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Underground > Creation >

Who is Jenny Everywhere?

  
 
grant
11:36 / 01.12.03
So, over yonder, moriarty said:

There are two minor complaints I have with the way Jenny's sci-fi elements have been presented. The first is the idea that the different Jennys on multiple worlds would have major differences in their personalities based on their environment. The second is that Jenny actually travels between dimensions, as opposed to existing in them all at the same time. Jenny isn't just aware that she lives in different worlds (like the Supermen of Earth-1 and Earth-2, say), but she is actually the same person spread out among those universes. There is only one Jenny. She's just multi-tasking. That doesn't mean that she isn't adaptable to her environment, or cannot make personal decisions based upon factors in that environment, but her basic core personality remains the same.

This is different from creating alternate versions of the character like Elseworlds or having her actually bouncing from dimension to dimension like Dr. Who. Any mark a creator wants to make on Jenny's personality should be subtle. After all, even a "normal" person has a great deal of depth that can be explored. If anything, even if you don't add your own take on Jenny, you can develop your own world and cast of characters, while adding to a large, rambling epic adventure.

I'm sorry to toot my own horn here, but even though I'm largely unaware of science-fiction conventions, I can't think of many other stories or characters that have these specific takes on the concept of multiple dimensions. Offering shocking alternate takes on Jenny, or simply having her teleport, seems like missed opportunities.

This is all personal opnion, of course. Grant disagrees with me on the travelling through dimensions thing, for instance. None of these things would contribute to a stroy being denied a spot on the site. I just had to say my piece.


Then impulsivelad said:

I also disagree (obviously). The fact that Jenny exists in multiple dimensions and is aware of all her selves does not a Shifter make... for her to actually be "AKA The Shifter" she has to actually shift between dimensions and that involves travel. It's inherent in the name. And if she travels she can therefor meet her other selves.

Also, if you forget the name... How could the Jenny living in a horrid universe where the Nazi's won World War II and have pretty much killed off most non-white people be/feel/think the same as the happy go lucky Jenny that lives in Right On? She'd have to be a raving lunatic.

But we're all entitled to our opinion.


And then Tryphena Sparks said:
I think the point is that you take a woman from the same starting point, someone who basically would always have the same reactions to things and build from there. So she's the same Jenny living in that horrible universe as the woman living in Right On but each has been shaped differently by their immediate environments.


So.

Well, I've disagreed with moriarty on this before, for much the same reason that impulsivelad puts up: she shifts.
But there's also a more writerly concern -- I'm not sure how to write an interesting story based on what she is rather than what she does. Zooting around between dimensions is kinda cool. I have a handle on that. Existing in parallel universes... in every parallel universe... seems like, well, writing about a bodhisattva. A hair shy of omniscience. Which makes for a difficult character to write.

(Although now that I've actually used the word "bodhisattva" I'm getting the beginning of an idea....)

There is a workaround, continuity-wise, for a Shifter who actually shifts being consistent with Jenny Everywhere Prime -- since infinite dimensions would necessarily include one or more with interdimensional capability (mental technique? big flower-shaped ships?). That's probably one extra caption box a story could do without, but still, there it is.

So -- are we just talking about a character who's a kind of infinitely wise and knowledgeable traveller type?

Or are we even talking about a kind of eternal supporting character in whatever world we happen to want to write?
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
11:57 / 01.12.03
Now, is it just me? Because the only sacred thing I remember about Jenny was that she liked toast. That is, right, isn't it?

I was under the impression she had no "personality" and that's why she was free to be written by all, so easily.

That's all I seem to remember, anyway. And I'm not wading through those threads to check! However, I will freely admit to being wrong.

Also: I've always meant to get involved with Jenny, unfortunately I have discovered - on coutless occasions - I just can't draw her! All my sketches just end up looking awkward and strange.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:10 / 01.12.03
On a tangent, I noticed that in the latest issue of the really-very-good DC comic H-E-R-O, which features a device that can make anyone into a superhero, there's a would-be 'super'villain who uses the device constantly and then screws the whole thing up. He tells cops that he can become many different superpowered characters - after he's lost the device. In a hasty attempt to come up with a name for himself to make himself sound cool, like a real supervillain, he tells police he is called - 'The Shifter.' Because he can shift into many different superpowered characters.

Jenny influenced? Or just coincidence? Synchronicity at its best here, folks.
 
 
moriarty
15:29 / 01.12.03
Suedehead, I wrote the above while wearing my "non-editor hat". If the shaping of Jenny Everywhere is left to Darwinism, then it's obvious that her movement between dimensions is the fittest rendition. So, nyah to me. However, the site does have a few pointers concerning her personality which are signifiers for inclusion on the site. Like the physical signifiers, the more you have the better, though you can get away with leaving a few out (as some people have). This is obviously not applicable if you don't intend to put your story on the site.

