#space discourse

[askbensolo]

Ask Ben Solo

What’s up, HoloNet! The name’s Ben. Currently 23 years old. I’m the only son of an Alderaanian princess and a Corellian scoundrel, and I have an adopted sister named Rey.

I started this blog when I was fifteen and afraid of becoming a Jedi. To make things worse, I started hearing voices in my head…voices that turned out to be someone who wanted to control me. Luckily, my friends and family got involved, and Snoke seems to have backed off.

I did make friends with some of Uncle Luke’s Jedi students, but I ended up attending the University of Naboo (Go Shaaks!) and got my degree in Journalism, since I’ve always been interested in writing, history, and politics. (Scroll back enough, and you’ll see my cringe pro-Imperial phase from back in the day. Yikes.)

I stayed on Naboo after graduation, and now I write for The Chommell Sector Daily. In my free time I lift weights, write poetry, and fight with people online.

Ask me a question!

—Ben

All Posts in Chronological Order

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Run by @luke-shywalker Est. 2016

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Friends' Blogs:

Fannie’s Blog: @fanniepentarra

Amalia’s Blog: @mal-is-tall

(Their blogs are dead because they're lame, but maybe if we bother them enough they'll come back)

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Inktober 2016

Posts by Character

Family

Mom: My mother, also known as Senator Leia Organa, also known as Space Mom, also known as Don't Mess With Her. Tough as nails. Also has nice nails.

Dad: My father, also known as Han Solo (or scruffy-looking nerfherder). Isn’t as cool as you think he is, but makes up for it with heart.

Rey: My adopted sister, also known as "Kid". Ten years younger than me. Originally from Jakku. Eats faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.

Uncle Luke: My uncle, also known as Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. Is a cinnamon roll.

Ren the Bantha of Indeterminate Gender or Origin: My stuffed bantha friend. Not much can be known about this humble beast, but they are fiercely loyal.

Threepio: My mom's protocol droid. Has foregone enough memory wipes to pass as sentient. Best ignored.

Artoo: Luke’s beeping trash can. Extremely rude.

Chewie: My dad’s best pal. Gives great hugs. Don’t play holochess with him.

Lumpy: Chewie’s son. About my age in Wookiee years.

Darth Vader: My grandfather. It's complicated.

Friends

Fannie: One of Luke's Jedi students, who has since graduated. Twi'lek. My bestie when we were teens. Mom friend.

Amalia: One of Luke's Jedi students, who has since dropped out. Massive Togruta girl. Frenemy.

Treeso: My roommate from college. Gungan. Solid dude.

Sweeper: My archnemesis: the cleaning droid at work that keeps eating my paper notes.

Ugly Raisin Men Who Have Invaded My Mind With the Force

Snoke: Enough said.

Story Events

The Long Night: (2/25/16 - 4/2/16) In which I woke up from a nightmare and couldn’t sleep.

Space Braces: (5/16/16 - 12/7/2017) In which I got braces.

Get Out of My Head: (8/4/16 - 8/28/16) In which Mom left for a diplomatic mission and left me at home with my dad, and I was consumed by fear and darkness.

The Visit: (10/6/16 - 11/5/16) In which Uncle Luke came to visit us.

Sixteen!: (12/3/16 - 12/11/16) In which I turned sixteen.

Life Day 21 ABY: (12/25/16 - 12/26/16) Life Day!

The Impending Future: (9/10/17 - 9/29/17) In which I had an existential crisis about Mom wanting me to become a Jedi, and I discovered Snoke.

Seventeen!: (12/3/17 - 12/11/17) In which I turned seventeen.

Life Day 22 ABY: (12/25/17 - 12/26/17) Life Day!

A Week With Luke: (12/21/17 - 1/7/18) In which my mom made me spend a week at Luke’s Jedi school.

An Awkward Situation: (4/26/18 - 7/15/18) In which I thought my best friend Fannie was going to ask me out. Like, on a date.

About Amalia: (7/16/18 - 8/7/18) In which I accidentally started a chain of rumors about Amalia, Luke’s mysterious and hardest-to-get-along-with student.

The New Roommate: (4/24/24 - current) In which my roommate Treeso moves out and I have to find someone to take over his lease.

Recurring Tags Below

[aropride]

the "i love weird unpalatable queerness" leaving tumblr users' bodies when they see a polyamorous person

[acelacealex]

I'm going to say it again

Cis Heteromantic Asexuals are Queer.

Cis Aromantic Heterosexuals are Queer.

If you are Ace or Aro you do not need another signifier to be Queer full stop.

[renthony]

It's real fucked up how many queer people dread Pride season due to both systemic queerphobia and queer infighting. Pride season always rockets up my anxiety, and I know I'm not the only one.

This shit sucks, y'all. We gotta support each other more than the queerphobes hate us. I'm not saying we have to love each other, I'm not saying we even have to like each other, but we cannot keep subdividing communities, circulating callouts, and dogpiling each other over who has it worse. That shit will kill us all.

