2 * (-2) = -77 (which is clearly divisible by seven, but continuing anyway)

-7 – 2 * (-7) = 7.

Ok, so why does this mess work? Well, it just so happens that 1000 is negative one modulo seven (that is, 1001 is divisible by seven.) So we can break down a very big number like this:

456897209752172 = 456897209752*1000 + 172 which is -456897209752 + 172 (mod 7).

That's just -456897209*1000 – 752 + 172 = 456897209 – 752 + 172 (mod 7), and so on.

Note that if the last thingy doesn't have 3 digits, that's ok. 1204 is -1 +204 (mod 7). The second rule is, I'm told, borrowed from a rule used to check to see if things are divisible by 21. You see 10*-2 = -20 = 1 (mod 21) Which also happens to be 1 (mod 7) because 21 is divisible by seven.

So, from the example above, -812 = -81*10 -2.

We multiply the whole thing by -2 and get -81*(-20) -2*(-2).

-20 is 1(mod 7) so we get rid of it. Confused yet? 

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8

 Are the last three digits divisible by 8?

How do we tell if the last three digits are divisible by eight?

Take the ones digit, add it to two times the tens digit and 4 times the hundreds digit. Is that divisible by eight? (For example 512. 5*4+1*2+2= 24. 2*2+4= 8. Yes it is.) Why just the last three digits? See above in the descriptions of 2, 4, and 5. Or, look at 7. 1000 is 0 mod 8, so we do the same thing as we did with seven except we use zero instead of negative one. 456897209752*1000+172 = 456897209752*0 + 172 = 172 (mod 8). Why are we multiplying by 2 and 4? Because 10 = 2 (mod 8) and 100 = 4 (mod 8).

So, continuing, 172= 1*100 + 7*10 + 2 = 1*4 + 7*2 + 2 = 20 (mod 8).

20 = 2*2 + 0 = 4 (mod 8). It isn't divisible by eight.

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9

This is going to feel like the three rule all over again. Add up all of the digits, are they divisible by 9?

Just like ten is 1 (mod 3) it is also 1 (mod 9). Which is why you get to add up all the digits. I'm not going to repeat the entire three speech.

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10

Is the last digit divisible by ten? By which I mean, is the last digit zero?

Base ten mathematics is the most experience most people have with addition and multiplication modulo anything, because if you just look at the last digit you'll find you're doing math modulo 10. Anyway, if the last digit is anything other than 0, then there's some remainder when you divide by 10.

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11

Add the first digit, subtract the second, add the third, subtract the fourth, and so on. Is the result divisible by 11?

Ten is negative one modulo 11. So what we get here is like the sevens rule but using one digit instead of blocks of three. So, starting with 94875204935724957257458439, we get:

-9+4-8+7-5+2-0+4-9+3-5+7-2+4-9+5-7+2-5+7-4+5-8+4-3+9 = -11

That worked out absurdly well considering that I just hit random keys and then adjusted to the nearest multiple of 11.

If you somehow didn't know that negative 11 is divisible by 11, you'd just repeat:

-11 → -(-1) + -1 = 1-1=0. 0 is divisible by everything, including 11, and so it is divisible by 11 and you're done.

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12

Is it divisible by four and three?

Again, a boring rule, though it is probably more useful than anything else we can come up with.

We could also subtract the last digit from twice what remains when you remove it, as we did with 4.

72 → 2*7 -2 = 12.

156 → 2*15 – 6 = 30 – 6 = 24. If that's not good enough: 2*2 – 4 = 0. We're done.

What if there are a lot of digits and we want to make the number we have to multiply smaller. Well, you're in luck (sort of) there is something else we can do.

Take all the digits except the last two. Add them together. Multiply them by four. Subtract twice the tens digit, add the ones digit.

458760249588 → (4+5+8+7+6+0+2+4+9+5)*4 – 8*2 + 8 = 192

192 → 1*4 – 9*2 + 2 = -12

And we know it's divisible by 12.

