Jean AKA Jeannie AKA Jeanie is a film, book, and magazine reviewer for a national magazine. Most of Jean’s work is done through email, which means he doesn't have to go into the office.
On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found an empty Genie Bottle. Upon picking up this bottle, Jean became the bottle’s new genie-powered occupant. Not only was Jean turned into a genie, but the bottle turned him into what he believed a genie of the bottle should look like. Which, due to his fascination with a classic 60s TV show, turned him into a busty blonde woman.
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.
When we’re the portraits on the twenty get larger?
That’s a tipoff that the currency is extra temporal. Or fake.
I was just wondering how someone time traveling to the late 50s would handle that.
Convince the bank the currency is genuine.
(It has to meet 3 or 4 criteria…engraving…watermark… Those loops…paper )
Hand over 5 $100 bills. Take out a loan that requires $500 to pay off after 70 years.
Collect $37 in 1957 cash. (No. I didn’t do the math.)
The currency is not the problem. Unlike me, Neil is a savvy young professional- he may not HAVE $25 in currency, because he has been paying for stuff with his phone and credit cards. He wasn’t planning on buying lunch when Jeanie poofed them to the past.
Kibble burger is at least a slightly upscale burger place, because they are asking for money AFTER the meal has been eaten, rather then when it was ordered.
My “someone is really wrong about paradoxes” senses are tingling!
It’s not a paradox, it’s a stable time loop. Stable time loops cannot be by definition paradoxes, since they’re stable. Paradox by its very nature goes against the normal flow of time, i.e. killing your grandfather before he can have children is one, becoming your own grandfather isn’t.
Technically speaking, becoming your own grandfather also is a paradox, as 1/8th the generic makeup of you comes from your grandfather. Hence your own genetic descendance depends upon itself, which is a paradox. Well that, or you’ll find yourself lacking the delta brainwave 😛
I don’t usually see paradoxes in comics or most media them mixed up, so thus I just went ‘grandfather paradox-esque’ to at least get the general thought across. It’s either that, a loop or predestination. All in all, I think Jean is going to end up taking her past self to the prom.
One could argue it’s a bootstrap paradox since it’s part of what he remembers so it changes his decisions, however slightly, causing this loop to come about.
@Andy Technically, it’s possible for the exact half of the DNA that you got from your parent to be the half that goes to your parent in cases of the “I’m my own grandfather” thing
Statistically the odds are so low that you would need the lifespans of multiple universes (big bang to heat death) for it to happen normally, but the thing about time loops in a deterministic universe is that the odds would actually be 100%, because it had already happened
it seems his girlfriend’s not the only one who had multiple dates under their black book’s belt. semi-related, who WAS that transfer student that Jean took to the Prom back then?
Pretty sure this page is implying that Jean took Jeannie to the Prom. I mean, blonde, “transfer student”, the names being guessed sounding suspiciously like “Jeannie”, a “weird” last name (that was probably Jeannie panicking and making up something on the spot)…
If Jean is taking Jeannie to the prom, then this follows an explanation to avoid time paradoxes.
According to this explanation, a time travel has to happen exactly the way it does, so the timeline comes into existance.
For the grandfather paradox, that means:
If a timetraveler kills his own grandfather intentionally, he will have to become his own grandfather. The explanation: The timetraveler finds the husband of his grandmother and thinks that is his grandfather. What he doesn’t know is that: The supposed man isn’t his real grandfather. He was just the first husband of his grandmother. That husband was murdered or disappeared (if it was the perfect murder). Maybe the Grandmother never talked about it? Maybe she did, but the grandson didn’t realise the murdered man was the first husband.
Umm, no, that is not what Grandfather paradox means. That is one plot that uses the Grandfather paradox as a hook but the paradox itself is something more basic. Put simply, the grandfather paradox means making a change to the past that would make your trip back to the past impossible. It could be killing your grandfather, it could be killing yourself, it could be any number of things. “Butterfly effect” means making a change to the past that affects the future but does not make the trip impossible, and “Killing Hitler” means making a change to the past that makes your time travel unnecessary.
