Infinity Apartment (comic story): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:12, 28 December 2021

Infinity Apartment was a Jenny Everywhere webcomic created by Benj Christensen. It introduced a cast of companions for Jenny Everywhere and ran for over forty strips, but was ultimately left unfinished. In 2021, Christensen officially released all the characters and elements introduced in the story as open-source in their own right.

Jenny Everywhere has a break-up conversation with a Robot she'd been dating, who has recently gotten a personality update and come to the conclusion that their personalities are no longer compatible. Jenny is upset with the robot, not because of the break-up itself, but because the robot began the conversation with such a dull cliché as “Jenny, we need to talk”.

Strip 2: Ezri

Ezri, another resident of the Infinity Apartment, holds an inner monologue seemingly full of philosophical insights about ups and downs in life, though it turns out this is all prompted by the fact that she is in fact bouncing on a trampoline.

Strip 3: Keith

Keith refuses to believe that Jenny's apzrtment exists in several realities at once. To prove that they are in a different reality than his own, Jenny opens the door onto a world where a Dragon door-to-door preacher is trying to have a word with Jenny.

Strip 4: Thuban

In honour of Star Wars Shortened, Thuban proposes a stunt of summarising the entire Star Wars series in six comic panels. Unfortunately, as Jenny is quick to point out, he wastes increasing amounts of panels first introducing the gimmick, then discussing its possibility with Jenny, and ends up having to boil everything down to a single comic panel with the caption “Stuff happened”.

Strip 5: ShatterScreen

Waking up in the morning, Jenny is startled by ShatterScreen, a green-clad superhero, who explains that he is “the superhero movie [she] ordered from Webfilms”, as well as by Ezri, who pops out of a waste bin to introduce herself to Jenny as her new flatmate.

Strip 6: Possibilities

Keith sees Jenny listening at one of the doors of the Apartment, an “unclaimed” one marked TBA. She explains that until someone wanting to become her flatmate claims this room, making it turn into a slice of their original reality, they remain filled with “what could have been and what might still be”.

Strip 7: Something New?

Jenny and ShatterScreen notice that everything around them has suddenly changed appearance. ShatterScreen wonders if one of his enemies has used an Abstraction Ray, but Jenny concludes that in all likelihood “the creator just went crazy again trying to settle on an art-style”.

Strip 8: Miscommunication

Jenny, Keith and Thuban are preparing to go to a club. The two men have dressed up and they are confused to see Jenny in a ninja outfit, until she reveals that the club is in fact a ninja club, before demonstrating by vanishing.

Strip 9: Club Jitsu

At the “ninja club” in question, Keith wonders why they appear to be the only people there, only for Jenny to explain that there are probably hundreds of other guests, who are simply such good ninjas they remain invisible to them. Indeed, Thuban and Ezri soon find evidence of this.

Strip 10: Barriers

Now pretty well inebriated, Keith tries, very clumsily, to flirt with a ninja, who disappears on him rather than reply.

Strip 11: It Ain't Foreplay

Jenny notes that Thuban appears to have found himself a date and comments on how he is therefore doing better than Keith — whose ill-fated romantic dealings have got to the point where he is getting throwing-stars hurled at him. Thuban politely notes that the fact that he actually speaks Japanese might be helpful in this regard.

Strip 12: Unfortunately

Jenny, ShatterScreen, Thuban and Ezri have been summoned to Ezri's home universe to liberate the lands from the hordes of the villainous overlord Minrath. Being briefed by a Lady, Jenny is stunned to discover that the “champion of prophecy” they are most keen to have on their side is not Jenny or even Shatterscreen, but “the Marked One” — Ezri.

Strip 13: Runes

In light of this revelation, Jenny asks Ezri what the magical mark on her face is. She explains that it is a magical Rune, though she simply uses it to permanently change her hair colour to the familiar black and purple gradient (whereas her natural hair colour, which has “never felt right”, was blonde). Suddenly, she feels herself losing control of her arms.