As for why it works, more of the same. 10 = -2 mod 12. So 156 = 15*(-2) + 6= -30 + 6 = -24 (mod 12). But if -X is divisible by 12 then so is X, and for whatever reason 15*2 – 6 just looks nicer than 15*(-2) + 6.

For the other thing we just see what each power of ten is, modulo twelve. 10, we've already said, is -2. To find the next power we just multiply by -2 again. -2 * -2 = 4. Then something interesting happens. 4 * -2 = -8, and -8 = 4 (mod 12). Which means that for every power of ten after the first, what we have is 4 modulo 12. That's why we can just add up everything in the digits other than the first two and multiply the sum by four. Or, if we wanted to, we could multiply each by four individually. Either way works.

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13

Remember the addition and subtraction thing with blocks of three numbers each you did up at 7? That's back.

After that you get to add 4 times the ones digit to the other digits.

So start with something like 2267142305814737.

-2+267-142+305-814+737=351

35 + 1*4 = 39 and that's divisible by 13.

Unfortunately if you don't know that it kind of gets stuck in a rut there because 3+9*4=39, and you'll just go around in a loop. Not completely sure what to do about that. You could, I suppose, add the ones digit to negative three times the rest. That will work.

3*(-3) + 9 = 0. 0 is divisible by 13. You're done.

So, why does it work? The first thing works for the same reason it worked for seven. 13 divides 1001. (So too does 11, but we don't have to resort to that there.)

The second thing works because 13 divides 39, which means 40 = 1 (mod 13). I didn't mention this last time this came up (in the test for 7) but the reason this works is that the number we're multiplying by isn't a factor of the number we're testing for. Not a problem because in both cases (7 and 13) the number we're testing for is a prime number. There's no way the result of multiplying by four could be divisible by 13 if the original number wasn't.

Anyway, we start with 351, which is 35*10 + 1. We multiply the whole thing by four:

35*40 + 1*4, we know that 40 = 1 mod (13) so that is 35 + 1*4 (mod 13).

The third thing works because 10 = -3 (mod 13). Hopefully I've explained that one enough that I don't have to do it again.

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And those are some division rules.

The past month

It's been about a month since I actually sent in an update for This Week in the Slacktiverse, so anyone who relies on that for updates doesn't know any of what I've done since then. I figured the simplest solution would be to make a big update post. This is what I've done since then:

Romulan Tangerine Lamps - I had tangerines, I tried to make lamps out of them. Hannah said many interesting things about the Hungarian language.

Two excerpts from my NaNoWriMo project:
Ryan on Stalling - It seemed appropriate to share since I was stalled.
Ryan makes an incoherent metaphor - What I finally wrote when I got unstalled.

Left Behind, Twilight, and Narnia:

Two things, both about the onrushing third World War, from an ongoing attempt to make Left Behind with non jerks called Skewed Slightly to the Left:
- Excerpt from a secret meeting
- Fighting Fate

Left Behind with Edward and Bella - A Twilight-Left Behind crossover where I attempt to illustrate my belief that Left behind is populated by people who are all Edward Cullen.

World War III, as told in Left Behind - An attempt to fit everything we have been told about the war so far into a single straightforward narative.

Five responses to this post on Left Behind by Fred Clark:

• A News Report on WWIII and Terminology - My first thought when I saw the way that certain exposition was worked into a news report from someone live on the ground in a city left in ruins by an ongoing attack.
• The Fight in the Nike Center - Silly, because Jerry Jenkins seems to have completely failed to realize that at this point in time it really sounds like he's talking about a shoe store.
• DC is under attack, and there's a traffic jam in Chicago - More about the same news report, this time trying to make the absurdity of the person standing on the outskirts of a city suddenly turned into a warzone giving the traffic report for a very far away city.
• Getting information while stuck in traffic - Our heroes learning all this stuff.
• Getting information while hiding in the woods - Our heroes learning all of this stuff if they'd been heroic and ended up on the run as a result.

Lunch With Edward - (Part of Snarky Twilight) More or less what it sounds like, Edward beckons to Bella, she comes over, they sit together for lunch. Jessica is in there too, she's glad she's not the main character.

