#science lectures

[ryllen]

jade who got heartstruck by someone who listens, and trey who generally takes interest on really listening to what people have to say, about things he doesn't know yet

[thebubblesareevil]

Writing prompt: Danny failed science and Temperature affects the weather!!!

So when a cold front meets a warm front is can cause a storm, sometimes they can become extremely dangerous….

Danny has been really stressed lately with college applications and exams, plus the fact that his powers have been getting stronger lately. So one day he flys out to the middle of nowhere and lets off some steam in the form of letting his ice core go a little crazy. He does this every now and then to help him destress, today he used a little more power than usual but no big deal right?

Wrong. One week later the justice league is at his door and confronting him about a series of severe storms that have been created that they managed to track the energy source back to him.

Now they are trying to confront him about being a weather powered meta.

To be fair he was fighting the box ghost when they were learning about hot and cold fronts, how was he supposed to know they could form tornados?

[platypu]

[uncanny-tranny]

"haha, are you an art gay, a science gay, or a math gay"

Actually, I find the division between art, science, and math to be a very nebulous idea and useless when you actually interact with the universe. The more you learn about the world, the more you surround yourself with art and science and math, and you'll never be able to see it any other way and it will be beautiful. When I take your hand, it won't be the science of our atoms closing the distance between us that we will experience, but the math of our fingers interlocking and the art of our bodies that we will experience. You are math and you are science and you are art, and nothing will make you any lesser💛

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Throwback to that time that one of my lecturers told us that Google is free so he wasn’t just going to throw a bunch of facts at us, and I said (to my friends) ‘why are we paying for him to teach us if we can just be taught by Google?’ and then approximately ten minutes later had to take it back, because Google would not have BROUGHT A PLASTIC TAKE OUT BOX FULL OF DEAD PARASITIC WORMS INTO THE LECTURE THEATRE AND STARTED SHOWING THEM ROUND AND THROWING THEM ABOUT

[drnikolatesla]

On May 20, 1891, Nikola Tesla delivered a lecture titled "Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency" before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. In this lecture, Tesla discussed his experiments with alternating current (AC) electricity, high voltage, and high-frequency currents.

During the lecture, Tesla demonstrated various experiments, including the effects of high-frequency currents on the human body, wireless lighting, and the principles of his Tesla coil. The demonstrations were so far ahead of their time that the people in the auditorium literally started panicking and running out the doors because they thought he was doing the devil’s work.

Tesla's lecture would introduce the basic principles to the wireless transmission of energy we all use today in our everyday lives. His contributions to electrical engineering, particularly in the development and promotion of AC power and wireless, had a profound impact on the field and the wider adoption of electricity for practical use.

[corrodedcoughin]

just thinking out loud but the Steve going to college because believe it or not he’s finally found a very specific course that catches his interest and it happens to be in Fort Wayne so he can still check in on the kids. It gets even better when Robin and Nancy decide they want to stay local too so they all pack together and get excited (and nervous) about moving.

The time comes and they leave Hawkins and suddenly it’s the first proper day of classes. The three of them are spread over the campus so Steve treks alone to his first class, the reason he chose the college in the first place: Introduction to Folklore.

He’s so ready to learn about something he’s finally interested in. Doesn’t pay attention to the usual seating conventions and social status, just wants to know where they’ll be starting, cliques and popularity contests a long gone part of his life.

The professor is in her stride, painting a picture with her stories of creatures from folklore and the origins, Steve can’t believe it but he’s genuinely excited to learn for once. The pinpoint accuracy focus on the professor is shattered when a voice erupts next to him

‘That’s great and everything but shouldn’t there have been a moth man lover sighting by now? Where is the justice for this noble creature I ask you? I know there’s monster fuckers out there professor.’

The professor slowly engages the guy in conversation but Steve is seething. Who does this guy think he is? Does he think this is a private class just for him? That Steve isn’t paying good money to be here? So pen clenched in a white knuckled hand Steve lets his bitchy temperament get the better of him ‘I thought this was a folklore class? Not a self insert romance lit course’ he clearly says it too loud because the boy next to him. The one who started all this turns to Steve and raises an eyebrow, a smug smile on his face and lets out a ‘huh interesting’ and what’s Steve supposed to do with that? And more importantly what’s Steve supposed to do with the fact that the guy is stupid hot with this long hair, tattoo combo and that the smug look on his face definitely made Steve’s heartbeat thunder in his ears? Out of rage on behalf of his fellow students, of course.

