Kinda just seeing how things have changed in a year

( 2025.12.22 )

petite reprise ! Story now has a name!

( 2025.12.07 )

killer's garnets

( 2025.12.01 )

( 2025.11.15 )

One of these yes to ideas, no to execution

( 2025.11.15 )

Week 2 (Alternate Universes) : Wild West

( 2025.10.09 )

( 2025.09.28 )

( 2025.09.21 )

no feasting halls without you
Rating: teen
Warnings: major character death
Summary: He doesn't know where they are - and right now he doesn't care - screaming out for things to stop as he watches a man with no details and hair of blood throw killer aside like he was just a rag doll. watches his partner hit the ground - the sound of him hitting the untangable ground trapped in his head and echoing so loud his teeth hurt.
Somewhere between a dream and the afterlife, Kidd must decide if he's still fighting.
Additional Tags:

Unreliable Narrator Elbaph mixes with Norse Deities

( 2025.09.05 - Fic and Picture under cut )

He wakes up to nightmares still sometimes, heart trapped in his throat, tangled in the blankets, frantically reaching out - clawing out - trying to tear flaming wreckage away.

title inspired by Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf - a song about a horrific, fatal motorcycle crash: The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling, Way down in the valley tonight

( 2025.07.26 )

First Cracks
Rating: teen
Warnings: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary: Momma's been gone for a long time now. Days and days. Douglas keeps telling him it's okay; She's been gone before. But even his big brother doesn't seem so sure. Papa's been quiet too. The last few nights he just sits & stares at the wall.
The turmoil of South Blue arrives on Kutzk, and young Keillan is about to experience first hand just how cruel the world is off their shores.Additional Tags:

child death in background

attempted child murder

child abuse

( The First Cracks )

Feeding changling-baby!Dive.

Idea for GGD before they entered the grand line.

Killer's own baby dies so when a changeling/cuckoo baby appears they see it as a second chance and raise the strange creature they will end up calling Dive, as part of their own family

( 2025.08.01 )

Coastal Wrecks

The cove that separates Bright Tower and the very edge of the Night Market has filled with shipwrecks of those trying to navigate the west coast and the ever expanding Scrap Yard. The worst of the toxic waste has been deposited to the north, and the loam soils of the cove almost make the water potable - at least as far as any water sources on the Trash Side. In a place people should not be, there are still many young people that grow up in the Bright Tower, and the coastal wrecks have become an almost safe place for them to play; still dangerous and one wrong step from a slow and painful death, but the closest most will ever get to a playground. On the broken ships, children will play out everything from 'House' to 'Navy and Pirates' to games of 'hide-and-seek' and 'tag' There is a quiet consensus even among the gangs to stay hands-off the cove wreckage, even if violent confrontations still happen at its edges regularly; ironically the playground with all its own hidden dangers is one of the safest places for the very small. A place where imagination and adventure haven't been lost yet, where gangs and backgrounds and family ties don't matter. Today, its a fleet of merchant ships trying to outrun pirates. Tomorrow its far away fantasy village fighting off a dragon.

Playground of Trash Side

Type

Cove

Location under

Bright Tower

Fortress

Center of the city, head of government. The nation of Kutsukku makes an effort to look like a oligarchic republic like many thalassocracies in the southernmost seas, and once there was a true established government, but it was dismantled when the W.Government made a play for the island. Organized crime and their wealthy backers spend their time playing politicians, but the lower classes know its a farce, and that the ruler's of the city changes hands easily. Today, it's constantly being fought over by the families running the city. The original walls of the Fortress had been torn down by early occupation, but Boss-oyabun Anndra a'Penrimond spend a good deal of the start of his reign reinforcing the city walls, and then rebuilding the casemate walls of the fortress at the center of Kutzk city. He spend three years - and all the good will the people had once given him - making the area a stronghold imposing enough to inspire the people to continue to resisting the W.G. Unfortunately, not everyone was happy with the new walls - and the resources and money it took to build them - leading to a violent uprising and the rise of Boss-oyabun John MacWilliam. To draw Anndra out, John set fire to the east docks outside the new walls, completely decimating the old wooden structures, docks and most of the legit merchant fleet Kutsukku was allowed to pass the marine blockades in the open seas. The open area around it the main markets and leisure areas of the upper class.