What T.Hippo is describing is closer to the Ouroboros theory (or serpent eating its own tail). See Heinlein’s “All You Zombie’s.” This is the paradox that is “going on here” (supposing):what this paradox is is that the time traveler interacts with the past in such a way that in the future the time traveler has to got back in time in the same manner or they will cease to exist.
Better yet, read Jack L. Chalker’s “Downtiming the Nightside”, Chalker wrote it in response to “All You Zombies” fundamental implausibility. It’s probably Chalker’s best book and certainly better than anything Heinlein wrote after he entered the “bloated ego” phase of his career. “Nightsided” even entered the lexicon, however briefly, to describe characters cut off in their own past by a time loop. CD himself included a nightsided character in Sailor Sun. I don’t think he used that phrase himself but it showed up in the TV Tropes description of the character.
According to Physics, there cannot be a paradox. When you go back and kill your grandfather, you are not really killing yours, you are killing your alti-timeline persona. Thus, what Jeannie will do here and create a new timeline. A good explanation of how this works is in Back to the Future 2, where they create a different timeline. In order for it to be fixed, you would have to return to the original timeline before the events happened.
Ah yes, Jeanie is going to prom, dragging poor Natalie along for the ride (since Neil can’t show his face)… where do I send my suggestions for prom dresses?
Jean is notoriously self-centered, and Jeanie will no doubt disguise herself. She may put Neil in her place as the transfer student, and she may mess with her own memories to protect the future.
I’m betting that Jeanie will discover that her teenage self couldn’t get a date and decides to “improve” his life in ways that turns him into the unrepentant horndog he eventually becomes. Less like Les Nessman and more like Herb Tarlek.
Our Jeanie just said that he barely remembrs the “blonde transfer student” that he went to Prom with. To high school-Jean, she was just some cute blonde he probably only met once.
No paradox — so far.
Paradoxes only arise when you do something which didn’t happen the “previous” time you “played that scene”. Jeanie doesn’t plan on killing or impregnating anybody. Whether you can change the past is the basis of 10,000 SF stories (and a lesser, but still substantial, number of articles in physics journals.)
Paper money, depending on denomination, only lasts about 5 to 7 years. So it's quite likely some of what's in Neil's wallet is dated post-prom.
"Weird last name", eh? Do we know Jean's last name? Has it ever been mentioned? Everyone human in the cast-list has their full name spelled out — except him/her.
Jean’s last name is Nessman and she is from Cincinnati Ohio. Now where have we heard that before? 🙂 (hint: sitcom universe)
US paper money all looks the same and the date on Neil’s notes probably won’t be noticed unless someone specifically looks for it, and few people do that? Though I do remember one time travel story where the traveler from the future bribed the protagonist by giving him a one dollar bill that had his own signature on it as a future secretary of the treasury.
As for killing or impregnating someone, that’s only a paradox if it didn’t happen the first time around, and often doesn’t require any planning.
Actually I just realized (belatedly) that Neil and Jean could have gone to High School before they increased the sizes of the portraits on the notes. We’ll see if that matters.
That story was by Alfred Bester.
And, yes, paper money does look different today. But now that the “unknown” blonde transfer student has been introduced, I doubt the dates on the currency will be an important plot-point. Nor any coronavirus the travelers might be carrying.
Now that I think of it, becoming your own ancestor usually assumes the time-traveler is a man. The “hero” could “have his way” with mom or grandmom and then depart. Neil wouldn’t be such a cad. However, I believe Lazarus Long left his “long life” genes in a closed time-loop.
Old joke: Salesman claims supercomputer can answer any question. Potential customer types “Where is my father?” Card pops out: “Your father is fishing in Canada”. “Wrong!! My father is dead!”
Salesman explains you have to phrase questions carefully. “Where is his mother’s husband?” Card pops out: “His mother’s husband is dead. His father is fishing in Canada.”
Mark. The current currency design has been around for at least 12 years according to Wikipedia. If Neil and Jean are supposed to be in their mid-twenties, that would mean the new bills came out when they were around 13 or 14 years old. Therefore the current design was already in use. That only leaves the dates on the bills being a problem, and as other people have mentioned, who looks at the dates?