Turns out it doesn’t matter, the class is over and Steve is running out the door, determined not to get caught by those eyes again.

It starts off a Thing between them. Every week the guy, Eddie, will challenge the lecturer with some inane point that Steve refuses to accept he actually believes to the point of Steve firing back an argument at him. Eventually they are full on debates in the middle of the class that the professor has to mediate after eddie decided that standing on the table would be appropriate (of course, not to be outdone, steve followed).

They absolutely do not have a thing for each other and the rest of the class absolutely do have a sweepstakes on when they’ll get together

[autonomic-neuron]

feb 2024, 1/100

lectures began:

- reviewed lectures

- prepared for tomorrows lectures

- began lab preparation

- added assessment dates to calendar

- introduction modules completed

tomorrow:

- lecture revision

- lab prep

it has been a productive start to the semester! although there is not much to go over yet i am determined to stay on track. let’s keep this productivity going~

[evilkitten3]

team minato modern middle school au where kakashi is the annoying genius who skipped like two grades, rin somehow lives in a hospital (no one's sure which nurse/doctor is her parent but. it's one of them. right? it's gotta be. no way did a bunch of worked-half-to-death medical staff accidentally adopt a baby someone forgot about. definitely one of them is her parent. her birth certificate is around here somewhere i'm sure look i'll get back to you once my shift ends in six hours), and obito is the class clown who lives with his awful anarchist stoner grandpa and calls his house "the cave"

minato is a former student of kakashi's dad's friend and he's their carpool driver bc no way in hell would that man be allowed to teach in real life

[one-time-i-dreamt]

My new Science teacher was giving a lecture on the perks of being an alligator made of bricks.

[deservedgrace]

something that i've been struggling to articulate but has been bothering me for a while is how some christians engage and interact with science and what i'm realizing is they have a like... almost love-bombing/discarding relationship with it. and i recognize science isn't a person and that's not literally happening but the christians that i grew up around have this relationship with science where it's real/valid/correct if it supports their side and fake/invalid/wrong if it doesn't. it's this like... engaging with science to get something from it when it can prove their point and condemning it when it doesn't. and this also ties into the belief that you, a layperson with no background in science, are more knowledgeable than actual scientists simply because you have god on your side, and therefore you can use science in whatever way you see fit, which means engaging with it in a way that is ultimately anti-science (but that also doesn't matter because god said it was okay). and it's exhausting engaging with these people for me because it's not that they believe all science bad, it's that they believe most science bad but some science good and they have the authority to determine what is bad and what is good, despite, again, not having a background in science (because what is a "background in science" to an all-knowing god that you have a personal relationship with?). the thing that is so frustrating to me is how these people recognize science is valued and use it to strengthen the validity of their points and to gain credibility while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge the validity of science as a field at all or put in any effort to understand/respect it.

[troythecatfish]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Saturday linkdump, part the sixth

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

On September 14, I'm hosting the EFF Awards in San Francisco.

I usually write this blog 5-6 days/week, but every now and again, I take a break, and when I do, I get massive link backlogs of stuff I want to write about, but lack the time to address in depth. When that happens, I turn my Saturday edition into a linkdump. Today, I present the sixth in the series – here's the other five:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Why was I offline and away from my blog? I went to the dirt rave. Yes, I was one of the 70,000+ people stuck in the mud at this year's Burning Man, and when I emailed my editor at the New York Times to say I might be late on the op-ed I was working on, she asked me to write about what this year's mud crisis meant:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/opinion/burning-man-flood-playa-climate-change.html

tl;dr:

Bad weather is normal at Burning Man (it's a feature, not a bug);

Mostly burners leapt to the occasion, which is what people almost always do in disaster situations;

This is the second Burning Man heavy weather year in a row;

The climate emergency is tipping the Black Rock Desert from "extremely challenging" to "impossible";

This isn't the last event, place and tradition that will have to be radically reconsidered in light of the climate emergency;