We cannot keep thinking of our individual experiences with bigotry as, "I know [xyz kind of queer] has it worse, but...", and we cannot keep looking at other experiences with bigotry as, "that's bad, but [abc kind of queer] still has it worse," when the reality is that we are all being targeted. It's all bad! It all deserves to be talked about and fought against without trying to put it in some kind of hierarchy! Hierarchies are not fucking helpful here!

Some fucking unity, please.

[idolomantises]

Twitter does fascinate me, because I feel like tumblr has been a lot more accepting of people who draw women with big boobs, who draw adult art on the side, and who aren't afraid of being sensual and intimate.

But twitter seems to be actively terrified of anything that could turn them on. For years I've been harassed for my art. Way back in 2020 I was called out for "sexualizing" Ankha, but this was the image they were referring to.

This fear of adult works and porn has to end man. Queer artists shouldn't be harassed or labeled as bad, untrustworthy people because they want to draw women with curves or big chests, or draw some NSFW art on the side.

[bonefall]

Anyway. Bi and Mspec Lesbians aren't a hotly "debated" topic or even new to queer culture, it's just the newest thing that bullies who REALLY want to be homophobic and even racist use to justify harassing gay people they don't like.

It's the thinnest possible veneer of progressive language wrapped around TERF and reactionary rhetoric so that they can feel righteous for forming an angry mob against vulnerable targets. If you're gullible enough to fall for the newest wave of bigotry within the queer community, and turn on your allies because they're "confusing" or "invading your spaces," the SAME way they turned on bi/pan labels, trans people, xenogenders, neopronouns, and aroace people before this, then get lost.

[myfandomrealitea]

I think one of the things that annoys me the most on the safe space post I made is people barging in to try to dictate how people can find respite, where, and how much respite they're allowed, and why.

"Oh its fine to take a break as long as you don't take too long and immediately launch back into activism again until your next burnout!"

No.

Respectfully; fuck all the way off.

"Yes!! Recharging is so important so you can keep being a good activist!!"

Who asked you? Who declared you Assigner of Respite Rights?

When I was at my worst in terms of mental health, I went a good two years doing absolutely fuck all for the rest of the world. I could barely get out of bed every morning, you can bet I wasn't doom-scrolling war articles and organising charity drives for the homeless.

I was one of the many, many people in the world that needed help.

And as I recovered, activism and fighting for other people were the literal last things on my mind. If they started talking about shootings on the radio I turned it off. If my friends started talking about the latest Worldwide Horror I asked them to stop or I left.

I'm better now, and I made the personal choice to re-engage with activism in the best ways for myself, and I've made the choice to only be an activist when I feel like I can properly be one.

Some people might never get to that point. There are billions of people in the world. Stop screaming at individuals who are tired and broken and need help themselves. Stop assigning blame to the wrong people.

That's not activism or justice knighting.

Its bullying.

[azatas]

"we need more complex female characters" you couldn't even handle her

[helloyellow17]

Idk man I might get torn to shreds for saying this, but I simply cannot understand the new trend, particularly among younger internet users, where people write a laundry list of their triggers in their bio and then expect everyone to read and cater to said list on a PUBLIC PLATFORM.

This is the same mentality that drives people to attack appropriately tagged fics on AO3 for having x y or z content because “How dare you post this when I have trauma about this???” Obviously if someone is going to write a super heavy and highly sensitive fic and NOT tag it properly, they ought to be called out on it. But this isn’t about that, it’s about the people who don’t curate their own content, it’s about the people who enter public spaces and demand that the general public cater to THEM specifically.

Additionally: Listing out your triggers for everyone to see is just ASKING for trolls to come into your inbox and flood you with triggering content. (Unfortunately, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, the internet is full of selfish jerks who don’t give a crap about anybody’s trauma.) Not only this, but the algorithm does not read your bio. The algorithm does not care about your triggers unless YOU make sure to block specific tags and content.

YOU are responsible for curating your own content, and nobody else.

Obviously this is not to say people shouldn’t try to tag their posts for common triggers, because that’s the common courtesy thing to do. But if Becky has a phobia of bees, it is on her to block that tag and curate her feed around it, and she does not get the exclusive right to suddenly demand that nobody talk about bees within a ten mile radius of her. If Alec has a phobia of dogs, then it is well within his right to avoid contact with them, but he doesn’t get to go to a public park and yell at anybody who brings their dog there. It is his responsibility to know his own limits and seek out parks that are dog-free. (If someone brings a dog to a dog-free area, that’s a whole different issue that I won’t be getting into rn but yes, the person who does that is in the wrong there.)

The internet is widely a public space. If you want to create a safe space completely and utterly free of your specific triggers, you have to put the work in to make that space for yourself. You don’t get to ask other internet strangers to do it for you.

I’m saying this out of genuine concern (and admittedly, frustration) because there are so many young teens in fandom nowadays who don’t understand this, and they end up putting themselves in extremely vulnerable and even downright dangerous situations because they don’t understand that putting your well-being in the hands of a stranger is a terrible idea.

Please be safe, and for the love of all that is holy, be reasonable. Curating your content yourself is just as much a protection for you as it is a vital key that allows public communities to function.

