Jeanie Bottle 445
We’re getting a great lore dump from this elder genie. So cool to learn more about the genie culture and how they differ depending on how they came to be.
We’re getting a great lore dump from this elder genie. So cool to learn more about the genie culture and how they differ depending on how they came to be.
Looks like Jeanie sees something she likes in panel 2…
I wonder if that will have any future repercussions?
that depends, if her GUY memories will keep her GIRL body in check.. things will be ok. if not.. I’d rather not guess.
Yeah, it looks like something caught her eye… I wonder if the same thing that happened to Neil/Natalie has happened to Jeannie?
And I am starting to get curious about how these Hubun Jadid Doodad things will impact the story. I can feel Chekov’s gun getting loaded!
So Jeannie and Alya will be handing what is pretty much a fetus to a genie couple to uh… reproduce with?
Why do I get the feeling it would be a very bad thing if someone tripped while handling these things?
I wonder if Jeanie’s reaction to the guy in panel 2 is somehow related to Natalie’s new reactions to Rodge.
On second thought… Jeannie might not be looking at that guard in panel two. Maybe she just has a mischievous smirk because they are going into the vault, and whomever is in control’s plot is about to come to fruition.
It all depend on perspective. Are her eyes facing towards the door, or towards the guard at her side. Which is kinda ambiguous in that panel. Hopefully CD will clue us in.
With what happens in the last two panels, plus Jean’s behavior and tastes before, It would seem to be more of a sinister plot sort of grin rather than a lustful one. But it does appear to be the latter one at first glance!
Something she likes? Maybe something she can use. Someone she can distract or bribe.
At any rate, she has noticed that the guard has seen something he likes–note that the other guard is strictly eyes-front.
So Hubun Jadids are little life sparks of genies. Would they be magically generated in that vault or do they come from somewhere else?
Maybe a Genie cryobank?
That’s an interesting question about the Hubun Jadids. Is there a finite supply? If not, where do more come from? I’m intrigued!
Maybe it’s something along the lines of “There are [X number of] genie souls, no more, no less. Genies are immortal, but their existence can end. And if that occurs, the genie’s soul becomes a Hubun Jadid and comes here, waiting to be reborn.” Kind of like the Fae in DMFA.
@Sweeper: Only Genies in this comic aren’t immortal as Kazom explained to Jean earlier; they’re ageless but can succumb to death when their magic is all used up, from potent genie poisons, or get obliterated by a strong enough force. Unless that’s what you meant.
@Robert: Yeah, it also brings up the concept that Genies might be sterile beings that have to invoke pregnancy between a male and female with these Hubun Jadids, like fertilizers. Must be so for if Bottle Genies like Araceli getting possessive over a human master like Neil as she does, keeping inbreeding from occurring.
Do they all know that Jean was formerly mortal? And how many former mortal genies are there?
So far we only know that the elder genie knew, and that Alya didn’t until the elder mentioned it last week.
Hm.. I see 2 candles gone … so one could be Jean?
Also one of them looks ‘uncontained’… wonder if that means anything.
Also… I just want to make a ‘reverse gender thought’… what if a girl had been turned into a male genie? At this point they would be drafted to take up arms against the blue genie right? Just wonder the reaction to that thought.
It looks like the First Wife took the one on the top shelf in the second panel, and then the one on the third-from-top shelf is missing in the last panel–perhaps Jean took that one.
Two are missing in the bottom right. I suspect Jean is possesed by the Blue Djinn (at least on a subconscious level) and is doing his bidding.
I missed that! Good eye! But, what would Jeannie do with one? If they are for genie reproduction I am pretty sure she is not quite hip to that yet! Though, by the look she was giving that guard, maybe so… And yes that one on the top right does not have the border around it. Curious…
I missed it too. Hmmm… I’m at a loss on what would ‘possess’ her to do such a thing.
I could see that the vault is something that the Blue Genie would wish to get to and in to.