But now I'm home, in my hammock, with all the laundry done – just in time to leave again. I'm about to head back to my hometown of Toronto for a book launch. The Internet Con, my latest nonfiction (from Verso Books) came out last week, and I'll be appearing at Another Story Bookshop on Tuesday:

https://anotherstory.ca/events/29283

Internet Con is a "Big Tech disassembly manual." It explains how Big Tech got so big (lax anti-monopoly enforcement, which led to regulatory capture, which let Big Tech abuse our privacy, labor rights, and consumer rights), and how we can use interoperability so it's no longer Too Big to Fail, nor Too Big to Jail:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

You can read a long excerpt from the book in Wired, which lays out some of the shovel-ready legislative, regulatory and technical proposals that are the book's main purpose:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-internet-con-cory-doctorow-book-excerpt/

You can also hear me read the whole introduction and first chapter of the audiobook on my podcast:

https://craphound.com/internetcon/2023/08/01/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-audiobook-outtake/

That comes from the audiobook, a DRM-free, independent edition that I financed, produced and narrated myself. You can get the audiobook everywhere except Audible, Apple Books, and Audiobooks.com, all of which have mandatory DRM policies. You can also get it direct from me:

https://transactions.sendowl.com/products/78992826/DEA0CE12/purchase

The DRM-free ebook is available everywhere ebooks are sold (Kobo, Kindle, Nook, etc), as well as in my own DRM-free ebook store:

https://transactions.sendowl.com/products/78992801/9C4FC2B8/purchase

Verso's books are sold in bookstores around the world; you can support your local bookseller by buying it through Bookshop:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-cory-doctorow/18771891?ean=9781804291245

If you'd like a signed copy, there's stock at Book Soup:

https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245

Now, it was inevitable that I would do a book event for Internet Con in Toronto – I've never had a bad event there, and I love my hometown – but the timing of this event was driven by a non-book-related factor. Talking Heads is appearing together at TIFF, to support the re-release of Stop Making Sense, the greatest concert film in human history:

https://pluralistic.net/StopMakingSense

People often ask me what my favorite book is, and I always tell them that you should never trust people who have one favorite book, as it inevitably turns out to be The Bible, The Fountainhead, or Mein Kampf. But while I don't have a favorite book, I have a clear and unambiguous favorite band.

If I was forced to listen to no music other than Talking Heads for the rest of my life, I would be perfectly happy. Ecstatic, even. Throw in David Byrne, Tom Tom Club and Casual Gods and I probably wouldn't even notice anything missing.

There's a running joke among my Burning Man campmates that whenever I'm in charge of the music, I'm just shuffling Talking Heads rarities, and whenever someone puts on anything else, I demand to know which Talking Heads album it came from. Which is all to say: I have tickets for the Talking Heads event at TIFF and I could *not be more excited.*

Continuing on the Canadian theme, one of the annual highlights of Canadian media is the Massey Lectures, a series of public lectures given around the country and rebroadcast on CBC. These are always great, but recent years have been superb – Ron Deibert's 2020 series was unmissable:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/10/dark-matter/#citizenlab

This year's Masseys are shaping up to be the GOAT. They're presented by Astra Taylor, an activist rock-and-roller turned documentary filmmaker who is one of the founders of the Debt Collective, fighting for student debt cancellation. Everything Astra does is amazing and her profile on CBC Ideas gives some background on the role that unschooling played in making her the powerful activist she is today:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/astra-taylor-interview-2023-massey-lecturer-1.6959320

There's no question that things are messed up right now, but Astra and people like her shine out like beacons of hope. 17 years ago, self-described "democracy nut" Tom Stites gave one of the seminal lectures on the role news media play in democracy:

http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-performance-democracys-critical-issue/

17 years later – and from his perch as editor at the essential International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – Stites presents us a long-overdue, extremely pertinent followup: "Building Civic Energy is the Goal, Not Saving Old News Business Models":

https://banyanproject.coop/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Hope-College-speech-for-Banyan-website-1.pdf

Stites's intervention is extremely timely, because policymakers all over the world have made the mistake of thinking that Big Tech is stealing the news media's content, which is absolutely untrue. It is good, actually, to index news stories and let people discuss, quote from and link to news stories. News you're not allowed to talk about isn't news, it's a secret.

