#thgje

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

THGJE: Postmortem

I finished this story about six months ago, though it took rather longer to post. It's already kind of weird looking back on it: in the current phase of history, six months feels like forever.

When I started it, I was still in the early stages of processing the overwhelming isolation and panic of the pandemic, and found it difficult to write at all. @ununnilium had started writing a story that was written one sentence at a time, and I decided to do something similar: something that would let me ensure I wrote a short bit of something every day, no matter what.

I'd made a couple attempts at writing something about Jenny Everywhere (including the previous version of this blog) that hadn't gone anywhere. I basically had given up on the whole thing as the concept slowly died away, but, inspired by @aristidetwain and others' work to archive and build on past Jenny Everywhere material, I decided to give it another try.

I literally had no idea what I was doing when I started it off. I threw in bits of things I'd experienced and books I'd read, drawing on a wide variety of literary influences from Moorcock to Dumas to Brecht to radical trans literature like Stone Butch Blues and Sea Witch.

The pieces of the plot and themes gradually fell into place as I worked on this, and it was around the end of act 4 that I finally figured out what the story was about; the Dumasian portion of the story was the most planned and least improvised. I found it stressful to write but rewarding once it was done.

Over the course of the story I've referenced a bunch of other public domain/open source characters and concepts, most of which can be figured out pretty easily from the pdsh and Jenny Everywhere wikis. One exception was Voyage of the Zephyrus, a project that @ununnilium had been working on ages ago, intended to be a kind of vaguely Doctor Who-inspired story world about a dimension-traveling ship whose captain would share the memories of all those who held that post before them. They've been thinking about releasing the stuff they wrote for it as some kind of open-source project.

I didn't really revise the story as I wrote it, as I wanted it to be an unmediated expression of what I was thinking and feeling at the time as much as possible, and worried that if I spent too long to think about it I'd lose momentum as I had for so many other things. Having come out the other end of this, there's a number of things I'd do differently, but I'll let this story to stand as it is as

As I started this, I'd just moved out of the town I'd spent most of my life in and felt the need to redefine myself as a person and a writer. I wrote this to work through new feelings and ideas, to try and deepen my connection to I wrote this out of a very deep desperation and frustration, a prayer for something better in my life and the world. I don't think we're any closer to that, on the surface it seems like we're farther away than ever.

Still... I did manage to finish a long story, which I had thought I couldn't do. Who knows what else might be possible?

I want to thank everyone who's indulged this story, from the small Jenny Everywhere fandom on tumblr to the people on rec.arts.comics.creative. I think we've proven this concept has a future and I'm really excited to see where it's going from here on out.

I also wanted to add more things to the pool for future writers to draw on, so I'll just say the characters who were created for this including Glendalf/Lailoken, ARCHONET and so forth are open source, and people have blanket permission to use ideas and plot elements from this story.

And last but not least:

The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition: This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, that others might use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

Thank you and good night.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

XIII.

Once again she can feel the hearts of her other selves beating within her.

Somewhere she's battling the Saxon war-mechs alongside Arthur and Lancelot. Somewhere she's fighting in a tournament in the court of Genghis Khan.

Somewhere she's tagging sigil graffiti on the walls of Marvel Entertainment's corporate headquarters with Octobriana, Glendalf and the magician. spotting her. Somewhere she's at the front line of the charge against the Bastille, with Laura by her side. Somewhere she and Laura fighting are fighting a duel on top of a radio telescope. Somewhere she's stroking her hair as she ties her up.

Somewhere she's recovering from the overdose as Julie stands over her bed. When she's ready, she's going to try and call Laura again. She has some ideas.

Somewhere she's dying, the last surviving being in her universe, as she watches the stars go out one by one. Somewhere she's being born, waving her tiny fists in the air as she's pulled into the outer world, covered in blood.

And somewhere she's running off to school with toast in her mouth.

She holds all the joy and all the grief in the cosmos in her heart. She is Jenny Everywhere, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

END OF THE HERMETIC GARBAGE OF JENNY EVERYWHERE

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

XXIII.

The Archondroids stopped their implacable march and turned their heads around. Some of the power-armored soldiers whipped around and pointed their guns there, while others kept their eyes on the bar or swayed back and forth.

The Riders of the Wild Hunt burst into the room, shattering what was left of the wall. They cackled and chittered to themselves.

EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY

shouted the Archondroids. The Riders struck them, and a battle began, the walls of the bar flashing with the cold light of the Archondroids' energy blasts and the flickering hot light of the burning Riders.

And Jenny and Glendalf, holding Octobriana as best they could, staggered to the entrance to the tunnels.

END OF ACT III

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

V.

John Dee, Jenny Everywhere: Round 2

Jenny and Laura each drew their swords, once again glowing blew and red, but the Diabolic Doctor raised his hand and performed and arcane gesture and as they tensed their bodies and readied to strike they found themselves frozen in place.