John Galt Sparkles - Why the ending of Atlas Shrugged might actually work as intended if John Galt were a sparkle vampire. Will Wildman is considering doing an Atlas Shrugged Dracula crossover as a result of this short piece.

Work against the Emperor's Magic? - Aslan, being willing to be Heroic; Susan being awesome. At least that's how it was intended.

Original Work:

Jesse in the Morgue - There was some discussion of a story that is basically Jesus in high school. This was my version of the Resurrection.

Jesse in the Garden - A continuation of the above, in which I completely ignore the actual biblical story of what happened in the garden.

Demon Resources - Nick Andes interviews someone who wants a job in his reigime.

Strike Me down - The death of the Antichrist in A World Without God.

Summaries of two books that haven't been written yet:

The Next Out Of Left Field Mass Market Boom:
- Initial thoughts
- Additional thoughts

The Time Travelers Guide to English Grammar

Stuff that is more like an ordinary blog:

The tangerine lamps should probably go here, but I already mentioned them.

Depression and NaNoWriMo - Did you know that depression and writer's block seem to have a lot in common? I think that's what I was trying to get at with this post, but it's probably not the most clear thing in the world becuase I didn't figure that out until after I finished writing the post.

"What have you been up to?" - More stuff about living with depression, this time on how the lack of accomplishment that depression tends to cause is itself depressing.

Venting - The two emotionally abusive people in my life collided at my sister's birthday. It wasn't the first time something like that happened, it won't be the last. I needed to get what I was feeling out, hence the venting.

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[Meta Index]

Venting

[Trigger Warning, emotional abuse]
[I usually don't do trigger warnings mostly because I usually don't think of them, I'll probably continue to forget to add them in the future, but given the content of the post I'm pretty sure one belongs here. Two actually, but the other one (abuser's perspective) only applies to one section so the actual warning is at that section, with a second thing saying where it ends.]

I've been meaning to write some posts on happier subjects, for they do exist and they're worth writing about, but for some reason the words haven't come, so today something else. Not quite sure whether it's exactly screaming for all the world to see in hopes that the spectacle will release some sort of pressure, or if it's more an exasperated sigh given form by means of words. Regardless, the time has come to vent.

Venting is dangerous, there's always the risk that someone will see it, it exposes your weaknesses. Look at what happened to the Death Star just because someone happened to see where its ventilation shaft was located. Venting, if seen by the wrong people, has the potential to result in utter destruction.

I have only one name online. People know it. As far as I know they've never run a search, as far as I know they've never come looking. But they could. It would take but a single search and they could find this place and read these words. People have come here looking for “chris the cynic”. I'm not going to create a new identity just to vent, so I'm taking that risk.

Not everything wrong with my life has to do with depression. Some of it, I'm pretty sure, would be hard on someone whose brain was in perfect working order. Not much of it. Not most of it. Very little of it in fact, but when it comes it's impossible to ignore or avoid. It's inescapable.

Recently there was a discussion somewhere, Slacktivist probably, where I felt the need to point out that I didn't have first hand experience of something. I started to write, “I've never been abused,” I think I did write it. I wanted to write it, on some level I still believed it, but I couldn't write it because it wasn't true. It was a lie. I had been abused, I have been abused, and sometimes it still happens. So I corrected to something along the lines of, “I haven't been abused in that way.”

That was something that took me a long time to admit even to myself. I've always thought that abuse was something that happened to other people. Something that I had thankfully avoided. It was something I felt bad about learning about it, something that broke my heart and made me wish I could help with, but it wasn't something that happened to me. It couldn't be anything that close to home. Other people were abused, not me.

Part of that was wrapped up in the idea that all abuse is physical abuse. My father never hit me. My father never hurt me, at least not with anything but words. My sister hit me.

