#lieutenant barclay

[theeminentlyimpractical]

Lt. Reginald Barclay; end of watch 21 November 2024.

Lt. Barclay, you are clear to go 10-7, 10-42. Godspeed.

[rhinexstone]

Reginald Barclay is lowkey the most radical example of how true communist/socialist structures work on disabled individuals

Like it’s not secret Barclay struggles with addiction, paranoia, hypochondria, and OCD. He is capable of massive social conflict and ethical breeches, especially being a victim of harassment and bullying as well.

But his arc isn’t about exploitation, instead it’s about recovery and mental health, along with keeping people to the social standards they set for themselves.

More below!

His arc starts off with him one social media platform away from being an incel. He has immense social anxiety, an addiction to a fantasy outlet, and routinely exploits and violates fictional recreations of his female peers that are stripped of autonomy. He is bad at his job, bad at talking, always late, just….bad.

And his work is the symptom of his mental health. His superiors catch onto this, and dig deeper into realizing that he is struggling so, so much. And to do so, then help, is to confront the fact that yes Barclay breaks social taboos, but the empathy that these people pride themselves on must extend to those that chafe against them too.

This is especially difficult for those he has violated— fictionally, but nonetheless violated. Especially for Deanna, whose job and ethics require her to help and reach out, but knows exactly how her patient objectifies her. It would be so easy to transfer him out, but that’s not fixing the issue. That’s not helping him.

And then after all this? He still has his issues!! People with poor mental health have a bag of onions worth of layers they must peel back for them to heal and improve themselves. He continues to work with Troi, and we see time and time again that he’s now seeing her as human and working on building back trust and a healthy appropriate relationship between them. And Deanna gets to be uncomfortable, because Barclays been doing better and can take it when someone doesn’t perfectly like him.

With every uptick in paranoia or other mental issue, Barclay is met with support. Riker runs tests on him when asked, then explains exactly what is happening to soothe his medical anxiety. And people have a hard time helping him, but they work through it. People are under a social contract to help each other in Star Trek, and with Barclay we see this in tandem with social conflict. But Star Trek is what we CAN be, so we find a way to work through it.

And what I love? As he heals, he blossoms. He managed to get a job on the Enterprise, but with help, became famous for his work with Voyager, a local legend in Holodeck programming, and the only human unscathed by Spot. And he’s happy. He gets to be happy, have friends, do well, live a good life, and thus improve the lives of those around him as well.

[would-you-punt-them]

Reginald Barclay (Star Trek: TNG)

[circleturk]

Captain Picard: who knows, maybe all this might just be an elaborate simulation, running inside a little device sitting on someone’s table

Lieutenant “Big Anxiety” Barclay:

[fand0mina]

Star Trek: Picard 3x09 "Võx" Spoilers

You know who's gotta feel totally vindicated right now? Barclay! He knew the transporters were dangerous from the beginning and people laughed at him! Well, look who's laughing now...

[jonesingforcrafts]

I watched Voyager before tng and seeing how far Barclay came is cool and all but he literally said "I'm the guy in the corner of the party examining the houseplant" and ...

[jenlrossman]

[thevulcantrekkie]

Ok, but you have to admit that’s pretty in character for Barclay🤣🤣🤣🤣

[bcbdrums]

i'm in love, your honor.

no but serious reg barclay...has a very, very, very special place in my heart. trek isn't trek without him, for me. personal reasons. but this character deserves ALL the love. and dwight schultz is fabulous.

"This has been the thing I've been afraid of all my life... that I'd go in and not come back... But I guess... if I'm ever going to confront my fear, it might as well be now."

star trek: the next generation - realm of fear, season 6 episode 2

[turns-out-its-adhd]

[half-an-hour-hence]

Ghosts characters in a sentence pt2:

Alison: young woman somehow manages not to have a stress induced breakdown every hour after dealing with nine clingy, childlike ghosts and the restoration and upkeep of a literal mansion

Mike: malewife contemplates launching himself from a window in order to be able to communicate with his wife’s dead mates

Annie: lesbian indulges in her god given right to slag off men after being killed by bread

Barclay: rich white man turns out to be the nosiest man in Britain and is despised so much that even a disgraced Tory MP shudders at the thought of him

Plague Ghosts: iconic basement dwellers who cannot deal with being called smelly died due to the power of friendship

Lucy: basically just a massive bitch

Sophie: aforementioned badass Frenchwoman discovers conspiracy and plotting regicide as coping mechanisms to deal with loser husband

Havers: hot military man makes his CO fall head over heals in love with him by simply breathing and causes the audience to go insane because he said a name

[best-star-trek-character]

Round Two

[respocked]

This episode is very funny. It features a virus that devolves people/activates their dormant genes. Except Barclay turns into a spider. Now I'm not a biologist but I'm pretty sure people didn't evolve from spiders. Therefore this implies that Barclay is another lifeform that evolved different from homo sapiens. Which would actually explain so much

Cutest cat ever

[gudbreadsticks]

As a big fan of Child's Play 3, I tried my hand at drawing 3 of my favorite people. Can you guess the scenes?

