View source for Morning After (novel)

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Morning After'' (novel)}}{{Short Story
| title1=''Morning After''
| image1= Morning After.png
| caption1=
| other_titles=
| hero(es)= [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny Everywhere]]
| villain(s)= [[Robo-Stalin]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>
| featuring= [[Haroun the Thrice Cursed]]<br>[[David Lowe]]<br>[[Kim]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Professor Awesome#Kim and Jenny's neighbour|Professor Awesome]]<br>[[Jenny Everywhere's father]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Simon Jacobs]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Superman]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Jenny Everywhere's mother]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Amelia Earhart]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Jimmy Wherever]]/[[Jimmy Anytime]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Thoth (Morning After)|Thoth]]<br>[[Steven Lucas]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Eric's mother]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Octobriana#Fighting Robo-Stalin|Octobriana]]<br>[[Prince of the Fair Folk|The Prince of the Fair Folk]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Jenny Everywhere's fire-breathing cow]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small>
| setting= [[Universe (Parallax)|Unnamed universe]]
| length= 3 chapters<br><small>(ongoing)</small>
| writer(s)= [[Scott Sanford]]
| artist(s)=
| dates= May 6th, 2022 - May 20th, 2022
| original_link= [https://scott-sanford.dreamwidth.org/47453.html]<br>[https://scott-sanford.dreamwidth.org/48113.html]<br>[https://scott-sanford.dreamwidth.org/48433.html]
| seriesnav = [[Scott Sanford's Jenny Everywhere stories]]
| previous  = ''[[Truth in Labeling (short story)|Truth in Labeling]]''
| next = ''[[Fragment: Lunchtime in the Old West (short story)|Fragment: Lunchtime in the Old West]]''
}}'''''Morning After''''' was a [[Jenny Everywhere]] webnovel serialised weekly by [[Scott Sanford]] starting in early May 2022. It acted as a direct sequel to Sanford's earlier serialised story ''[[Paying It Forward (novel)|Paying It Forward]]''.

==Contents==
===Plot===
==== Part 1: Haroun the Thrice Cursed ====
Waking up in the morning, [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny Everywhere]] feels a “[[shifter hangover]]” coming on. She phones her editor at [[Stone]], [[Haroun the Thrice Cursed|Haroun]], to warn him that she's “not a hundred percent today” — and finds herself slipping into florid, antiquated language while talking to the phone operator. However, she does get through to Haroun eventually, with him telling her to give his regards to “[[David Lowe|David al-Hajar]]” if she sees him. After hanging up, she experiences a flash from the life of a [[Jenny Everywhere#Between Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul|sea-faring Jenny]] who's somehow trading ''between'' [[Byzantium]], [[Constantinople]] and [[Istanbul]]. When she begins to think about eating some [[toast]], she gets a flash from [[Jenny Everywhere#Building a mill|a Jenny]] who has been working, alongside several other people, on building a mill so that they can make themselves bread, and who have ''just'' gotten it working at last. She decides to go talk to David, if only to warn him that “some weird stuff” might be going on.

==== Part 2: David ====
[[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny]] goes across to [[David Lowe|David]]'s apartment and knocks. After he answers the door, she explains her predicament to him at some length, also telling him about a few of her ghost-memories to double-check that they don't match with anything she's mentioned before and are indeed spillovers from other Jennies. Walking back, she bumps (quite literally) into [[Thoth (Morning After)|Thoth]], [[Steven Lucas|Steven]]'s talking cat [[familiar]], who asks her to tell Steven to buy him more tuna when next she sees him, and also advises her to go check on “[[Professor Awesome#Kim and Jenny's neighbour|the kid]]” downstairs, as he is “doing mad science again”.