Even as recently as this year, if I'm remembering dates right, she still did. Only on special occasions, specifically concerts. My mother is in a concert band, my sister always used to sit next to me, and she needed to be the center of attention. If I tried to pay attention to the band to the exclusion of her, she'd start with the hitting, in time to the music. Sometimes it would be poking, all the force concentrated into an impact the size of a fingertip, other times it was actual punching, though it should be pointed out that one can only punch someone so hard when you're seated next to them.

The only way to stop her was to grab both of her hands and not let go. Which makes it very difficult to pay attention to the music. The reaction to me telling her, again, that that hurts and I don't appreciate it was two pronged. Either I'm a liar, which was her primary argument, or there's something very wrong with me and it's not her fault that it hurts so damned much to be hit repeatedly by her.

But I'd like to get back to my father. Because two things I've mentioned here tie back in with him. One is my sister's choice of response. I disagree with the way she thinks things should be (she thinks I shouldn't feel pain, I say I do) that makes me a liar. The other is what finally made me write that I've been abused: to do otherwise would be lying. Lying has a very important history in my family. Not so much the practice of lying, the word itself. Lie. Lying. Liar. These are words that are very familiar. They've been drilled into us. By my father.

My sister is wrong about many things, but one area where she is completely right is that my father spent our childhoods yelling at us about lying (even, and indeed mostly, when we weren't actually lying) and yet he makes up lies all the time. Hurtful lies that serve no purpose except to throw someone off balance in the middle of an argument, or hurtful lies that serve no purpose except to make the person out of the room look bad. Hurtful baldfaced lies.

We grew up in fear of the man who yelled at us for lying. There were no mistakes. There were no changes of mind or changes in conditions. And it was certainly never the case that he was the one who remembered wrong. There were only lies. And after all of that, after years of that, after our childhoods were shaped by that, he lies to us. He lies to us about us.

That has shaped my life a lot. I think I'm one of the few people who would rather have people lie about me behind my back than to my face. If a discussion reaches the point where someone starts saying things about what I've said that can't be dismissed as simple misunderstanding, or even complicated misunderstanding, but instead reaches the point of clearly and undeniably making shit up, that's when it's basically over for me.

Online I'll generally put in a request, directly stated in the clearest possible terms, that the person not do that. Sometimes I can't even make it back to see what the answer is, and generally when someone has reached the point of making shit up that's not going to stop them. Whether the conversation ends with me slinking away or me blowing up is something that I can't really say, it happens on a case by case basis. Also it's not something that comes up all that often, it's pretty rare, so small sample size and all that.

It's not as bad with trolls though. With trolls I can actually brush it off pretty easily. I'm not even counting them in the very small sample above. When it's really bad is when it's a member of a community who's actually respectable, when it's someone I trusted or even looked up to. So long as I'm being introspective here, I'm going to guess that has something to do with the fact that person I have the most experience with doing that, the person who lies to me about what I've said most often, is my father.

My sister has been known to do it too.

We grew up in fear of him, but she grew up to be a lot like him.

It's hard to take sides when both sides are wrong.

Today was my sister's birthday, Today is my sister's birthday, though by the time I finish writing this who knows. You'd think that would make it a truce. Instead it was the day when things boiled over. Facts were twisted, things were shouted, tears were shed. My sister has not been treating the rest of my family right, and there is no excuse for that. The way my father reacted to my sister today has no excuse either.

You can see where he was coming from, you can see why he was angry, you can see why he would want to twist the truth, and even make shit up, just to retaliate for what he's had to put up with. That's no excuse. It's not that it was her birthday, it has nothing to do with the fact that it was her birthday. On any day it would have been wrong. I don't know the best way to put your foot down and say, “I can't take any more of this shit,” but a barrage of shouted lies and half truths isn't it. Driving someone to sobbing tears isn't it.

Their memories are fluid in a way mine is not, or at least they seem to be. I can't see inside their minds, I don't know what they really think. I do know that I believe them. I believe that they believe their own lies.

[Trigger warning, thinking like an abuser.]

