#the battle

[losergender]

we don't talk enough about tbotl nico. those six months between the ending of the titans curse and the beginning of the battle of the labyrinth had to be literally so traumatizing and yet i feel they are never mentioned. (spoilers from tbotl ahead)

he was 11 and alone in the street for god knows how long before minos found him. he had no living family whatsoever and his father wasn't even accepted by anyone. hell, we don't even know if hades claimed him after ttc or how it went. (or maybe we do, i haven't read tsats nor half of toa, but if we do know of it i have never seen anyone mention it). he had spent 3 months in the 21st century before ttc and some months in the usa, am i meant to think he did alright in an unknown country, with unknown technology and most likely not being all that fluent in english yet? all of that paired with fighting monsters, something he had a week and a half of training for, not to mention that he left camp WITH NO WEAPONS ON HIM.

EVEN BEFORE MEETING MINOS, NICO HAD ALREADY CONSIDERED/TRYING TO DIE. HE OFFERED HIS SOUL IN EXCHANGE FOR BIANCA'S. HE CONSIDERED/TRIED DYING AT THE RIPE AGE OF 11. and after he fails to do so he gets manipulated by minos for the whole book to be his hitman. he went into the labyrinth alone with, again, less than 2 weeks of proper demigod training.

i love bianca a lot but if i were nico and after months of failing to summon my sister i succeeded just for her first words to be "hello, percy" i would not do beautiful things. everything else she said i agree with and think it was neccessary for him to hear, but i was hurting when she didn't greet him first. same goes for when pan skips him.

like, okay, maybe it wasn't the tartarus, or transporting the athena parthenos or the tartarus again, but he was so young and so unprepared for anything and i have seen 0 people talk about it. so eh sorry for the rant i just had to do it myself

[jollyeart]

I would like to draw the background in more detail, it does not always work out what you intend...

[hearts4estella]

What ppl think of Percy

Percy: I am such an idiot. Annabeth is way smarter than me

Annabeth: HE MY LITTLE IDIOT AND THANK THE GODS IF HE DOESN’T GET KILLED BY A TOASTER

literally everyone else: Percy is such a powerful demigod. And half the time he doesn’t give a shit on what’s going on. I seriously don’t want to be his enemy.

Nico during The Titans Curse - The Battle of the Labyrinth: (lil boy is still in tears)

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k t h e n e x t g e n e r a t i o n created by gene roddenberry USS Stargazer [the battle, s1ep9]

'It was a derelict, adrift in space on the far side of this star system. How it got there is none of my business, Captain. But now, that vessel is yours if you wish to have it.' - bok [to picard]

[contentment-of-cats]

Hi, it's Mortality again.

Beanie's surgery went well, she's healing nicely, and almost back to her old self. Still in the onesie. However, the news is not all sunshine and rainbows. The vet is referring me to a veterinary oncologist.

I am the guardian of her good days, and will give her the best care possible. There was an entire fucking hospital system that refused to a) tell me I had cancer and b) to help me access treatment, essentially telling me to just die. I will not give up on my, and I will not give up on her.

[tyunningcore]

so ur telling me ava popped into caspar’s head RIGHT WHEN HE MENTIONED TED OUUUUU im sorry you think that’s a coincidence????

[janetmiyuki-06]

The Battle solo dance challenge🕺🏻✨

Mamoru Miyano Official TikTok

[vaathnaos]

I’ll leave this here. SKY vs TIME

What if they fought?

@trippygalaxy asked me who would win in a fight so i made this quick sketch before going to bed.

I might finish it some other time but right now i gotta go to be-

[nostalgianerdom]

[anewstartrekfan]

You know I honestly thought Picard was faking the headache so he could chill with Crusher.

[acourtofquestions]

Tower of Dawn Chapter 59:

🚨spoiler alert🚨

A naval battle. Aelin against Maeve. He waited for the dangling sword to drop. If he had been too late--

Aelin--thank the gods Aelin had managed to find a way-- "Though there were some interesting details." Then the princess rattled off the facts. The numbers. A third of Maeve's armada, bearing Whitethorn flags, had turned on their own and joined Terrasen's fleet. Dorian had fought--held the front lines with Rowan. Then a pack of wyverns had soared in from nowhere--to fight for Aelin.

