Madame Tarsa
Madame Tarsa, also known as the Toymaker, was a powerful, immortal interdimensional toymaker. She resided in a pocket dimension of her own. Tarsa was once married to one incarnation of Jenny Everywhere.
Description
Physical appearances
Madame Tarsa appeared as a woman with pink skin and short, curly, purple hair. She usually wore a kind of jester's outfit, with a red, green and orange jester's hat and a colourful outfit akin to a toy soldier's. She could change her size at wil, but her default one in her Workshop was gigantic compared to the default human size Pythagoras-858 was used to. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
Personality
Madame Tarsa was a very active individual, usually seen “milling about in an endless whirlwind of magic, colours, and shapeshifting”. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
Powers and abilities
Tarsa was a creative and skillful toymaker. Most of her creations, though inventive works of craftsmanship in their own right, were also enchanted to one extent or another, with many even being sentient; she possessed the Power of Creation. She was also capable of shape- and size-shifting, and of teleporting at will across dimensions using her magical cane. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
Biography
Creating the Toybox
One of the first living toys Tarsa created was a teddy bear who later took on the name Millicent, and whom she treated as a daughter. After building a magical Toybox to house her increasing number of living toy creations, Tarsa positioned Millicent there, giving her a number of books containing some of her secrets, so that she could help lead the Toybox's denizens in an emergency. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
Marriage to Jenny
“Millions of years” before her encounters with the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, Tarsa was married to an incarnation of Jenny Everywhere. It was a very happy union, and only came to an end with the death of this particular incarnation of Jenny; although Tarsa remained friends with all other incarnations of Jenny she met, the spark of the couple had been lost, with Tarsa considering that her wife had died, all the same, even if others carried her memories. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
Dealings with the Frost King
At an unknown point prior to her first dealings with the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, Madame Tarsa began to be involved with the Frost King, another cosmic being with a tendency for getting into tighter situations than her. She once rescued him after he was trapped by a wraith-wyvern. On another occasion, after the King accidentally destroyed the village of the Miniature Mahoganies during a game of Cosmic Foosball, the Council called Tarsa in to rectify the subsequent crisis. (PROSE: The Winter Quests)
Early contacts with the Cupids
The Clockwork Cherubs first learned of Madame Tarsa's existence by accident when Pessimist's Fog Ship transported Pessimist-242 and Larrikin-1029 to a random dimension which turned out to be the Workshop of Madame Tarsa. After various adventures, the two ended up participating in a sword-fight against Tarsa. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker) By the time of the end of the Rifts Crisis, the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids were familiar with Tarsa, but they were ambivalent towards her because she kept sending them Lord Thymon plushies. However, she proved instrumental to putting an end to the Rifts Crisis. (PROSE: Rifts Crisis Officially Over!)
Frozen
After Pythagoras-858 placed an order with Tarsa on behalf of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids for enough Christmas presents to satisfy the whole Cupid Homeworld, he travelled to her Workshop only to discover her frozen in place inside a huge cube of ice. It eventually transpired that she had been magically frozen by Sebastian Steer in order for him to steal the puppet clown she was working on, hoping to study it and learn her techniques. Juliet-178, Arganthone-056 and Jenny Everywhere travelled the Multiverse looking for a way to bring Tarsa back to life, eventually finding the toy mallet she'd hidden for the purpose inside the Star Atop the Tree in the Christmas Toyland of her Toybox. After they succeeded in freeing Tarsa, she was confronted with the Clown, whose animation Steer had clumsily completed; he wished to treat her as his mother, not just his creator, and she accepted him as such, with him helping her catch up on the time lost while she was frozen when it came to fulfilling the many orders of toys she'd received for Christmas. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
A family Christmas
In December 2021, she was showing Joybuzzer the ropes of how to prepare Christmas orders when CS-NA teleported into the Workshop, on his quest to learn more about Christmas. She allowed him to hang around as a silent observer. Shortly after, her and her son's work was once again interrupted, this time by the Frost King (by then functionally family to them, with Joybuzzer referring to him as “Uncle Frost”). The King suggested that they go out and look for a Christmas tree as a family; though displeased by the King barging into the Workshop uninvited using his magic, she eventually gave in, and the three of them, plus CS-NA, transported themselves to another universe where they found a suitable tree. After chopping it down and preparing it for transport, the three got into a playful magic-aided snowball fight, which Tarsa and Joybuzzer won. They then returned to the Workshop to decorate the tree using ornaments crafted by Joybuzzer. These experiences taught CS-NA about the importance of family spirit to a successful Christmas party. (PROSE: The Winter Quests)
Behind the scenes
Notes & references
- ↑ First appearance in directly Jenny-related media; actual debut was in 2019's The Toymaker's Labyrinth.
