There is something I have termed The Maedhros Effect: something about him makes everyone obsessed with him and or crushing on him. I literally lent my copy to a friend who had never heard of the Silmarillion before, and once he finished the book, he said to me "I think i have a crush on Maedhros."
hi my name is Nelyafinwë Maitimo Russandol Maedhros Feanárion and I have long copper red hair (that's how I got my name) with blood red tips that reaches past my butt and silver eyes like limpid tears and some people tell me I look like Finwë (AN: if you don't know who he is get da hell out of here!!) I'm related to Findekáno Astaldo Nolofinwion but I married him anyway cause we're Elves and he's a major fucking hottie. I may look like a vampire but I swear I'm not. I have pale white skin. I am also a Kinslayer, and I have killed many Elves in pursuit of the Silmarils of my father. I'm a goth, in case you couldn't tell, and I wear mostly red and black with a lot of star motifs. I love Hototyossë and buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing black leather trousers, a dark red tunic like congealed blood with a small eight pointed star on each sleeve and high black boots and a black wool cloak embroidered with complex patterns and a copper circlet set with garnet. It was snowing so there was no sun and I wasn't happy about it. A lot of Eldar stared at me. I lifted my stump at them.
So I spent a helluva lotta time on the star wars wikia(s) reading up on Bly, and then the ppl around Bly, etc in prep for writing him. I tried to remain as canon as possible with the easily available information there is, but you know artistic license and personal headcanons away~ :D (p.s. i’ve scattered links to said wikias throughout.)
Some choice quotes of his:
"Know the mission, know your enemy, achieve the mission, kill the enemy. That's all I need. It's all any soldier needs."
"Get the order and execute it. Let the generals sort out the rest."
"The General's good. Knows her stuff and doesn't waste time. Got to respect that."
"So, Commander Bly, what will you do when this war is over?" (Secura)
"Whatever I'm ordered, of course."
Headcanon & actual interesting canon tidbit: Number one:
Bly actually gets his name from Alpha-17, the clone who trained hundreds of clone commanders in ARC trooper training back on Kamino. It makes me think that perhaps Bly has a slightly more personal attachment to Alpha than the other commanders as a result. Maybe Bly got his attitude regarding missions from Alpha- since they shared a similar mindset of mission above all else and loyalty to the Republic.
A small ficlet to accompany the above:
CC-5052 wasn't quite certain why he'd been called back to Kamino. Oh, he'd read and understood the orders to the letter, but he didn't get why he'd been recalled for more training. He'd been born and bred as a clone commander, and had received more training than the standard clone trooper as a result, so he didn't yet understand what else he needed to be trained in. CC-5052 was at least certain that the confusion would quickly be cleared up as soon as he landed.
"Anyone know what this is about?" CC-0411- CC-5052 thought he went by Ponds?- finally asks aloud, breaking the silence that had been maintained in the transport for the past half hour.
CC-3636 grunts. "Training."
Ponds scoffs. "Yeah, thanks. I think we all know that much."
"Ah leave Wolffe alone," CC-5869, Stone, grins. "He's just grumpy he's not with his pack anymore."
CC-5052 silently watches his brothers bicker with one another. He realizes that they're all commander bred clones with the same orders, which surely has to be incredibly important to pull them back off the frontlines so soon after the war's started. Another part of him resolves to remember each one of their designations, or names if they've chosen one already, especially if he's going to be working alongside them for the foreseeable future.
"So more training." Ponds is saying, crossing his arms. "What else could they possibly shove into our heads next?"
"Guess we'll find out."
-
Alpha-17 is easily the most intimidating brother CC-5052 has ever seen. As soon as the older clone had walked into the cavernous room, every single commander had pulled tight to attention. Alpha just had that presence. His words were sharp and to the point. They were to be the first hundred hand-trained by him to be better than the best, as ARC troopers, smarter strategists and greater combatants. They would lead from the front, by example, and there would be no surrender. Just as they had been separated during training the first time, Alpha-17 split them into squads of five and ordered them to get familiar with one another before the real fun started.
Which left CC-5052 in a room with four other brothers, waiting to be given further orders, and finding out he's the only one among them without a name.
"Nothing stick out yet?" Gree, CC-1004, asks sympathetically, having explained how his extensive knowledge of alien species had granted him his own name.
CC-5052 shakes his head, and scratches at the yellow tattoo on his left cheekbone. "Not yet." He answers evasively, feeling a little defensive about it when confronted by a brother with an entire story behind his name.
CC-8826, Neyo, appears to be only just acknowledging them. If he wasn't facing them with sharp eyes, CC-5052 would've thought he'd been ignoring them entirely. He certainly hadn't said a word other than his name.
CC-1138 puts a hand over his chest. "I go by Bacara. Boys gave it to me just last week, so I'm still getting used to it."
