Kinda shy for a Jedi.

Same age as The Phantom Menace, and just as corny. Follow this blog to watch my bupropion fix me in real time (#mybupropion). I write @askbensolo and apparently that’s all I talk about these days

[luke-shywalker]

Boundaries Regarding 1) My Name, 2) Friendships With Minors, and 3) Who I Follow Back/“Honorary Mutuals”

I was kinda thinking about this stuff as I was replying to birthday asks, ‘cause I have different types of relationships with different friends, so I wanted to explain my mindsets around these things. :)

1) My Name:

So, I’m okay with being called by my real name again—(I briefly retracted the privilege when I had a post go viral and someone told me to kill myself and I freaked the flip out because at the time I had gone public with my first and last name because I had the delusion of becoming an art influencer and Getting Exposure)—anyway, I’m okay with being called my real name again, if I have introduced myself as my real name to you. Besides the going viral thing, I also felt kinda weird when mutuals of mutuals who I had never met/didn’t have a relationship with me were calling me by my real-life name. If I wanted everyone to call me my real name from the get-go, I would put it in my bio. Some people do that. I have chosen not to do that.

Now, I’m absolutely open to becoming friends with new people and mutuals of mutuals, but we have to go through the steps to get there. Yes, I realize this is the autism website, so I don’t fault anyone who has trouble with social cues. But I am Shywalker for a reason lol, and this is the internet, and although my real name isn’t a secret, I don’t want to go by my real name with someone unless I myself feel comfortable with it and give them permission to do that (and part of feeling comfortable may also have to do with your age, which will be addressed in the second part).

I realize this could create a weird hierarchy thing, where some people are “allowed” to call me my real name and others are “not allowed” to call me that, as if the people who call me my real name have some kind of special favor from me, but…that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I have some very close mutuals who undoubtedly know my real name by now, but still choose not to call me by my real name, out of internet tradition or because they themselves don’t share their real name online. So, whether someone calls me by my screen name or real name isn’t necessarily a delineation between who I’m close to or not.

2) Friendships With Minors:

I’m not going to be as close with teenagers on here anymore. For the past couple years, in my early twenties, adopting teenagers on here was like, My Thing, because when you’re in your early twenties you just feel like a Really Old Teenager. But I’m almost thirty now, and it doesn’t feel appropriate anymore to behave with teenagers as if I were also one myself. We can relate like I’m a friend of your parents, or like I’m one of your teachers at school, but…if you’re still a minor, we’re not really peers. So I will relate to you with respect, and treat you like the bright, mature adolescent that you are, but I will not relate to you as a peer. (Actually I had a few times where I was talking to users whose age I didn’t know and ventured into discussing mature topics like sex as it relates to media, marriage, religion, etc—ONLY TO FIND OUT THEY WERE, LIKE, FIFTEEN, and it is inappropriate for an adult on the internet to have private conversations discussing sex with a teenager.) So—I’m down to interact with you when I see you around, but if you’re a teenager, and I seem to be holding boundaries with you or I’m not following you back, that may be why.

Now, if we’re already close friends from my adopting-teenagers-phase…well, we don’t have to STOP being close friends, I’m not saying that. I’m pretty sure most of the teenagers I was friends with before are either legal adults now, or at least close to it, so…like, we can still be friends lol, I’m not going to go back on the friendship we built when we were both a little younger. But this is my new boundary going forward, from this point on, and I hope that makes sense.

3) Who I Follow Back/“Honorary Mutuals”:

I’ve really pared down my Tumblr dash so that I can reasonably scroll through the entire thing each day. I’ve even unfollowed all the Star Wars blogs I used to follow, even the Kylo Ren photoset blogs (which tells you a lot), specifically for this purpose. What I want to see on my dash are people’s personal posts, as weird at that sounds, because my preferred Tumblr experience these days is really person-focused rather than fandom-focused.

So, when I choose to follow someone, it is purely based on whether I want all their posts to show up on my dashboard. I may choose not to follow someone who has a very high post volume that will make it harder for me to scroll through my dash and see other people’s updates; I may choose not to follow someone who reblogs a lot of tag games and really long chain posts; I may choose not to follow someone who posts a lot of fandom posts that are not relevant to me. I maaay sometimes choose not to follow someone if they have negative vibes and I think seeing their posts will influence me negatively (AND NO JUDGMENT THERE, I MYSELF HAVE BEEN DEPRESSED FOR THE PAST YEAR AND HAVE ADMITTEDLY HAD SOME VERY NEGATIVE VIBES AND I AM PRETTY SURE PEOPLE UNFOLLOWED ME FOR THAT AS WAS THEIR RIGHT).