Manon Blackbeak. Chaol would be willing to bet his life that some-how, either through Aelin or Dorian, that witch had done them a favor, and possibly altered the course of this war.

"The magic, they say, was impressive," Hasar went on. "Ice and wind and water." Dorian and Rowan. "Even rumor of a shape-shifter." Lysandra. "But no darkness. Or whatever Maeve fights with. And no flame."

"Though some reports claim they spotted flame and shadow on shore--far away. Flickers of both. There and gone. And no one spotted Aelin or the Dark Queen in the fleet."

It would have been like Aelin, to shift the battle between her and Maeve to the shore. To minimize casualties, so she could unleash her full power without hesitation.

"As I said," Hasar continued, fluffing the skirts of her dress, "They were victorious. Aelin was spotted returning to her armada hours later. They've set sail--north, apparently."

He muttered a prayer of thanks to Mala. And a prayer of thanks to whatever god watched over Dorian, too. "Any major casualties?"

"To their men, yes, but not to any of the interesting players," Hasar said, and Chaol hated her. "But Maeve ... there and gone, not a whisper of her left." She frowned at the windows. "Maybe she'll sail here to lick her wounds."

Chaol prayed that wouldn't be the case. Yet if Maeve's armada still sat in the Narrow Sea when they took the crossing ... "But the others sail north now--to where?" Where can I find my king, my brother?

"I'd assume Terrasen, now that Aelin has her armada. Oh, and another one."

Hasar smiled at him. Waiting for the question--the plea. "What other armada," Chaol forced himself to ask. Hasar shrugged, walking from the room. "Turns out, Aelin called in a debt. To the Silent Assassins of the Red Desert." Chaol's eyes burned.

"And to Wendlyn."

His hands began shaking.

"How many ships," he breathed.

"All of them," Hasar said, hand on the door. "All of Wendlyn's armada came, commanded by Crown Prince Galan himself."

Aelin... Chaol's blood sparked, and he looked to Yrene. Her eyes were wide, bright. Bright with hope--burning, precious hope.

"Turns out," Hasar mused, as if it were a passing thought, "there are quite a few people who think highly of her. And who believe in what she's selling."

"Which is what?" Yrene whispered.

Hasar shrugged. "I assume it's what she tried to sell to me, when she wrote me a message weeks ago, asking for my aid. From one princess to another."

Chaol took a shuddering breath. "What did Aelin promise you?"

Hasar smiled to herself.

"A better world."

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Wesley Crusher

By Ames

Grab your favorite hideous sweater! It’s time to talk about Wesley Crusher. He’s one of the most polarizing characters on TNG, with a lot of hate directed his way, but he also has a number of great Trek moments which we on A Star to Steer Her By are going to sort through today!

We can probably blame Gene Roddenberry for making this character so insufferable, especially in the first season when he seemed to have the easy solution for the engineering problem of any given episode. Gene designed him to characterize a person’s infinite potential and then slapdashedly shoehorned him into every place he could, and you’ll notice that right after the big writers room turnover, the child prodigy started feeling more like a character and less like a cheat code. Scroll on for the list below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (warp over to timestamp 57:36) for all the dirt. Just unplug your nanite experiment first.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Don’t shut up, Wesley While I’ll give Wesley the deserved scrutiny in a moment for the absurd number of times in season one of TNG that he saved the day, we do have to give him some credit for figuring out that Lore was impersonating Data in “Datalore.” Even while pretty much everyone on the crew was telling him to shut up, Wes had it all figured out and topped it off by beaming Lore into space.

Double dumbass on you! Wesley actually does get to shine during “Coming of Age,” an episode that really uses his youth to its advantage by having him take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. And he gets pretty far! He even figures out that Rondon is a Zaldan, so Wesley realizes that apologizing for getting run into himself is the wrong reaction for that culture and comes away looking like a badass.

Teamwork makes the dream work Speaking of “Coming of Age,” Wesley is also this close to solving the dynamics relationships test first when he helps Mordock figure it out too. Wesley’s natural affinity for helping his crewmates is more important to him than getting the top score, which TAC Officer Chang takes into consideration in the final results. I’m not sure it helped much, but it’s a good character moment.

You never forget your first “I'm never going to feel this way about anyone else,” Wesley says to Guinan after watching his first crush leave in “The Dauphin.” Strangely, it’s a very mature little conversation considering Wesley was ready to write Salia off as some kind of alien monster earlier in the episode. But he learns to accept her differences, score some relationship experience points, and get his first smooch.