"I'm disappointed to see you here, Princess, but not surprised," said Dr. Dee. "I always suspected you would be the part of the grand design that went awry. I had hoped we could work together--your ambition reminds me very much of myself, after all. But perhaps the world cannot contain two such as we."

"I'm nothing like you," snarled Laura. "For one thing, soon I will be alive and you will be dead."

"We shall see. And you..." He turned to Jenny. "I have the strangest feeling I've met you before."

"We have," said Jenny. "in another time, many times. And I've always beaten you."

"How could that be? Surely you know I am the greatest magician in the world." "Your magick is just half-understood knockoff Kaballah mixed with ideas you ripped off from your more talented collaborator." said Jenny. "You are a hack and a shit tier magician and you can't handle me."

"My magic defines this world. Do you see?" John Dee's hands wove another sign in the air.

Jenny fell to her knees. The memories of all the forms of spirituality and fighting styles she knew from infinite lives had come back to her, and through her breathing exercises she gathered her energy in the center of the her body, keeping herself from collapsing, but only just. She could feel the presence of the world, physically, pressing down on her and walling her in. It felt inevitable, inescapable.

But she knew now that it wasn't. She knew that there had once been, and may yet be again, other worlds and other lives outside this one. She knew that he was not inevitable.

Dee was so focused on breaking Jenny's will that he didn't notice Laura sneaking up behind him until she'd sliced off his head with one stroke.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

VI.

Cardinal Dracula

He had once been the voivode Vlad III of Wallachia, which stood on the border of great powers always eager to trample smaller nations under their feet, at a time of chaos and instability when a man might depose his father in the morning and be deposed by his brother in the evening. To hold on to power in those days took an absolute ruthlessness and iron will, and he possessed those in abundance.

He also sought powers which were more than mortal. He wanted to become a king whose kingdom would last forever, and for that he had to attain eternal life. In those days the corpses of the dead would often arise as vampires, but most of them were nothing more than shambling revenants. The voivode wanted to become something more.

In the forests of Transylvania there lay the Scholomance, a school for wizardry of the most baneful kind. The wizards of the Scholomance held captive a limbo-wraith, called a Horla or mind-flayer, which fed on the life essence of people through their blood. By allowing it to feed on them these wizards would be transformed and claim something of its powers, and in exchange, it would claim one from every class of graduating wizards to devour. On the day of graduation, the horla came for Dracula, as he had anticipated it would, but Dracula tricked it through a mirror into eating its reflection. And this is why the Cardinal and all his progeny have no reflections.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

V.

An Unexpected Visitor

Though, like the rest, she did her best to keep up a cheerful face on the way back, it was with a troubled heart that Jenny returned to her apartment.

As Jenny put her hand on the door, her body tensed. The door was already unlocked. Slowly she opened the door, her other hand on her sword, eyes darting about. There was someone sitting in her chair, a figure she knew well but did not expect to see here. She wanted to turn and run but found herself rooted in place.

"Welcome," said the Cardinal. "Enter freely and of your own will."

For this was indeed the statesman who steered the ship of France, the bane of all the King's men, Cardinal Dracula.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

The Hermetic Garbage of Jenny Everywhere

by Jeanne Morningstar

Introduction

Well, I'd been stalled on my writing for a while and I wanted to write a chaotic, improvisatory piece where I'd be able to add a little bit to it every day. I decided a Jenny Everywhere story would be perfect for that.

I've made a lot of attempts to write Jenny Everywhere stories that didn't work out, including the previous revamp of this blog, but the Jenny Everywhere wiki and the recent small burst of activity this Jenny Everywhere Day inspired me to have another go at it. It's worked out surprisingly well so far, easily the longest piece I've ever written with the character.

A major catalyst for this piece was finally reading all of Michael Moorcock's Cornelius Quartet. This story involves much more in the way of sexual content and incendiary politics than previous Jenny Everywhere stories of mine, in keeping with its inspirations, the counterculture-inspired Barbelithic roots of the character, and the general tenor of the historical period in which we are living.

This story involves a number of open source characters and ones from public domain literature and Golden Age comics; all the attributions will be gathered in the final post.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

II.

The Situation of Gaynor D'Aeon

It had now been five years since the individual who was known to most in the court as Gaynor D'Aeon had arrived in France and joined the King's Musketeers. When the storm had brought her here, D'Artagnan had joined with her early on as a fellow stranger to the city of Paris. When she showed a natural gift for swordplay, he convinced her to join the King's Musketeers. Normally, the membership of this distinguished organization was closed to all save nobles, but for her gallantry and courage shown against the enemy, the King had awarded her the honorary title of Chevalier. In truth, she did not trust the King or his men, but held a deep-rooted antipathy toward his rival the Cardinal, and so, with a mix of excitement and reluctance, she had signed on.