A junior engineer working for a small engineering firm in Cocoa Beach. The firm focuses mostly on NASA projects.
Neil is Jean’s best friend. When Jean was turned into a genie, Neil became Jeanie’s master.
It’s because usually all the characters are drawn with disgusting wide-open toothless mouths with their tongues sticking way out like they’re being sucked out by a vacuum, and now the drawing style is more conservative and reserved. TBH being hotter than usual was a pretty low bar to clear. (Take a look at page 447 for probably the most extreme example.)
My interpretation is that she finally applied the logical part of her brain and overrode her raging hormones (remember, she just woke up). But that’s an interesting theory, too. I’m sure we’ll figure out for sure what’s up eventually.
I kind of agree with Robert here. We are seeing the two side of Natalie here. We are dealing with the body side of Natalie when she is sexually aroused, like when a women is being massaged or some other stimuli is being supplied or applied to her, then it has a tendency to arouse her. Then we have the mind side, which is still primarily Neil mind kicking in and over riding the desires of the female body. That why in the last panel Neil or Natalie is starting panic. She doesn’t really want to go there and now she looking for Jeanie, before she losses her resolve and start going there and doing that. Because once she start doing that, it all over.
Hmm, it feels like some kind of love-spell now. Either it’s for Rodge specifically, or maybe just the first guy she met as Natalie… or, craziest of all, maybe any guy she’s near now. THAT could be messy…
If as Rodge is bright enough to have common dating sense by now. He was still hung up over ‘Natalie” even after “she” got nabbed by federal agents the first time.
Neil/Natalie probably hasn’t searched the rest of the apartment yet. She probably thinks Jeannie could be hiding somewhere else.
I think that Agent Anderson (“Anne”) is doing her investigating unofficially, on her own time. Which could put a bit of a crimp in her regular technique if she doesn’t have the Bureau’s resources to draw on.
That’s probably correct, Tom. However, Agent Anderson is probably looking for Rodge rather than Neil, since she could have tracked down Rodge’s address, but not Natalie’s (given that Natalie technically didn’t exist) and she doesn’t know at all about Neil. So, as long as Rodge can keep his mouth shut and claim that he only just met the girl he brought along to Vegas, Anne will be forced to hunt for Natalie at random, which should better Neil’s chances at staying out of sight until he can become male again.
Not, of course, that finding Natalie would actually help Agent Anderson in any way; it’s just the only lead that she’s got.
I am a little surprised, though, that, when at the beach, Anne Anderson didn’t recognize Jeannie as one of the folks who (along with Richard Dean Anderson), sprang Natalie. Maybe her memory isn’t as sharp as it could be. [On a side note; Anderson <=> Anderson – could they be related?]
Did Anderson ever actually catch sight of Jeanie? He was only in the same room as her for maybe 30 seconds, and he was pretty distracted by Richard Dean Anderson at the time. And then he was even more distracted by, you know, getting turned into a woman. 🙂
@Robert. Agent Anderson also didn’t catch that Rodge was with Jeanie and Richard Dean Anderson (or maybe William Shatner/Captain Kirk?) in that maybe 30 seconds. Even if he actually wasn’t involved directly in the surveillance and/or the arrest, he should have known from the evidence already gathered that Rodge was the real engineer seen with “Natalie.” She still hadn’t made that connection when she met Jeanie on the beach, or she would have seen Rodge before that.
However, maybe Agent Anderson has talked to Neil. Remember, Anderson interrogated the North Korean spy who was caught where Neil works, so Anderson could also have interviewed witnesses. Natalie was already gone when Jeanie turned Anderson into a woman, so unless Anderson revealed that she used to be a man or mentioned Natalie and/or the Las Vegas incident, Neil wouldn’t connect her with Natalie’s interrogator.
No. Rodge had to rush through a lot of Cocoa Beach including past the surf shop from I Dream of a B-Witch, to get to Neil and Jeanie’s place for the football game at the start of I Dream of Technicolor. It was something I forgot myself when I speculated earlier about Agent Anderson maybe still being in the building after seeing Rodge and asking about Natalie.
All I can really say is that I enjoyed the heck out of this. I especially like Rodge’s stiffy in frame three, and Natalie’s goofyness in frame four and startled realization in five.