==== Part 3: Professor Awesome ====
[[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny]] heads down the stairs, getting another glimpse of another universe (where [[Jenny Everywhere#Opposing Robo-Stalin with Octobriana|another Jenny]] is engaged in an adventure with [[Octobriana#Fighting Robo-Stalin|Octobriana]]) when she looks out the window, and finds [[Professor Awesome#Kim and Jenny's neighbour|Eric]] sitting on the stairs and scribbling schematics in his notebook. Looking over his shoulder, she recognises the design as a new kind of [[de-pants-icator]] and reminds him of how much trouble he got in with the last version. A sulky Eric protests that he has no intention of using the new device, but merely wants to prove to himself that he could improve the design. She briefly gets a glimpse of yet another universe, where an [[Professor Awesome#Wreaking havoc|older version of Professor Awesome]] has become a genuine, murderous supervillain whom her [[Jenny Everywhere#Fighting Professor Awesome|local self]] is fighting in earnest. Dismissing the vision, she simply convinces Eric that he's already proven his intellectual worth by drawing the plans, and there's no need to actually build the device in real life. They chat for a while, with Jenny cautioning the boy against foolhardy plans, before Jenny heads off. Feeling her grasp on this reality becoming increasingly unsteady, she decides to go take a nap.

===Worldbuilding===
====Jenny Everywhere====
*The story stars the [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|“default Jenny”]] of [[Scott Sanford's Jenny Everywhere stories]]. However, she gets telepathic glimpses of the lives of her other selves in several other universes, including:
** a [[Jenny Everywhere#Between Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul|sea-faring Jenny]] who's somehow trading ''between'' [[Byzantium]], [[Constantinople]] and [[Istanbul]];
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Building a mill|a Jenny]] who has been working, alongside several other people, on building a mill so that they can make themselves bread, and who have ''just'' gotten it working at last;
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Jenny Jacobs|one]] who grew up in a suburban house in [[Wisconsin]] with a [[Simon Jacobs|white father]], recognisable as a variation of Jenny Jacobs;
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Origins|one]] whose origins matched the [[Jenny Everywhere: Secret Origins|inaccurate origin story]] once read by [[Retro]] in [[Universe B (The Secret Origin of Jenny Everywhere)|one world]];
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Growing up in Pennsylvania|one]] who “grew up on a farm in [[Pennsylvania]]” with “[[Amelia Earhart|her mother]]'s biplane hidden behind the barn”.
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Cloning factory|one]] who is busy reconverting an old space-ship into a cloning factory to make new Jennies to seed across [[the Multiverse]].
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Opposing Robo-Stalin with Octobriana|one]] who was familiar with a boisterous [[Octobriana#Fighting Robo-Stalin|version of Octobriana]] who rode a dinosaur and intended to travel back in time to fight [[Robo-Stalin]].
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Fighting Professor Awesome|one]] who was fighting a genuinely dangerous [[Professor Awesome#Wreaking havoc|version]] of [[Professor Awesome]].
** [[Jenny Everywhere#Owner of a fire-breathing cow|one]] who owned a [[Jenny Everywhere's fire-breathing cow|fire-breathing cow]] and had frequent dealings with the [[Fae]].
* Jenny also thinks back to two of her other selves who bickered with each other at the after party, the “very English” [[Jenny Everywhere#Jenny Cornelius|Jenny Cornelius]] and the “very French” [[Jenny Everywhere#Jeanne Partout|Jeanne Partout]].
* In conversation with [[Professor Awesome#Kim and Jenny's neighbour|Eric]], she mentions [[Jenny Everywhere#Meddling in Camelot|a version]] of her who brought a [[Panzer III]] to the [[Battle of Camlann]]. It proved insufficient to turn the tide of the battle but did “come in handy during the evac to [[Avalon]]”.

==== Jimmy Wherever & Jimmy Anytime ====
* One of [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny]]'s hangover-induced ghost-memories is of hanging around with “a guy in a Canadian flag T-shirt” — “tall, broad-shouldered, [[Jimmy Wherever|maybe blond]]. Or [[Jimmy Anytime|brown hair]]. Probably not a redhead”. As far as [[David Lowe|David]] knows, no such person is around in [[Universe_(Parallax)|this world]].