"Cody." CC-2224 offers up lastly, nodding to the rest of them as a whole. He's still got a bacta patch glued above his right brow, and the tail end of a freshly gained scar curves around his eye on that side. "Old batchmates joke."
Cody rolls his eyes, and immediately winces as his injury twinges. It's all the confirmation Gree needs to start laughing. Neyo swivels in his chair to put his back to all of them, and Bacara mouthes what's with him at CC-5052.
Alpha-17 strides in before CC-5052 can answer.
"Names." He barks as soon as they've all snapped into a single line in front of him.
"Cody."
"Gree."
"Neyo."
"Bacara."
"CC-5052."
Something akin to shame- or perhaps more simply embarrassment- bubbles under his skin, when Alpha-17 gives him a sharp look at receiving a designation rather than a name.
Alpha-17 barely even hesitates. "You'll go by Bly from now on, understood?"
CC-5052 straightens automatically- part in surprise at being given a name by a commanding officer, and mostly in direct response to an order.
"Sir, yes sir!"
-
By the end of Alpha's grueling ARC training, Bly has fully accepted his name and wears it with pride. Every single one of them left Kamino better equipped to handle everything that could be thrown at them, but Bly left with a little something more.
I was personally a bit unclear on the canon exactly when Alpha trained the commanders, so this was what I ended up going with.
Another mini ficlet to sequel that:
"Oh like you weren't Alpha's favorite." Bly scoffs, downing the rest of his drink in one go.
Cody squawks offense when Gree nods drunkenly in agreement.
"What? Where did you even get that idea?"
"It's kinda obvious." Bacara points out over the rim of his own glass. "He did make you leader of Squad Seven."
Cody huffs unhappily, pointing accusingly at Bacara. "You know darn well Jorir handles everything."
"Yeah, but he reports to you."
"And Odd Ball." Bly notes after a moment of remembrance for the pilot. The alcohol had almost made him forget about Davijaan. Bly prefers being on the ground, so it's not often the two commanders are in the same place.
Cody scoffs. "Oh come off it. Like Alpha ever was the type to play something as stupid as favorites."
"If Neyo were here, even he'd disagree." Gree snickers. "Grumpy bastard that he was."
"Gave Wolffe a run for his money." Bacara toasts their absent comrade upon mention of Neyo's name.
Cody groans defeat and scrubs hands through his hair. He's kept it standard color and length all this time, and only his wicked curving scar gives him any glaring individuality.
Bly smirks and pats Cody's shoulder with false sympathy, since he'd been the one to breach the topic in the first place. He'd really just wanted to give his old squad-mate some good-natured grief. Some down time at 79's, when they were all on leave at Coruscant, was rare indeed. Plus the chance was too good to pass up when Gree had started reminiscing about their time together during ARC training.
"Hey," Gree elbows Bacara conspiratorily, winking at Bly while Cody's still got his head lowered. "You still mad that Codes still holds the record for hand-to-hand win ratio back on Kamino?"
"Absolutely." Bacara says so seriously, that if Bly had been one more glass drunk, he would've believed it.
Cody, who was two glasses past drunk, groans even louder. "Why are you even still so hung up over that? You led your men to take out droids bare-handed! I read the report! You win already!"
Bly snorts his drink unattractively, coughing as Gree cracks up into drunken giggles and Bacara's serious facade breaks into a proud grin.
"What?" Bly wheezes as soon as he can breathe again. "That was true?"
Cody mumbles some choice insults under his breath while Bacara puffs out his chest with rarely expressed self-satisfaction.
"Oh it was true alright," Cody mutters. "Rex wouldn't let me hear the end of it for weeks."
True story, Bacara led his troopers to take out droids just with their hands. Leaving me to headcanon that he’s damn good at hand-to-hand, so a little friendly rivalry with Cody who was said to also have excellent close combat skills. I also got the characterization for Neyo and Gree from their own wiki pages as well. Squad Seven is also a real thing, and researching made me come across it and made me personally happy bc of my own favorite Cody getting some more appreciation ;D
I also chose Bly, Bacara, Cody, Gree, and Neyo to be in a five-squad back at Kamino thanks to them being the highest ranking officers in the entire GAR. I left Appo out because 1) I wanted to stick to a squad of five, and 2) he’s technically stated as the clone marshal commander of the 501st, but popular knowledge put Rex in charge during this time.
Also thanks to this particular lovely fanart :D I also headcanon that the commanders gossip with each other whenever they’re on leave together, hence the sequel bit.
Adorable fanart of small Bly and Aayla. Actually just Kelyn’s Bly tag in general to include for more adorableness while I’m at it.