I think its probably how everyone is reading it. But at first I had a different interpretation:
I was wondering if instead of Natalie suddenly thinking differently about her moment with Rodge, she suddenly sensed or heard Jean in the other room. And when she enters that room, she sees Jean possibly in an awkward situation (perhaps Jean having escaped or something), thus providing the reaction we see.
After reading over and over.. I tend to think like the rest of you on this one.
I see panel 4.5 as the sudden realization that HE is thinking like a woman.
Normally being transformed is like wearing a costume he can’t take off.
Now his female body is affecting his brain.
Last panel is a disparate call for Jean to change him back before he does something he will regret.
Actually in reality a cold shower would actually make the arousal worse, not calm it down.
As it forces the body to send more blood to the skin and other areas of the body to keep it warm, so his stiffy wouldn’t go away even if it managed to clear his head…
If my memory from anatomy class serves, the human body doesn’t work that way. Blood vessels don’t all work together in sync like you describe; the different body systems each have their own independent regulatory mechanisms.
Not to mention that you have it backwards; when you get cold (either from a cold shower or for any other reason) the surface blood vessels (in the skin) CLOSE DOWN (vasoconstrict) to conserve heat and prevent your core temperature from dropping.
The whole point of the “cold shower” theory is that it’s unpleasant and thus takes your mind off other things. Pain will do the same thing, and I’ve sure as hell seen THAT make an erection disappear, pronto.
I attended an all-male Jesuit university for a while. A quiz in the course on Human Biology included a question, describe the stages of female sexual arousal. When I asked the professor about that question a few days late, he said that he asked about female sexual arousal, so none of the boys in the class could cheat.
Rodge never did get the chance to tell Neil about the federal agent. Does that mean he will have to return, after the cold shower, to convey the message, and test the Natalie waters again?
Rodge did say there was a federal agent looking for Natalie. Whether or not Natalie absorbed that we don’t know yet. We also don’t know if Rodge knows that this agent was one of the agents who dealt with Natalie in Las Vegas, or that Agent Anderson was turned into a woman by Jeanie, or even if the federal agent Rodge knows is looking for Natalie is Agent Anderson–it’s possible Agent Anderson got a colleague to ask around about Natalie. And–I may have pointed this out before–we don’t know if Neil/Natalie knows that Jeanie turned a federal agent into a woman. Neil doesn’t even know that Jeanie is responsible for that the new Scarlet Avenger character in War Mallet Online he wants to try out is Jeanie’s work.
We can, however, be sure that Neil/Natalie wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Jeanie had made another man into a woman. She’s had so much practice.
I keep coming back to this strip over and over, but I cannot figure out why it appeals so strongly.
I think it has to with Natalie realizing that she is not Neal, and that she has female tastes in men now–which are different from male tastes in women, having to do with the social hierarchy rather than physical appearance.
And surprisingly, it turns out the Rodge isn’t really attracted to aggressive women. He wants to be the seducer, not the seducee. He may be honorable enough to know how badly it would complicate things with Neil to have an affair with Natalie. He may even understand that if he gives into a woman’s advances, she may well lose respect for him.
And both of them may understand on some level that Natalie’s behavior is not natural, and that she may deeply resent Rodge taking advantage of her in her altered state of consciousness.
Please note my frequent use of the word “may” and other qualifiers. I am making suggestions, not predictions.
(I wonder if Natalie understands that if she allows herself to be seduced by her female body, including her female brain and hormones, she might be danger of losing her interest in engineering. She might decide to be a wife and mother instead. I doubt it; that’s rather a dangerous opinion to hold these days.)
It’s highly sexist to decide to be a wife and mother instead of pursuing a career?
Have the many women who have made that choice been told? (To say nothing of the men who anatomically are unable to carry and bear children–that is, to become mothers.)
Oh, come now, 50’s – surely you must know that nowadays, anything that anyone takes exception to, disagrees with, or fails to understand, will automatically be labeled, “sexist”, “racist”, “fascist”, “offensive” or designated as some other politically-correct criminal action. </sarcasm>
Oh, and it’s equally disapproved-of, to be a wife and a mother WHILE continuing to pursue a career. So I guess a lot of women are just condemned to be wrong for not toadying to modern ‘snowflake’ sensibilities.