Strip 14: Battle

A sword magically appears in Ezri's arms just as she is swarmed by villainous egg-like creatures called the P-Unda.

Strip 15: Quinn

After spending some time smothered by the P-Unda, Ezri is wrenched free by a wandering knight called Quinn.

Strip 16: A Test of Strength

Meanwhile, ShatterScreen has wandered off and is arm-wrestling a Giant.

Strip 17: All Hallows' Eve

In an illustration seemingly detached from the ongoing story, the main cast of the Infinity Apartment are seen having dressed up as various characters for Halloween: Keith is dressed up as Harry Potter, Jenny as Pokémon's Officer Jenny, Ezri as a generic witch, Thuban as Anakin Skywalker and ShatterScreen as Superman.

Strip 18: Some Time Later

Having made their way to his lair, Ezri and Quinn meet the Dark Lord Minrath himself. To their surprise, Minrath, recognising Ezri as the Chosen One, suggests that they decide their contest through a game of Monopoly rather than risk either of their lives.

Strip 19: A Few Words

In a strip clearly outside the narrative of the comic, Benj Christensen apologises to the reader for the fact that the current storyline will not be concluded directly, announcing instead a short break and the return of the comic in revamped form a short time later.

Strip 20: 6 Months Later…

After leaving for six months, Jenny has returned to the Apartment with a rather extreme makeover, now sporting glasses, no goggles or scarf, and long brown hair. She hesitates at the front door, afraid that her friends will reject her — or perhaps not even recognise her.

Strip 21: Jenny Says It Best

Jenny walks in at last, but Ezri does not even realise, being lost in a romantic kiss with Quinn, revealed to be a shapeshifter.

Strip 22: Reunion No. 1

Finally registering her presence, Ezri jumps to hug Jenny before immediately growing more distant and asking her where she's been, to which Jenny answers that it's “a long story”.

Strip 23: Reasons

Jenny explains that when Ezri turned out to be the hero of destiny, rather than Jenny herself, she felt irrationally jealous. Realising that she had let herself grow into the role of the larger-than-life hero around whom the world rsolves, Jenny thus left to reinvent herself.

Strip 24

Ezri reassures Jenny that it's nice to have her back at the Apartment. As Jenny looks at him in askance, she belatedly explains who Quinn is, and that he and Ezri have been dating since the Minrath adventure. Jenny turns the tables on her by showing off a wedding ring and announcing that she, for her part, got married.

Strip 25

Ezri tries to show Jenny to Thuban and explain the news to him, but he seems so absorbed by some kind of video game he's playing that he doesn't even realise Ezri is talking to him.

Strip 26

Jenny visits ShatterScreen's home reality to announce her return and marriage to him, finding him watching over the nightly city from the rooftop of a skyscraper. Meanwhile, Thuban is still sitting silently and playing his game.

Strip 27

Jenny returns to the Apartment to find Keith (who's dyed his hair blue) and tell him the news. Inwardly, Keith feels extremely angry at Jenny's thoughtless abandonment of them and overly casual return, and, having harboured unrequited feelings for Jenny for a long time, he is further angered by the news that she got married to someone she met within those last six months when she's known him for years. However, he maintains a poker-face and simply says hello and congratulates her for her marriage. Meanwhile, Thuban is still sitting silently and playing his game.

Strip 28

The newly-reunited Quinn, Ezri, ShatterScreen, Jenny Everywhere and Keith pose for a group photo for Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, Thuban is still sitting silently and playing his game.

Strip 29

Thuban, still alone silently and playing his game, suddenly bolts upright, throwing away his controller, as the news about Jenny and her marriage finally hit his consciousness.

