#final mission

[renari-and-tun]

The fear of god hit my soul seeing this

[promptsforyourwhumpfic]

Whump Prompt #1618

“When this is all over, I’m going to go to the seaside, to wake up to the sound of waves and the sunshine on my face. To have cocktails at lunchtime and relaxing walks in the evening when the heat dies down. I’m going to relax, for the first time in my life I'm going to unwind."

Its a confession the stoic/long-serving member of the group says as they prepare to meet the Big Bad in a fight they know they might not make it out of. But they do - miraculously they do - but the stoic character suffers a terrible injury which leaves them with months of recovery. Still, the team want to make sure the whumpee fulfils their retirement goals, and plan to get the whumpee to the beach by any means possible.

(For some added twisted irony, the whumpee could take [what they think are] their final breaths on a beach as the sun sets...)

[quirkychaoticraptor]

My extreme tiredness has been inspired by my own housecleaning chores to write some stuff with our sassy Daruma king.

Hyuga with a stubborn and very tired younger sister over chores.

First off, his sister could be the type of person who gets hangry, and it's worse if she's also tired.

Hyuga would be used to it...until she gives him an attitude that he isn't a fan of.

There is no such thing as disrespect in this family, and he will not tolerate it from her.

His sister planned on going to bed, early, one day, as soon as she got home. Those plans were ruined as soon as her big brother reminded her of her chores.

"Wha?! No! C'mon, Norihisa! I'm way too tired!"

"I don't care. You told me you would get it done, yesterday. Yet, here we are. You should've gone to bed, last night, like you were supposed to."

"Ah, shut up, Nori! I'll take care of it, tomorrow! I swear!"

"No. You'll take care of it, now. You can sleep, afterwards. And don't take that tone with me. You know the rules of this house."

"Dammit! I don't care! You're such a jerk! I'm not in the mood for doing stupid chores! I'm going to bed."

But she knew she made a mistake when he raised an eyebrow at her, looking clearly irritated. He was always scary when he was mad.

Before she could think about running, he was picking her up and slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Hey!! Nori!! Put me down! Norihisa!!" She would hit his back, scream, and put up a fight while he carried her over to where she was supposed to be, knowing how much she hated being picked up. "Nori, put me down!!"

Whenever she was like this, he would roll his eyes and ignore the beatings on his back.

Once in the room where she was supposed to be, he would "throw" her down onto the floor.

"Ouch!! Really?!"

Hyuga would never lift a harmful finger on his little sister...but times like this, just looking threatening was enough to make her drop the attitude, real quick. He was always wordless about it, too. And even when he wasn't, he never raised his voice at her.

If she still kept it up, he would step toward her with an angry look...you did not want to get the Daruma leader angry.

"Whoa! Ok...ok!! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Nori!! I'll do it, I'll do it!"

Hyuga would then toss her a cleaning cloth to her, keeping that irritated raised eyebrow look on his face.

"Don't ever talk to me like that, again. Ya hear? I'm your brother, not your enemy. I know you're tired, but the sooner you get this done, the sooner you can sleep."

Then comes the one thing he really hated while she lived under his roof: the puppy eyes, and the lip tremble. "Nori...." And the hurt in her voice.

The corner of his lip would twitch. He hated scaring her like that, regardless if she brought it upon herself or not.

His face softened, and he rolled his eyes.

"Don't do a half-assed job, please...."

And just because he enjoyed being her big jerk of a brother, he would snack on something while making sure she got her chores done, knowing well that her attitude was partially her being hungry.

"Jerk...."

"Yep!"

[snowsoracle]

Silly me I didn't record, but hey I got an S on the final boss, guess I'll try for 100% S. I never thought I'd get the final boss, and then the first retry that bests the damn thing gets an S lmao

You were a mistake Iguazu

[spockvarietyhour]

Alien/Civilian shuttle interior, Season 4-7

[filmjunky-99]

'We can't survive in this sun. Where there's mountains, there's shelter.' - picard

Lambda Paz, Desert Moon of Pentarus III

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 [final mission, s4ep9]

[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!

[perrysoup]

There isn't much reason to replay Untouchable in Hitman 3. You don't go there for freelancer, the achievements are easy, and their is only one alt mission.

But I wanted the new skin so I decided to go for it.

I forgot how absolutely cruel the poison ending is.

Like, it's wildly horrifying. To have a mans last words be "At least I will die knowing who I am" and you remove decades of his life from his memory. He is alive and doesn't know what power he held. What pride he held.

I think it struck because I already have memory issues, and am horrified I'll likely get Alzheimer's. Anyway, it's poetic in the story. The writing for the soft-reboot was exceptional. I loved every second of it.

What a great game