[josefavomjaaga]

Napoleon and the rivalry of the marshals

This is translated from the second volume of a book called "Etudes sur Napoléon" by Elie de Baudus, a former aide-de-camp of Marshal Bessières. I'm only browsing some parts of it, as I do most of the time, but I can already say that, while these are not truly memoirs, there are some interesting descriptions and details in it. Elie seems to have become a royalist by the time he publishes the book, usually referring to Napoléon as "the usurper" and in general very critical of him.

This is a rather long excerpt about the marshals unwillingness to cooperate - and Napoleon encouraging this attitude.

Who would not believe that in an army led by a hand as firm as Napoleon's there was complete obedience, from the second lieutenant to the officers of the highest rank, all the way up to him himself? It was generally so, except among the first chiefs. At the very moment when the hatred of Barclay was causing discord in the Russian camp, our affairs were also suffering from the lack of agreement between two of our generals. The operations of the advance guard were hampered for several days by Marshal Davoust's reluctance to support the cavalry with his infantry. On 29 August, things had even been pushed so far on the part of the Marshal that, when I was at Murat's headquarters in the evening, I learned that the prince's officers had had great difficulty preventing him from going to see the Marshal with the intention of asking him to explain his conduct, sword in hand.

Surely would have been a sight to see: One infuriated King of Naples, all the feathers on his hat ruffled with anger, bursting into Davout's tent. And then probably having to wait for Davout to find his glasses so he could recognize his illustrious visitor.

It may also be interesting insofar as, while I’ve not read much about the Russian campaign, I had the impression that modern historians rather tend to agree with Davout (?). But for Baudus, this is not so much about who was right but a matter of obedience:

No one will approve of the course taken by Marshal Davoust in this circumstance; he was under the King's orders for everything that the infantry had to do to support the movements of the cavalry; his duty was to obey. In all cases, a feeling of devotion to the glory of the army should always have prevented him from taking any action likely to compromise the success of operations; the Marshal therefore set an example that was all the more deplorable because he was higher up in the military hierarchy. These discussions ceased when Napoleon placed the division of Compans entirely at the disposal of the King of Naples.

Implied: without truly settling the matter and without declaring either that Murat was factually in the wrong and his orders had been so bad no commander in his right mind would follow them, or that Davout had overstepped his boundaries with his disobedience. For Elie, the matter is clear:

The King was in the right, Davoust was in the wrong; it was not appropriate to agree with them both. Here there was no question of discussions between people of equal rank. Murat was king; he owed this high fortune to his talents, his valour, and above all to the advantage of being the brother-in-law of the emperor; the latter had to ensure that in Murat the august title with which he had clothed him was respected; if he did not do so, it was because such quarrels between the chiefs of his army did not displease him.

… and above all to the advantage of being the brother-in-law of the emperor …

Murat: Arrgh! You’re not helping, Elie!

This was not the only occasion when it was easy to perceive this; he had already demonstrated it by not publicly showing any displeasure to Marshal Ney, with regard to the violent discussions which he had had with Marshals Soult and Masséna, in Spain and Portugal, when he was placed under their orders. It is easy to guess the reason for this: an intimate agreement between them would have given him cause for concern; there can therefore be no doubt that, as a matter of policy, he was opposed to the existence of such an understanding. An anecdote quoted by Mme de Staël in her book "Dix ans d'exil" gives a curious idea of Napoleon's views in this respect. After recounting a few details of her meeting and conversation with the emperor Alexander, this famous woman adds: "He also told me about the Machiavellian lessons that Napoleon had seen fit to give him. You see," he told her, "I take care to put my ministers and generals at odds with each other, so that they reveal to me the wrongs of each other. I maintain a continual jealousy around me through the way I treat people around me; one day one of them thinks he is preferred, the next day the other, and no one can ever be sure of my favour."

All this care had not been without result; the marshals almost all hated each other, especially those whose talents, high reputation and unquestionable ability placed them in the first rank. So whenever several of them found themselves together on the same point without being under the immediate orders of the master, their lack of understanding or their disobedience to the orders of the senior marshal often caused the most important and best combined operations to fail. Having adopted such a system, Napoleon should have carefully avoided creating embarrassments for himself on several points at once, as he had wisely done up until the time of his aggression against Spain. Moreover, this profound Italian finesse, used to divide the army leaders and applied to the French character, was a luxury; Napoleon could have relied on the satanic self-love on which it was based to bring about the state of affairs he desired in this respect; he could even, without inconvenience, have fought vigorously against this tendency to disobedience instead of encouraging it; there would always have been enough left to achieve his aim.