Worldbuilding

Jenny

This story features a Jenny of variable appearance who is a resident of the Infinity Apartment. It is unclear if she has the ability to change her appearance, or if she is one consciousness who frequently trades bodies with other Jennies.
- She is first seen in Strip #1 wearing green overalls and a short-sleeved periwinkle T-shirt, as well as a beige scarf and gray-blue goggles. She has pale skin and her hair is short and dark, with two short pigtails in the back.
- In Strip #3, she has longer, mauve hair, a dark green T-shirt illustrated with an emoji version of herself, and wears a very light green scarf. Her skin is pale and her goggles are blueish glass with a brown leather strap.
- In Strip #4, she's black, with a large Afro; her scarf is a pale gray and very long, her goggles are a futuristic visor, and she wears cream-coloured clothing with metal shoulder pads.
- In Strip #5, she's a fit, tall woman with long blonde hair, wearing a lime-green top, mauve trousers and crimson scarf.
- In Strip #6, she has very short brown hair and wears a khaki vest and a long, blue-grey scarf. Inside the “unclaimed rooms”, the shifting possibilities include a ginger-haired Jenny with a minimalistic, strap-less pair of sky-blue goggles, and a Jenny with a long beige scarf and vividly red hair done up in short ponytails.
- In Strip #7, she has long, dark brown hair, a sleeveless beige T-shirt and a gray scarf.
- In Strips #8 through #11, she is dressed as a ninja. She is half a head shorter than Keith, has pale skin, and her scarf is bright red.
- In Strips #12 through #18, she has donned steel armour with an infinity symbol on the chest-plate, a helmet adorned with red spikes, and a red cape. She has dark red eyes and short gray-and-black hair, buzzed on the sides. (Within the out-of-continuity Halloween illustration, she is dressed up as Officer Jenny, complete with blue hair; the symbol on her hat is a golden infinity sigil, and she has small glasses.)
- In Strip #20 onwards, she has given herself a makeover, slipping into a less extravagant persona and no longer constantly shifting appearance (except for the small detail of her eye colour). The “new Jenny” has pale skin, long, wavy brown hair, and eyes of changeable colour. She wears glasses, in the pince-nez style, with coloured lenses: she keeps switching them out to match her shirt and eyes. Between Strip #20 and Strip #27, she wears a short-sleeved bue T-shirt matching her eyes, and dark cyan torusers. In Strip #28 she is wearing a red sweater, and has red-tinted glasses to match. From Strip #30 to Strip #34, she is wearing a green shirt and glasses, and has shifted her eyes to be green as well. From Strip #35 to Strip #37, she has red eyes and red-tinted glasses (of a different shape than the ones in Strip #28), but her top changes: in Strip #35 it is a gray sweater; in Strip #36 it is a light orange short-sleeved shirt; in Strip #37 (until she takes it off) it is a dark orange tank top.
- In Strip #38, for unclear reasons, while on an outing with Alan she has reverted to a more classic look with short hair, a beige scarf, a brown aviator jacket, steel goggles, and no pince-nez. Her eyes are blue, her skin white but tan, and her hair is blond.
- In Strip #40 and Strip #41, she is back to the “new Jenny” look, this time with purple eyes and matching glasses whose lenses are in a flattened diamond shape. She is wearing the short-sleeved blue T-shirt again, this time paired with navy-blue trousers.

Universes

This story takes place in the Infinity Apartment, which exists simultaneously in a large number of universes.
Keith comes from one universe.
Jenny shows him another where civilised, bipedal Dragons are commonplace.
Jenny, Keith, Thuban and Ezri visit Club Jitsu in an unidentified universe.
Ezri comes from a classic fantasy universe, which the characters visit in the story arc running from Strip #12 to Strip #18.

Other

The Robot who breaks up with Jenny in Strip 1 contains “five trillion microcircuits”.
The P-Unda are created from raw eggs.

Continuity

A version of ShatterScreen later appeared in GAME: The Jenny Everywhere Roleplaying Game.
According to Scott Sanford, the way the “8” of another Jenny's much more mundane apartment in PROSE: Paying It Forward leans to the side to form an infinity symbol was an allusion to Infinity Apartment, although there is no real narrative connection there.