As a result, I have people on here that I definitely consider friends and “honorary mutuals”, even if I’m not technically mutuals with them because I’m not following their blog. I get happy when I see them in my notes and when they comment on my posts, tag me in things, etc. So another reason why I may not follow people back (besides their age) may be that hey, you have full reign and authority to post whatever and however much you want, and you should super do that ‘cause it’s your blog (Today: content that caters specifically to you. Tomorrow: content that caters specifically to you.), but I may not want all your posts on my dash, because I like to keep it so I can scroll through the whole thing every day and primarily see posts I am interested in seeing.

Likewise, if someone doesn’t want to see 5000 posts about my Ben Solo ask blog and watch me succumb to depression in real time lol (now updated to going into remission in real time! Yay!), they should not follow my blog, lol. It’s not following or not following the person, it’s following or not following the person’s blog. So, that’s the principle I’m working with here. I kinda wish there was a way to have “favorite users” while also not having their posts on your dash, but I doubt other people would use a feature like that; I think that’s just a me thing.

ANYWAY, I hope all of that made sense. Basically, I’m just really afraid that people will think I don’t like them lol because I choose to relate to some people differently than I choose to relate to other people, especially as I’m writing these birthday letters, and I wanted to explain some of the reasons behind that. :)

[luke-shywalker]

Hi sorry for scrolling through your blog and just liking a ton of askblog stuff en masse. I just like to drop in occasionally for all of the background info 👀

Also. I don't remember if I commented on this somewhere else or not (probably not)—but the development of Ben's relationship with physical affection/sex/intimacy is so fascinating to me. Part of the reason that I followed askbensolo back in the day was that I saw teenage Ben talking about being ace and teenage me went "oh he's just like me fr!" And now he's still ace but (if I have interpreted him correctly) somewhere between sex-positive and sex-neutral, which is about where I ended up as an adult as well. So I still get to project onto askbensolo (except that I somehow also ended up aromantic between then and now, but I digress).

And then, having said all that, I must also add that I have the biggest crush on Amalia as a character and this is another holdover from like. Early askblog days. I want to take her to a Renaissance Festival.

HIIIIII BURRITO-ME-BATMAN. I LOVE SEEING YOU IN MY NOTES. ALWAYS

Oh my gosh I am so glad you find it interesting. I find it really interesting too, but I was initially worried it would come off as a betrayal of the character I had established before.

I called myself asexual when I was 17, but looking back, I…I think in my case, I was just 17. I don’t mean that dismissively. I just mean that I didn’t realize it is totally normal to not be ready for sex at that age, even though media portrays teens as screwing around all the time. I mean for frick’s sake you’re a minor. People go to jail for engaging with you sexually when you’re a minor. But the culture around me was such that I thought I was outside of typical sexuality for being nervous about sex at 17, and while I am also passionate about normalizing the fact that teenage girls can experience sexual desire as much as teenage boys do and they don’t need to feel horrible and dirty about it, it makes me sad that I felt like I was so atypical for something that I now think is totally normal and reasonable.

But it was complicated for me because I did also have a strong sex drive biologically and as a result of things I’d been exposed to at a young age (which is how we got Amalia), just…not socially, which created some weird dissonance for me. And I always knew I only wanted to have sex with the person I married, which also made me feel different from my peers, and that’s where Fannie gets that.

It has been interesting to kinda slide Ben down the spectrum. I hope it comes off as a natural progression. At the very beginning of the Ben x Fannie story he was super freaked out by Fannie still liking him and trying to sort out his own feelings because he really liked having her around all the time and felt a strong affection for her but didn’t necessarily feel romantically attracted to her or even know how to define what romantic attraction even felt like. (Sexual attraction at this point being so way off the table it’s not even in the kitchen.) He kind of had to make the conscious decision to begin seeing her that way and relating to her that way, and in the beginning it was kind of like stepping into a role, probably what he learned from media lol about what a boyfriend is supposed to do, buy flowers and stuff haha.