But Big Tech is stealing from news. They're not stealing content – they're stealing money. The Google/Apple duopoly rakes 30% off every subscription payment collected in an app. The Google/Meta duopoly rakes 51% out of every ad-dollar (and maintain that death-grip through creepy, privacy-invading surveillance ads). Meta and Twitter hold social media subscribers hostage, forcing publishers to pay to reach their own subscribers.

We don't want the news to be Big Tech's partners – we need them to be Big Tech's watchdogs. "Link taxes" and other profit-sharing arrangements between the media and tech cut against the civic energy Stites wants to build.

(You can read more about this – along with policy prescriptions for halting Big Tech's rent-extraction from the news – in "Saving the News From Big Tech," my EFF white-paper:)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

If your spirits are lifted by stories of principled activists achieving important – and improbable – victories, you could do worse than to attend the EFF Awards on in San Francisco Sept 14 (I'm the emcee). This year, we're honoring Alexandra Elbakyan for her founding of Sci-Hub, the Library Freedom Project and the Signal Foundation:

https://www.eff.org/awards/effawards/2023

In more activist news: Mozilla produced a startling and astoundingly good – if demoralizing – report on the state of digital privacy and security in the automotive sector:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

Entitled, "It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy," the report reveals just how absolutely terrible the automotive sector is when it comes to privacy practices, collecting (and selling) (and giving away) information about your sex life, your geneology, your genetic characteristics, and your smell (no, seriously).

Their recommendations for which new car you should buy boil down to "don't buy a new car." I have been urging consumer research groups to release a report like this for a decade. There are whole categories of gadgets – like, say, "smart speakers" – that are unsafe at any speed. At a certain point, reviewers need to have the guts to say that every manufacturer in an entire sector is a dumpster fire and they should all be dragged in front of a firing squad – or at least a Congressional committee.

Cars, after all, are nightmares of privacy invasion and rent-extraction, the source of autoenshittification on a massive scale, a mobile form of technofeudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The fact that cars score so badly on privacy is especially ironic given the campaign Big Car waged against the 2020 Massachusetts Right to Repair ballot initiative, in which car manufacturers held themselves out as the defenders of driver privacy from unscrupulous third parties who couldn't be trusted to handle the vast troves of data your car collects with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

This is a familiar refrain: monopolists often claim that any check on their absolute authority over their users will expose those users to privacy risks. Apple has run a global ad-campaign claiming this, and while Apple does prevent Facebook from spying on iPhone owners, they also secretly spy on those customers in exactly the same way that Facebook used to, and lie about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

It turns out that giant companies just aren't good proxies for their customers' interests, and that the power they amass through monopolization shouldn't be counted on as a source of user safety. Monopolists won't reliably defend user privacy – that job belongs to democratically accountable regulators. That's an argument I developed in detail with Bennett Cyphers in our EFF white-paper "Privacy Without Monopoly":

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

That is, rather than getting privacy by "voting with your wallet," you need to get it by voting with your ballot. "The market" is an election that you vote in with dollars, which means that the people with the most dollars always win. When there are zero cars on the market that are safe to drive, you can't vote with your wallet by buying a good one.

On a related subject, the DOJ Antitrust Division has brought the most important tech anti-monopoly case of the century, charging Google with monopolizing search:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/technology/modern-internet-first-monopoly-trial-us-google-dominance.html

Part of the DOJ case turns on the fact that Google goes to extraordinary lengths to keep you from every trying another search engine, paying out more than $45 billion every year to be the default search on every device, program and service you might use. In other words, Google spends entire Twitter's worth of dollars every year, lighting it on fire to keep you from finding out about rivals.

Google argues that this is fine, actually, because these are only defaults, and users can dig through their settings to change their search engine. Sure, Google – and the first 20 search results you serve are only defaults, and it wouldn't matter if you were ordered to put them ten screens down, because users could always scroll to see them.

But search defaults aren't the only way that Google locks in searchers – and then harms us by invading our privacy. Google's ubiquitous Chrome browser ties Google's search to Google's invasive, nonconsensual, total surveillance. Chrome turned 15 this year and Google made a huge PR splash out of the anniversary:

https://blog.google/products/chrome/google-chrome-new-features-redesign-2023/

But all that puffery conspicuously failed to mention that Google had quietly rolled out its long-discredited, new surveillance technology, FLOC, which it pretended to kill in 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#not-that-competition

FLOC is back, rebranded as the Topics API: this is a system for spying on you so advertisers can target you. Google is spinning this as a privacy improvement because it might someday replace "third party cookies," one of the creepiest web surveillance systems.