I’ve developed a maybe theory about whats going on
Not a hundred percent confident, need more data, but my current theory is, this whole bonding ritual thing Haji is going to do has triggered some sort of Genie biological imperative switch that Jean probably isn’t even consciously aware of and somehow, thats affecting Neil/Natalie as well, hence why both of them are acting off.
For Jean its probably because he’s been stuck as a female genie for so long and likewise for Neil its probably because Jean gender bends him so often that it has some sort of accumulative effect over time, but because of that Neil is more aware that something is wrong, while Jean’s “Genie Subconscious” is maybe more persuasive and subtle.
Of course this doesnt exactly answer who turned Neil into Natalie this time or who the other “Jeanie” is, or if the two incidents are even related.
It should be noted that Rodge was enough of a entleman and excuse himself to go tke a cold shower, rather than to pursue the matter of Natalie’s very ardent kiss, a kiss she was clearly enjoying still enjoying when Rodge left.
I hate to take credit away from Rodge, truly I do, but he acted the way he did because Natalie is acting in a, frankly, terrifying way. She’s made it clear in the past that her core self-identification is as the male Neil persona she was born with and socialized as, and that she is not remotely interested in having sex with any male while being female, and certainly not her coworker Rodge, whom she regards as something of a doofus. And suddenly she is ready trip Rodge and beat him to the floor in order to engage in passionate sex with no transition IN FRONT OF A HOSTILE WITNESS.
This has caused an ancient and well-attested warning to manifest to Rodge like Death himself waving railway flares: “Don’t stick it in the crazy.”
He is quite rightly acting in pure self defense, as much as he would be if Natalie came at him with a knife and he shot her (or as it would be for Natalie to shoot Rodge if he tried to forcibly rape her). It is perfectly reasonable in fact to assume that Natalie might well do that if he gives in to her sudden sexual demands, and then regrets the decision and puts the blame on him.
I mean, Natalie herself is a bit frightened by what she just tried to do.
For all my concerns with how Natalie is acting, I have to say i really like a trans story in which a magically MtF character initially resists the change, and then finds herself swamped by her new feelings and emotions. Such a character experiencing so sharply the differences between the sexes, even if somewhat uneasily, is for me the whole point of writing a story like this. I’ve seen too many stories where the new girl either immediately goes full female (quite a few early Web stories); or digs in her heels, and refuses to even acknowledge her new sex (See ferex Chris Hazelton’s Misfile or Scott Hickens’ Exiern. Or Jeanie herself, who just doesn’t care, but goes along with the ride for the sake of the fun new powers.
I really hope Natalie decides to go with this, enjoys herself with some guy (if not Rodge), and ultimately has a kid with him–which last is you know the whole point of having two sexes.
Rodge: “I have to take a cold shower!”
Me: “Damn mate. Good on you!”
Also First X)
And probably will be crying like a baby too like those beach bums earlier.
But for totally different reasons.
Is it just me or does natalie seem even hotter looking then usual in those last 3 panels?
It’s because usually all the characters are drawn with disgusting wide-open toothless mouths with their tongues sticking way out like they’re being sucked out by a vacuum, and now the drawing style is more conservative and reserved. TBH being hotter than usual was a pretty low bar to clear. (Take a look at page 447 for probably the most extreme example.)
No wait, I meant page 446.
It is appearing to me that Neil is being full on Natalie only when she is around Rodge, or maybe any man. We need more data to be certain.
My interpretation is that she finally applied the logical part of her brain and overrode her raging hormones (remember, she just woke up). But that’s an interesting theory, too. I’m sure we’ll figure out for sure what’s up eventually.
I’m thinking it is similar to the urge that the Greek fishing captain has regarding being a dutiful wife, she’s fine when she isn’t around men.
@SaylorA:
She may have the same urge when the are no men present; just no way to do anything about it.
You know, I think I’ve known women like that.
I kind of agree with Robert here. We are seeing the two side of Natalie here. We are dealing with the body side of Natalie when she is sexually aroused, like when a women is being massaged or some other stimuli is being supplied or applied to her, then it has a tendency to arouse her. Then we have the mind side, which is still primarily Neil mind kicking in and over riding the desires of the female body. That why in the last panel Neil or Natalie is starting panic. She doesn’t really want to go there and now she looking for Jeanie, before she losses her resolve and start going there and doing that. Because once she start doing that, it all over.
