It must be Her will... Yet, i dare not. Worse - neither dare i confirm such will (or lack thereof) with a mere question. What measure are "Nonage" or "Innocence" in a Goddess? And still, the fear that i may forever lose Her favor terrifies me so, that i am kept from professing my Love.

My wife left me the day of our wedding. I've now remarried and assumed she's gone, but I never truly knew what happened to her. Maybe I wasn't enough for her, maybe I didn't look hard enough. It doesn't matter. I'm happy, I've moved on, but I'll never know what became of my zee-fairing friend, and I can't help but feel guilty.

I was almost certain that I knew, when she mentioned 'other honeys.' But I had to be certain. I had to see for myself how deep the rot at Court went. And so I went with her.
I knew that they craved the red honey, but I had been so repelled by viewing the manner of its collection that I never asked myself why. Yet when I tasted it, I knew.
To be another person, live another life, see things through fresh new eyes as for the first time: a first kiss; a first broken bone; a first sight of the color yellow…
And underneath, low enough to be easily ignored, the screaming of a brain in torment. I shall never forgive the Empress for allowing red honey to be served at the Palace.
I shall never forgive the Princess for giving it to me. And I shall never forgive myself for liking it.
It was only the once. I thought that I could not remember that night, that taste. But I shall never forget.

Tired. Tired of trying to hold things together. Of trying to control what can't be controlled. I'm tired of denying myself what I want, fearing I'll break what I cannot fix. They will break no matter what I do.

After my first day in the city, I realized that London was a much rougher place than I had originally anticipated. So I did what any newcomer would do, and convinced one of the local ruffians of my innate divinity.
Yet even after she inevitably saw though my deception, she has stayed faithfully by my side. She has fought many a battle for me, and even offered me her eyes, once. Naturally I refused, for I would make quite a poor parent. But to this day I regret refusing her. Not because I still long for those eyes, but because I know that I don't deserve them.

I sought truth in dark places, once. Now I am nothing but a common thief, my respectability built on lies and stolen goods.

There's a war coming, above...I could try to stop it. I might even succeed. But I don't dare: I know too much already, yet not enough to interfere.

As time goes on, it becomes increasingly more difficult for me to tell whether or not my killing of Scathewick was out of revenge for my brother's death or if I simply wanted to watch him die. Even with my soul having lately been recovered, I feel nothing when I recall even my fondest memories of my brother. The thought of death, however, sends adrenaline rushing through my veins.

I betrayed the trust of the one I loved, now she will never see me again

I put them to the stake. Still hear those screams as the monster bit into their leg. Bait for a zee beast... No zailor deserves to die like that. D__n the Bishop and D__n his Hound of Heaven! Bl___y Hell!

When I was little I went ridding with my father in winter. I had a pony he was ridding his horse, he told me to stay on the path, but I did not listen and the animal slipped on the ice, fell and broke its leg. My father took his rifle and told me to step back but I refused:" Don't kill it! "I cried. "You will only prolong its suffering." he said, but I was unwilling to part with the animal. The poor thing neighed and tried to get up. It fought for hours until the snow slowed it down and it was lying still, only his body shacking from time to time. I cried its fur wet. It was getting dark when I asked my father to put an end to it - but I did not do it out of compassion, I did it because I was cold, hungy and tired. Until this day I ask myself, who was the cruel one - my father or I ?

People think I'm Christian, even though I'm not. I let them. They also think I'm interested in men, and I'm not that sort either. That misconception I do attempt to correct, but it's surprisingly difficult.

I was their tool. When I came here, I was consumed by hedonism and ambition. They promised more pleasure and more power. I hurt people. Damned them to fates I know not. I brought the conquered to their knees once more, and spared the proud from the consequences of their deeds.
I've changed now. One day, I looked my self in the mirror, and cringed away from the person I was. I had lost my soul, true (the details were lost to me, all I recall was a preternaturally persuasive devil,) but that was no excuse. I turned my back on their ways, and am now their staunch foe. And yet, I still fear. I have seen my destiny, and it gleams, but it gleams in darkness. I know light will one day die. I fear that I may drive us all towards that. That I may have more power than I am wise enough to use well. That my new comrades use me just as much as my old masters. I fear I have erred grievously by giving them the Nadir.

I've stolen a man, once.
A splendid man, beautiful, like you'd never thought. And I plucked him right out of the sky, midflight. I only realised, once I'd already stolen him, that he was all that kept us air-borne. And so we fell, through, and further down. All the way to the Neath. The worst part is that, at the time, I'd thought I was justified. That I had to do it. And since I fell too, I thought it took my guilt out of it. I think that may be why I did it. For just a moment there, as we fell, I truly believed we'd fallen from the same height.