I know the urge to reach for whatever claim would support your case the best. Maybe it isn't true that she could have fixed her car by now, thus removing a painful strain of the family that has fucked up everyone, if she'd just been willing to spend a bit more but good god would it help score points in an argument and more than that you want it to be true because if it were then that would mean she had no excuse, it wasn't more complicated than that and your rage would be a righteous fury and however badly you hurt their feelings wouldn't matter because they'd fucking deserve it.

I know the urge to play fast and loose with the truth so that you can make the person who hurt you hurt. I know what it's like to have some part of you crying out to use this lie or that because it would cut deep and hurt the other person and somehow that's supposed to make you feel better. I know what makes them do what they do because I feel it too. But I've never had their knack for it.

I can come up with the lies, but I can't believe them. Maybe a couple of times, one kind of sort of comes to mind. But not the way they do. I worry that someday I will. Someday I'll slip and become like them. Living in my own world where what I remember is what I want to have happened, where the truth is whatever I say it is.

There's a strange comfort in that idea. The idea that the hateful hurtful stuff that bubbles out of my id could be true. That I could grab onto it and bludgeon my opponents with it. A part of me wants to be able to shout them down with righteous fury and have everyone convinced of the rightness of my viewpoint. There are so many politicians I'd love to do that to. Did they really take bribes from [whoever]? I don't know, but it would sure as hell help make my point if it were true, and it would feel good to shout it at the top of my lungs while they withered under the strength of my fury.

[end trigger warning for thinking like an abuser]

My memory doesn't work like that. I don't remember the times I was right, I remember the times I was wrong. I don't remember what I wish happened. I remember what I wish hadn't happened. I remember stupid things I said years ago, even decades. I remember mistakes I made, I remember things I screwed up. That's probably tied up with the depression, but at least it helps me know that I'm not going over to their side of the force.

My sister was the one to stand up to my father. I owe her a lot for it. I don't know if it ever really helped, but she did it while I was too afraid. Whatever I may think against her, that took courage like I have never had. She stood up, I stand back. So it was when we were little, so it still is today.

I know my sister better than I know my father. When I read a description of what a controlling person is like I thought of her, not him, even though they're so very much alike. It was a perfect description, she is a controlling person. And that can be a problem if you're letting her use your car because hers is broken. I imagine it is Hell. I've seen the effect my sister has had on my mother, I know what she does to me, I can't blame my father for being mad as hell and deciding he wasn't going to take it any more.

It still doesn't excuse his actions today. She was wrong, that doesn't make him any less wrong.

I spent my night in the crossfire between two emotionally abusive people. It sucked. I don't know the whole truth of what happened, I probably never will, but I do know that no one was right. Neither of them deserved the treatment they were getting from the other. Tonight was my father's show. He was the one most in the wrong tonight, but then I wonder if it matters that he's been on the receiving end of wrong for a while now, perhaps more than he dished out. And finally I realize that it doesn't matter. There's no balancing act going on. Perhaps she was more in the wrong than him, perhaps he was more than her, so what? There's no excusing either side.

It definitely hurts to be in the middle.

-

I love them both. That may be what hurts the most.

In stories I read abuse is like the Dursleys of Harry Potter: all bad, no good. There's something comforting about that. The simplicity, the clean cut quality. I generally like my fiction to be that way. Real life is gray enough, black and white makes for a pleasant change of pace. But the problem with stories like that is that they leave out what was my reality. (Of course, that's also the appeal.)

I have a sister whom I love. She's smart, she's funny, she's an overall good person who is trying to make the world a better place, and yet she's a controlling individual who sees nothing wrong with fracking punching me at concerts, selectively edits her understanding of the truth, and has been known to belittle people, basically, because they failed to read her mind. How the hell do you reconcile that?

Overall good person, except... And it's a pretty big “except.”

I have a father whom I love. He's smart. He's funny. He's a good person overall. He's not actively trying to make the world a better place at the moment, but not everyone has the luxury of doing that. Part of the reason that he doesn't is because of his financial situation, and part of the reason for that is that years ago he turned down a better job than the one he has been stuck with to this day so that he could have more free time to look after his ex-wife's mother (my grandmother.) He gave up his own financial security so he could be the unpaid caretaker of a woman he no longer had any relation to. That's firmly on the side of good in my book. On the other hand he was emotionally abusive to me, my mother, and my sister through my entire childhood. It's been better since the divorce, but tonight is hardly the only time it came up since then.