Hmm, it feels like some kind of love-spell now. Either it’s for Rodge specifically, or maybe just the first guy she met as Natalie… or, craziest of all, maybe any guy she’s near now. THAT could be messy…
Looks like Rodge isn’t all that into “Natalie” anymore and is now going to do the Ace Ventura Cleanse!
Possibly Rodge has considered that it’s not an entirely good thing to have a girlfriend a federal agent is looking for.
Not to mention that it’s not great to have a girlfriend that could turn back into a guy at any minute.
@Kattgirl
I wouldn’t have a problem with that myself
as long as they’re respectful when a man
If as Rodge is bright enough to have common dating sense by now. He was still hung up over ‘Natalie” even after “she” got nabbed by federal agents the first time.
I think its more Rog is very into Natalie but thinks she was only acting to fool someone else.
Where is Natalie going? She already knows Jeanie isn’t in her bottle. And Jeanie didn’t tell Neil about what Araceli told her about the Blue Djinn.
Rodge doesn’t live in the same building. I wonder if Agent Anderson might want to interview people who work with Rodge…
Neil/Natalie probably hasn’t searched the rest of the apartment yet. She probably thinks Jeannie could be hiding somewhere else.
I think that Agent Anderson (“Anne”) is doing her investigating unofficially, on her own time. Which could put a bit of a crimp in her regular technique if she doesn’t have the Bureau’s resources to draw on.
Since Neil/Natalie was sleeping in, it seems to be Saturday or perhaps Sunday. So, Agent Anderson has enough of her own time to pay Neil a visit.
That’s probably correct, Tom. However, Agent Anderson is probably looking for Rodge rather than Neil, since she could have tracked down Rodge’s address, but not Natalie’s (given that Natalie technically didn’t exist) and she doesn’t know at all about Neil. So, as long as Rodge can keep his mouth shut and claim that he only just met the girl he brought along to Vegas, Anne will be forced to hunt for Natalie at random, which should better Neil’s chances at staying out of sight until he can become male again.
Not, of course, that finding Natalie would actually help Agent Anderson in any way; it’s just the only lead that she’s got.
I am a little surprised, though, that, when at the beach, Anne Anderson didn’t recognize Jeannie as one of the folks who (along with Richard Dean Anderson), sprang Natalie. Maybe her memory isn’t as sharp as it could be. [On a side note; Anderson <=> Anderson – could they be related?]
Did Anderson ever actually catch sight of Jeanie? He was only in the same room as her for maybe 30 seconds, and he was pretty distracted by Richard Dean Anderson at the time. And then he was even more distracted by, you know, getting turned into a woman. 🙂
@Robert. Agent Anderson also didn’t catch that Rodge was with Jeanie and Richard Dean Anderson (or maybe William Shatner/Captain Kirk?) in that maybe 30 seconds. Even if he actually wasn’t involved directly in the surveillance and/or the arrest, he should have known from the evidence already gathered that Rodge was the real engineer seen with “Natalie.” She still hadn’t made that connection when she met Jeanie on the beach, or she would have seen Rodge before that.
However, maybe Agent Anderson has talked to Neil. Remember, Anderson interrogated the North Korean spy who was caught where Neil works, so Anderson could also have interviewed witnesses. Natalie was already gone when Jeanie turned Anderson into a woman, so unless Anderson revealed that she used to be a man or mentioned Natalie and/or the Las Vegas incident, Neil wouldn’t connect her with Natalie’s interrogator.
Good point about Anderson possibly having interviewed Neil, and Neil not recognizing her.
Rodge actually appears to be developing some brains. And sense. Good for him!
LMFAO!! That moment of realization XD
I know, right? That’s my favorite part of this page!
It looks like someone has a stiffy in panel 3
Can you blame him? The woman he’s had an unrequited crush on for weeks, if not months, just snogged the hell out of him.
Okay Natalie, now is the time to go into the shower with him.
(I think he will appreciate you turning up the heat)
If Rodge is actually going to take that cold shower, he’ll probably go back to his place.
Yeah, Rodge just left through the same door that Belle exited through. He’s not in Neil/Jean’s apartment any more.
But don’t he live just across the hall?