A beautiful woman once seduced a close relative of mine. I became suspicious and did some investigating; soon I discovered she was actually an assassin hired to kill him. Because he was so much in love with her, I feared informing him might irreparably damage our relationship and therefore said nothing. Eventually he realized the truth and foiled her attempt, though not without incurring some damage, physically as well as emotionally.
The close relative and I are always open and honest with each other, but to this day this is the one secret I've always kept from him.

I like to tell people that I am happy here. That everything that happens in the Neath is well in hand and in my favour. The truth? I'd much rather have my brother than any of the Neathy delights that wait for me here. Alas this is the only path left for me... I am quite sorry it came to this.

A dear friend seeks to hunt the Vake no matter the cost. I am a dedicated agent of the Teeth. I do not know what to tell her, let alone when or how.

I don't recall. I chose to forget.

Some wish to support the regime. Some wish to dismantle it. I want to supplant it, and rule eternally. Hubris is a cowards' word.

I married this beautiful bohemian lady - a model, I think, or something - for one reason only. Now, when the lady of the well asks why do I seek the Name, I can reply "it's cheaper than a divorce".
Sorry, bohemian lady, I love gallows humor, not you.

I've been in the Neath for three-hundred years. I've been a Tomb-Colonist for two-hundred and fifty. In those first fifty years, I was a semi-notorious and thoroughly ruthless murderer. Someone paid me a fortune to poison a Master. It did not end well for me, I am now in bandages. It ended even worse for my employer.

My main and several alts just confessed. When they are published, I'll send a reward (of your choice) to the first person to correctly pair character and confession. Think of it as blackmail! (Or if that's OOC, a token of gratitude for discretion) Either send a message to the character or PM me on here.
One didn't confess anything though.

Four Addresses. Four Dates. Followed by a short note "I once intended for it to happen. The other times it was the heat of the moment. But no matter what the deed is done and I have to live with that. No matter what I do this is on my soul." The handwriting becomes slightly less composed. "I think I can live with that." A look through back pages of the gazette finds a report on the murder of a young man in his parlor at one of the listed addresses on the matching date. The other dates yield no such luck.

The immaculately white paper holds a black-inked confession of a surgeon, describing in stark, fortright terms his appropriation of medical knowledge for dishonest use.
Though he makes an effort not to reveal the identities of his criminal patron or patrons, and skirts around the words "torture" and "murder", his terse comment on "keeping them alive while what's left of them could fit into a small bucket" carries enough bitterness to unearth an underlying regret. One wrong choice of allegiances in the past, and now hands meant to heal are expected to wound instead.

im in debt to an enemy of the cause and have to repay

Had a chance at a mum. Coulda accepted. Didn't. Sometimes I wonder what it woulda been like.

In a fate-locked story about the Wry Functionary, at some point the game says "if you fail this check, the things will end badly for him". I made an alt account with zero Dangerous and replayed it just to see if Failbetter really kills him if you fail there.

I don't know if I can choose between the Morning or the Evening

The boss had me smuggling diamonds in under Mr. Stones's snout. It was easy work - just slip them in as the cheap paste-diamond stuff, get them to the warehouse before the constables could look too closely, and boom! Tariff free diamonds! Of course, even the cheapest hunk of rock is shinier and prettier than the fakes. In the end, I couldn't help it if a few of them made their way into my pockets. I was never stupid about it. Well, I was as smart about it as I could be, considering I was ripping off my own boss. I'd swipe two or three out of them from every shipment, and hide them in my sleeves. I thought I was getting away with it, too, until I heard some of the girls gossiping when they thought they were alone.
I'd heard that the Cheery Man would cut your fingers off if you stole from him. I wasn't planning on finding out what the boss would do, so I hid my little stash in a rat hole in B____'s room. Most of the girls hate L. B.'s, and B____ was the boss's pet, so I figured it'd be safest there. Early the next morning, I heard a racket out in the hallway like a rubbery man being murdered. Two of the boss's enforcers were dragging B____ screaming down the hallway, and at the end of the hall I saw the boss's silhouette against the lamps. I should've said something. Fessed up. But instead, I just stood there like a slack jawed idiot until the boss told me in a voice that would freeze a drownie's heart that I needed to get back to bed. I saw B____ a year later. I was walking along the river front, waiting for a shipment of 'walking canes' when B____ floated past me. She was bobbing up and down and singing along to the drownie chorus. She still looked like B____. Well, except she was green. And she tried to drag me into the water, too which wasn't like B____. She'd been afraid of the water ever since a drownie tried to drag her off the docks. Yeah, that was probably one of the stupidest things I've done. If it weren't for the boss, I'd still be stuck avoiding the White-And-Golds in the Shadow, or worse yet, trying not to get eaten by tigers in Port Carnelian. She'd always worked me hard, but she worked everyone hard, too. And after all she did for me, I thanked her by ripping her off. And B____ could be an ungrateful b---h - she'd tease me in front of the others when I brought her smuggled love poetry, and she always blamed me if the kumis was missing. But she was always so patient with the new girls, and she could be a riot when she was drunk. She was the last person that deserved to end up as a drownie. I still see her now and then, and she always smiles at me. That part of it hurts worse than her trying to drag me under. I can understand her hating me, but I can't understand her smiling at me.

