Media Notes / Jenny Everywhere

One of the many interpretations of Jenny Everywhere. ^note (Art by Diana Nock, colours by Aristide Twain.)

"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, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed."

—The license for Jenny Everywhere

Jenny Everywhere is the world's first open-source fictional character. Although she appears mainly in webcomics, Jenny is freely available for use in other media, and must remain so.

Jenny has no official website (the closest thing would be The Shifter Archive), publication, or Backstory. Jenny has the power to shift between parallel universes, or she exists in every universe, or both. Her appearance varies, but the creator has this as a general description which writers honor to varying degrees:

She has short, dark hair. She usually wears aviation goggles on top of her head and a scarf around her neck. Otherwise, she dresses in comfortable clothes. She is average size and has a good body image. She has loads of confidence and charisma. She appears to be Asian or Native American. She has a ready smile.

Additionally, her common depiction by writers has her as enthusiastic, kind, generally angst-free, and eager for adventure and toast.

Jenny was created by Canadian cartoonist Steven Wintle on the loosely Grant Morrison-centric counterculture forum Barbelith, where she appeared in a bunch of comics. Eventually interest in her died out there, but she's gone on to appear in many, many other webcomics and stories.

Works indexed on TV Tropes which feature Jenny Everywhere

Fan Works

• Change of Plans
• Crowns of the Kingdom
• Hottie 5: Fifty Shades of Epic
• The Infinite Loops
• Left Beyond in which she ends up helping keep Cendrillon safe through the Tribulation and, after another dimensional jaunt that lands her 900 years later in that timeline, being mistaken for an avatar of the goddess Hekate.
• Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights: Jenny makes a cameo appearance in "The Non-Canonical Lunatic Crack Chapter", alongside many other Dimensional Travelers.
• Wednesday and the Shifter

Literature

• The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids
• The Genesis of Jenny Everywhere, an (as yet unfinished) attempt at creating a backstory for one incarnation of Jenny.
• Grangefield Park and its companion piece, The Maybe Invasion.
• The Gods Are Bastards
• The ISOT'd House: One Woman Goes from 2012 to 1952: And her Evil Counterpart, as well.
• Not Quite A Treasure Chest

Webcomics

• Arthur, King of Time and Space here.
• The Bare Pit
• The Crossoverlord
• Crossoverkill
• The Easy Breather
• Heroes Alliance
• I.M. Hip
• Jenny Everywhere's Infinite: Quark Time
• Jenny and the Multiverse
• Kaza's Mate Gwenna: Shows up to meet her contractual obligations, then leaves before she'd have to join the main cast.
• Life and Death
• Lightning Made of Owls (here)
• Scandal Sheet
• Shelterville Shuffle: Vouches for the wayward tricksters to the Shelterville Sheriff, then shows up later to give them a ride out of town.
• Super Milestone Wars 2
• Tales to Behold: She has made several guest appearances, often in crowd scenes.
• Times Like This: Two appearances.
  • She's at a nightclub talking trash about her ex-boyfriend... a guy who plans to exact revenge for the breakup by making a song out of her phone number. Yes, she's that Jenny.
  • She's now got a revenue stream, thanks to Cassie Retconning her into becoming one of the founders of Jenn-Air.
• Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red
• Union of Heroes

Web Video

• Atop the Fourth Wall: Jenny makes a cameo as one of the contestants in the 1,049th Contest of Champions, same as Linkara, although only in the form of her name seen climbing through the brackets.

