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Our Story So Far

Spoilers ahoy! This page is designed to catch you up to the latest plot arc as quickly as possible. If you don’t wish to crush and snort Tin Soldier‘s plotline, visit the New Readers page for more ways to get started.

For character information, go here.

The headings below are accordioned. Pick your poison.

Hedgehoppers Anonymous - It's Good News Week [Stereo] - 1965
Supernatural has ‘Carry On My Wayward Son.’ Tin Soldier has ‘Good News Week.’ Because the first thing you need to know is my sense of humor goes all the way to Vantablack.

Sanaam’s Summaries…

Maggie’s absent father is our automated summary feature. Every time Sanaam the Sailor come home from the sea, he gets an update on what he missed. To circumnavigate Tin Soldier quickly in-universe, follow the man with the boat.

Just the Basics…

It’s December, 1377

Magic is real and it merges seamlessly with people and technology. Two types of people use magic: regular weirdos and colored folks, who have skin tones in bright rainbow hues and can even call gods into their bodies for help. Our story takes place in Strawberryfield, the nicer slum area of San Rosille, which is the capital of a small but very aggressive country which just lost a war to a larger, more conservative country. Tensions are high. Infrastructure is low.

Hyacinth’s boarding house is a known refuge for outcasts and castoffs of all kinds. Apart from the green kid with brain damage and a metal eye, she’s got a red guy who plays violin and cooks, an assembly-line enchanter who never speaks but turns into a completely different person when he puts on a dress, a retired general who turns into an enormous bird (and her daughter who turns into a smaller bird), an ex-augur with vision problems, an unwed mother who keeps cranking out weird art and whose baby has a spider mecha, and occasionally a sailor with gold tattoos and no eyebrows. Something also lives in Room 101, but even Hyacinth doesn’t know what the hell it is. Hyacinth herself is a metalworker and ex-medic who practices her trade on a pay-what-you-can basis for the denizens of the slum and surrounding areas.

Seriously, though, keep an eye on that green kid. He reads minds, or something even worse, and he’ll play you novelty music on the violin if you’re not careful.

I want to start reading from The Show Must Go On…

  • This is the last plot arc (for a while). So, no, you do not want to start reading here. You’ll be sad if you start reading here and everything ends in twelve installments. However, for a refresher…
  • Calliope is a single mother and artist. She has been planning a show with her ex-boyfriend Chris, and two other women named Teagan and Katya.
  • Chris is colored, shy (most of the time), and also Lucy’s biological father.
  • We’ve met Teagan before, at her poorly-conceived hamburger restaurant, but we haven’t met Katya.
  • Milo is Calliope’s current boyfriend, and the person Calliope’s daughter Lucy elects to call ‘Dad.’ Milo has a split personality and the other half is called Ann, but it is way more complicated than that. Milo and Calliope have been through some bumps, but they seem to have worked most of that stuff out. Calliope has also adopted Ann as a sister.
  • Barnaby is a malfunctioning psychic who senses his death approaching very soon, but sometimes he gets mixed up about dates and the order of events. He sort of helped raise Hyacinth, along with her guardian and his best friend, David Valentine.
  • Something lives in Room 101 of Hyacinth’s house. It eats people food. Nobody can figure out what it is, or remember meeting it, even after they’ve gone in there to feed it.
  • Calliope has eight siblings, including two sets of twins. They are named after the nine muses.
    • Her mother is a lawyer and her father is a history teacher. Her mother’s family is from Wakoku and her father’s family is an established, wealthy pillar of Marselline society.
    • Her oldest sister, Thalia, cannot return to Marsellia because she stole an archeological find and gave it to a museum.
    • Her oldest brother, Melpomene is an accountant who works for a big cat shelter. He goes by ‘Oz,’ because Melpomene is a girl’s name.
    • Her twin sisters, Polyhymnia and Terpsichore, are involved in science, along with Polyhymnia’s husband, Hector. Polyhymnia and Hector have a set of twin boys, Helix and Sigma. Sigma doesn’t like to talk around strangers.
    • She is closest to her youngest brother, Euterpe. He’s considered weird even for this family, and a bit of a screwup, but in a cute way.
  • Barnaby warned Hyacinth not to eat the salmon puffs a very long time ago.

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