The minute you walk through that door they’re your team Slowly, the show starts putting Wesley in more age-appropriate situations in which he isn’t just saving the day, so it’s fitting for him to be overwhelmed when leading his first committee in “Pen Pals.” His team member Davies effectively takes over because Wes initially lacks confidence, but he soon takes charge and they work together to save Drema IV. Go team!

You told me to improvise During the war games in “Peak Performance,” Wesley thinks outside the box and retrieves one of his many, many experiments from the Enterprise to use on the less advantaged Hathaway. While Riker initially accuses young Crusher of cheating, no one said he couldn’t sneak tools off the other ship, and it’s that kind of ingenuity that could be useful in a fight.

Begin by letting go of your guilt, Wesley His mother Beverly may be on full display in “Remember Me” as we discussed last week, but Wesley also gets some interesting development. Back in “Where No One Has Gone Before” the Traveler saw potential in the child prodigy, and when the two of them use their special powers here to open the door for Dr. Crusher to return from the warp bubble, we witness some of that weird potential get unlocked.

I’ve done it all because I want you to be proud of me We joke a lot on the podcast that Picard is secretly Wesley’s father, and it’s mostly for laughs. But when we get touching scenes between the two of them like the one in “Final Mission,” we think we may be onto something. Stranded on a planet without water, Wesley keeps an injured Picard alive (can’t say the same for Dirgo, but whatever), fueling paternity theories for years to come.

I just lost the game After Wesley leaves the crew after “Final Mission,” his appearances are more methodical, and thus his character feels more and more appropriate each time. In “The Game,” he’s just visiting but his tendency to see how things work helps him and Lefler to discover that the video game everyone’s playing is actually harmful before the whole crew turns on them.

I would like to add something to my testimony We get even more glimpses of how far Wesley has come when he’s attending Starfleet Academy in “The First Duty.” All of Nova Squadron has lied about the circumstances of Josh Albert’s flight accident, and it’s Wesley who comes clean in the end because he can’t bear the guilt and the dishonesty of covering up their nefarious actions. Take that, Locarno!

These people deserve better than to be removed from their homes We found Picard’s actions inexcusable and entirely out of character in “Journey’s End” but you know who was actually on point? Wesley freakin’ Crusher. How on earth the boy was the only Starfleet-adjacent person to actually try to defend the colonists on Dorvan V is beyond us. It strikes us as opposing Federation ideals to force the colonists to move, and Wes knows that.

I had to find my own path Finally, it is a fabulous resolution to the Wesley Crusher character for him to decide on his own to leave Starfleet and go with the Traveler to discover his true potential in “Journey’s End.” For too many kids, it’s the parents who put pressure on them to walk certain paths, and we celebrate Wes for finding his own. Ya know, until he’s randomly back in Starfleet for that cut scene from Nemesis for some reason.

—

Worst moments

Wesley Saves the Day! Okay, I’m gonna lump all the obnoxious “Wesley Saves the Day!” instances into one blurb because it’s so damn repetitive. Every single time, Wesley – a child amidst some of Starfleet’s best of the best – figures out some impossible engineering problem before any of the adults in the room can, and we got so tired of it. 

Whether it’s by getting drunk and taking over engineering only to use his reverse tractor beam in “The Naked Now,” or saving the day with the Traveler in “Where No One Has Gone Before,” or spotting Picard’s brain scan from across the room and deducing there are Ferengi shenanigans afoot in “The Battle,” or cracking the lock on the holodeck door while La Forge had already admitted defeat in “The Big Goodbye,” or seeing through Lore’s disguise as we mentioned above while all the adults in the room tell him to shut up in “Datalore,” or probably a ton of others all from the first season, it was clear no one knew how to write him except as some kind of magical prodigy. Alakazam!

Keep off the grass It’s all the more clear that having a child character on the crew is just a cringey idea in “Justice.” Sure, it could have been anyone who broke the stringent rules of the Edo, but just the fact that it’s Wesley gallumphing through a flower bed like an uncoordinated doofus, destroying it utterly, makes us roll our eyes and seriously wish they’d let them execute the brat. 