And then they did end up relating physically (in a tame sense…middle school snogging), but there were issues for him in that, because even though he didn’t have a sexual relationship with Snoke it was extremely intimate and vulnerable and power-dynamic-y, and he can’t get that vulnerable with someone without being reminded of it. He had some angst too about how much of his asexuality was really innate to him, or whether it was just the trauma from Snoke living inside him for years, that something he did use to have or could have had was taken away.

I think he became more comfortable with the existence of sex over time, talking about it, understanding it as a thing that exists that is important to sentient life in general and to people who aren’t him and not being so embarrassed or disgusted by it. There was the iconic moment when he fled spin-the-saber at the Jedi school and he talked about feeling uncomfortable with locker room jokes in college, but I think now that he’s older he’s able to appreciate sexual humor (just so long as it’s not directed at him) and even make sex jokes sometimes. And I think the closer he’s become with Fannie and established within himself that Okay We See Her That Way Now, he is able to want her sometimes, just way less frequently than would be average, and still randomly subject to intrusive trauma responses or just personal discomfort. I think physical pleasure makes him uncomfortable too, he has self-esteem issues and I think feeling good feels like something he doesn’t deserve to feel and it freaks him out, there’s also some autonomy stuff because the sexual response happens somewhat outside of his control and he hates not being in control. (Forbidden headcanon is that he has…you know…uh…use context clues—he has done stuff before to just get rid of the sexual response as quickly as possible, but that’s his only goal there is to just get rid of it. It’s like the same as sneezing to him. And not just because it requires tissues— *gets shot*)

I think when engaging sexually with another person he’s, most of the time, kind of along for the ride. That’s how I see the relationship he had with Pennie, he let her lead and he went along with it and was willing to do whatever would please her, but did not want to be touched back (the thought of Pennie being fully naked and Ben fully clothed as they. do whatever is…is so iconic to me). I think with Fannie he would be similar, but I think because of the trust he’s built with her and the deep platonic bond they have as friends, he would be more likely to initiate and even naturally experience desire for her. But I think most of the time he would view it primarily as something he’s doing for her, that is kinda nice, but basically on the same level to him as playing a video game with her.

And now he’s getting married and the sex conversations need to happen, and he’s at a place now where he can talk about himself having sex like it’s normal (while also, y’know, still being him—he remarks to Amalia that maybe they’ll just only do it on Valentine’s Day and their anniversary because he doesn’t have a scope of how often most couples have sex 😭).

As for the future…..man I really DO WANT TO EXPLORE BEN AND FANNIE’S SEX LIFE SO BAD I HAVE SO MANY GREAT CONFLICTS FOR THEM (and also so many great bonding moments) I’m just. Not sure yet how I would go about doing that because I specifically do not wish to write porn, that is not a thing I am into. I think there’s a way, I just haven’t gotten around to playtesting it yet.

But YEAH I went back and re-read some of the posts from when he was first falling in love with Fannie, where he’s like “I think maybe one day I could be willing to kiss her,” and now he’s just openly talking about the fact that he’s going to have sex regularly in marriage, it’s crazy how he has evolved while still staying himself, you know? I REALLY was not sure if I could pull that off and I wasn’t necessarily trying to goad him in this direction, we kinda just wound up here over time, but I…I hope I did all right with his character and yeah this aspect of him is sooooo sooo interesting to me and I wasn’t sure if people would think I was weird for that or changing him too much or making him too normative and I really appreciate that you find it interesting too. :’)

And also: HAHAHHAHAHAHA OKAY I DON’T THINK I REALIZED HOW MUCH PEOPLE LIKE AMALIA. MAYBE. MAYBE I CAN LIKE HER TOO. Jk I do love Amalia she and I just have some. Some personal issues together. Omg she would be so funny at a Ren Faire…..she would have NONE of that she’d walk around with her turkey drumstick and refuse to larp and just cheer for the jousting knights to kill each other

THANKS FOR THE ASK. THANKS FOR LETTING ME MONOLOGUE. DID NOT THINK THE FORBIDDEN HEADCANON WOULD EVER HAVE A NATURAL SEGUE EVER BECAUSE WHEN WOULD I EVER JUST—IN WHAT SITUATION WOULD I DROP THAT LORE. Eh while I’m at it—he’s circumcised. THERE. TWO FORBIDDEN HEADCANONS. Why is that relevant? It’s not. He just is. I don’t know why, that’s just what my brain says, why did I feel the need to establish that? I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW I just asked myself that question one day and that was the answer. uhhhh OKAY THAT’S ENOUGH FROM ME BYE *tries to flee, trips on the mic cord, falls flat on my face*

