Math time shenanigans

[utopiamods]

Characters: Everyone
Format: Whatever
This log is: open
Location: Math class

It's a bright and sunny weekday morning. The sort of morning one should be spending sleeping in, or failing that, outside playing with friends.

Sadly for all of you, you're in this classroom studying logarithms. (Well, except for those of you who are cutting class. Good luck when finals roll around!) Right now, you've been split up into groups of three and four and should be quizzing each other on the questions from the end of the chapter in your textbook. If you're anything like ordinary high school students, though, you're probably discussing something completely different.

Comments

[summerstars]

Grenn was starting to regret not skipping this class too. She'd thought that math would be one of the classes alike enough that it wouldn't clutter her brain up with things from other places, other times, that would be of no use. Well, she'd been partly right.

With time, all things get elaborated, changed, further explored and new ideas are found. The way she'd been taught maths and what was being explained here, didn't exactly match up. Matched enough she could do it, if she concentrated (math had never been one of her strengths), but this sort of open quizzing? It wasn't working.

And she had her suspicions about the teacher(s), too. There was something off that was almost familiar. With a groan, Grenn hid her face behind her hands.
"No more questions."

[myownfuture]

Reiko looked up from her textbook, across the table at Grenn. "You don't like math?" she guessed. She wouldn't be surprised if that were the case; who did?

[summerstars]

Looking up from her shield, Grenn grimaced and shook her head.

"... No. But I know this. I worked hard for my not-too-bad grades, but we did things differently," Grenn was aware she probably sounded a bit petulant, but, by the love of the Name, no she didn't like math. And being presented with things she was fairly sure she knew, but in a way so that she didn't immediately understand, was just insult to injury.

"If the universe could work without math, I'd... find some way to get rid of it." Ahh, sweet, sweet memories of math-related frustrations, she did not miss you.

[myownfuture]

"That sounds like a nice universe to live in," Reiko commented, hiding a smile. No, she's not a big fan either.

"But-- differently? I thought everyone would learn math the same way. Where are you from?"

[summerstars]

Grenn stared, blinked, looked down at the book and then, finally, shrugged, as her conversation a few days ago with Yuki entered her brain.

"I... think it's the translation that's, um, being troublesome." For all that Grenn knew, that may partly have been in, except she could actually tell that her math book was in Standard Common Chinese, which all her schoolbooks ever had been in. So, no, it was simply the time difference.

"The book's probably written in the wrong language, and, er, attemtping to translate it for someone who isn't good at math..." Grenn paused and shrugged.
"You're not having any trouble?" When in doubt, reflect!

[myownfuture]

"...oh, huh..." That could be it. (She was a little jealous of all of these weird people who claimed they didn't actually understand Japanese and that all of the books were showing up as their own native languages. They didn't have any trouble reading something that Reiko was absolutely certain was written in her native language. They didn't have to carry around kanji dictionaries and hunt down every single character they came across. They didn't get scolded by the teachers for writing in furigana in their textbooks.) "Not really. I've studied this already, so..." She shrugged. "I don't like math a lot, but I had to do a lot of homework for my owners back home, so I... got pretty good at it."

[summerstars]

"... You'd think..." Grenn paused and gave the teacher, who, of course, had nothing to do with this, but got to act as a stand-in for general school authority, a glare. "That people who get others to do their homework for them would be punished..." she muttered, but wasn't sure why she felt so affronted.

There were those times when, suddenly, someone who'd lagged behind badly had shot up in the simulation results, but that wasn't the same... and that had nothing to do with getting someone to cheat the results for you, she knew this. No, it was something else. Something that was a big gaping hole in her head. Damn those memories.

[myownfuture]

"It's not like anyone's going to believe a girl's word over a boy's," Reiko pointed out. "Maybe it's different here, though..."

Anyway. "I could try to help you out if you're having trouble with it."

[summerstars]

Grenn nodded, she was aware of that attitude, though she had to transpose it to "it's not as if anyone's going to believe the poor/less socially privileged person above the rich one" or the like.

Giving a sigh, Grenn put the book flat down on the table and waved at the open pages.

"That'd be nice..." And it was, but it would probably involve trying to unlearn changed formulas and whatnot. "But will that work? I mean," she pointed to a certain problem on the page. "I recognize this, but to me, there's something missing." In fact, to her, a whole step seemed to have been lost, the problem not yet finished as it was, even with the solution at the back of the book.

[myownfuture]

"Really?" She peered over at the other's book, at where she was pointing. There really didn't seem to be anything missing to Reiko. But who was to say whether that was because they just taught math differently where Grenn was from, or if it was because...

"But even if they took away my memories of how to do math properly, the textbooks would still be right. Wouldn't they?" She put a hand to her chin in thought.

[summerstars]

"I... suppose so?" She didn't think that had been one of the taken memories, though the thought was kind of sweet. If only she had forgotten how to do math. A period of mathemathical, memory-loss induced ineptitude seemed preferable to this.

Still. Frowning, Grenn looked at the book again. Whether it was true or not, it could work... "Maybe they just took away how you learn math, not my knowledge of it..?" Talking of memories, though...
"I wonder what sort of... logic they follow when memories are taken..."

[myownfuture]

"That could be... It would be strange to have the textbooks match up with my altered memories, though. They still have kanji in them, and I forgot how to read it..." Whether or not that would make sense to Grenn, Reiko didn't consider. "There doesn't seem to be any logic. They just want to make us fight in their ridiculous little game."

[summerstars]

Nodding, Grenn looked down at the open pages for a moment, tapping her fingers on the table.

"That must be frustrating," Grenn said with a sympathetic smile, but at the same time that resparked her thoughts about memories. Some things they had forgotten were undeniably important, to who they were, or their present wherever that was, but other things...

"I noticed this morning I've forgotten the taste of oranges." That seemed completely random to her, and, while a bit annoying, technically not something she'd probably miss, in the long run. She hadn't even had that many oranges in her life.

Leaning forward, Grenn drew distractedly drew nonsenical shapes on the table.
"What if what's missing is both 'integral' and 'not integral' to us as persons? We don't know what memory we're getting back with each charm... we can't choose." Because, well, if she could, she'd get that big empty thing, Lyra's missing kisses and that stuff about flying back, cut her losses and demand to be taken home. Maybe the others weren't that important.

[myownfuture]

Reiko tapped a finger on her textbook, idly. Both integral and not integral... That could explain some of the things she'd forgotten. How to read kanji, what Sumita's face looked like... "Huh, that's odd. I noticed this morning that I can't remember how to peel oranges." She wasn't even a big fan of oranges herself. So why...

"If we could choose, it would be too easy. Some of us might remember how to stop this game..."

[summerstars]

"Exactly. At least those of you who went to... that version of Utopia. And if they haven't changed the winning conditions," Grenn said with a frown, idly skimming through the pages of her book.

"Others might even just take the memories they know are important, and ignore the rest. That would also stop people playing." Because really... You forgot things every day, had been forgetting things since you were born. The difference here was that the brain hadn't chosen, and some of the things were undeniably important.