I know exactly who wrote this. It's no secret he doesn't agree with red honey (and the process behind it), but, oh, the scandal....

i really like the way this confession is worded. very elegant

I have done things that have been neither novel nor pleasurable.

ah, i adore the wording. someone once again has proven that brevity is the soul of wit. Might be my favourite in all batches, actually.

My ceaseless curiosity is often worse for others than for me: once I killed a Rubbery Man just to see what would happen. I feel horrible about this.

Slyblue wrote:

I know exactly who wrote this. It's no secret he doesn't agree with red honey (and the process behind it), but, oh, the scandal....

You say Scandal, I hear Sapho! But that is most certainly wrong for this confession.

I met someone in London, about a year ago, now. I had only recently arrived in the Neath. While they weren't my first friend here, they were my truest. If not that, they were the first with whom I exchanged more than perfunctory notes. We'd write each other pages upon pages, enough to fill the library of a certain Master with a... sesquipedalian vocabulary. They were married, to a jewel thief, if I recall, and I was entangled in a hundred causal relationships, as one does in the Neath, but once I met them, all others seemed... lackluster. Flat? It tore at me to speak to them, for I wanted nothing more than rip them and their husband apart. I know that I had no right to even think of such a thing, but it ate at me every day and night.
I ended up confessing my love for them, and they divorced their husband, but our adventures kept us apart. I zailed back and forth from Polythreme and Port Carnelian, while their research demanded their attentions at far flung isles of the Unterzee. We were never wed. A few weeks ago, they came to me in an excited frenzy: they spoke of zeppelins, starving men, and the roof. I begged them not to go, but I knew that I couldn't bare to hold them here while every inch of their being dragged them upwards. We spent one last night together before they left. They have not returned. My confession is thus: when I sit to play the Marvelous, they will not be my Heart's Desire.

I think my resolution to not gain feelings for those I use for my own gain has been destroyed. Why couldn't it have been someone of my own caste?

This place has changed me. I have been seduced into choosing pleasure over propriety. I have associated with low company. I have committed crimes. I thought I did these things in pursuit of just goals, but how often can one step off the path of the righteous before one is lost in the woods?

I am afraid that I have lost my purpose. My brother is not avenged and now I run around the city with my own gang and try to satisfiy a hunger. I am afraid of who I have become.

I was not a good person. I was a soulless Licentiate. And I killed many, many people, sometimes permanently, on behalf of all sorts of clients. It didn't matter who it was, as long as I got paid. At the time, I barely felt anything, besides the thrill of the kill, and when I did feel anything like sadness or regret, I drank to forget. I have now, due to very peculiar events, gotten my soul back. But when I think back on who I was, I am unable to conjure up any sort of feeling of regret. Instead, I feel only relief that I am no longer that person. Happiness that I get another chance. But my victims, they never had a chance. And I can't seem to feel anything for them.

Some would say naivety is the worst crime of all, and I would be inclined to agree. I was...- so very naive. I loved her, the Deviless. So quiet. So gentle. Such a perfect predator. I was dominated- heart, body and mind, by her. Would've given her the world, my everything, most precious. Anything, everything.
And she wanted my soul, so in the end, I've given her my soul. And then, she was gone, and I...- Stupid. Naive. Gullible. But I loved her. Maybe I love her still. And as long as I love her, I will not be free.

I confess that I have ended the life of an old friend, whose insistence on positioning themselves between myself and my ambitions despite my assistance in their own endeavours meant that sooner or later, one of us would have to lose.

Thin and spiky, in a spidered scrawl: I tried to help someone. Just a slip of poison over a drink. Everyone is gone now.

...AHhaha, the owl. <3 I can't.