[enigmatist17]

Odo stared.

The small creature on the floor of the Promenade stared back, the collar adorned with the Starfleet insignia around its neck jingling as it shook its head.

"What are you?"

It continues to stare, before letting out a strange noise and sitting on the floor as if in defiance. Scowling, Odo keeps the...thing within view as he taps on his com badge, running through who to contact before deciding on one.

"Odo to Lieutenant Commander Dax."

"Dax here. How can I help?" She replied within a few seconds, something the security chief always respected.

"There is a strange creature on the Promenade that appears to belong to someone in Starfleet. I would appreciate it if you came down here to help me find its errant owner." He can just about picture the amused smile that would have crossed Dax's face by now, the creature seeming unaffected by the chirping of his badge.

"I'll be down right away." Odo remains in place as he waits, the creature starting to lick its side for a purpose he is unsure of without much regard for the environment around it.

"You are very strange."

"Aw, kitty!" Dax gushed when she caught sight of the small creature, kneeling down when she got close enough within reach. "Hey there little guy!"

"What is a...kitty?" He raised an eyebrow in surprise when the creature sat up suddenly, little teeth flashing when Dax reached out to pet it.

"Cat, it's a pet normally found on Earth or some colonies." Dax pouted as she stood, angling to get a look at the collar. "Spot, what a cute name."

"I'll look through recent arrival records; animals have to be logged before they come aboard the station." Odo huffed, watching Dax suddenly reach down and scoop the cat up off the ground, the creature letting out a very displeased noise. "It does not sound very happy."

"I'm not just going to leave them here, so let's make this quick, hm?"

As expected the cat had indeed been logged with a new arrival, a Lieutenant Barclay having arrived in regards to studying the wormhole. His quarters were one lift ride and a twenty-minute walk from the security station, Odo pressing the door controls as Dax tried to get the cat to play nice.

She had been unsuccessful the entire journey.

"H-Hello?" The man who answered the door seemed the most removed Starfleet officer Odo had ever seen, clearly nervous to find two people outside of his door. While every officer Odo had ever met stood tall and had an air of confidence in their position, this Barclay looked sorely out of place as he slightly hunched over, trying to appear much shorter than he was. He and Dax can see two large boards set up against the far wall covered with equations behind him in the room, data pads and electronics scattered all over every available surface, save the bedstand that appeared to hold a small bed for the cat.

"We found your cat, Lieutenant." Dax held Spot up with a slight grin, hazel eyes going wide in alarm. "He was on the Promenade."

"Spot! I-I've been looking all over for you!" Barclay shot the cat a frown, the cat letting out a small purr when it registered the other officer. "Naughty girl."

"She's a gorgeous cat, shame she's not the friendliest thing." Dax held out Spot towards Barclay, who was able to scoop up the cat with no resistance. "Escape artist too it seems."

"S-Spot does like e-exploring." Barclay gave them an embarrassed smile, Spot nestling into his arm with more of the purring noise she had made a moment ago. "Sorry, she's enjoying the space station, w-we haven't been off-planet enough for her liking."

"Please ensure Spot doesn't make her way free again; we don't need injuries to occur to those living at the station." Odo gave a slight nod, the Starfleet officer looking even more embarrassed as he hissed something to Spot the changeling couldn't catch. "I wouldn't want to find Quark serving a limited item on his menu."

"What?!" Barclay held Spot closer in alarm, his shoulders relaxing a fraction of a centimeter when he heard Dax giggle behind the security officer. "T-That's a joke, right?"

"Goodnight, lieutenant." Clasping his hands behind his back, Odo headed off down the hallway with a smirk, as the human and Trill watched him leave.

"I-Is he always like that?" Spot purred as her human began to pet her, staring daggers at Jadzia, who pouted in return.

"That's Odo in a good mood, if anything I think he's just curious about your cat."

"Spot does have that effect on people." Spot purred once more in response, before wriggling free of his arms and dropping down, disappearing into Barclay's quarters.

"Well, you and Spot have a good rest of your night, lieutenant; it was nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Barclay watched the Trill head off for the evening for a few moments before closing the door, turning to look at the cat now curled up on his bed without a care in the world.

"Y-You're such a pest." With a smile, the engineer gives Spot a small scratch before returning to his work, pausing when he's about to pick up a data pad. "Computer, p-please inform me if Spot leaves these quarters."

"Acknowledged."