---

Tropes:

• Alliance of Alternates: Jenny Everywhere occasionally meets up with her parallel selves, sometimes to help a particular Jenny with a tight situation, and other times just to hang out.
• All-Loving Hero: Sometimes Downplayed Depending on the Writer, but Jenny's multiversal perspective means that for any given enemy she encounters, there's a universe out there where they're her best friend. As a result, she is often depicted as having little to no personal animosity toward her enemies, and wanting to redeem them if possible. This does not mean she will flinch at doing what is necessary if that's not an option, mind you.
• Alternate Self: Jenny's primary characteristic is to have an infinite number of them in every possible reality, all of whom have a mind-link to her and share her name. Additionally, there are various "variations" on the core concept of Jenny, such as Jenny Nowhere.
• Ambiguously Brown: Her creator merely says that "she appears to be Asian or Native American".
• Author Appeal: Naturally, different versions of Jenny tend to reflect their interests. In some of the Barbelith stories, she spent a lot of time clubbing and obsessing over music. In the nudist webcomic Loxie and Zoot/The Bare Pit, she gets naked a lot. In The Easy Breather, she inspires Samantha by showing her a DVD.
• Black Cloak: Worn by Jenny Nowhere to disguise her identity in Tales to Behold in her guise as "Evil Cloak".
• Cain and Abel: Depending on the Writer, Jenny's archenemy Jenny Nowhere is sometimes her older sister.
• Chess with Death: Played a very The Seventh Seal-esque game for her soul with the Grim Reaper in the online short Mitigating Circumstances, and won.
• Depending on the Artist: Jenny's specific appearance is deliberately vague so as to give freedom to creators to draw her how they want, so in addition to every artist's varying art styles, each interpretation is going to be at least slightly different from another.
• Depending on the Writer: Actively encouraged; the nature of Jenny's character means that her various incarnations often vary wildly between stories, though her base personality stays generally true to the brief, by and large. This even goes for the nature of her powers. The same variability is also given by the original brief for Jenny's Evil Counterpart, Jenny Nowhere, as part of the character' core concept: "in each universe there's a Jenny Everywhere who's recognizably Jenny Everywhere in name, character and appearance... and somewhere in each universe there's a Jenny Nowhere who's recognizably Jenny Nowhere In Name Only."
• Dimensional Traveler: Jenny has the ability to "shift" between universes, hence her nickname.
• Evil Counterpart: Jenny Nowhere, as described above, has many counterparts and variations of her own, but her primary description is as a living antithesis of Jenny Everywhere who shares name and powers.
• Evil Wears Black: Jenny's Evil Counterpart Jenny Nowhere is usually depicted as wearing all-black, whether that be a figure-hugging black catsuit, a black tux, a black skirt and tank top, or (in her guise as “Evil Cloak” in Tales to Behold) a plain old hooded Black Cloak.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Jenny has often been shown to have romantic relationships with non-humanoid alien beings (starting in one of her earliest comics) as well as with humans of various genders. Somewhat downplayed inasmuch that Jenny is not as especially promiscuous; indeed, whether her relationships with the more Squicky aliens are sexual in nature, or asexual romances, is left ambiguous.
• Face–Heel Turn: The first Jenny ever to become cut off from the telepathic network of Jennies changed her name to Jenny Nowhere as part of her Face–Heel Turn.
• Familial Body Snatcher: A rare benevolent variant occurs in one of Scott Sanford's stories, where it is mentioned that one incarnation of Jenny's daughter herself turned out to be an incarnation of Jenny. She only started to be able to tap into the hive-mind's memory when she was fourteen, by which time the mother-Jenny had died on an adventure. This allowed the daughter to gain insights into he mother's life, and pick up where she left off using tools her mother left her, which she now remembered how to use.
• Flash Sideways: Jenny has the ability to share thoughts and memories with her alternate selves.
• Gender Bender: Male incarnations of Jenny tend to go by "Johnny Everywhere" or "Jerry Everywhere".
• Genki Girl: No what version of her, Jenny is always described as excitable, carefree, and fun-loving.
• Goggles Do Nothing: In most cases, Jenny's aviator goggles are just for show. One story hints that she inherited her from her mother, who was an aviator.
• Hanging Up on the Grim Reaper: Boiled down to its bare essentials in the 'flash fiction' snippet Memento Mori.
  "It's too late," said Death.
  