If I told certain stories I could probably make them look like monsters, if I told other stories I could make us look like a perfectly happy, perfectly well adjusted family. Both sets of stories are true. The interaction between those truths is where it really hurts. Knowing how it could be, how it has been, how it will be in the future, and still having to face how it is right now. I think that makes it worse.

To quote a Vogon:
I write poetry to throw my mean, callous, heartless exterior into sharp relief.

The good accentuates the bad. Even when there's more good than bad.

-

Even my mother, who is in no way abusive, has a tendency to say things that hurt. To say things that make me want to scream or sob.

In real life the people who hurt you are not completely evil caricatures. At least they haven't been in my experience. An abusive person can be a wonderful human being when they're not abusing. Someone who isn't abusive can still be quite hurtful.

It would be nice to be in the fantasy world where the people who hurt you are all totally evil complete monsters, but real life is more complicated than that. Sometimes the birthday dinner you helped your mother prepare for your sister since getting out of school is ruined by the participants. Though in the middle there were still moments of joy and happiness.

It's surprising how it can survive.

Getting information when hiding the woods

[Originally posted at Slacktivist (page 5).]

[It was pointed out, I think correctly, that if the heroes of Left Behind were actually heroes there's a good chance they'd be in hiding by the time World War III happened.]

They'd been debating since the planes flew overhead. The only way the phone would still work is if the government had left the account open in hopes of tracing it, that meant losing their hiding place. They weren't sure whether it was worth the risk, but in the end they simply had to know what was happening.

So Chloe was climbing a tree. They'd picked this spot because it was so far from everything, a perfect place to hide until the heat died down. A downside was that it was so far from everything. There was no reception on the ground, but at the top of some of the taller trees they thought there might be unobstructed connection with the nearest tower.

Several times she reached a branch, checked the phone, and found there was no signal. She was running out of tree, and running out of patience, when she finally got what she was looking for. The connection was tenuous, and slow, but she started loading a news page.

--

"Oh my god!" Rayford herd Chloe say high above him. Then he heard, "Shit!" followed by the sound of breaking branches, a sound moving closer to earth. Chloe was falling, Rayford rushed to help her, tripped on a root, and fell on his face. He looked up in time to see Buck and Amanda awkwardly catching Chloe.

They laid her down on the ground, Amanda asked, "Are you ok?"

"It's started," Chloe said.

"Are you-"

"It's started!" Chloe said while showing Amanda the phone. Amanda froze in shock. Soon they'd all seen it, a half loaded page, at it's center a picture and a caption. The picture was a mushroom cloud, the caption was Washington D.C.

Chloe had surivived the fall with remarkably few injures, she was bruised all over and her attempts to slow her fall had dislocated a shoulder, but she was prepared for the hike out. The gather the few supplies they had gathered, and headed for the car they had hidden, from there they would go to the nearest city. There would be wounded in need of helping.

-

[Left Behind Index]

Work against the Emperor's Magic?

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]

"Oh, Aslan!" whispered Susan in the Lion's ear, "can't we -- I mean, you won't, will you? Can't we do something about the Deep Magic? Isn't there something you can work against it?"

"Work against the Emperor's Magic?" said Aslan, turning to her with something like a frown on his face. Those who heard were shocked at Aslan's tone, for it contained something they had never heard from him before: Uncertainty.

"Perhaps we could discuss this in private," Susan whispered. Aslan nodded. Susan addressed the witch, "We'll have to confer privately. We'll get right back to you."

As soon as they were inside the tent Susan said, "You'll have to excuse me, I don't understand the Deep Magic."

"No one does," Aslan said.

"No, I mean I don't even understand the basics. I don't even know why it's called the Deep Magic."

"Because it comes from the depths."

"What?"