[kiwisandpearls]

really really really hate when people say people shouldn’t ship certain ‘immoral’ ships because it could influences kids.

it is not the responsibility of people in online fandom spaces to restrict what they get ship for the sake of the hypothetical kids.

[askbensolo]

As it turns out, Rey was 100% the person to go to for the Gaya lore. I holocalled her last night and she told me all about Gaya’s rise to Twi’ktok fame a couple years ago, Gaya’s provocative ad campaign for Big Bantha Dairy that angered parents and conspiracy theorists alike, and, of course, Gaya’s long-standing feud with Tay’lor Spiff. And then the discourse about whether Gaya accurately portrays the Twi’leki experience or if she romanticizes and commodifies a species that has already endured a long history of commodification, and whether Gaya should have released a statement of condemnation when Gaya Girlies started making their own “headtail hats” and cosplaying as Twi’leks.

One of the songs on Gaya’s album is about a special rock from Ryloth called Haneya…except multiple Rylothians have come out and been like, “Yeah, we don’t actually have a legend about an ancestral stone, Gaya totally just made that up.” To which Gaya Girlies responded, “Noooo, you don’t understand, Haneya is actually a metaphor for Gaya herself and how she feels displaced and disconnected from her heritage!!!”

I thought I’d be bored by all this celebrity drama, but I. Am. Fascinated. I haven’t even listened to the full album yet.

I asked Rey if she was a Gaya Girlie. She rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, right. Only when I was a kid.”

When she was a kid. Right. Classic thirteen-year-old.

I wonder what Fannie thinks about Gaya, being a Rylothian Twi’lek herself. I haven’t talked to Fannie in so long but I feel like she’d have some interesting perspectives. Maybe I’ll message her this week…

[tumblezwei]

You know, when it comes to the whole debacle over the amount of mlm fanfic vs wlw fanfic, sometimes I'm like "maybe we are the problem. Maybe people saying g we should just create more instead of complaining have a point."

And then I come across someone saying, unironically, "men are just more interesting." Just. Outright. And it provides me a nice reminder that no, I and others like me are not the problem.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

it always pisses me off when fantasy stories have a cast of conventionally attractive humanoid characters with like,, different colored hair or something. like what do you mean your story is set in this amazing fantastical world with monsters and centaurs and aliens and sentient blobs, but your main cast is just a bunch of average joes?

[manyminded]

”cripplepunk is targeted towards physically disabled and purely mentally disabled folk should stay out of it” and “the lines between mentally and physically disabled are very blurry” are two things that can and should co exist, actually.

[unpopularfanopinion]

I got distracted earlier and forgot to include this.

Imagine you have someone who is morally opposed to alcohol and it’s consumption. Okay fine. They don’t have to drink if they don’t want to. Nor do they have to allow people to drink in their home or business establishment. That is a boundary they are allowed to set for themselves. But would it be acceptable or appropriate for them to go into a bar(a business pretty much dedicated to the consumption of alcohol in a safe environment) and start demanding that everyone stop drinking while they are there. Harassing and insulting the workers and patrons all while claiming that they’re doing this because of their morals, and they are just setting personal boundaries and how dare the patron disregard them? Or is this teetotaler just being a massive disrespectful asshole, violating the boundaries and safe space of the bar and its patrons?

The recent discourse is about DNI’s being put into the tags on Ao3. Ao3 a space meant to be a safe space for fandom to post all types of transformative works without fear of judgement. Tags meant to insult and intimidate other users of the site. The people using those tags aren’t setting boundaries or protecting themselves. They’re violating the boundaries and safe space of the other users and the overall intent of Ao3. This is not the same thing as putting a DNI on your own personal tumblr, Twitter, or any other website.

[myfandomrealitea]

By the way, you're certainly not obligated to do things for people or return effort, but if you frequently refuse to do so you cannot blame other people for your social relationships crumbling away or for the opinion they form about you.

I see so many posts about how; "you're not owed my time!! If I want to ignore you for weeks I can!! You just have to accept it and be ready to accept me whenever I give enough fucks to speak to you again!!"

And while its absolutely true that, yeah, technically, not even your friends are owed your time. And plenty of people need respite from social engagement, if you're someone who frequently ignores your friends, cancels on them, blows them off or just generally doesn't reciprocate the effort they're putting in....

Sooner or later they're not going stop that effort. They're going to think of you as a selfish or ignorant person who isn't suitable for friendship.

My friends are understanding of the fact that sometimes I'll go a few days or a week without replying. Everyone has a life, everyone gets busy, everyone gets overwhelmed. But I always make a point of reaching back out to them the moment I have the time or energy to.

I thank them for being patient. I ask how they are. If I've really got enough time and energy I make plans to meet up or call them. I put effort into actually maintaining the friendship, valuing them as my friend, and making sure the relationship is even.

The amount of vitriol I see aimed at friends or family who have genuinely and in good faith expressed that people aren't putting in effort or maintaining an equal relationship is fucking astounding.

"I don't have many friends. Everyone is so fucking selfish these days, always expecting people to be available at the drop of a hat or answer every single text."

Are they though, Karen? Or are you just acting like a child with its toys, expecting people's lives to be put on pause until you're ready for them?