Let me tell you a tale, the origin of the Shifter. As I've said before, the Shifter was created for a superhero book, starring a few other characters. There was the All-Around Good At Everything Leader character, the Incredibly Strong And Tough character, and rounding out the group was the Two-Fisted, Agile Adventurer Daredevil character, or, the Shifter. During the first three issues of the book it wasn't at all obvious to the reader and most of the other characters just why the Shifter was on the team, or why she was called the Shifter. Unlike the others, she didn't have any discernable powers.

It was going to be revealed that she does have powers and that they involve shifting between different dimensional states, and possibly being able to shift to other dimensions. In reality, she was far more powerful then that, and existed in all other dimensions at once. If the team were to go to Dimension X, they assumed that their Jenny was going with them. Actually, and without them knowing it, they were then adventuring with the Shifter of Dimension X. Whether she could in fact travel between dimensions (the option most people have taken) was not going to be revealed, though I wouldn't doubt that she would have this ability, which is why I don't have a strong objection to that take on the character. I just feel that the other option is far more interesting. C'est la vie.

And that is why she was called the Shifter; not because she can actually shift between dimensions (though she might) but because it was thought that she could, which is the typical response to viewing her powers. She was just to polite to correct anyone, so it's no wonder that she decided to call herself Jenny after that.

The End.

I left her "powers" purposely vague, largely because I knew that everyone would ignore them anyway. My take on it (and this ain't the gospel; non-editor hat, remember?) is that Jenny is near godlike, as Grant suggests. She is so far above human capability that it's hard for us to perceive. However, she reins those abilities in to challenge herself. And she doesn't necessarily have to exist in infinite dimensions, either. I imagine that she can increase or decrease the amount of dimensions she exists in, which would actually go a long way to explaining Jenny "shifting" into a different dimension.

Impulsivelad, I hope you don't think I was taking a dig at you while writing my initial thoughts. They've been brewing for quite some time, and it was actually while writing about something else that I thought I'd finally mention them. Actually, I quite like your story. That said, I do see a difference in a) having her travel between dimensions and b) being affected by her environment. If she was in a dimension that caused her torment and mental breakdown, why wouldn't she just leave?

I like how Tryphena puts it. The core remains the same, though she may be more happy, mad or sad dependent on where she is. I had the opportunity to read a script about a junkie Jenny, and I thought it was handled very well. You could understand the path she took and the regret she faced for her decisions and the changes that took place because of them. For me, I just try to imagine what my friends would be capable of doing in any specific situation. For example, I might find beating up bouncers, kidnapping business executives, or single-mindedly craving cock to be excessive, but I can imagine someone I know doing such things. Would the Jenny living in your horrid universe be the exact same kind of raving lunatic as everyone else? Would there be varying degrees of lunacy? Where would Jenny fall?
 
 
Perfect Tommy
18:59 / 01.12.03
My personal inclination is to make the 'shifts' be switches in the narrative rather than an actual Nightcrawler BAMF!. As though in some sense Jenny stops paying attention to one self and picks up with another to create a narrative in which the juxtapositions are amusing to her.

I have this one scene in mind where she's sitting and thinking, and there are a jillion thought balloons, some at an angle to the picture plane, representing her sampling from all the Jennies' possible responses based on their personalities...

Oh! I've figured out how I imagine her personality differences: Whereas the rest of us have to choose one option when faced with life-altering choices, Jenny picks all of them. These different choices stacked upon themselves create a radically different Jenny, but one that is still recognizeable as starting from the same little girl.

...I gotta get to work on that script...
 
 
Tamayyurt
19:28 / 01.12.03
If she was in a dimension that caused her torment and mental breakdown, why wouldn't she just leave?

I can imagine her staying for a lot of reasons. The most important one being her family and friends. Who obviously can't shift. I doubt Jenny's the type to bail while people she loves are being tormented. She'd stay and help.

Also, I thought about the Jenny being consciously aware of her other selves... dude, a character like that is unwriteable ( I mean, I can try but... she would have experienced everything possible in one hour of her many lives and then stop being human. And I'm not talking about near God like powers I'm talking about GOD. How could anyone or anything even relate to something that's done/seen/lived everything and everywhere. She'd be something like Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. There'd be no challange left for her.

But that's just probably my limitation as a writer I'm sure some of you could probably write a brilliant Bodhisattva Jenny.

