Ivory Door 2018 -- A Hallowmas Confession

Fallen London
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Every year, Londoners post their confessions on the Ivory Door of the Bazaar as a Hallowmas tradition. What confession will you post this year?

A few notes:

Ivory Door was started by Reused NPC in 2017; see the original here.

Post one in-character confession per character. If you have multiple characters, feel free to post a confession for each. Confessions are anonymous (save for any clues in the confessions themselves).

Confessions can be short and sweet, long and convoluted, or anything in between. However, maximum confession length is 3500 characters. If your confession is longer than that, you need professional help, not a door.

EDIT: The Ivory Door form is now closed. Thank you to everyone who contributed!
edited by Lady Sapho Byron on 11/7/2018

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Just a note, the first question on the form is bugged- it requires you to submit a response of at least 750 characters, instead of at most 750 characters. I doubt you want a slew of 750-character-long handwriting descriptions ^^;

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Oops! Fixed. Thank you for the catch!

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This is great. Thanks!

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I hope this does as well as last year. (:

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What’s that going bump in the night? Why, this thread of course.

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November 6th will be the last full day to post a confession to the Ivory Door. Sometime on November 7th I will close the Google Form to new entries.

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how many did you get?

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I eagerly await the reveal of this year’s Hallowmas confessions. :)

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This seems amazing. I’m pretty curious as to the secrets the Ivory Door has collected!

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As of this post, there are 23 confessions.

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What time on November 6 will you be closing? I only just now noticed this thread and wanted to check if I had time to bang something off before the deadline.

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Daedalus, I will be closing it on Nov. 7, not Nov. 6. On the 7th I’ll probably close around 5:00 PM GMT; it may be later depending on the vicissitudes of life.

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While Huffam occupies himself by scribbling the pablum of unctuous interviews, Lady Byron’s Lyre of Erato has acquired confessions from a sample of London’s most delicious denizens (never you mind how!). The 30 confessions, arranged in no particular order, will be published in series of articles … starting now.

  1. In almost-unreadable handwriting, but with a dangerous, chilling control to it, as if every letter was the slice of a scalpel

I cut them open just to see what would happen. I was drunk, I was insane- no- I was merely curious, a damnable curiosity. Clay stained my coat, so I tore it off and worked in shirtsleeves. When I came to the next morning, I was numb as I rinsed my study floor, framed their hearts in glass. It was months before I swallowed my guilt enough to put my findings to good use.
(The rest is scribbled out, pages upon pages of ink. When you reach the end, there is but one sentence left legible.)
I do not regret it.

  1. Typewrit in a curly italicized font, which proves to be quite a hassle to interpret.

I once dreamt that I were the waning moon, or the wayward moth, or a little little magpie-snake. I flew and flew through the skies, until I were tired. I landed upon the walls of a ruined castle, then, and the Sun came out to greet me.

&quotMoon,&quot she spoke, &quotwhy come you to my house?&quot

&quotFor I am weary,&quot I spoke, &quotand my wings and my orbit and my crimson fate carried me here.&quot

&quotMoth,&quot she, &quotwhy did you fly so far from home?&quot

&quotFor I am of many phases,&quot I, &quotfor I have shed many skins, for I have worn many gloves, and my past lay heavy upon my shoulders.&quot

&quotSerpent, I am lonely here, without morn or even and without the night. Will you keep me company?&quot

And none of I could refuse her.

  1. Scrawled on the back of a scrap of surface-silk in black ink, messy and barely readable

I’ve killed a lot of people, sure. It’s my job. I tend not to have many regrets about death. But I do have a confession about it. So, I had a Rattus Faber friend, very faithful, very honorable. He requested I send him to sow dissension among an enemy’s ranks. Now, I did, and he died because of it. Very sad, and all that, but what I’m confessing is that when he died, I turned my back on him. Buried him and forgot. He sacrificed himself for a cause, and I eventually joined up with the creature that slew him; that had caused him much pain before. It was a choice for me to make, and I made it. I confess to defiling my friend’s memory.

  1. A whisper-satin tablecloth covered in nigh-illegible sloppy ink trails. Whoever wrote this must have had either a penchant for mixing absinthe and honey, or an extensive professional experience in the healthcare field. Perhaps both.

I cheated on my spouse with the Last Constable. I keep telling myself that this was for a charitable purpose. She was facing imminent danger from all sides and needed a touch of goodness and care in her life.

And yet, deep inside my soul, I know that the real reason is because the Constable’s scars were so much like my spouse’s. Am I that shallow?

  1. This confession is written upon a sheet of thick, black card, covered in an elegant scrawl written with a bright, gold-flecked ink that seems to illuminate the paper, shimmering even in the dim light of the Neath.

Though many of my friends and family had decided to leave their lives behind and delve into the darkness of the Neath, I was never tempted to leave the surface myself…until he did. And so I followed him. I followed him down here. I thought he was the love of my life. I thought he was the one for me. I thought I would never love another. And then I came here. And I abandoned him faster than I had fallen in love with him in the first place. I wish I felt guiltier about this. But I do not. And I do not think, with all the Neath’s temptations before me, that I ever will again.