==== Octobriana ====
* One of [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny]]'s hangover-induced ghost-memories involves her having a friendly conversation with “[[Octobriana#Fighting Robo-Stalin|a blonde woman wearing a red star on her forehead and not enough clothing for the weather]]” who is riding a tame dinosaur, and intends to travel back in time to 1971 to fight “[[Robo-Stalin]]”.

====Universes====
* The story, starring [[Scott Sanford]]'s [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|“default Jenny”]], primarily takes place in [[Universe (Parallax)|her universe]], but Jenny gets telepathic glimpses of the lives of her other selves in several other universes.

==== Other ====
* [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny]] recently sent in a review for a band called ''[[Coelacanths and Possums]]''.
* Jenny gets what she describes as a “[[shifter hangover]]” as a result of overusing her shifting powers the previous ays. She describes it as: “my head is too full. Way too full of way too many of me. And among other stuff it’s got me remembering the wrong things”. It also causes minor “glitches” in reality around her.
* On [[April Fools' Day]], somebody replaced the “10” on [[David Lowe|David]]'s apartment door with an {{w|Aleph number|aleph-null}}; “[[Kim]] snickered and [[Professor Awesome#Kim and Jenny's neighbour|Professor Awesome]] just about injured himself laughing”.
* Both Jenny and David are familiar with the story of [[Superman]]. His father was a scientist and he was shot me away from their doomed planet of [[Krypton]] as a baby; his space pod then dropped out of the sky and he grew up on a farm in [[Kansas]] with a family called the Kents”.
* The [[Professor Awesome#Wreaking havoc|alternative Professor Awesome]] gets around in an [[Professor Awesome's Omnibus|Omnibus]] with a turret.
* When asked how she obtained a [[Panzer III]], Jenny prevaricates, “as a rule, [[Nazi]]s have more weapons than they should, so if you steal weapons from Nazis it’s a public service”. 

===Continuity===
* This story acts as a direct sequel to the earlier serialised story [[PROSE]]: ''[[Paying It Forward (novel)|Paying It Forward]]'', taking place immediately after its events.
* [[Jenny Everywhere#Kim's friend|Jenny]]'s job as a music critic, first seen in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Camera Shy (short story)|Camera Shy]]'', is featured once again.
* Jenny gets flashes of [[Jenny Everywhere's father|her father]], despite, in this incarnation, not being sure that she's ever had one. They include “a white guy in [[Wisconsin]]” who lived in a suburban house and had a workshop — [[Simon Jacobs]] as seen in [[COMIC]]: ''[[The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles (comic story)|The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles]]'' — and a scientist in a labcoat who “shot [her] away from our doomed planet as a baby” in “a [[the Pod|space pod]]”, matching the purported origin story for Jenny Everywhere given in [[COMIC]]: ''[[The Secret Origin of Jenny Everywhere (comic story)|The Secret Origin of Jenny Everywhere]]''.
* [[Shifter energy|Shift energy]] is mentioned. “Shifter energy” was previously prominently featured in [[COMIC]]: ''[[Makeshift Multiverse (comic story)|Makeshift Multiverse]]''.
* [[Professor Awesome#Kim and Jenny's neighbour|Eric]] is trying to build a new [[de-pants-icator]]. The trouble he got into for building the first one was the subject of the character's first-ever mention in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Paying It Forward (novel)|Paying It Forward]]''.
* The [[Professor Awesome#Wreaking havoc|alternative Professor Awesome]] glimpsed by Jenny is mentioned to have once built a [[Time Pestle]], and speculated to have possibly now built a new one. The usual version of Awesome was mentioned to have created a Time Pestle in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Pit Stop (novel)|Pit Stop]]'' and later come to regret it.
* Jenny gives more detail on her mishaps in [[Shangri-La]] in this very incarnation, first mentioned in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Paying It Forward (novel)|Paying It Forward]]''.
* When her confused memories make Jenny wonder if the apartment building has altered its shapes while she wasn't looking, Jenny reflects that “we had [[The Strange and Wonderful House|a house like that]] once — “a vast and ever-changing palace, strange and wonderful and alive”. This is the titular setting of [[PROSE]]: ''[[Our Strange and Wonderful House (novel)|Our Strange and Wonderful House]]''. In her [[shifter hangover]]-addled mind, this memory becomes blurred with that of “[[Infinity Apartment|an apartment full of universes]]”, the setting of [[COMIC]]: ''[[Infinity Apartment (comic story)|Infinity Apartment]]''.
* Jenny mentions remembering that “[[Jenny Everywhere#The Robbery|one of <nowiki>[her]</nowiki>]] got in trouble for trying to steal a diamond from the [[Louvre]]”. [[Scott Sanford]] confirmed this was intended as a reference to the “robbery” scene in [[COMIC]]: ''[[My Bloody Valentine (comic story)|My Bloody Valentine]]''. [[COMIC]]: ''[[The Death of Jenny Everywhere (comic story)|The Death of Jenny Everywhere]]'' had previously suggested that this Jenny in fact got killed as a result of the heist going wrong.

