Contrary to the seductive sway in her voluptuous hips and the self-assured look on her beautiful face, Jessica Rabbit was fucking pissed.
Everything had been working out for the redheaded toon up until that point--and Jessica had really needed a win with how much she'd been reduced to obscurity over the decades.
Jessica was drawn to turn heads, capture the attention of everyone in the room, so naturally, she took on the role as a sultry singer for various nightclubs. She'd also worked as an actress for Maroon Cartoons, where Jessica had met her husband, Roger Rabbit. for a while. And Jessica had gotten even more attention in 1947 when she and her husband wound up being a part of Judge Doom's conspiracy to destroy Toontown. Luckily, with the help of human detective Eddie Valiant, not only had they been able to defeat the murderous judge, but Jessica and Roger had gotten to enjoy some well-deserved attention for the first time.
Things had gotten better for a while, with a documentary starring the couple even made to signify their success; and when they'd been offered to work for Disney Animation Studios in 1981, Jessica had thought she and her husband were finally going to ascend to stardom, maybe even have their own franchise!
Unfortunately, she was very wrong. Jessica and her beloved Roger were instead relegated to a meager amount of merchandise, overlooked comic books, and a quickly forgotten attraction in Disneyland. She had briefly gotten her own store in the Pleasure Island part of Disneyland called Jessica's, but the place had been so short-lived it barely lasted two years before closing.
But the worst of it all was all the rumors Jessica had heard about the proposed movies being made about her husband...and how one by one, they were all eventually cancelled, thrown away.
She'd heard all the excuses. It was too 'expensive'. 'A Roger Rabbit origin story in World War II is ridiculous'. Jessica didn't give a damn whether the story was about Bugs Bunny being Roger's secret father, because at this point she was so desperate she'd take anything!
And by the time the early 2000's rolled around, it was too late. Suddenly, the age of 2D-drawn toons was over. Almost every toon Jessica knew was out of a job, all because of every animation studio's sudden obsession with those 3D, computer-generated toons...
But it wasn't the loss of "Toon Platoon", or "Who Discovered Roger Rabbit" that pushed Jessica over the edge, causing her to leave her husband in pursuit of regaining her lost prestige. No, it was the fact that Roger had actually been fine with the raw deal they'd been given!
Jessica always knew her fluffy little hubby had an impressive amount of courage beneath the insecurity and the nervousness he wore on the outside, but she had never been more disgusted with how blasé about how everything had gone down.
According to Roger, their popularity had simply 'run its course'. 'The world and the audience had changed, and moved on, and we should do the same'--Jessica could never understand how an actor as talented as Roger could just...give up like that, just throw away his career in exchange for a lifetime of cameos and autograph signing at fan conventions?!?
Disney had invited Benny the Cab over them to appear in a House of Mouse episode for Cohl's sake!
The following arguments, the back-and-forth shouting matches between the two of them...it wasn't a surprise for anyone when Jessica and Roger inevitably split up over the different paths they wanted in life. The gorgeous redhead loved Roger, she really did; she just didn't understand why he was more willing to stand up to her instead of the companies that had screwed them over.
Becoming single again had immediately given Jessica some benefits, and their divorce briefly being publicized did give the estranged woman some recognition again...of course, she'd been given the usual amount of unsavory suggestions of what she should do, beyond the modeling and singing jobs she had already been doing-
But Jessica wasn't that desperate. She told her talent agents that she'd throw herself off Bald Mountain before she'd agree to starring in a porno, or make a 'OnlyFans' like many of her feminine peers had done. The former toon actress had lost a lot of things over the years, but her dignity would NOT be one of them!
Luckily, she still had some support beyond the perverse 'fans' that claimed to appreciate her--the most helpful of them being Jay Jest, the owner of Jest Animation Studios. The human animation director, despite his younger age, was a big supporter of 2D-drawn toons, and was more than happy to help Jessica in her time of need.
He'd even been generous enough to let her move in his mansion in Palm Springs after her separation with Roger; Jessica had had far too many memories with her ex-husband to continue living in Toontown at that point. In fact, the buxom redhead considered Jay to be one of the few, real friends she had left. (Most of her former so-called "friends" like Minnie Mouse and Tinker Bell were quick to embrace the newest trend of getting an expensive 'CGI' makeover, covering their naturally drawn features to be accepted by Hollywood)
Of course, Jessica had been cautious to accept Jay's kind gesture to move into his home...she'd had decades of experience rebuffing lustful, unsavory human men, and very well knew the effect her shapely figure alone had on them.
Fortunately, Jay Jest was a genuine gentleman, respecting her privacy and treating the beautiful toon like a colleague and not eye candy he could parade around on his arm. He also claimed not to really be attracted to toons in the first place, but Jessica sincerely doubted that--Jay had to be secretly infatuated with her, why else would a human man be so unquestionably kind enough to give her work and a home for free?
And to give the man some credit, Jessica did find Jay somewhat attractive--his handsome face and well-built body was appealing enough, at least for human beauty standards, as was the rugged, auburn hair he had--but what the former wife of Roger Rabbit liked most about him was his dry, witty sense of humor. Jay was very much like her ex-husband in a way...yet at the same time, completely different in how he preferred to have a snarky attitude with his jokes, sarcastically acting self-deprecating to himself whenever something went wrong.
But as kind and cute as Jay was, Jessica knew better than to date a human man. They were all, for the most part, boring and predictable, unable to survive an anvil falling onto their heads...
However, when Jay told her that he'd pulled some strings and convinced Disney to greenlight her own spin-off show, Jessica had gotten quite tempted to forgo her distaste for men and passionately kiss him right then and there. The premise of the show sounded spectacular, it was titled: Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business, and was apparently about her being a private eye detective who solved murder mysteries. She had been over the moon over the news, and was more than ready for her career comeback as the show went into development.
That had been two years ago. And despite knowing that those greedy executives didn't really care about her, that she was only given a spin-off because she fit the archetype of a 'empowering female lead' and had been on the verge of terminating her contract with Disney Animation, Jessica had begun to hope that things were finally going to work out for her.