No. Rodge had to rush through a lot of Cocoa Beach including past the surf shop from I Dream of a B-Witch, to get to Neil and Jeanie’s place for the football game at the start of I Dream of Technicolor. It was something I forgot myself when I speculated earlier about Agent Anderson maybe still being in the building after seeing Rodge and asking about Natalie.
Well worth the wait for this one.
All I can really say is that I enjoyed the heck out of this. I especially like Rodge’s stiffy in frame three, and Natalie’s goofyness in frame four and startled realization in five.
Passion rules reason. When reason kicks in, it has to try to undo what passion was trying to do.
Or perhaps more often, trying to undo what passion succeeded in doing.
I think its probably how everyone is reading it. But at first I had a different interpretation:
I was wondering if instead of Natalie suddenly thinking differently about her moment with Rodge, she suddenly sensed or heard Jean in the other room. And when she enters that room, she sees Jean possibly in an awkward situation (perhaps Jean having escaped or something), thus providing the reaction we see.
After reading over and over.. I tend to think like the rest of you on this one.
Regarding the double post, don’t worry too much about that. They’re easy to delete if they’re pointed out to us. Which I’ve now done.
Also, in case you aren’t aware, you can edit your own comments within 5 minutes of making them.
I see panel 4.5 as the sudden realization that HE is thinking like a woman.
Normally being transformed is like wearing a costume he can’t take off.
Now his female body is affecting his brain.
Last panel is a disparate call for Jean to change him back before he does something he will regret.
Actually in reality a cold shower would actually make the arousal worse, not calm it down.
As it forces the body to send more blood to the skin and other areas of the body to keep it warm, so his stiffy wouldn’t go away even if it managed to clear his head…
I dunno about that… a cold shower is monstrously distracting. And a distraction is exactly what Rodge wants right now.
If my memory from anatomy class serves, the human body doesn’t work that way. Blood vessels don’t all work together in sync like you describe; the different body systems each have their own independent regulatory mechanisms.
Not to mention that you have it backwards; when you get cold (either from a cold shower or for any other reason) the surface blood vessels (in the skin) CLOSE DOWN (vasoconstrict) to conserve heat and prevent your core temperature from dropping.
The whole point of the “cold shower” theory is that it’s unpleasant and thus takes your mind off other things. Pain will do the same thing, and I’ve sure as hell seen THAT make an erection disappear, pronto.
I attended an all-male Jesuit university for a while. A quiz in the course on Human Biology included a question, describe the stages of female sexual arousal. When I asked the professor about that question a few days late, he said that he asked about female sexual arousal, so none of the boys in the class could cheat.
Note the positioning of Natalie’s left leg in the first panel. She’s *really* into the kiss.
Yup, that is a full on snog. She is seriously enjoying herself.
What a rush!!!
She suddenly, realized Jeanie was not in her bottle, and is now looking for Jeanie. Or She thinks Jeanie is behind it.
Rodge never did get the chance to tell Neil about the federal agent. Does that mean he will have to return, after the cold shower, to convey the message, and test the Natalie waters again?
Rodge did say there was a federal agent looking for Natalie. Whether or not Natalie absorbed that we don’t know yet. We also don’t know if Rodge knows that this agent was one of the agents who dealt with Natalie in Las Vegas, or that Agent Anderson was turned into a woman by Jeanie, or even if the federal agent Rodge knows is looking for Natalie is Agent Anderson–it’s possible Agent Anderson got a colleague to ask around about Natalie. And–I may have pointed this out before–we don’t know if Neil/Natalie knows that Jeanie turned a federal agent into a woman. Neil doesn’t even know that Jeanie is responsible for that the new Scarlet Avenger character in War Mallet Online he wants to try out is Jeanie’s work.
We can, however, be sure that Neil/Natalie wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Jeanie had made another man into a woman. She’s had so much practice.
I keep coming back to this strip over and over, but I cannot figure out why it appeals so strongly.
I think it has to with Natalie realizing that she is not Neal, and that she has female tastes in men now–which are different from male tastes in women, having to do with the social hierarchy rather than physical appearance.
And surprisingly, it turns out the Rodge isn’t really attracted to aggressive women. He wants to be the seducer, not the seducee. He may be honorable enough to know how badly it would complicate things with Neil to have an affair with Natalie. He may even understand that if he gives into a woman’s advances, she may well lose respect for him.
