To Hell With Good Intentions (novel)
To Hell With Good Intentions is a Jenny Everywhere story by okaykaye. Initially presented as the recollections of the Makeshift Jenny Everywhere about a past iteration of herself, it eventually shifted focus to an anthology of loosely-connected vignettes told across multiple perspectives. It is planned to run for a total of ten chapters.
Contents
Plot
Chapter 1
Sometime after a partial restoration of reality following the collapsed cosmos, in the New York City of Reality 45, one version of Jenny Everywhere and Nazira Chaudhry flee from a Martian tripod destroying the city's power grid after travelling to the city in an attempt to solve an argument over the true identity of Banksy. Using spray paint cans, Jenny establishes communications with the Martian, who explains his grievances with Thomas Edison for the counter-invasion of Mars after their failed invasion of Earth. After taking the Martian back to 1898 to 'vaporise' Edison, Jenny returns Naz to her home in London. Describing her as unique across a 'million million' universes, Jenny offers to take Naz to an archive 'at the centre of infinity,' an offer Naz accepts.
Chapter 2
Jenny and Naz awaken in The Mausoleum, a region of The Infinite where 'decommissioned' Jennys are remade and sent off to seed newly-formed universes. They are collected by a servitor and brought to the Council Chambers for questioning. Jenny is brought before a Provisional Council of the Magisterium consisting of Jennifer Barbelith, Blobby Everywhere, and Jenny Wasteland. They sentence her to a 'work-release' program of helping them resolve some of the lingering after-effects of the collapse.
Chapter 3
In The Old House, Concordat Agents Michael Béliveau, James Cooke, Julie Raleigh, and “Penny” remotely monitor Jenny Everywhere as she travels to Castle Erenow to resolve an anomalous event for the Magisterium. There, the Jenny meets with an unknown woman who hands her a vial of shifter energy. The Agents discover the unidentified owner of the castle is Lady Erenow, Reality 45's Jenny Nowhere, who promptly taunts the agents that she is aware of their surveillance.
Chapter 4
Separated from Jenny, Naz finds herself battling mechanical adversaries on a train in a reality selected by the Magisterium to serve as her “personal hell”. She is saved from a giant robot spider by a woman named Sophs, who attempts to reverse the mental link enforced upon her by the Magisterium. She succeeds, retroactively removing Naz from their database. Naz escapes the reality thanks to Sophie's intervention.
Worldbuilding
Jenny Everywhere
- This story features a cynical, distrustful Jenny from Reality 45, designated “Shifter B-45-A” by the Magisterium, Jennifer Hsu by her own account, and the “Derelict” Jenny by external sources. She has isolated herself from the mental link in the wake of the collapsed cosmos, stating that she can only “vaguely sense” her other selves. As a result of this disconnect, Lady Erenow describes her as “halfway to Nowhere”.
- Other versions of Jenny appear as members of the Magisterium:
- A regal and imperious Jenny who has adopted the name Jennifer Barbelith, who leads the council proceedings.
- Blobby Everywhere, a clumsy yellow and pink monstrosity.
- A version of Jenny hailing from a post-apocalyptic Wasteland.
- A ‘Jenry’ vacuum cleaner.
- The Jenny of Reality 45 has had romantic relationships with Nazira Chaudhry and Lady Erenow, her universe's version of Jenny Nowhere.
- The Jenny of Reality 45 has a tendency to swear on “both” of her mums.
- During a bout of Shifter Hangover, the Jenny of Reality 45 experiences a brief vision of herself as a brave knight.
- The Jenny of Reality 45 expresses a distaste for creating Anchors.
- In the Magisterium's database, the Jenny of Reality 45 has received the designation “Purple” due to her actions during a Zeppelin War in Prague. Concordat Agent Apinya Madsiri suggested she be raised to designation 'Magenta' for damaging reality through her actions in New York. This is downgraded to a 'Chartreuse' as part of her 'work-release' program.
Nazira Chaudhry
- This story introduces Nazira “Naz” Chaudhry, of Reality 45, who that universe's Jenny considers a unique entity across “a million million universes”. Her unique status in the hypercosmos was caused retroactively by the intervention of a version of Sophie Everytime when she tried to undo a mental link the Magisterium attempted to force onto Naz.