Well, Alya didn’t know until Jean told her. First Wife might not have known until she overheard that conversation, but I’m getting the feeling there isn’t much that First Wife doesn’t know.
However, the only genie we know that knows Jean used to be a man is Kazom.
I’m not sure that formerly mortal genies can’t have the power of “pure” genies. First Wife might believe that, but it’s also an excellent lie to tell to formerly mortal genies if it isn’t true. If they believe that, true or false, they should be less likely to challenge the pure genies who seem to be in charge of things.
Ever think that the Blue Djinn himself might be a former mortal? Former mortals would be more likely to chafe under the many, many restrictions imposed by traditional genies.
And finally, for this post at least, it may occur to Jean that if she gets her hands on a Hubun Jadid it could make her more powerful–perhaps powerful enough to tell Guano, First Wife, and even Haji to get stuffed.
We don’t know what the scale is. A pure genie I suspect can create an entire universe with a wish, but is unlikely to be under any control.
I’m assuming jeanie is considered ‘average’. she’s changed people, done time travel accidentally… however fundementally she has never warped or changed history or reality.
On the other hand – Jeannie is pretty lazy. She doesn’t seem to have explored her genie powers much, if at all. Hell, she’s got a complete genie manual, and she’s barely looked at it. So it’s entirely possible that she has a lot of abilities that she doesn’t realize, simply because she’s never bothered to inquire.
Did anyone notice the evil look Jeanie is giving the shelf containing bottles and lamps?
Seems she is still angry about being turned.
Her look seems more “curious” than “angry”. At least to me.
I think “wary” would be a better word.
I agree with Robert. She’s just looking around.
I’m going with “wary”, possibly extending to “spooked”.
Or deliberately looking away to cover the fact she was grabbing one of the Huban Jadid.
I think some missed the two lower right lights that dissapeared once Jean left that vault and the one that the elder took came from the top middle. I think the change in the upper right is a art mistake or there will be many new Gennies showing up soon.
To be fair we only know one of those two are missing; the other empty spot was never shown so we dont know if there was something in it before hand.
I don’t think that’s an art mistake. There are more differences between the art in the third and the fourth panels.
* In the third panel, the shelves with the hubun jadids look perfectly horizontal, just like the shelves with the bottles. In the fourth panel, the bottle shelves are clearly a paste of the same image of the bottle shelves used in the third panel. It’s not really pespective; the size of the shelves and bottles in the upper set of shelves should at least look a little smaller because they’re behind the lower set of shelves unless the pov is very far away, like all those photos you see in the Enquirer of celebrities taken with high-powered telephoto lenses from beyond the various court-ordered minimum distances. This isn’t Renaissance art or even Andrew Loomis art; it’s a plenty-good-enough shortcut.
* In the fourth panel, the bottle shelves are at the same scale as in the third. But the hubun jadid shelves are in a larger scale and appear slanted. Further, the habun jadids are not only larger but taller, clearly elongated. My guess is that CD wanted to suggest they were more like magical flames than jewels. Flames would be appropriate; the traditional lore of the jinn is that their basic nature is that of smokeless fire.
* The hurun jadid shelves in the fourth panel do not appear horizontal, while the ones in the third panel do look horizontal. I don’t know what CD is going for here, but he took some trouble to make that difference, so it must have some meaning. Perhaps the hubun jadid are being stolen now that the visiting genies have their backs turned and are about to leave the chamber?
The first wife genie picked up one and although we don’t see Jeanie get one, there does seem to be one missing where her hand use to be in the last panel from where it was in the third panel.
The second panel, is a real weird look for Jeanie to have and it not in her nature. Some have advanced the idea that she is possessed by the Blue Djinn, which could be too.
In Panel 3, the First Wife appears to be holding one of the habun jadids.
The perspective in Panel 4 is different; the viewpoint has shifted to the right slightly, and we can see more of the shelves in the foreground than we did before. One of the previously occupied containers is now empty, and one that we couldn’t see, previously, is also untenanted. It’s hard to say exactly what this means. It’s possible that the previously-unseen one was already empty. It’s also possible that the First Wife handed one of the jadids each to both Jeannie and Alya. Or it’s possible that one mysteriously vanished somehow.