[askalexsantos]

Why do you have that braid in your hair? Does it mean anything or do you just think it’s cool? Do you redo it every morning or does it just stay there

[letsbelonelytogetherr]

— jay vespertine, excerpts from a book i’ll never write #2 (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

[luke-shywalker]

It is really funny though I haven’t exercised the full extent of this power probably but I can condition him into invariably adopting things he didn’t like at first. When I had the ADHD phase (yeah I know shut up), I tried this sound therapy app that had sleep sounds, and he didn’t like the sleep sounds at first, but once it became part of the routine now he ALWAYS has to have them. Even though I stopped caring about it. He will get up an hour after we’ve gone to bed to go turn them on if he forgot earlier

[luke-shywalker]

I’m so sick of routine the weekend isn’t fun for me we always do the same freaking thing didn’t we just do this I NEED FREE TIME I NEED SPONTANEITY but my other half has trauma from his life getting turned upside down causing routine to be very comforting to him and also has some kinda thing that makes him like the same things and over and over I pointed out to him that he says the exact same goofball sentences verbatim every night in the same order when we’re lying in bed as part of his routine and that he accidentally adopted humming “Let It Go” as a vocal stim while making his evening snack as part of his nightly routine that’s how routine-oriented he is like he is the one keeping my life in order because I start self-managing like a teenager whenever he’s gone but I’m so internally frustrated by the forced predictability like a broken record

[lagomerch]

THIS IS A REDRAW OF A POSTER FOR THE DRAMA

Example of the poster:

Originally i wanted the quote to be “king and queen of the ruckus” from Play With Fire, but then i started listening to Queen of Disaster again…

[askalexsantos]

What has been the funniest and/or worst thing Dino short circuited?

"She short circuited a cop car once. That went as well as you probably think it did."

[luke-shywalker]

hot DANG y’all FED ME on that last abs post. it makes me not regret being bold enough to write and post that

[luke-shywalker]

Fourth week on bupropion:

I get really chatty sometimes and really willing to be open about stuff. Maybe related to that I have had a lot of confidence interacting with clients/vendors at work

But still putting off replying to messages. Related to that:

Extreme hyperfixation brainrot about my characters to the detriment of my sleep, task management, and self-reflection 💀

But on the flipside I’ve really enjoyed writing and thinking about my characters so so much, and the things that bothered me about it have been bothering me way less, the fun is outweighing the negativity finally. I didn’t work on ABS barely at all in Feb and March because the negativity was outweighing the fun

My body is so tired but my brain is ON but I REALLY NEED TO SLEEP MORE I know I keep saying that. I’m finding there is a point where the physical fatigue allows the “i’m so stupid i should kms” thoughts to begin breaking the barrier again. So yeah I DO need to work on this and I need to rein in the hyperfixation enough so I can address the responsibility and self-reflection aversion too

I am happier and less sad, but my character as a person is not developing right now. I don’t believe the singular goal of life is just to be happy, I think that there are greater purposes than that, like valuing other people and growing in virtue and…sigh…relationship with God but I guess I just spent so long trying to brute-force my purpose in life without feeling happy that I’m just. Going all-in on the being happy thing right now. And for some people they do see that as the primary goal of life, and would tell me that it’s hashtag valid to pursue my own happiness above everything else, but…I just. Could never bring myself to believe that. Because if personal happiness really is the primary goal, then there’s no basis for fighting for justice, showing compassion to others, making personal sacrifices of time and energy to love others, etc, all things that are instinctively recognizable as good and noble, but that I…am not internally compelled to do without a moral compulsion…so…yeah

I’m not agnostic. I do have a specific belief system ingrained in me that is pretty much impossible for me to abandon. But the whole “I’m sick and tired of playing cosmic hide and seek and having experiences that always end up going away so you better come and find ME now if you really want me so bad” That was. Um. Yeah that was me. maybe you uh. picked up on that

I need to not go “oh it’s meds time I’ll do it after I finish this” because now I am 30min late for my dose which doesn’t actually matter but I need to just not do that lol