- Naz is horrified by Blobby Everywhere.
- Naz mentions growing up in the Brick Lane, part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
- Her father made her take self-defense classes before she started sixth form.
- Naz dislikes the Steampunk subculture, causing the Magisterium to shift her into a Steampunk universe that she considered her 'personal hell.'
Jenny Nowhere
- The Jenny Nowhere of Reality 45 adopted the pseudonym of Lady Calpernia Erenow, residing in a Castle on the Yorkshire moors formerly belonging to Carmilla le Fanu. She has a romantic relationship with her reality's Jenny Everywhere.
- Concordat Agent Michael Béliveau considers her to smile as if she's in on a private joke.
- While experiencing a bout of Shifter hangover, the Jenny Everywhere of Reality 45 saw a “dastardly sorceress”.
Michael Wherever
- Michael Béliveau appears as an agent of the Concordat.
Sophie Everytime
- A version of Sophie Everytime appears in the Steampunk universe Nazira Chaudhry is transported into by the Magisterium, claiming to be from the future of Reality 45. This iteration refers to herself by the nickname “Sophs”. Nazira Chaudhry believes her to be “about thirty”.
- Her style of altering reality is compared by Nazira Chaudhry to someone “weaving spells” like the strokes of a paintbrush.
- Nazira Chaudhry, after suspecting that Sophie was the biological daughter of her reality's Jenny, believes that Sophs has inherited a distinct familial style of leaning on walls.
- The Reality 45 iteration of Sophie states that she can communicate with beings while she alters them, stating that she helped a giant robot spider to rethink his choices “on a molecular level” and reconstructed him as a flower pot in Marrakesh. She expresses a fondness for Marrakesh, which she describes as 'lovely.'
- The Sophie Everytime of Reality 45 considers that universe's version of Nazira Chaudry to be her adoptive mother after an unspecified fate befell Jenny Everywhere. She claims to have been “chucked” at her adoptive mother like a rugby ball as a baby, but later admits that this could be a fabrication.
Laura Drake
- The Concordat, an organisation in Reality 45 tasked with monitoring deviant Shifters, lists a being known only as “the Dragon” among their personnel, implicitly a version of Laura. According to Michael Béliveau, the Dragon had made 'short work' reverse engineering advanced technologies from the Infinite provided by the Magisterium.
Universes
- Much of this story takes place in Reality 45, during the 2010s. According to Jenny, that reality's planet Earth suffered an Martian invasion in the late nineteenth century, and has been heavily damaged by fossil fuels.
- Reality 45 contains a Castle Erenow in the Yorkshire moors, formerly belonging to Carmilla.
- Nazira Chaudhry is sent to the London of a Steampunk universe by the the Magisterium.
Continuity
- This story takes place before PROSE: Makeshift, starring a different iteration of the same Jenny.
- Reality has been partially restored following the collapse of the cosmos, detailed in PROSE: The Hermetic Garbage of Jenny Everywhere.
- The Magisterium was formed when multiple versions of Jenny seized control of the Redoubt from the Archons. The concept of a Governing Council comprising multiple versions of Jenny Everywhere first appeared in COMIC: Governing Council.
- The Jenny of Reality 45 claims that she has fought Martians before.
- Blobby Everywhere is noted to have gotten “a little too close to the Abstract of Chaos”, a recurring figure originating in COMIC: The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles.
- The Jenny of Reality 45 claims to have been part of a Zeppelin War in Prague against Baron Largo von Wyrtforbor. A Zeppelin War was previously mentioned in PROSE: Extradimensional Experiments.
- Similarly to the claim made by the Jenny who lived in the Infinity Apartment of being on “both sides of every breakup in the multi-verse”, the Jenny of Reality 45 claims to have been on 'both sides of every breakup in history.' (COMIC: Infinity Apartment)
- A version of Jenny Everywhere's full name being Jennifer Barbelith was first suggested in PROSE: Wanted For Questioning.
Behind the scenes
Read online
The story can be read for free on ArchiveOfOurOwn.net.