My speculation is that all three of them are each carrying one, now. But I guess we’ll have to wait & see.
As a side note, I notice that the First Wife refers to Jean as “Jeannie”: with two ‘N’s and an “IE”. Previously, almost every other character that has explicitly used her name, has said “Jean” – as in, the male version. This could simply be a typo – or does it perhaps have some significance? (I’m keeping in mind that the First Wife knows that Jean used to be human – and is probably aware that Jean was male, as well.)
That’s an interesting look that Jeannie has in Panel 2. Reminds me of the look she gave Anne Anderson.
Good to see genies regard unborn lives as sacred treasure.
Unborn genie lives, anyway. But yes.
Oh look, talk of purity and how some people are naturally superior… I’m on the side of the other guys now.
I don’t think it’s about being ‘superior’.
Genies are well… like angels? Humans are mortal beings with mortal flaws and clearly the can ‘connect’ to the power of a genie but it’s nothing compared to someone- or something ‘manifesting’ (not born-) purely in that essence. I dare say though a mortal with less power can accomplish far more because mortality brings an understanding of need and desire. More power does not always mean ‘better’
The word “superior” was not used, in favor of the more objective “powerful”. And in this case, “pure” is carefully defined. I’d be very careful about imposing human standards here. And Guardingdark makes good points about mortality being a focusing agent. I’m thinking in terms of a rocket engine, especially the nozzle, which constrain and direct the forces of what is essentially a continuous explosion.
If that’s true, maybe Jean should say that she should call it quits now and go back to being mortal, hint, hint…
Even if Jeanie could go back to being mortal, she would still be a girl and not a boy. Jeanie doesn’t like being a girl, but, she kind of like being a Genie or at least having certain powers. So if Jeanie did say hint, hint, I want to go back to being a mortal. If they took her seriously, she would end up being a girl with no Genie powers and she wouldn’t like that.
So she need to just keep her mouth shut about being a female Genie.
Hard to say. Based on the example of Rouyaa, Haji might be able to strip her of her powers, but that might not be the same thing. Even he might not be able to return her to her previous mortal state.
And yes, Jeannie would usually be better off keeping her mouth shut, but we all know that’s not gonna happen.
Could go the other way, you know. Jean could go back to being a guy, but still a genie. (How many guy genies have we actually seen? All I remember is Lord Guano, who was a little on the obnoxious side.)
Well we have seen Jean separated once from her genie powers. She became a ghost. (And still a girl heh). Kazom provided a female mortal body… so… it might be possible?
So, aside from the somewhat strange mannerisms Jean is showing and the apparent theft, I think it’s worth noting that in this page, and only this page so far (as far as I can tell), Jean’s eyedots are blue. Methinks she may be possessed…
Jean’s eyes looked blue in the last panel of the last comic too. I was thinking it was my monitor or something. Maybe CD is coloring characters eyes now?
No, I looked on mine. They are black until the last panel, then they are partial blue in that one. And they are pretty much full blue in this one. I think the Blue Djinn has been sitting in her subC, waiting for the right moment to take over.
CD usually draws eyes as black dots, but you’re right, the dots are blue. It’s got to mean something.
Here’s proof from CD’s other webcomic, Sailorsun.org, that he can draw eyes with irises and pupils.
Tom, we’ve also seen Jeanie’s iris’s in strip #416. In that one, her eyes are a grayish purple color. Therefore the blue here almost certainly means something.
Jean did look kind of creepy standing over Neil before she got whisked away. I doubt it was the geni counsel that turned Neil into Natalie and upped her libbido before taking Jean away. All will be revealed soon I take it.
Lens flare, some really bad placement of said red nose.
Maybe she’s channeling Rudolph.
The only place where the Blue Djinn and his gang have been portrayed is in Comic 111 of The Melvin Chronicles.