[bugbraiinz]

Doing assignments everytime I look to my left I just go AH

God its a problem

[luke-shywalker]

I need to consult the council for this one @margindoodles2407 @icwasher

would fannie pentarra take her husband’s last name

yes, i mean look at her, she is vanilla ice cream trad

she would hyphenate

no, she has an attachment to her clan even though they’re Like That

no, bc they Don’t Do That On Ryloth

results

Voting ended onJun 25, 2025

[luke-shywalker]

additional option courtesy of @skynapple

ben takes her last name instead

results/twi’leks are bald

Voting ended onJun 25, 2025

[luke-shywalker]

“Ben Pentarra” really would be the final transformation of “Ben Solo” into my OC huh.

I always assumed Fannie would immigrate into the New Republic, but the idea of Ben assimilating on Ryloth instead is…urrrgggh kinda plaguing me ngl

[deactivated-this-account-deacti]

I ended up having a really interesting conversation with some people at the bus stop today. They were getting out of some sort of ‘clean and sober’ meeting and had starting saying how they were so bored because they didn’t have anything to do, and had to stay at home because all their old friends would pull them back. So I said something like, ‘So this is the time to do all the stuff your parents told you they didn’t have money/time for!’ “Whatcha mean?” “You know, like when you were five and you REALLY wanted to have that toy or do that thing and you were like, ‘Please mom please I gotta have this I gotta go do this’ and they went ‘Hell no you think I’m paying for that do you want to goddamn EAT?’ “ And this light went on in their eyes. The lady is going to go check thrift stores for an Easybake Oven and I told her about Wilton cake decorating classes. The dude is going to Griffith Park and ride horses, because, ‘I always wanted to be a cowboy, and you can’t drink when you’re on a horse ‘cause you’ll fucking die!’ Fuck it. This is what being an adult is. Sure it’s bills and work and relationships, but damn it, it’s also time to do the things you LIKE. I signed up for a free class/lecture on Water Gardens. I’m going. It’s time.

[ruthfully]

Jill. Jill you are wonderful.

[lostwolfling]

no joke, this is such an important aspect of overcoming trauma. I mean the trauma of abusive parents, the trauma of broke ass parents who got toxic because of it, the trauma of capitalism. Like fuck it. Go to Wrestlemania. Build a shit ton of terrariums.

[luke-shywalker]

I need you to know that I came across mention of "ABS" in my car's mechanic's inspection notes a few weeks ago and basically had a "blue screen of death" moment because I couldn't figure out what Subaru wanted with Ask Ben Solo 😂

(Anti-lock Braking System...my car has an Anti-lock Braking System🤦‍♀️)

LOL I think this has happened before in the opposite direction where a mutual-in-law was like “what is ABS. Anti-lock braking system”

I was initially resistant to using the acronym because I didn’t want people to think I was talking about Kylo’s abs HAHAHHAHA (which he only has in the comics lol) but. I gave in

[luke-shywalker]

Amalia is my least consistent character because historically I’ve hated her so much as a reflection of myself that I’ve intentionally forgotten things about her and never revisited anything I’ve established about her in the past…but I will change that…

But that’s probably how she is too I think she dies of cringe remembering anything at all about her past self whether it was ten years ago or one month ago and I think that’s why she’s so forward-focused now. She thinks she’s healed because she can move forward so well but there is a mountain of past things she hasn’t addressed…that’s probably why she seemed to move on so quickly from losing the most important person in her life. (And not because I have tunnel vision and failed to expound upon it barely at all)

[luke-shywalker]

Like apparently even in 2024 I was still committed to the Amalia liking Ben thing. WHAT. I HAVE NO MEMORY OF THIS PLACE. WHAT’S GOING ON

[luke-shywalker]

It’s really funny I keep finding stuff hinted at in the old ABS era (ie: the Fannie only liking Deirak as a sprite recolor of Ben but having a crush on Ben all along thing, things about Fannie’s family) and being like “oh my gosh, early ABS predicted this” NO YOU IDIOT. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO WROTE IT. YOU JUST REMEMBERED IT FROM BEFORE AND CARRIED THE THREAD THROUGH. THAT’S HOW WRITING WORKS.

Basically I just don’t remember anymore which things I came up with in the OG era and which things I added later in the reboot era lol