And both of them may understand on some level that Natalie’s behavior is not natural, and that she may deeply resent Rodge taking advantage of her in her altered state of consciousness.
Please note my frequent use of the word “may” and other qualifiers. I am making suggestions, not predictions.
(I wonder if Natalie understands that if she allows herself to be seduced by her female body, including her female brain and hormones, she might be danger of losing her interest in engineering. She might decide to be a wife and mother instead. I doubt it; that’s rather a dangerous opinion to hold these days.)
” doubt it; that’s rather a dangerous opinion to hold these days.)”
…and highly sexist!
It’s highly sexist to decide to be a wife and mother instead of pursuing a career?
Have the many women who have made that choice been told? (To say nothing of the men who anatomically are unable to carry and bear children–that is, to become mothers.)
Oh, come now, 50’s – surely you must know that nowadays, anything that anyone takes exception to, disagrees with, or fails to understand, will automatically be labeled, “sexist”, “racist”, “fascist”, “offensive” or designated as some other politically-correct criminal action. </sarcasm>
Oh, and it’s equally disapproved-of, to be a wife and a mother WHILE continuing to pursue a career. So I guess a lot of women are just condemned to be wrong for not toadying to modern ‘snowflake’ sensibilities.
@Kattgirl: I am a big boy now, yes. [Hitches up his big boy pants] I like playing with dangerous opinions. [engages safety squints]
I’ve developed a maybe theory about whats going on
Not a hundred percent confident, need more data, but my current theory is, this whole bonding ritual thing Haji is going to do has triggered some sort of Genie biological imperative switch that Jean probably isn’t even consciously aware of and somehow, thats affecting Neil/Natalie as well, hence why both of them are acting off.
For Jean its probably because he’s been stuck as a female genie for so long and likewise for Neil its probably because Jean gender bends him so often that it has some sort of accumulative effect over time, but because of that Neil is more aware that something is wrong, while Jean’s “Genie Subconscious” is maybe more persuasive and subtle.
Of course this doesnt exactly answer who turned Neil into Natalie this time or who the other “Jeanie” is, or if the two incidents are even related.
It should be noted that Rodge was enough of a entleman and excuse himself to go tke a cold shower, rather than to pursue the matter of Natalie’s very ardent kiss, a kiss she was clearly enjoying still enjoying when Rodge left.
Yes, indeed. Rodge appears to be growing as a character. Who knows, one day he may even double his IQ, by acquiring a second brain cell! 😉
I hate to take credit away from Rodge, truly I do, but he acted the way he did because Natalie is acting in a, frankly, terrifying way. She’s made it clear in the past that her core self-identification is as the male Neil persona she was born with and socialized as, and that she is not remotely interested in having sex with any male while being female, and certainly not her coworker Rodge, whom she regards as something of a doofus. And suddenly she is ready trip Rodge and beat him to the floor in order to engage in passionate sex with no transition IN FRONT OF A HOSTILE WITNESS.
This has caused an ancient and well-attested warning to manifest to Rodge like Death himself waving railway flares: “Don’t stick it in the crazy.”
He is quite rightly acting in pure self defense, as much as he would be if Natalie came at him with a knife and he shot her (or as it would be for Natalie to shoot Rodge if he tried to forcibly rape her). It is perfectly reasonable in fact to assume that Natalie might well do that if he gives in to her sudden sexual demands, and then regrets the decision and puts the blame on him.
I mean, Natalie herself is a bit frightened by what she just tried to do.
For all my concerns with how Natalie is acting, I have to say i really like a trans story in which a magically MtF character initially resists the change, and then finds herself swamped by her new feelings and emotions. Such a character experiencing so sharply the differences between the sexes, even if somewhat uneasily, is for me the whole point of writing a story like this. I’ve seen too many stories where the new girl either immediately goes full female (quite a few early Web stories); or digs in her heels, and refuses to even acknowledge her new sex (See ferex Chris Hazelton’s Misfile or Scott Hickens’ Exiern. Or Jeanie herself, who just doesn’t care, but goes along with the ride for the sake of the fun new powers.
I really hope Natalie decides to go with this, enjoys herself with some guy (if not Rodge), and ultimately has a kid with him–which last is you know the whole point of having two sexes.