[ text | posted anonymously ]

[goblinemperor]

[ Maia is unfamiliar with advanced technology, so he checks and double-checks and triple-checks to make sure the message he is posting will not bear his name, before he asks: ]

What would you do with your freedom, if you had it for the first time in your life and never learned how to use it?

[ The question is awkwardly phrased, true, but he really is pretty desperate for advice. One way and another, he's been pent up and under supervision since he was born, and now he doesn't really know how else to be. ]

Comments

anon

[relance]

Get really drunk and find someone cute to fuck.

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

[ THANK ALL THE GODS FOR ANON because there is no way that Maia could force himself to ask this question otherwise ]

How do people do that? Are there customs? Things that must be said or should never be said? Assume you are speaking to someone who has complete ignorance of such matters.

[ text | un: drn0167 ]

[sentiences]

As someone who is still getting used to it, I try to start with things I might like. Or ask other people what they might like and try it for myself.

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

What sorts of things? It is difficult to know where to begin...

text; @markus

[compartmentalise]

[This type of scenario really speaks to him. He has more freedom here than he had in Detroit. Also does not go anonymous]

I don't know. What would freedom feel like to you?

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

[ Well, that really turned the tables on him, didn't it? Maia thinks for a few moments before he answers: ]

Being able to decide where I go and what I do and who I may speak to. Not being confined or observed. Blending in with a crowd. Choosing, rather than being chosen for.

[ You know, the basic stuff. ]

anon

[acuerdo]

Spend at least one full day doing absolutely nothing.
And then eat four pizzas.

[goblinemperor]

[ Maia does a quick search for pizza, since he is unfamiliar with it (and yes he does type "excuse us could you please tell us what a pizza is?" into the search bar, like a polite granny who doesn't understand the internet.) ]

Yes, the absence of a demanding schedule is a lovely change. I wasted one whole day and felt very liberated. But surely doing nothing grows old, in time?

@rk800; text

[quartercoin]

It is a new concept for me as well. Discovering who you are and who you wish to be is the most important, I am finding.

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

I believed I did know who I was and who I wished to be before I arrived in this realm. Only now I am finding more and more that without the trappings of my life... I see I had always been defined by the expectations of others, and all I wished was to not fail to live up to what others wanted of me.

[ There was no space for Maia - too many people needed him to be Edrehasivar the Seventh, and to be the best Edrehasivar the Seventh he could be. If he wasn't, innocents would die. Injustices would continue; there would be wars, turmoil, chaos. His people would suffer.

Weighed against all that, none of his personal needs meant anything, really. ]

text | un: mantis

[glowfeelers]

I have learned how to use it with my new friends!

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

I am afraid I do not know any more about making friends than I do about being free. I do not believe I have ever had one.

[ There are people in Maia's life who he cares about... but he had not found them and won them over. His bodyguards, his secretary, his political allies - they are people who help sustain his reign, but he can never be open or entirely free with them. He is their emperor. They are loyal to him. It is different.

And now, they are nowhere to be found, and he is alone. It's not a cheerful thought. ]

text | un: ilikehorses

[shoplifter]

I ate a lot of pancakes and read a lot of comic books.

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

Those are good suggestions.

I very much like your username, by the way. I am also fond of horses.

[ Visiting the stables now and then to befriend the horses had been one of the few selfish slices of freedom he'd been allowed in the last few months, since his grandfather's visit to the court. ]

text @chronicler

[scholiast]

I... suppose I would do what you've done here. Anonymously post about it in search of advice, I mean. Have you turned up anything helpful?

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

It is helpful, to know how many people have faced similar situations. I believed that I must be alone in the experience.

There have been some good ideas. But I am afraid that in following them, I will be once more allowing others to dictate my course and am thus not making the most of my freedom, after all.

[anonymous] hops on the anon train

[bythehand]

Get used to having it. Took me a while. I was pretty sure it wasn't gonna stick long.

I like trying new things now. When I can. If I want to. There's nothing you HAVE to do to be using it right.

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

I am afraid my view is the opposite. My worry is that I will become too accustomed to it, and that when my time comes to return home, it will be painful to give it all up and go back, even though I must.

What sort of new things have you tried?

anonymous

[evasives]

It takes a while to get used to it.

I have tested out different ways to pass the time, to figure out what I like best. Trial and error. A very long and ongoing trial and error.

[also anon, permanently]

[goblinemperor]

How long, in your experience?

That seems to go along with what others are saying, but I had not heard it phrased like that. Trial and error.

[ The idea of errors along the way is instantly alarming, but... well, isn't that kind of the issue? Maia has not been in an environment where he could have any kind of trials, without them being known to everyone in court and subject of gossip. And any errors would be fodder for laughter and judgment. Here, though... perhaps he can use this time and his anonymity to his advantage. ]

What sorts of trials have you conducted?

text; un: b.rocks

[billyrocks]

Wait, "never"?

I thought I had an answer, until I reread that part. I did have some freedom before losing it in the first place.

Were you born a slave?

[That's his first guess, especially since slavery hasn't been abolished for too long in the America of his time period, so there were still some living people who had been born into slavery.]

[anon indefinitely]

[goblinemperor]

No, and I feel a fool, comparing my own lack of freedom to others who truly live in bondage, or who are imprisoned by iron bars. I apologize, but I do not wish to give too specific of details, for fear that someone will read this and know me. But... I have always lived a life where I had no say over where I lived, when I woke or slept or ate or bathed. I have never made those sorts of decisions on my own behalf. And for the past year, before I came through the portal, I had never once been in a room alone. Everyone who saw me knew who I was, and watched me, and anything I said or did had to be weighed, for the impact it could have, on the lives of many people.

[ So much for lack of specifics. But Maia doesn't know how to explain his own bewildered inability to adjust here, without making it clear where he was coming from. Just walking down a street by himself, with no one looking at him and observing every nuance of facial expression and movement, every detail about his grooming and clothing, is so profoundly alien to him. ]

I am sorry to hear that you lost your freedom. Have you not regained it, in this place?

text | un: k.metz

[luxurist]

Whatever I wanted! That's the whole beauty of freedom, after all.

Surely even people who've never learned to be free have dreams and desires as to what they'd do if given completely free rein over themselves?

[goblinemperor]

It seems that all my dreams are as silly as a child's. Or else... foolish. Just because I am free to try to court someone doesn't mean I know the first thing about how to do it. And surely there must be some limits.
I do not want to make myself into a figure of scorn and ridicule.

Text; un n.summers

[mutant_messiah]

You do whatever you want, no matter the simplicity of the action.

[goblinemperor]

But what if I do not want the right things? Some of what I want is impossible, and the rest... I wouldn't know how to pursue it, even if I were bolder.

anon

[childofaxios]

I think it depends on what you've been freed from. How you feel about what you left behind.

Are you glad to be where you are now?

[goblinemperor]

[ Maia considers whether he could give any details about that without giving away his identity entirely, and decides for now to be vague. ]

The difficulty is that my feelings on my true life are complex and beyond what I can articulate in words, and I do not yet know this place well enough to make much of a judgment on it.

I wouldn't call myself glad exactly. There are ways in which it is a relief. But I know that I must return.