History

1503 Nov 30 - Anndra has the marines run off the island and is accepted by the city as Boss-oyabun by the people
1503 Dec 6 - Boss Anndra moves to reinforce inner city walls
1506 Jul 6 - John MacWilliam overthrowns Anndra while the city burns
1518 - Alpin MacJohn is discovered to be the serial rapist/murder and the lower gang bosses rise up against him and his father Boss-oyabun John. the Family is completely destroyed and the Kid Boss finds himself in charge of the entire island.
1518 Boss-oyabun Eustass Kidd, Boss-mhòrs Killer, Heat & Wire all dissappear from Kutzk at the same time

Mob Boss

_{Ranks & Titles
Boss
Boss-mhòr
Boss-oyabun}

On the surface, Kutsukku looks like a oligarchic republic like many thalassocracies, but right along side those voted into power are those who rose up to take power for themselves though violence, bribery and intimidation. The city of Kutzk harbors a vast criminal underworld, one that outsiders might miss but those living under the nation's flag are all too aware of. Gangs are common in the city, though most are often no more then a gaggle of thugs and delinquents that have come together as a 'family' for survival. But the title of Boss comes with a heavy weight, and few are willing to risk claiming it for themselves without the muscle to back it up. Generally, those who do are laying claim to a whole district. Above Bosses are the Boss-mhòr - three* in total, one for each region, with the district bosses under them operating only with their blessings. However, failure to find common ground could spell the end for a boss-mhòr if the small time boss had the drive and the backing to usurp them.

_{*the Kid would claim the title for himself as the first Boss-mhòr of the Scrap Yard bringing the total to four for a short period in the late 1510s.
This role would not be refilled once he vacated.}

At the top of all of them, leading from inner most walls of the Fortress - sometimes even sitting in the official seat of power in the Citadel, is the Boss-oyabun themself. Even if the boss-oyabun was not the official city leader, those voted into power still cannot stay in power with out their cooperation, and vice-versa, meaning more often then not - to secure their position, inevitably, one person will take on both roles, typically though a bloody confrontation.

Straw Mothers

Considered by many as the last spirit of Kutsukku, Cailleach / Caillagh is the old woman of the land, the last surviving old god from before the occupation, before the lost histories. Today, she lives in the oats fields to the north of the city. During the last harvest of the season, she flees the workers and hides in the shrinking and shrinking fields. Workers will mark out the nicest patch of the grains to save for last, and at the end of the season, when the very last patch is cut, the family whose field it belonged to will not harvest this sheaf for food - instead they will weave this into the shape of a woman - the Straw Mother. This will hold Cailleach for the winter; the Doll often placed inside the barn with the stored harvest, to protect it from mice and other pests. However she is brought inside for the holidays, sitting at the place of honour inside the home to oversee the festivities. She is the responsibility of the oldest daughter when inside the home, and its up to the girl to return the Straw Mother to the barn when the home is next cleaned up. When next season's winter oats have grown about 6 inches, the Straw Mother is returned to the fields, buried in the soil so she can be free to return to the fields to be free to roam for the summer.

* While only one Straw Mother needs to be made, it is common for each family with farm lands to make their own vessel for Cailleach.

Other Mothers

When a daughter marries into a family outside the fields, her sisters or aunties will make her a Straw Mother so take with her, so that Cailleach may still come and visit her even if she leaves home. These dolls are often then set to watch over her children once they are born so that Cailleach can met them.

Forbflaith Ogilvie Broun- NicFergus

Representation & Legacy

When her mother moved to Kutzk, her grandmother made Ninsun a Straw Mother. The doll was inherited by the daughter who shared the crafter's namesake.
The Mother watched over her own children when they were born, Forbflaith hoping that the vessel could show her late mother and grandmother the children they would never get to meet.
In 1518, the city of Kutzk would be turned on its head when a violent upheaval shook the under-city. Forbflaith would come to recognize her own baby sister as one of the four crime bosses responsible. Forbflaith would hear rumors that she was leaving the island, and would seek her out.
She would never get to speak to her sister, but she was able to find the ship that was commissioned by the man her sister was preparing to run away with. Forbflaith would pay the shipwrights to hide a recently repaired Straw Mother in the walls of the ship's galley to watch over her sister.
Once the workers were sure the Mother was really nothing more than a straw woven doll, they did so, but only once Forbflaith promised them that this would not cause Cailleach to sail away with the crew.
Forbflaith never knew if Ciara found the doll or not, but after the terrible way they parted, she couldn't bare the thought of her sister leaving for the sea alone. She hoped the Straw Mother would allow their mother to watch over her sister and her new family.