We can’t tell what color BD’s eyes are because they are glowing red–as are those of several of his followers. It could just be a style choice by the Bach Man, but Jean’s eyes have gotten fiery once or twice.
We can also see that the Blue Brigade is an equal-opportunity organization, about evenly divided between males and females. And the females look meaner.
It’s also not actually there in MC#111, but a flashback as told by Kazom. So that picture is just as likely Kazom’s “mental image” of the Djinn, as opposed to “reality”.
A good point. Perhaps even more likely when exaggeration is suspected is that this is how Melvin is picturing Kazom’s story.
If BJ was picturing the story, all the bad-ass genies would be women with large breasts except for the Blue Djinn. Well, maybe not excepting the Blue Djinn.
If Red was picturing the story, all the bad-ass genies would look like Jeanie.
Something not considered yet.
Perhaps this is Jeanie’s double pretending to be Jeanie.
Was Jean eying the big guy? I wonder if she even realizes it.
And ouch. Jean is a selfish 1-D thinking jackass, but she basically got screwed out of her old life, and she’ll never be as strong as the other genies around her? Geez.
“she basically got screwed out of her old life, and she’ll never be as strong as the other genies around her”
Oh, come on. No matter where you are, there’s always SOMEone nearby who’s better/ more experienced / more skilled / et cetera, than you are, in some way. She’s more powerful than 99.999999% of the world’s population; isn’t that enough? So what if there’s a few genies who are a bit better? It’s not a contest.
And I disagree that she got screwed out of anything.
Let’s see – she acquired magical powers, she’ll never again have to worry about disease, age, arthritis, injury or infirmity. She doesn’t need to care about taxes, health insurance, food, a place to live, a job or even entertainment.
The prohibition on a genie owning anything really is meaningless, because anything she wants, she can have, instantly. A diamond necklace? Poof! A Rolls Royce? Poof! A mansion on a tropical island? Poof! As soon as she’s bored with it, poof, it disappears again.
She can go anywhere, do anything, appear any way she cares to, hell, she can even do impossible things like visit ancient Rome or walk on Mars. She has almost unlimited freedom and abilities. If she can get a safe deposit box to keep her bottle in, she can even be free of any unanticipated bottle-finders.
The only thing she can’t do is be male – and, according to Kazom, she could even do THAT if she was just willing to put a little time & effort into it.
So I don’t see that she’s in any way, “screwed”. In terms of accidents, there are so many things that are way worse. Traffic fatalities. Cancer. Injury. Even having your house burn down or losing a job can be a major setback. But Jeannie? The worst thing she has to contend with, is getting bored with the idea of being able to do absolutely anything that she wants.
Boo-hoo.
Sorry, no sympathy here. If she could get her head out of her butt long enough to see it, being genie-fied was probably the best thing that could ever have happened to her.
*claps* bravo. You echo a lot of my thoughts. I did have some sympathy until she flat out abused her powers and caused pstd on those guys for ‘daring’ to talk to her.
Though I dare say even if she sent her bottle to the safest place on Earth ‘somone’ will find it. She has to sleep in it… so her link to the bottle is inconvenient but not insermountable. She can also interpret wishes in any way she desires so… yeah lesson learned, don’t make wishes with a genie.
Agreed, Jeanie may have lost something, but, she got something of equal or superior value, but, she doesn’t see it. She obsessed with being a guy who is narcissistic jerk who is unhappy with himself and leave a mess everywhere he goes. Or he can become something great, but, he or she is going to have to change greatly to do that. She has the power to remake herself, where before, he would probably have remained the same way. I am not saying that people change if they choose to, but, in Jean case, probably not.
Another idea is, that if Jeanie is Jeanie for a long enough time, she might not even like Jean anymore and think that he is just a jerk, which he is. Over time, Jeanie is going to think more like Jeanie than her old self Jean.
Another possibility after looking at that guard in panel 2, maybe Jeanie is actually starting to shift emotionally from being interested in girls to being interested in boys or could be a side effect of being around other female genie’s that are interested in boy genies. If this is so, then we will have to see if there are any after effect on Jeanie after she get back to Neil.
