Stories of the Chest

Skeleton of the real Map of Stories

Skeleton of the real Map of Stories.

What is the map for?

The Story Chest is a place for diverse stories in many different genres. Sinfónía is a Romance between Icelandic orchestral musicians. MaruMonzterz has children from all continents join forces to save the world with toys that are anything but. And Be Myself! follows the self-discovery journey of LGBTI teenagers in Scotland. All three are perfectly understandable as self-contained units of story-telling to be enjoyed on their own.

However, those who read two (or all) of those stories will soon realise that they share more than their author. For example, characters hop from Sinfónía to MaruMonzterz, and the same unique building appears in MaruMonzterz and Be Myself!.

This, dear reader, is because the stories are all connected.

Everything about those stories was planned so that one complements the other. Want to learn more about the cute boy who befriends Gunni on his first concert? He has a much bigger role in MaruMonzterz. Wonder what Harmony Street is all about? The clues are hidden in the most unlikely places.

The stories intertwine further in the shape of shared sequels, immigrant characters, and an increasing sense of unity, despite their differences in genre and tone of plots. With all this going on, how can someone keep track of their favourite story or character?

That’s where the map comes in.

How to use the map

The map turns each story into its own “country”. Each country has internal roads which link its serialised books (MaruMonzterz will have twelve books in total, Be Myself! will be divided in at least five parts, and Sinfónía should see many more than the five currently accounted for). The road will someday reach neighbouring “countries”, linking stories in the forms of sequels, shared sequels, or common characters. This is how you’ll be able to tell where each story leads, and what you should read next once you finish one.

But the map looks empty and mysterious now (or, while the prototype map is there, more like a diagram). That’s because we’re only beginning our exploration. MaruMonzterz, Be Myself!, and Sinfónía are still in early publishing stages. The map changes as the stories progress. Each new book that comes out is a new road built, new lands revealed.

What is in the map         

Below is a little summary of the stories that appear in the map. To make it easier to identify them, you see the shape of their “country” next to their name (when the real map is ready, anyway).

Remember that it’s ok to read just one or a few of those stories. People like different things, and not all genres are for everyone. Diversity is what makes us great, after all!

Main Stories

Sinfónía: Musical prodigy Gunni is hired by a professional orchestra at age sixteen. He has a crush on fellow player Siggi, who hates his guts and promises to make his life hell. The story is told by Gunni and Siggi on alternating chapters.
Content warnings: explicit sexual content, self-harm, child abuse, sexual assault, sexual predators, homophobia, transphobia, abuse parents, abusive partners.

MaruMonzterz: Rumiko has nightmares about monsters asking her to make them real. She learns about the game MaruMonzterz in time to enter its Japanese Tournament, but things take an unexpected turn when monsters like the ones in her nightmares appear in the game. Those claim to be her friends, and even promise to help her fight the nightmares, but can she trust them? Who are they, really? And why do they insist she keeps playing MaruMonzterz?
Content Warning: child abuse, violent parents, gore imagery.

Be Myself!: Oscar took for granted that he was straight like all “normal” people. He had a girlfriend and everything. But then why did he have sex with the new boy in the school toilet? And why did he like it?
Content Warning: explicit sexual content, child physical and sexual abuse, violent parents, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, racism.

Short Stories

Those are the stories in the One-Shot Archipelago. They’re not related to the stories in the main continent.

Visiting

This story was written as a way to express how Jamie’s mind works. The story led to Jamie’s first attempts at one-page comics. The full story and all the existing comics are available through the links below:

The Story: You pay a visit to a certain house, and to the ideas and people who live there.

The Comic: Everyday situations taken through the eyes of Visiting characters. It will Include the fight against Capitalism in the near-future.

Future Projects

Those are all the sequels hiding in the darkest parts of the map.

  • History Walkers: The origin story of some minor characters that appear in Sinfónía, MaruMonzterz, and Be Myself!.
  • Sinfónía 2: a yet-to-be-properly-named sequel to Sinfónía.
  • Fallen Knight: sequel to Be Myself!.
  • Transitions: a joint sequel for MaruMonzterz and Be Myself!. Doubles as a prequel for Child of Darkness.
  • Child of Darkness: Takes an unresolved plot-point from Transitions and makes it into a major epic conflict. Lends a character to Learning Curve and a whole lot of people to Soul Academy, but is not exactly their prequel.
  • Hashire!: is flimsy connected to Transitions and Child of Darkness, but is really its own thing.
  • Learning Curve: sequel to Fallen Knight, with someone from Child of Darkness thrown in for good measure.
  • Soul Academy: sequel to Learning Curve, now borrowing a whole load of people from Child of Darkness.
  • Destiny Brats: sequel to Soul Academy, and for now the (chronologically) last piece of this whole saga.
  • Timeless Family: trilogy that can be linked to MaruMonzterz if you must, but has nothing to do with the rest of the world (and thus has its own continent).
  • The Saga of the Five: a series of five books that takes the main characters of MaruMonzterz, Sinfónía, Be Myself!, and Timeless Family and drops them in a fantasy world.