It is believed that there was a spirit in this woven doll, and not just the late Ninsun; a woman named Doruyanaika or "Victoria" had been murdered in an action that would lead to the gang wars in the first place - a dear friend and former lover of Ciera. In the face of death, she followed her friends rather than moving on to her next life

Scrap Yard

Aritifcal land on the west side of the city, created by trash dumped from other islands. Besides a high concentration of metal refuge, toxic waste is often washed ashore - sometimes in barrels, other times just flouting free on the currents. Illness runs ramped in those who spend too much time in the yards, and few live to old age. Yet, there are several pockets of communities still trying to live in the heaping piles, many of them orphan children or runaways turned out of the city known as Heap Kids. Because of the exposure to so many chemicals and high rates of diseases, many of them are never allowed inside the city walls at all for fear of spreading illnesses, and without medical care, die in their first year or so of living there. Scrap Rats are others who try and survive in the Yard, scavengers who pick though new and old trash, looking for anything that can be sold, repurposed, melted down. All metal from the yard is illegal to remove, coming at great risk for the scrap rat, their buyer, and those unfortunately enough to come in contact with the potentially contaminated materials unknowningly.

Natural Resources

While nothing is natural about it anymore, the scrap yards are a wealth of expensive metals, from construction to precious. Gold, Silver, Copper, Bass and Bronze are regularly mixed in the unfinished and discarded projects, smaller in quantity, harder to find, but worth far more than the steel and aluminum that makes up most of the yard. The Scrap Rat Kid-King (later known as the infamous Kidd MacEustace) had an eerry, inhuman ability to find these precious metals, and as he grew up, he'd gain a following from other rats who'd try and failed to rob him over the years. Real rats and sea birds also live in the Yard, but birds who nest there tend to have small broods and few survive long enough to grow feathers. No fish have been seen in the waters around the yard's faux-coast line in at least three generations.

History

Once, before the wars and before the walls, the gentle slopes to the west of the city where carefully tailored woods and gardens, leading down to lazy beaches with groyne reaching out into mellow waters. A strong shipping current lays not to far off shore, leading to the building of at the rockiest point, warning ships away from the shore. Unfortunately, this side of the island gathered sediment from the current easily, and as the world started marching toward progress, the trash and waste of wealthier islands began to accumulate along the shoreline. The build up got out of control quickly, and the island unfortunately had to direct rescourses elsewhere - having come to war with the Marines as it tried to strong arm them into the World Government that was slowly taking control over the remaining unaffiliated nations. When the Marines finally did get run off the island, to save face they reported the island nation as having nothing of value to contribute to the world, other than being a literal dump. And so, they began purposely dumping trash off the west shore, knowing full well it would collect on the beaches. Other islands began to follow suite, and the beaches disappeared under a massive land mass of garbage. Most notable, up current was a island specializing in metal based manufacturing, and soon their scraps and castoffs formed the west side's new coast line, along with the area's moniker 'Trash Side'

Kutzk Gang Wars

1518 - Alpin MacJohn abducts street workers to 'work' his extravagant parties, some willing, many not, and all drugged against their will to keep them easy to manipulate, and many having issues remembering what happened to them at all. Victoria is one unwilling participant, and even drugged, she doesn't play along, leading her to be raped and murdered, and then her body dumped in the Scrap Yard to later be found by Kidd. In an effort to find out who was responsible, Killer (as Kira) infiltrates one of the next boss parties where she confirms Alpin was directly involved in Victoria's death. While she too is attacked, she is prepared for it, and she kills Alpin and his body guards, as Kidd scrambles to try and find out where she'd been taken - having gone to Boss-mhòr Heat for help as the clock ticks away. Even with Alpin dead, it becomes clear that Boss-oyabun John MacWilliam knew what was happening this whole time and didn't make any efforts to curb his son's predatory behavior. Most small bosses have no interest in Kidd's quickly approaching war with the head of the underworld, But Killer, Heat, and Boss-mhòr Wire at with him. By the end of the onslaught, the Family is completely destroyed and the Kid Boss finds himself in charge of the entire island.