Stronger genies are not too much of a problem. Keep in mind weakness controls strength. Jean by becoming Jeanie may have lost some strength but also acquired other means to control strength. Her biggest problem may be adapting to the girl on girl psychological warfare she had no prior knowledge of or defenses against. Her former girlfriend may be able to help out with that should she ever gain the nerve to tell her.
Hmmmm—there are at least TWO of those Life things MISSING
Oh tell me I’m not the only one to call this. I think Jeannie nabbed two of them from the bottom shelf.
I don’t think she nabbed them. But I think that Bay and Berry and Jo will not be the only ones with morning sickness now. The first wife took them into the vault to see if the hubun Jadids would bond with Alya and Jeannie.
Ugh. I hope not. I find the concept of gender swapping a man to a woman, and a subsequent pregnancy, really off-putting. It’s just one of those things that gives me squick.
Same here. I don’t get the feeling that anything like gary’s hypothesis has occurred.
This is not a basic ‘boy to girl’ story. She’s a genie and the mythology of a genie is not being dismissed either which I really love in the comic. I’m not sure genies get pregnant, at least not in the way humans do as part of mortal life. She’s some immortal mythical being with magic powers. I love not knowing what it entails and the path to discovery.
Though on the subject of pregnancy in general I don’t get why people should get squicked by a biological consequence. It’s a natural thing to happen, hopefully born from mutual love.
One on the top shelf missing when they come in, and TWO gone from the bottom when they leave. I sorta agree with TARG. The tension and confusion arising from the gender swap is what makes the concept entertaining. It sort of loses something when their mentality changes to the opposite gender too. Pregnancy is going a bit far–unless it is only a SCARE which would be funny.
We can’t tell for sure, one of those 2 bottom shelf holders was not visible in the previous panel. It may have already been empty. Certainly the one 3 over from the middle had a glowing thing on it and now doesn’t. So I’m sure Jeannie snatched at least one. My theory is that she heard First Wife describe them as the most valuable treasure and decided to take one for ransom/fun/perverse pleasure (just to put one over on the Genies in general).
In the first panel the blue guard has his eyes straight ahead like a good soldier. The green guard is checking out Jean’s body. The smirk in the second panel shows she caught him at it and knows she is hot. Stealing the glowing things would go against Jean’s character. She might mess everything up but I don’t think she is mean on purpose. Why do some of the Habun Jadins have definite outlines while others look like they are ready to poof.
I think the fuzzy ones are ripe.
I don’t know this page reminded me of a question I had years ago but, is Jean an actor for this comic like how Bay and Honey were for the Sailo Sun comic in their story? The only thing that gives me this idea is Jean’s appearance in the Sailorsun.org comic way back at the beginning of Ch.10 in 2012 at Honey’s party.
I commented on it above, but maybe you all didn’t read it. Notice that the shelves with the hubun jadids are tilted as the genies leave the vault , and the hubun jadids look like they are getting bigger, like flames flaring up from a candle or an oil lamp. Or maybe like eggs about to hatch?
Anyone remember when Skuld the goddess hatched her angel’s egg?
I doubt that there about to hatch, but, they might be getting excited about the close proximity of female Genie’s. Because, the first wife of Haji has already toad us that there wasn’t any immediate birth coming, but, that they were lining up a male and female genie to get married for a birth some time in the future. So unless something happens that neither Haji or first wife know, it a false alarm and nothing more.
Tom, I don’t think the ’tilt” means anything except for a difference in perspective. Notice that the angle of the shelves in the BACKground has also changed. The angle of the view has shifted, but just slightly (thus violating the standard “30-degree-rule”, which states that the viewpoint should move at least 30 degrees between shots of the same subject, to make it clear that a viewpoint shift has occurred.)
Strange, I always assumed that Jeanie still liked girls
Up until just now, she has. Odd things seem to be going on.