But as Ron Amadeo writes for Ars Technica, Chrome is the last major browser to support third party cookies – both Safari and Firefox block them by default. So Google is basically saying, "We are going to improve your privacy by changing how we spy on you, even though all our competitors don't do this kind of spying at all":

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-opposed-ad-platform-the-privacy-sandbox-launches-in-chrome/

This kind of gaslighting, where Google pisses in all our mouths and tells us it's raining, is the hallmark of a decrepit, arrogant, crapulent monopolist that needs to be shattered in the courts. Kudos to the DoJ for doing the people's business here – and kudos to DoJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter for promising that he will not go into corporate law when he finishes his stint in government.

The DoJ isn't the only public agency that's serving the American people. The FCC just announced proceedings to force cybersecurity labels for "smart" devices:

https://www.fcc.gov/consumer-governmental-affairs/fcc-proposes-cybersecurity-labeling-program-smart-devices

This is long overdue, and it's a welcome action from the FCC, which was hamstrung for years because cowardly Democratic senators joined with homophobic, libelous Republicans in blocking confirmation hearings for the amazing Gigi Sohn:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love

After years of abuse, Sohn bowed out. Now, Anna Gomez has been confirmed to fill that fifth FCC chair, turning the FCC into a fully operational battle station:

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/senate-votes-approve-anna-gomez-5th-fcc-commissioner

The fact that there's all this great stuff going on in the administrative branch is easy to lose sight of amidst the circus of federal electoral politics, in which Donald Trump has retained his role as ringmaster and chief distractor.

Thankfully, we have expert Pantsless Emperor skewerers like Ruben Bolling around – his latest Tom the Dancing Bug revives his brilliant Calvin and Hobbes-inspired Trump gag:

https://boingboing.net/2023/09/06/tom-the-dancing-bug-a-calvinesque-and-hobbesian-look-at-taking-a-mug-shot.html

Well, that's me signing off for the weekend – I've got to pack for my flight to Toronto. If you're looking for more weekend fun, check out the trailer for Fractured Veil, the video game my old pal Chris DiBona has been working on for seven years and which is heading for Steam early access next month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjNd3QQnENU

Just watch it. I mean. Wow.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/09/nein-nein/#everything-is-miscellaneous

Image: Roel Schroeven (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/roelschroeven/45413895

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[liveandyouwillsee]

24/05/2024

Today I had a different bioethics class! We had a coffee break and watched a movie. Then I had a dental materials exam and went on a walk around the campus.

[acidlake]

A 12-page 4-colour risograph setting zine about a space station and its fickle god. Available now at mine and my boyfriend shared etsy!

Liar’s Perch Station, Baltine System (Formerly The Bounty of Cassiope)

Orbit over Baltine-3 ‘Epochs Grave’ - Ruined World, 4th Concordant era

Grade 6O - self sufficient, self governing, no central intelligence - Late 4th Concordant construction - estimate age, 24,000 year

Social Democratic government type, elected council with regular referendums.

Economic spread; Mineral Extraction (Baltine Belt 1), Gas Extraction & Processing (BaltineIII; Hydrogen Oxygen-2, Argon, Nitrogen. BaltineIII-1; Helium-3, ), Salvage, Trade Goods, Temporary Accommodation, Armaments and Ammunition, Other)

[hikariale]

college has taken up the bulk of my time, so i don't know when or if i will ever write this fic idea in full, but the idea has been spinning in my head for a long time... it's written in a longform, train-of-thought, imagines way, but it got longer than expected!

mostly platonic liu kang and reader with some liutana and kitana x reader under the cut

Being friendly rivals with Liu Kang. You both want to see the other succeed, but you also compete to each other's betterment. Liu Kang may be the "Chosen One," but you won't allow yourself to be overlooked! It's not like you want to take his title, no, no, no! You want to prove to everybody, including him, that the idea of a "chosen one" is stupid. An idea that stemmed from observing him and realising how isolated he was because he was "chosen" by gods, you've taken it upon yourself to prove that burdens need not fall onto the shoulders of an exceptional, talented few. He always has his plate full, so why not steal something off of it. If you can't flip the table, you can at least make the meal more digestible. You hate to see a person forced to bite off more than they can chew, and Kung Lao is a good companion, but you get the feeling that the chip on his shoulder has put you on different trajectories when it comes to competing with Liu Kang.