Behind the scenes

Read online

As this story is now offline at its original location, we reproduce it here with the permission of Benj Christensen.

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@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 |dates= 2006
 |original_link= [https://web.archive.org/web/20130609122511/http://theshifterarchive.com/infinityapt-001/]
-}}'''''Infinity Apartment''''' was a [[Jenny Everywhere]] webcomic created by [[Benj Christensen]].
+}}'''''Infinity Apartment''''' was a [[Jenny Everywhere]] webcomic created by [[Benj Christensen]]. It introduced a cast of companions for [[Jenny Everywhere]] and ran for over forty strips, but was ultimately left unfinished. In 2021, Christensen officially released all the characters and elements introduced in the story as open-source in their own right.
 == Contents ==
 === Plot ===
@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 ====Strip 22: Reunion No. 1====
 Finally registering her presence, [[Ezri]] jumps to hug [[Jenny Everywhere#In the Infinity Apartment|Jenny]] before immediately growing more distant and asking her where she's been, to which Jenny answers that it's “a long story”.
+====Strip 23: Reasons====
+[[Jenny Everywhere#In the Infinity Apartment|Jenny]] explains that when [[Ezri]] turned out to be the hero of destiny, rather than Jenny herself, she felt irrationally jealous. Realising that she had let herself grow into the role of the larger-than-life hero around whom the world rsolves, Jenny thus left to reinvent herself.
+====Strip 24====
+[[Ezri]] reassures [[Jenny Everywhere#In the Infinity Apartment|Jenny]] that it's nice to have her back at [[Infinity Apartment|the Apartment]]. As Jenny looks at him in askance, she belatedly explains who [[Quinn (Infinity Apartment)|Quinn]] is, and that he and Ezri have been dating since the [[Minrath]] adventure. Jenny turns the tables on her by showing off a wedding ring and announcing that she, for her part, got married.
+====Strip 25====
+[[Ezri]] tries to show [[Jenny Everywhere#In the Infinity Apartment|Jenny]] to [[Thuban]] and explain the news to him, but he seems so absorbed by some kind of video game he's playing that he doesn't even realise Ezri is talking to him.
+====Strip 26====
+[[Jenny Everywhere#In the Infinity Apartment|Jenny]] visits [[ShatterScreen#In the Infinity Apartment|ShatterScreen]]'s [[Universe E (Infinity Apartment)|home reality]] to announce her return and marriage to him, finding him watching over the nightly city from the rooftop of a skyscraper. Meanwhile, [[Thuban]] is still sitting silently and playing his game.
+====Strip 27====
+[[Jenny Everywhere#In the Infinity Apartment|Jenny]] returns to the [[Infinity Apartment|Apartment]] to find [[Keith (Infinity Apartment)|Keith]] (who's dyed his hair blue) and tell him the news. Inwardly, Keith feels extremely angry at Jenny's thoughtless abandonment of them and overly casual return, and, having harboured unrequited feelings for Jenny for a long time, he is further angered by the news that she got married to someone she met within those last six months when she's known him for years. However, he maintains a poker-face and simply says hello and congratulates her for her marriage. Meanwhile, [[Thuban]] is still sitting silently and playing his game.
+====Strip 28====
+The newly-reunited [[Quinn (Infinity Apartment)|Quinn]], [[Ezri]], [[ShatterScreen#In the Infinity Apartment|ShatterScreen]], [[Jenny Everywhere#In the Infinity Apartment|Jenny Everywhere]] and [[Keith (Infinity Apartment)|Keith]] pose for a group photo for [[Thanksgiving]]. Meanwhile, [[Thuban]] is still sitting silently and playing his game.
+====Strip 29====
+[[Thuban]], still alone silently and playing his game, suddenly bolts upright, throwing away his controller, as the news about Jenny and her marriage finally hit his consciousness.
 === Worldbuilding ===
 ==== Jenny ====

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