Headcanon & canon bits: number two:
Bly’s personality is canon very business like, as you could probably guess from the quotes of his I included earlier. He likes efficiency and having a good clean win record for missions. Like Cody, Bly is also a marshal commander, so he’s in command of a lot of brothers, and I think he’d take the responsibility pretty seriously. I remember reading on his wiki that he appreciates Aayla’s practicality over emotions and agrees with it, but I also think that the closer he grew to Aayla the more he would begin to appreciate more sentimental type things as well. Because they did get quite close, enough that another Jedi, disliked it. (” During his time with Secura, Bly began to grow close to the Jedi, earning the two of them the ire of other Jedi such as Arligan Zey.”) Which I frankly think is hilariously adorable, just imagining Bly and Aayla be so comfortable with each other that another Jedi feels like a lecture on attachment would be necessary. Aayla probably would hear none of it and Bly wouldn’t even think about it being anything further than ordinary friendship and respect, so why’s this crusty other Jedi trying to say ‘stop being so close’? I also think it’s good to mention that at one point during the war, after being tricked by Dooku, Bly had to be the one to keep the cooler head when Aayla was livid, to keep them on track to the mission. I think it was during that same time in the story (that I haven’t actually read, only read about), that Bly decided to go practice sparring when he couldn’t sleep, and Aayla joined him after a bit of talking. I don’t know the conversation thread through just the wiki, but the point is that canonically Aayla and Bly sparred and that’s fantastic. Bet they did it more often after that point too.
Number three:
Kind of continuing from above, Bly would come across as a no-nonsense commander, but hey the wiki says the same thing about Cody and we see him snarking at Rex during Rookies so I’m more than willing to take liberties with Bly too. Bly knew the names of each clone that had been stranded with them on Maridun with the Lurmen- Cameron, Lucky, and Flash- so I think that maybe he’d do the same with all the clones under his command. He’d check in on his brothers, officially to monitor their efficiency and progress, and perhaps unofficially to check on them a lot like an older brother would on his siblings. Bly is one of the older clones in the war, if I read the lore correctly (being in the first hundred of commanders that Alpha-17 trained as ARC troopers), so while he’d get the casualty reports after every mission, I’d like to think Bly would make his own personal round on the troopers, seeing with his own eyes all the brothers who survived and how they were coping.
You know what, have a ficlet of that- (takes place before Maridun so I can include the three named clone troopers as well)
Bly sighs and drops the holopad onto his tiny desk, that still took up most of the space in the tiny officer’s quarters, and pinches the bridge of his nose. Another successful mission, but still the casualty numbers- the names of lost brothers- continue to scroll up against the darkness of his eyelids. It was time to take a break, and make a quick round. Bly stood and donned his helmet, a concerned elder brother hiding behind the role of a superior officer, and the marigold striped bucket helped with that.
Three troopers playing sabacc closest to the barracks door startle to attention when the marshal commander enters, stacked cards spilling half off the bunk with the abrupt movement.
“At ease.” Bly assures automatically, scanning the trio closely for signs of individuality.
Shinies, came in with the last supplies, and all batch mates if he could still read people well enough. They haven’t been here long enough for him to catch ear of their names- just the designation numbers. He’d right that.
Bly keeps his helmet on, but pitches his voice deliberately quieter through the articulator when the three shinies fidget nervously once he still doesn’t move on.
“You boys got names?”
The one furthest on Bly’s left visibly startles the most, and draws the commander’s eyes to his left side. His hair is shorn slightly shorter there than on the right, a slight deviation, just enough to be noticeably different without yet being too bold.
“Cameron, sir.”
The shiny in the middle scratches his nose, and there’s a thin pale scar there. Probably recently healed, if the way it gets scratched at like there’s still a scab there is any indication.
“Lucky, sir.”
The last of the trio grins boldly, still unmarked but vibrant personality more than making up for the lack of any distinguishing physical features.
“Flash, sir.”
Bly nods, committing the names to memory. “Good. As you were.”
He moves on, nodding to other lieutenants and sergeants who were used to his occasional nightly rounds and didn’t jump to attention, and learning the names of the other shinies recently come under his command.
Not every brother would live through the coming battles, but through this routine, Bly hoped that at least some part of them would. At the very least, through memory.
There’s still plenty more tiny ideas rattling around in my skull but this has actually gotten semi-long now :O and I want to post it before it gets any later in the day. So I’ll end this as-is for now, and I hope it was enough Bly for you m’dear Mae! :D
i aggressively agree with you on clone doing the maori forehead touch and/or any maori tradition. also can you imagine the entire torrent company ding the haka
Yessss!!! Clones doing the haka would be amazing ughhh. In fact just yesterday I found this video of The Tem Show. In Part 5 (there are links to different parts near the bottom of the vid) around 5:25, Temuera Morrison (Jango, adult clones), Bodie Taylor (young adult clones) and Jay Laga'aia (Gregar Typho) were actually talking about the clones doing it!! Ugh I would love it PLEASE god
