I Want To Get This Off My Chest Regarding The Star Wars Fandom, Especially The Clone Wars And Bad Batch

I want to get this off my chest regarding the Star Wars fandom, especially the Clone Wars and Bad Batch fans, because it's something that's been bothering me for a bit. This may come across as controversial to some and fall upon deaf ears, but I want to address this in the nicest, most encouraging, smartest way possible. This also isn't a callout to anyone, it's just something I've observed!

Everyone in the fandom (specifically TCW and TBB people) is all for clone individuality and advocacy until they aren't. When it comes to a particular clone they don't like, it's no longer convenient for them to love all clones, and then all bets are off.

Take the fandom's treatment of Cody and Bly, for example.

Cody and Bly's worths and personalities have been reduced to solely their Jedi Generals to a disgusting degree. Whenever I look for Cody content specifically (and I've checked the "commander bly" tag too for confirmation), it's just oversaturated with Codywan content. Even in the non-Codywan-specific posts, you can't find a sentence with Commander Cody that doesn't also mention Obi-Wan Kenobi. Not to mention male characters (especially) portrayed platonically in media can't *just* be friends anymore, but that's a whole other issue for another day 😅 Bly is the same way; whenever there's a sentence with Commander Bly in it, Aayla Secura just happens to *magically* appear. That's so unfair to Cody and Bly.

Then take Fox, for example. Fox has less screen time than Cody, but he is still given an entire multifaceted personality, and even a fan-created face to a name. It makes no sense that Cody and Bly aren't given the same kind of care and attention. Obviously you can make fanon personalities (because that's part of the fun of participating in fandoms!), but they shouldn't be reductive, insult the character, and not do the character justice. Thanks to TBB S2, more light is shed on Cody's personality (and hopefully, fingers crossed, we see more Cody and Bly in another season of TBB, so Bly's definitive personality is addressed and developed more. It's what he deserves 😌). Cody is so much more than just Obi-Wan's sidekick: he's stern and by-the-book (however, his orthodoxy has its limits, and he uses his own judgment in various situations), but he's very caring, loyal, kind, intelligent, and courageous!

Clones fought tirelessly in both the Republic and Empire eras (albeit the beginning of the Empire era when the clones were still serving in the military) to distinguish themselves from their fellow brothers in order to make themselves more human. Personal selections and preferences for their hairstyles, armor paint, tattoos, names, and even scars obtained in battle tried to convey to the general public that they were more than mere copies of Jango Fett. They were always human, but because they all share the same face, the GAR was then made faceless. To natborns, a faceless army wasn't as tragic to see refused basic human rights, be victims of bigotry, and then physically suffer and die in combat, because with facelessness comes a lack of identity, and with a lack of identity comes neglect.

Support all the clones, not just your favorites! They are some of the most tragic characters, if not the most tragic characters, in all of Star Wars. If the writers won't give them the love they deserve from the natborn characters (because seeing a named clone we just met die within the same episode is so upsetting 😩...ahem, I'm talking to you Dave and Jen lol!), the least we can do is give them that much-needed love from a fan's standpoint! 🥰