Frosty the no-no man Let us not forget that it was Wesley who hit the captain with a snowball in “Angel One,” an immature and obnoxious little scene that seems to prove Picard’s point that letting children run roughshod all over the ship is an inconvenience at best and a liability at worst. And it happens to be the latter in this episode, because he ends up getting the whole ship sick with some disease!

Drug Abuse Resistance Education is futile! While we can go on about Wesley’s whole exchange with Tasha about drug addiction in “Symbiosis,” what’s most egregious is how sheltered and clueless Wesley (normally some kind of child genius) has to be to not understand how narcotics work in the first place. It’s such a forced scene that we can just feel the Reagan Era war on drugs sentimentality written all over.

I guess leaving’s gotten easy for you It’s easy to find fault with “The Outrageous Okona” – it is my least favorite TNG episode, after all. Literally everyone in this episode is annoying, and as usual, that includes Wesley who first idolizes the charming rogue, then seems really judgey of his independent and carefree lifestyle, and finally he sasses the guy into making him conclude the soap opera plot of the episode.

How do you tell each other apart? It’s a pretty cheap joke when Wesley meets Mendon in “A Matter of Honor” and mistakes him for Mordock, whom we met in “Coming of Age.” I can’t tell if the writers were trying to make a racist “you people all look alike” kind of gag, but regardless, it makes Wesley look like an idiot for not knowing anything about Benzites and Benzite culture.

Klingons hate surprise parties Everything Wesley does in “The Icarus Factor” is annoying. He blathers like a maniac at the impatient Klingon, but then takes that impatience to assume something greater is going on than just being fed up with an obnoxious tween like anyone else would be. But to make things more exasperating, the little twerp is right, as he always is, and throws Worf an Age of Ascension party. Ugh.

I think that everything that’s been going wrong might be my fault It’s not until season three that, instead of saving the day as he did so many times already, Wesley actually screws up big by releasing the nanites in “Evolution.” While it’s refreshing to see Wes finally admit to some kind of flaw, his escaped nanites end up taking over the ship and start attacking people. And what’s worse is that he tries to lie about it until Guinan catches him!

Broccoli on the side You’ll remember this from La Forge’s spotlight as well, but Geordi reveals in “Hollow Pursuits” that it was Wesley who initiated the cruel nickname “Broccoli” for Lt. Barclay. Wes, you might still be a child, but you’re in a room with adults so stop acting like one! I don’t know what’s worse: being such a dick to one of your coworkers, or all the adults in the room condoning it.

I’m the one trapped in the bubble As if his misadventure in “Evolution” weren’t enough, Wesley botches another science experiment in “Remember Me” and nearly gets his mother killed in a pocket dimension! I know we just gave him some credit for bringing her back (though I mostly give that credit to the Traveler), someone’s got to stop letting Wes hook shit up to the warp core just because he’s the CMO’s kid! Nepotism much?

The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth Here’s another Wesley moment that ended up on both lists because as much as we can see the character growth and lesson learned when he comes clean in “The First Duty,” it also needs to be said that he is fully prepared to follow Nick Locarno like a little sheep. Wesley almost certainly wouldn’t have done the right thing in the end if Picard hadn’t basically threatened him first!

You are out! Auf wiedersehen! Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t poopoo Wesley’s fashion choices. Again. It’s a trainwreck of a fashion show. Sweater after sweater – all oversized, hideously patterned, and monstrously ugly. Ames has the full write up in an early blogpost: Wesley's Sweaters: An Unfashionable Collection, but this coral nightmare from “Where No One Has Gone Before” might take the cake.

—

Well, we’re off to go exploring with the Traveler, so that’s gonna wrap things up for this one. We’re back next week with more characters to spotlight and also more Enterprise to watch over on the podcast, which you can find on SoundCloud or wherever you listen. You can also get our help on your Academy entrance exams over on Facebook and Twitter, and watch out for those flowers!

[i-dont-know-anything-anymore]

THE BATTLE OF GEONOSIS moodboard

[sebfreak]

宮野真守「The Battle」MUSIC VIDEO / Mamoru Miyano "The Battle"

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k t h e n e x t g e n e r a t i o n created by gene roddenberry Daimon Bok of the Ferengi [the battle, s1ep9]

'Look at that ship closely... That vessel is yours if you wish to have it. Consider it an act of friendship.' - bok [to picard]