  1. Six words, scribbled on a scrap of parchment

I am glad that he forgot.

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…and the Seventh will doom all.

Let the guessing commence! (Also, where on earth did they get that typewriter? And can I get one?)

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Ooh, I love the second one! It’s completely incomprehensible, to be sure, but it does conjure up a lovely image.

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Oh, I wouldn’t say completely incomprehensible. Moths and Snakes and Suns all have pretty definite connotations down here. I think it’s fair to say, at the very least, that the owner of this most unique typewriter is not a member of the Shroud.

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Thanks so much for doing this, and what a lovely bunch of confessions so far! Sadly no guesses yet.

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Note: After today my life will be a little more hectic; I might not be able to post confessions every day.

7. A confession of curiosity from a gentleman thief

I have been looking into things I probably shouldn’t. Both my curiosity and the pursuit of treasure has led me to look into the affairs of several of the masters.

8. An aged parchment, words scribbled across in swaying lines both parts sloppy and eccentric. It is scented, three parts roses, two parts lacre, and one part coffee stains.

I am afraid of my coldness and what I might do for revolution. I have gladly ruined careers and lives for strategy and fun. I have fought against the cruelty of Masters and rulers without plan of what will come next, and I am ever tempted by a darkness most have feared. I do know the risks of lawlessness, but I am more afraid of the current state of law and how it hurts us, how it controls us, how it will dispose of us in our end. I fear something in me may be wrong, for wanting what others call unnatural, for doubting my ability to empathize. But deep down, I do care, I truly do. I care enough to seek revolution in whatever method I can, even if it means dethroning law itself.

9. The writing is elegant - cursive with many twirls - though it appears shaky, as if written with regret. The paper upon which the black ink shines is of high quality. In the bottom right corner is a smudged drawing of a person in a corset and a tophat.

Oh how it pains me, the shame, every night. The Young Master doesn’t know. Their heirs shall never know. It was all for the good of the family, though. The contracts, the lies. Yet Old Master beckoned, and so I answer.

They’re at the zee now. When they return, I will be ready.

10. Careful, immaculate calligraphy written with a fountain pen onto quite cheap, low quality paper.

Но добра… цо зробилам? Well, there was that friend of mine… let’s call him… uhm… Spike! Yes, Spike will do! So, I agreed to do his laundry, as he is very chaotic at worst. Plus, he was teaching me brawls. So well, he doesn’t have much in the way of…убране… eh, ангиелски… clothes! Yes, not many clothes. So, he threw his only pair of trousers at me. All not unusual, showing his gentleman’s sausage is normal for him… but well, he wanted to go to church. And, well… I couldn’t let him do that! I mean, there has to be some respect for god and the church… at least I was taught so as a child at home… either way, I set chase to him and well… I wasn’t exactly dressed myself. So, I ran after him dressed in my nightgown… through a busy market… and well… that would be impropriety. But before reaching market… well, that man came out of the брама… uhm… homegate! So, I knocked him over, continuing to try to catch Spike… sadly, that guy turned out to be a rich heir… who made me pay the clean bill. Then the chase continued through a market… it was pain to clean all these melons out of nightgown. Though they didn’t make me pay for these at least. Then the fishmonger and sliding over dropped fish and ice straight into next wall. Hurt. And in the end, at least I caught him and stopped him from reaching the church, just as we reached the door, only for it to be opened by a мша… uhm, mass full of old ladies. And then they all fainted upon the priest. Who was angry, as one almost suffered a heartattack! We could have killed her!

11. A hasty scrawl. Half the punctuation goes right through the paper.

I love him. Not… that way. And not in a good way, neither. And you know what’s funny? It’s because he doesn’t love me. Everyone else in London, man woman or jellyfish, I call the tune, and they laugh or smile or swoon just as I like–and then maybe hate me afterwards, the smart ones. Him? No. No! Not even a smile! Not even ignoring, like those society ladies who want you to KNOW they’re ignoring you. He takes your hand and bows a bit and says how do you do and moves along like you were anybody else. Odioso! But I can’t stop thinking about him now, about what I can do to get that polite, handsome b-------- face to do something! Why does he smile at them, and not at me? If I hurt them, he’d kill me. Maybe it would be worth it.

12. This sure isn’t regular paper - more like cloth. Stripes of black and white cloth, weaved in a way that suggest a chess board. The ink seems pretty normal, yet it smells like wax. The handwriting is careful, but a bit messy.

I started my ascend in it in order to understand it, and perhaps, to end it when my knowledge rise up to the challenge and my capacities allow for it. Yet, it seems one (or at the very least, this one I’ve become) is incapable of it. I grew to love the role, or rather I grew to become the role. There is not much else of me besides it and the mask… and I whole heartily love it just like that.

Love and fear of this truthful lie is what I’ve become. And here, in these steps, I linger.

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I know this one! Frogvarian/Raven, an intriguing acquaintance to say the least.
edited by Mel_Lawrence on 11/8/2018