  "No it isn't," answered Jenny.
• Interpretative Character: Pretty much her entire shtick. Aside from certain traits in appearance and personality, Jenny Everywhere exists to be an Interpretative Character and used by any artist for their use.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Jenny verges on this sometimes, sometimes its Downplayed and sometimes those traits are Flanderized Depending on the Artist.
• Meaningful Name: She is supposed to exist in all possible realities, and is thus pretty much "everywhere". Her power to "shift" between realities gives her the title/nickname "The Shifter".
• Mirror Self: Depending on the Writer, Jenny Nowhere may or may not in fact be an alternate version of Jenny who atypically "went bad" and was cut off from the telepathic network of Jennies (not necessarily in that order). Wherever she came from, she has many traits of a classic Mirror Self: she has all of Jenny's powers and none of the compassion. She is often depicted as being dressed in all black, appearing as a statuesque, white, blond-haired woman to Everywhere's chubby, dark-haired Asian self (although other Nowheres look just like Everywhere with an Evil Costume Switch).
• Multiple-Choice Past: Any individual incarnation of Jenny might have her own origin story and ancestry. Additionally, there is no real agreement on how Jenny Everywhere as a whole came to be, with many stories hinting at different answers or non-answers. The Secret Origin of Jenny Everywhere highlights this by providing a completely straightforward origin story for Jenny's multi-dimensional nature, only for the last page to reveal it was an in-universe comic-book based on Jenny's fame, which the real Jenny is only "sorta" accurate.
• Obvious Crossover Method: Since Jenny is defined by the gimmick that there is a version of her in every reality, it is part of the premise itself that she supposedly already exists in whatever fictional universe you want to write about — just off-screen… And that's before you go into the fact that most versions of Jenny are Dimensional Travelers who can leave their home reality at will to explore The Multiverse.
• Our Archons Are Different: In The Hermetic Garbage of Jenny Everywhere, the Archons of the Redoubt are a group of former time- and dimension-travellers who have retired from individual adventuring, and dwell in a fortress at the End of Time, from which they oversee threats to the stability of the cosmos. Jenny's own mother is one; formerly Captain Amelia Midnight of the hypership Zephyrus, she is now addressed as "Amelia, Archon Midnight".
• Polyamory: Jenny is frequently shown maintaining romantic relationships with several individuals (of various genders and species) simultaneously, in different dimensions.
• Plucky Girl: While her personality may shift from interpretation to interpretation, many versions of Jenny are described as happy-go-lucky, enthusiastic, and fun.
• Public Domain Character: Jenny was specifically created to be used by everyone and anyone.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Along with the goggles, it's a part of her stock outfit adding to aviator theme she appears have going.
• Sir Cameos-a-Lot: Jenny Everywhere is a Public Domain Character who doesn't even have an original "canon", so her cameos and crossover appearances definitely outnumber the stories where she's a star.
• Take Away Their Name: One of the attributes of "Jenny Nowhere" — she "lost" her name ages ago in mysterious circumstances, and it remains a sore subject with her. The title of "Jenny Nowhere" simply emphasises her Evil Counterpart nature to Jenny Everywhere, but it's not actually her name.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Jenny often mentions a love of toast as one of her core character quirks when introducing herself.
• Unsound Effect: The sound of Jenny's shifting is sometimes rendered as simply "Shift!", although it's also been ascribed a variety of more conventional sound effects, including "Womph", "Fzzzz" and "Splink".
• Villainous Crush: In King Francis Petty's stories, Jenny Nowhere has a one-sided crush on Everywhere and is principally motivated by trying to get Jenny to reciprocate (in extremely convoluted, destructive ways).
• Walking the Earth: Jenny goes wherever the wind takes her, sometimes even through The Multiverse depending on the interpretation.
• Weirdness Magnet: Something interesting always seems to happen wherever Jenny arrives.

---