And it's cool, Moriarty... I didn't take it as an attack. I'm just saying this is how I understood Jenny to work (and still do).
 
 
dlotemp
21:56 / 01.12.03
It's funny but I have a slightly different view of Jenny, which just goes to show that an empirical relationship with the world is impossible. That also leads nicely into my view of Jenny. I'm more inclined to moriarty's view of a character who exists nearly simultaneously in multiple dimensions. I figured her shifting came from shifting her attention to one of them. All of the Jenny's have different life experiences, upbringings, etc. and so are nodes of the hole, or perhaps better described as fruit from the Jenny Tree. Sometimes Jenny shifts her perspective to escape unpleasant experiences, and I expect she is a cowardly character in some respects because it IS easy for her to leave. But an ability to leave doesn't mean that a character will leave. We hear about woman who stay with abusive men all the time, stuck in relationships because of the emotional or psychological chains. Jenny can be no different.

One of my recent doodles has been of an African Jenny, a Congolese native, whose hands have been chopped off by rebels. She may be HIV-positive. I'm fascinated by the dilemma that if this is Jenny then why hasn't she left? Why is she staying? What keeps her attention (or body, if you prefer the physical shifter concept) tuned to this horrid reality? Personally, I think she's lost and is trying to find her way out, but it maybe more or less than that. My ultimate point being is that being an Everywhere CAN mean many things to many people and that you can address that character from a different perspective.

This is not to say that I think impulsivelad or anyone else's view is less worthy of moriarty's or mine. G for it. But I do think we can push the envelope more with this character.
 
 
Sax
06:05 / 02.12.03
My understanding... okay, my interpretation of Jenny is that she can't actually move between *dimensions* or *realities*, either physically or mentally. She exists in infinite realities and is *aware* of herself in each of these realities when she wants to be. That's kind of what I was trying to address in My Bloody Valentine, and much more so in mine and Kit-Cat Club's The Death of Jenny Everywhere. As far as I'm concerned, Jenny can't actually get out of scrapes and problems by leaping into a different dimension any more than the rest of us can. But if Jenny of Earth-616 can juggle four apples then Jenny of Earth-303 might be able to draw on this ability if she wants to impress the cute girl from the cider factory, even though she's never juggled before in her life.

At least, I think that's what I think.
 
 
gridley
16:48 / 02.12.03
The impression I came away from the original thread with was this:

Almost every universe has a Jenny Everywhere, and almost every one of those Jenny Everywheres can travel between dimensions.

I think the many Jenny Everywheres have some similar personality traits and some which vary greatly. In fact, in one of the stories I'm tinkering with Jenny Everywhere is actually battling the Jenny Everywhere of another universe in a sort of Moorcockian turf war.

I imagine they see very little of each other, but that there are probably certain places in certain dimensions where multiple Jennys have been known to congregate (International House of Toast perhaps?).

It never occured to me that those Jenny Everywheres were all the same person or somehow spiritually linked or what-have-you. While I think that would make for one good story, I don't think it would make for many good stories.
 
 
Sax
17:37 / 02.12.03
But there are infinite good stories, aren't there, because there are infinite Jennys?
 
 
Not Here Still
13:56 / 03.12.03
OPB grant:

Existing in parallel universes... in every parallel universe... seems like, well, writing about a bodhisattva. A hair shy of omniscience. Which makes for a difficult character to write.

You're telling me. I've been tryiong to write a text story which basically tackles the problem of an omniscient - but as far as I could work out, not omnipotent - character for some time, tackling the question; what about when bad stuff happens and you can't stop it?

I keep dropping the story; it's really interesting to work on, but it is also depressing as hell, and I'm trying to research bits of it which are very bleak.

I'm also thinking that the story may well be examining themes similar to Sax's, so will await to see his with interest as we both appear to have arrived at a similar place through different routes.

(Unless it is up already? I can't seem to find in and posts in a few JE threads seem to suggest that work is still ongoing...)
 
 
sleazenation
20:31 / 03.12.03
Interesting thread and i thought i might have something interesting to add but i'm not so sure i do...
My notion of what the shifter is constantly... shifting in the lates shift Jenny is pretty much an adventuress in the Dr. Who mould which places her simultainiously in the bodhivista and multiplex jenny catagories...

Dlotemp - i both want to read your Congolese jenny strip and kind of don't, not just because reading the story of a mutilated and probably badly molested jenny isn't going to be especially pleasent (and nothing compared to the suffering of all too many Congolese women) but also because i think its going to be very difficult to tell a jenny story with such a set up - i look forward to being proven wrong.
 
 
Eloi Tsabaoth
20:46 / 03.12.03
I imagine they see very little of each other, but that there are probably certain places in certain dimensions where multiple Jennys have been known to congregate (International House of Toast perhaps?).

Everywheresville.
 
  
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