Conflict Type

Civil War

Battlefield Type

Land

Start Date

1518 April 3

Ending Date

1518 May 8

Conflict Result

the decimation of the under world hierarchy, and the formation of the Kidd Pirates, who soon set sail for the Grand Line

Location

Fortress

Belligerents : KidoKira Collective Led by Kidd MacEustace
Boss-oyabun & Family Led by John MacWilliam

Casualties

the death of Victoria starts the collective off to seak revenge for her murder
Alpin MacJohn and his father Boss-oyabun John and his entire criminal empire

Gaels

The gaels languages, spoken in many of the southern most nations like Kutsukku, went almost completely extinct, their written alphabets lost to time. After freeing themselves from the reach of the W.G., many have since repurposed the Mandate

alphabet to take advantages of typewriters and the like, but otherwise still refuse to use mandate as its intented purpose. In the city of Kutzk, pockets of gaels survived with tight-knit communities, and once they reestablished their independence, the different surviving branches spread to other communities. Most of the city speaks at least three of the languages of their city to some degree; inner city folk speaking all three languages from inside the walls, the outer wall regions speaking at least one inner city language, while the crafty and well connected speak at least one from all three regions.

"Couple hundred years ago - our island told the World Government to fuck off, see. Whole shit ton of islands in our part of the Blue did. World Government didn't take kindly to it, and came in and tried to undermined our whole way of life. For a while, it worked- they hijacked our schools, took our stories and our words away from the kids. Took away our Gods. Got them thinking everything would be better if the World Government could come in and run everything. But backfired - it was like the more we lost, the less we trusted anyone. Them, Ourselves. Just kinda had a system collapse. When they got run off the island finally, the Marines cut their losses and just isolated us instead. Kept garrisons on our waters, nobody in or out. Tried to starve us out."
"They made our languages illegal. Enforced Mandate

on everyone. My mother's language technically is dead. There isn't anyone left who learned it as a first language. I only learned a few words from her, and she was the only I knew who still spoke it growing up. Most every written language we had was wiped out. Its the same song and dance all over the South." "So... you don't actually have a written language..." "It's complicated. Some of our languages never did, to be fair. And most use the Mandate alphabet these days, but as an island, we refused to learn Mandate, so it's kinda a grab bag on how a letter is going to be pronounced. Makes learning Mandate later in life a right nightmare, and then trying to read anything in it? Not likely." Wire shrugged.
— Wire and a pirate captain talking about literacy on Kutsukku in a tavern off island

Writing System

Uses 18 of the Mandate letters

It is believed by some in recent years that the many oral traditions of gaels reference the void century, and thus islands that spoke it were targeted specifically to be eradicated.

curiously, the island of kutsukku is called slieau kutsukku, and it was believed to have had songs of a great sprawling continent stretching as far as the eye can see that it's people once lived on. unfortuatly, there are only small fragments of these songs that still survive

Ninsun MhacDouglas- NicAlpin

Hailing from the northern most rocky shores of Kutsukku, Ninsun was the daughter of shepards, tending to one of the few successful flocks growing up. However, the call of the city was too strong, and she home and found work in the feilds jsut outside the city walls. There she fell in with with a man named Fergus, son of Douglas & Margaret. For better or worse, she got pregnant, and they ended up getting married, living in the settlement of New Borough to the north of the city walls. For as shaky of a family as they formed, Ninsun loved her children dearly. Unfortunately, she was very visibly pregnant when the Gol child genocides swept the South Blue and she refused to be detailed for testing. She was among the hundreds of women to be murdered during the occupation just in Kutzk alone.

Personality Characteristics

Representation & Legacy

Traditionally, Ninsun would have stayed with her family until marriage, where her sister would have made her a Straw Mother. But instead she moved to the city of Kutzk alone, wanting to go her own way. Her mother would still make her a Mother to take with her, as to not forget her home, and to give a way for Cailleach to find her. This doll would pass on to her own daughter Forbflaith, where it would watch over her grandchildren. Decades after her death, her daughter Forbflaith would sneak the Mother into Ciara's ship before she sailed away from Kutzk forever, in an effort to make sure someone would continue to look after her estranged sister