Aslan pointed with one paw, slightly downward, in a direction nothing seemed to be in, "If you were to go straight that way you would travel first through a short span of air, then a mile of earth, then you would meet the sea, if you continued until you had moved beyond the sea you would find yourself in my father's realm, a place of neither earth nor air, nor fire nor water. It is from those depths that my father, the Emperor, rules this world."

"So your father has determined that Edmund has to die?"

"Edmund doesn't have to die. I can save him."

"How?"

"The witch's understanding of the Deep Magic is quite shallow. She doesn't understand the nuance of what it says. I can save him by offering myself in his place. If I understand the magic correctly I won't stay dead, and we can defeat the witch then, with Edmund safe."

"If you understand ... Your father didn't explain this stuff to you?"

"He doesn't talk much."

"So if you're wrong the witch kills us all."

"I'm pretty sure-"

"And if you're right we're still allowing evil to rule this land. Because demanding the sacrifice of a nine year old boy is evil, even if there is a loophole."

"Susan, if we don't give her someone she'll destroy all of Narnia. Edmund will still die."

"It's not right."

"It is the way things are."

"Then fight against it. Change the way things are."

Aslan was silent for a long time, then he asked, "Is that your command as Queen of Narnia? That we should risk the death of every one of your subjects not to save your brother but because you think the Deep Magic must be opposed on moral grounds?"

Susan asked, "Is it my decision?" doubt in her voice for the first time since she entered the tent.

"No." Aslan said. Then he called for the other Pevensies into the tent. "You are Kings and a Queen of Narnia," he told them, "Susan, Queen of Narnia, has a proposal for you."

Susan spoke nervously, "The problem isn't the witch, Edmund has already been saved from her, the problem is the Deep Magic. We need to fight it, not her."

"How?" Lucy asked.

"By taking the fight to my father," Aslan said.

"But we don't have time." Edmund said. "She said that if I don't go with her she'll destroy all of Narnia."

"She won't," Susan said, "the Deep Magic will."

"I can make her wait," Aslan said, "But you must understand what you're doing. If you do this it will mean going to war with the one who made this world. What hangs in the balance is more than the fate of the world, but the world itself.

"If the world should survive the battle, and we should defeat my father then the risk is still not ended because the Deep Magic may yet survive. If we do this then we will all be traitors and, if the Deep Magic endures, the witch will have the right to every one of our lives. If even one of those lives is denied to her, Narnia will perish in fire and water, everyone will die."

"Can- can the witch choose to pardon anyone?" Edmund asked.

"No, but she can postpone their execution, indefinitely if she chooses, that's why some of her followers are so loyal. They know that she could decide their time has come, and if she does, whether by her hand or the Deep Magic, they will die."

"I'm not going to destroy the world to save myself," Edmund said.

"It's not about you, Edmund," Susan said. "We have a way to save you anyway."

"How?" Peter asked.

"By killing Aslan," Susan said.

Lucy gasped.

Edmund looked at his feet as if they held the answer, apparently they did because soon he lifted his head and said, "I'll go with the witch."

"And what if it were Lucy?" Susan asked, a hint of anger in her voice. "What if she had met the witch and you'd met Tumnus? What if she had been tricked instead of you? What then? Would you stand by while she went bravely off to her death? What if it were one of the tree spirits outside, or a Minotaur, or ... anyone but you? Would you be so ready to appease the Deep Magic then?

"It's not about you Edmund, it's about doing what's right."

Edmund said, "You're right, it's not about me. It's about everyone else in Narnia. We'd be putting them all at risk. None of them are in this tent --no offense," he said to Aslan, "but you've been away a hundred years-- it's not our place to decide their fates."

Aslan said, "You are the Kings and Queens of Narnia, it is your place." He approached Edmund, "But it is you place to do it justly. And the things you're thinking are the right ones. So, how will you decide?"

"We can't take the side of someone who demands that anyone who is tricked has to die," Susan said.