Is Ms Walk-Away
[spoiler]Mlle, Sly?[/spoiler]

I really like the fifth confession of this batch - there's a lot of emotion to it. Quite like the second one, too.

That fifth one really is moving.

Hieronymus Drake once knew a woman who spoke like that. But she was never so concise.

C'mon, at this rate you all are going to make me blush.

I am led to understand that one should send their confessions anonymously in the poll linked to by the phrase "what will you write?", and then let Reused NPC post them, keeping the original account secret.

Slyblue wrote:

I love this idea. Can we submit different confessions for different PCs?

Looks like it! I just did two. Since they're anonymous, I don't think it matters that they were from the same forum account.

Firm and boldly slanted, but meticulously adherent to the lines:

I was almost certain that I knew, when she mentioned 'other honeys.' But I had to be certain. I had to see for myself how deep the rot at Court went. And so I went with her.
I knew that they craved the red honey, but I had been so repelled by viewing the manner of its collection that I never asked myself why. Yet when I tasted it, I knew.
To be another person, live another life, see things through fresh new eyes as for the first time: a first kiss; a first broken bone; a first sight of the color yellow…
And underneath, low enough to be easily ignored, the screaming of a brain in torment. I shall never forgive the Empress for allowing red honey to be served at the Palace.
I shall never forgive the Princess for giving it to me. And I shall never forgive myself for liking it.
It was only the once. I thought that I could not remember that night, that taste. But I shall never forget.

I wonder if Reused NPC will post all the super long confessions at the end. Also, I apologize for the length of my my first one.

A messy scrawl on a sheet of notebook paper, burnt at the edges - Not Maxwell Bradford, neither tone nor profession fits. Not the Insatiable Confidant; no revolutionary ties. Not Tanith Wyrmwood. Nero Severn, wrong profession.

Reused NPC wrote:

All those moments will be preserved, like bones in amber.

is that a reverse reference to "all those moments will be lost, like tears in the rain" that i spy? if so, i'm loving it

and i can't be the only one waiting excitedly for tomorrow's batch of confessions. and the day after tomorrow. and the day after day after tomorrow and

Sapho is a cinnamon roll that must be protected at all cost. It is known.

Starting out neat, but slowly devolving into the sort of scrawl that makes reading difficult (though it never quite becomes illegible):

People think I'm Christian, even though I'm not. I let them. They also think I'm interested in men, and I'm not that sort either. That misconception I do attempt to correct, but it's surprisingly difficult.

I bet you look adorable when you blush!

I had - or will have - at one point bargained for an opening of the Double-Doors of the Horizon, and a place as equal among those most curious beings who lay and coil on the other side of the gates.
The costs for such a transformation are great: I, as I am now, will not see the Sixth fall. I know not to fret over the price, for my final prize is sweeter and more delightful than any loss that I must endure for it. I know this, but there are still moments when I worry. I regret those faults of character, and berid myself of them by consigning them here. I pray (A rare occasion!) that these words of mine burn bright in the fires of the Constabulary, and that this little secret - no longer mine - burns along with them.

She was my father’s woman. And she deceived him. I watched her, night after night - oh, and mid-morning and mid-afternoon, too. I never told him. How could I tell him? How could I bear to break his heart?
When he finally learned, and left her … I took vengeance. I seduced her and betrayed her. I thought that would be just. Now I think that it was needlessly cruel. But there’s more. I wondered then, and I still do: did I really just want her for myself?

I grew tired of life and went NORTH to open the Gate. But I didn't, I was too scared of leaving to find the Name. Sometimes, I think I made the wrong choice.

I have always been a dedicated defender of Art. I believe that Art should never be censored. I believe that the Ministry of Public Decency should be torn down brick by brick. I believe that Mr. Pages - I spit on his name - is a execrable suppressor of truth, a pompous dotard, and an even fouler blight on this fair city than Mr. Eaten. Even so - it was at Pages' bidding I did bloody the Epigrammatic Irishman, and steal his life's work to leave it to rot in the chains of the Ministry. I told myself that I did this thing because I needed to become close to Pages, close enough to one day throw down his works from within. I tell myself that even now. Even so - I betrayed all I stand for. I betrayed my convictions. And that is a nightmare no laudanum can extinguish; a stain upon my soul far worse than any Seeker could wreak.

London's greatest serial killer. Jack. He could be gone, now. But I let my curiosity get the better of me. Worse, I believe I would resent not knowing more.

I am still wearing the ring that used to bind me to my late husband. He was not much older than me, he died so young... He passed away quite recently, too. Yet, I never wore a black dress for a proper mourning period. I've even started seeing somebody else. He might want to marry me soon, how indecent of me is that? I don't want to tell him no, though...So there you have it. I loved my husband, yet I never mourned him. You've got your confession, do with it as you see fit.