Perhaps it is because of an upbringing that severely alienated him from his peers, but you realised early on that Liu Kang struggled to pursue relationships. Sincere as he is with others, he is more than content for others to approach him than the other way around. A little withdrawn and always somewhat preoccupied, the Chosen One is like a firefly. You have to catch it in your hands to halt it, but it rarely chooses to land on its own.

That's why, when Kitana entered the picture, you knew he was likely to doom himself.

You couldn't speak for him, but the Edenian princess blew you away at first sight. Though he didn't admit it, you knew she had the same affect on him. As easy as it would be to leave him to his in the dust before he realises that there's a race, you declare yourself his love rival and wait for him to make the first move as a courtesy. Regardless of how things turn out, you both promise to bow out and support the one who earns her affections.

It does hurt when Liu Kang, against what you always thought of him, catches Kitana's affections by a landslide. As unexpected as it is, you can at least commend him- and hey, he deserves that little bit of personal happiness with all the other things he deals with. And it's clear that Liu Kang can tell you're upset, but you're proud of him for not backing down or expressing remorse for your bruised heart.

At least it isn't as humiliating as you thought it might be. Liu Kang is a good person. He's considerate after the fact and gives the topic of romance a wide breadth when spending time with you. Things are mostly normal. Sure, the odd intrusive thought about the couple enters your head and sours your mood, but you just need time to move on. Maybe in a while, you'll find a new love. Maybe you'll commit to celibacy, or maybe something completely left field will happen. Though things would have normally gone like that, the strange, universe bending entity by the name of Kronika erases the future and all of its possibilities. In its place, she presents a bleak future where your loved ones are warmongers, and your only choice is to accept that you don't get a future at all.

As Charon's ships prepare to dock, Liu Kang tells you that you should tie up loose ends. You know what he means, and though it almost feels like an insult to have a newly born god tell you to fruitlessly profess your feelings for his partner, you know that he means well. You understand that this is probably the end even if the idea of dying hasn't crossed your mind. That intuition clears your mind and allows you to shed your inhibitions.

"I can see why Liu Kang holds you in such high regard. You have admirable character."

That was the only thing that stood out from Kitana's response. It didn't hurt as much as you thought it would. Being let down so gracefully by a woman of her standing is pretty much an honour. And the end is near. And you got to say your piece without committing any transgressions. So that's that, as far as you are concerned. You make sure to tell Liu Kang that much while standing at the entrance of Kronika's keep. The last exchange you have with Kitana is a quick glance while Liu Kang destroys the door. She catches it out of the corner of her eye, and though she doesn't turn towards you, she acknowledges you with an affirming nod.

When deciding how to craft the New Era, Liu Kang briefly considered making Kitana your destiny, and you hers. Earnestly wishing for your happiness in the next life, he thought of giving you everything that he was not afforded for his own love. Just as he began to spin that thread of fate, your defiant words rang in his ears.

"You shouldn't let the gods have that much say over you. If you say no, I'll be right there with you to back you up! Gods aren't the ones who have to suffer the consequences anyways."

Your judgement of the gods was a little off the mark, but the wholehearted belief in mortal agency struck Liu Kang's core. If you knew what he originally planned, he was sure you would complain about it, so he erased the sketch and started over.

In the New Era, you kept that attitude. Raiden didn't have the right personality to engage with your challenges. It made Liu Kang a little happy to know that, though he filled his old role with Raiden, you two didn't have the same bond. Of course, you weren't Liu Kang's rival this time. The ambivalent, borderline suspicious attitude you gave the God of Fire would have stung more if he wasn't expecting it.

During the banquet, your seat was up next to his. You poke at your food and watch Johnny flirt with the younger Edenian princess. The icy expression on your face makes Liu Kang thankful that he never tried courting Kitana in your presence during the previous era.

"It is not like you to be daunted by something like that," he breaks you out of your ruminations with subtle encouragement. Your shock transforms into mild agitation. As you consider telling him not to meddle in things he has no business in, he smiles, somewhat slyly, and says, "You are not the kind of person who leaves things unchallenged."