Edmund looked at his siblings, then at Aslan. Then to an empty part of the tent. He tried to answer Susan's question. How would he feel if it were Lucy, or a tree spirit? How would he feel if someone he had never met had decided to put him at risk on behalf of someone else he had never met? That was how the War had started, wasn't it? He had never been to Poland, he had never met George VI, or anyone in any way involved in the declaration.

But at least they'd been in the country. He and his siblings knew almost nothing about Narnia. "We'll ask them," Edmund said.

"Ask who," Lucy asked.

"The Narnians," Edmund answered.

"You can't ask everyone," Aslan said. "Who will you ask?"

"Uh... The Beavers?" Edmund said.

Susan said, "Not the Beavers."

"Why not?" Edmund asked.

"Because they're racist jerks," Susan said.

Edmund looked at Lucy for confirmation, but she appeared to be trying not to giggle, then he looked to Peter who said, "They are."

Edmund thought a moment and asked, "Tree spirits?"

--

The group emerged from the tent and faced Jadis, clearly annoyed by the wait. Aslan asked her, "You say it is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea?"

"Yes," she answered impatiently, "and the stone table and the fire stones at the secret hill."

"Have you seen it?"

"What?"

"Have you seen the engraving on the scepter?"

"Of course I haven't."

"Then how do you know what is engraved there?"

"You will not cheat me of my prize."

"I'm not trying to cheat you of anything. I'm just practicing due diligence. For something to be a part of the Deep Magic it must be written in all three places, otherwise the Deep Magic would include anything some random passerby had chiseled in."

"Chiseled in? As deep as a spear?"

"I am merely suggesting that we check."

When the witch spoke it was a soft, "Check?" more an expression of surprise than a question, and the first time her voice was without hostility.

"Yes, I propose that we go to the scepter and check what it says."

"Go... to the scepter?"

"I'll lead the way."

"I will not be cheated..." she seemed to have lost her train of thought.

"Edmund will be with us every step of the way, he need never be separated from you by more than a tent flap."

In the witch's mind a plot began to form, why try to thwart a prophecy here when she could destroy it at its source? The Emperor had always been out of reach, but if Aslan brought her to him... the possibilities were endless. "I'll need to bring witnesses of of course," she said.

"Of course," Aslan said, "Bring as many as you like, bring them all." He turned to the Dog, "Send word that everyone in Narnia capable of movement should come. We will all view the scepter together," turning back to Jadis he added, "And pack a lunch. It will be a long journey."

As Jadis left to gather her army the Bull with a man's head said, "Sir, what are we doing?" to Aslan.

"You were right," Aslan said. "When someone demands the life of a nine year old child, the correct response is to oppose them, not give in. Even when that someone is my father."

"So we're going to fight the..."

"Just be wary of his tentacles, for they are many."

Three days later Aslan parted the sea, and two armies began the long march to the place beyond.

-

[Narnia Index]

D.C. is under attack, and there's a traffic jam in Chicago

[Originally posted at Slacktivist (page 3).]

[I couldn't get over the fact that a reporter live on the scene in Washington D.C., a city that had just been attacked, decided to talk about the traffic in Chicago.]

"As I stand here in Washington, surrounded by the ruins of this once great city, occasionally hearing the sounds of distant gunfire, wondering which side blew up that ambulance and why the ambulance was targeted --was it mistaken for something else? was it intentionally destroyed knowing full well it contained only EMTs and an injured man?--, imagining the faces of the people as they huddle in their homes terrified that the next bomb might drop on them but too afraid to go out into the street, ... I can't help but think about the traffic conditions in Chicago.

"It looks like the northwest toll way is a mess, and the Arlington Heights exit is closed so we're advising all motorists already on the toll way to get off at the route 53 exit and double back on the side streets."

*Loud noise*

"It looks the bombing has moved closer and as I watch the smoke rise from the ruined buildings in dark columns like some sort of ethereal forest I am reminded of a story I heard about earlier this morning. It seems that a cat got stuck in a tree in Osawatomie, Kansas, but don't worry, the local fire department got her down right quick.

"Thank you all for tuning in to GCN, the most trusted name in news. GCN, bringing the most important news to you."

-

[Left Behind Index]