I sought vengeance where the fallen did not want it and in doing so became someone they would not recognize. I destroyed lives without regard for the suffering so inflicted, even though I was aware of it. And were I given a chance to redo these decisions, I know I would make most of them again.

I am catholic. Do I need to say more?

Is my happiness put on for show or do I actually enjoy what I do. I don’t know which one is more scary.

I have done things that have been neither novel nor pleasurable.

Feared the warnings attached to the name of Mr. Eaten and turned back, afraid.

Suicide by Seeking.

I helped my sibling become what they are now and I don’t know how I feel about that.

I hunted monsters around Watchmaker's Hill and the Wolfstack Docks. Some that crawled, some that swam, some that flew, and some that walked on two legs. At first, I did it for the gratitude of the locals and the bounty money that came with it. But after I found what lay under the Observatory...
I still hunted monsters, but no longer did it for the money or the glory. All I asked from my targets, and from those that hired me, were their eyes. I required so many eyes to birth my child. Too many to collect through mere bounty-hunting. My child is worth it. The Cause is worth it. But I do not know if the multitude of one-eyed zailors and hunters I see in the taverns would see it that way.

I have been raised on the Surface, in a religious settlement. The Church was my family, and I was raised to be a priest and an Humanist. However, I grew to resent this environment, without ever knowing why I was so dissatisfied with how other treated me; never have I hated God or the Church. I decided to betray my calling and those who loved me, and set to become a poet. This is my first confession: one of selfishness. I saw it plainly once I went to the Neath to converse with Celestials and Bazaarines, and saw misery everywhere, next to this world of wanton luxury.
During my stay, I have become obsessed with the Correspondence. I have as a result driven all my friends away, and finally drove myself to death. My days have been spent ever since trying to find a way to see the Sun again through Correspondence. Two years of searching, to discover that it can’t been done. And this is my confession, the most horrible of all: I am a cadaver unworthy of the light I seek, and I know, deep inside of me, that nothing await me up there. My friends have forgotten me. My family would despise what I am. And I would forever long for gifts the Neath have brought me. I toil endlessly for something I do not wish for and cannot be achieved. I confess that my life is a lie, and I, the greatest of fools.

Shaky and rushed, with paragraphs crossed out and rewritten:

I had two vials left after the job was done. Sold them to an Urchin gang. Cantigaster. They were in a feud with another gang of urchins at the time. I needed the Echoes - I needed a Mirrorcatch to feel the Sunlight one last time...The scene that followed the day after was... (-the rest is incomprehensible-)

no joke that's really good. i think my favourite in the batch. i sympathise with the author's need to sell deadly poison to a bunch of kids, but i condemn their need of sunli- no, wait

--
Gronostaj (pl. Ermine), a decadent duellist of mysterious and indistinct gender. Seeker. Willing to die- but not of boredom. Open to all social actions, including the harmful ones.
Soft-Spoken Surgeon, a doctor who owes an onerous debt. Professor of medicine at the University by day, at criminal employ by night. Open to all non-harmful social actions.

I love this idea. Can we submit different confessions for different PCs?

I think short and stumpy might be Sly's Maxwell Bradford. But I don't know. Had this been pre-election, I would have been certain, but now he is more confident.

If it is him, never fear. I shan't tell Alys.

And this person right here is the reason Mlle became a New Sequencer.

The writing is fairly even but the letters themselves are awkward, made in a way that indicates the writer is not familiar with their shapes. The spelling is almost all phonetic, and thus rather atrocious, but it's not too difficult to figure out what the words are supposed to be. And the grammar...clearly this is not a native speaker of the Empress's English.

Daedalus_Falk wrote:

My confession's in this batch, actually. I'll see if anyone can guess it.

My guess:

in elegant flowing script

because, we had that talk about art and I remember what Daedalus said quiet well.

And if he delivered this work to Mr. Pages, this would haunt him - I am sure it would.
Am I right?

I have done things that have been neither novel nor pleasurable.

Edit: Hey, why the downvotes?

If something I said did upset someone, my thorough apologies. Perhaps I wasn't the politest there at the beginning.

You could always post it here under your own name.

I had two vials left after the job was done. Sold them to an Urchin gang. Cantigaster. They were in a feud with another gang of urchins at the time. I needed the Echoes - I needed a Mirrorcatch to feel the Sunlight one last time...The scene that followed the day after was... (-the rest is incomprehensible-)