== Behind the scenes ==
===Background===
[[Scott Sanford]] gave some [https://scott-sanford.dreamwidth.org/48773.html commentary] to the story, broken down by part.
{{quotebox|I hope the brief flashes of other Jennies works well for the readers. I found them fun to write; some of these worlds are ones I’d like to know more about.<br />'''Part One:'''<br />This is the first mention of [[Haroun the Thrice-Cursed]] and the first naming of the magazine that pays Jenny to write about music. (I had meant ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone Rolling Stone]'' not ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_(magazine) Slate]'' but when the potential ambiguity was pointed out on [[Stone|the wiki page]] I liked it.)<br />It's logical that Jenny Cornelius was the 1970s Jenny who was playing chess with the priest; I don't think our viewpoint Jenny described Jeanne Partout during ''[[Paying It Forward (novel)|Paying It Forward]]''.<br />'''Part Two:'''<br>Jenny’s fathers include [[The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles (comic story)|a white guy from Wisconsin]] and [[The Secret Origin of Jenny Everywhere (comic story)|a scientist with a pod]]. Hm. Diplomatic of David to say, “You probably had a father”.<br />The Canadian guy? Jenny might remember him [[Jimmy Anytime|any time]], or [[Jimmy Wherever|wherever]] they met. Or not. If she can't remember that there are at least two of them, he must not be that important to her.<br />It was probably wise not to get sidetracked into discussing [[Everywhere Explorer|her family's biplanes]].<br />And Steven has a talking cat. At this point I can’t even be surprised.<br />'''Part Three:'''<br />That [[Octobriana|dinosaur-riding woman]] sounds like a trouble magnet.<br />Nobody needed armored cavalry support at the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Camlann Battle of Camlann]. On the brighter side, the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Cavern Devil's Arse] has been cleaned up a lot in our universe.<br />Jenny conflates [[Our Strange and Wonderful House (novel)|a house]] and [[Infinity Apartment (comic story)|an apartment]]; I can’t blame her, could you?<br />Incidentally, if anyone feels inspired by any of the worlds Jenny flashed onto and wants to investigate them more, please be my guest. Some of those Jenny Everywheres are obviously doing very interesting things that barely got touched upon in this story. I’d like to know more about the crew of the ''[[Cheshire Catamaran]]'' and what the deal is with Jenny’s fire breathing cow...|Scott Sanford}}

===Read online===
The story is [https://scott-sanford.dreamwidth.org/47453.html available] on the author's website. 

[[Category:Stories]]
[[Category:Prose Stories]]
[[Category:Novels]]
[[Category:Surviving Stories]]
[[Category:Written by Scott Sanford]]
[[Category:Released in 2022]]
[[Category:Multi-Shifter Stories]]
[[Category:Featuring Jenny Everywhere]]
[[Category:Featuring Kim]]
[[Category:Featuring Professor Awesome]]
[[Category:Featuring Jenny Everywhere's mother]]
[[Category:Featuring Jenny Everywhere's father]]
[[Category:Featuring Jimmy Wherever]]
[[Category:Featuring Jimmy Anytime]]
[[Category:Featuring Octobriana]]
[[Category:Featuring David Lowe]]