20 years ago I left my hometown. Before I left one of my favorite burger restaurants was a specialty place and in the 1990s it was normal to drop $15 a person there. So for a specialty place like this place, I would expect it.
Yes, burger can cost anything. But weren’t they in high school at the time? What high schooler can drop $12 on a burger 10ish years ago? This place had to be the pinnacle of dining for those two at the time.
And this isn’t a “specialty place”. It’s a best a diner. At worst it’s an upscale McDonalds. The guy behind the cash register is a dead giveaway that this is not a normal table service restaurant.
The price apparently includes the fries and drinks as well–if you look at the previous page, they have fries visible on their plates. I can see the whole meal coming to about eleven dollars each plus sales tax.
Way too much for McDonalds, sure. But ~10 years ago, $12.40 each (after tax) for burgers and fries at a diner would be about right. A little on the expensive side, but not completely out of the realm of possibility.
I actually had to _drop_ the price that CD originally had the cashier quote, because it was way too high. Though to be fair, he was working with Canadian cost reckoning, so he wasn’t really that far off after converting to USD.
If you factor out Ohio’s 7.1% statewide average sales tax the price drops to $11.50. Canadian sales tax could be anything from 5% to 15% depending upon the province. CD probably lives in a small hut in the northern Yuko where pizzas are delivered by dogsled and everything is super expensive. His neighbors are a couple of American expats who moved there because Alaska was way too crowded. Silly note: Ohio’s sales tax rate depends upon what you have in your coffee.
My second theory is he’s the only monolingual person in Moncton and his neighbors refuse to tell him what’s going on.
My third theory is he’s an air conditioner repairman in Whitehorse which leaves him plenty of time to work on the comic.
True story: a young woman I knew from Moncton who was perfectly bilingual had to take an English proficiency test to attend college in the US and a French proficiency test to attend Medical School in Moncton because they considered her a “foreign student” both times.
Here’s another indication… look at how Jeanie is standing in panel 3, and the look on Greg’s face (as opposed to his expression on page 622). Jeanie is definitely acting more and more like a female that knows she’s attractive.
Holding your hands behind your back like that makes your chest stick out and she does have a nice one. Looks like Jeanie has learned how deadly that thing is.
If Jeanie drags Neil along to prom as Natalie she will need a date. Please tell me that Rodge did not go to their high school.
I’m pretty sure that if teen Natalie shows up at the prom, she won’t have any trouble finding someone to dance with, that is is Neil can overcome his guy-ness. Maybe Jeanie will have to tweak her endorphins again, as explained on page 481 (I Dream of an Escape).
Ah…so that means they’re a natural part of history and there’s no time paradox. Unless Neil pays the guy with cash and coin with future dates and signatures on them, then there’ll be problems.
There would only be problem if someone notices. If the cash stays in circulation without anyone looking at the date until that date passes, it doesn’t matter.
That would be an interesting twist. But how would Neil be convinced to become Jean’s date?
I can totally see Jeanie doing it as a self-promotional thing. “Hah, see how awesome my teen self was? He took a girl this hot” (points to self) “to prom!”
I’m betting Jeanie discovers that her teenage self desperately needs self-promotion, we all receive a more insight into Jean’s character, and Neil discovers the root of Jeanie’s apparent narcissism.
All we need now is for past Jean to get lucky, present Jean to travel FURTHER to the past, give birth to himself and give baby Jean up for adoption. Robert Heinlein would be proud. Jean: “I know where I come from, but where did all you zombies come from?”
I’m not sure what proms were like in Cinti in recent times. But awhile ago, the prom was a big deal. Girls would experience anxiety about getting asked for months. Parents would plan post-prom parties to forestall other activities. Girls would agitate over their dresses for weeks. Boys would dither over formal wear–white jacket or black, ruffled shirt or pleated, etc. One certainly would not take a girl one barely knew, nor would one forget her name. This depicts Jean as way beyond narcissistic. Sociopathic, really. (I certainly can tell you the names of my dates for my junior and senior proms. And they weren’t exactly recent.)
There have always been the guys and gals who didn’t conform to the norms, though. Jean may very well have been one of them. And I know that crowd well, as I went to high school “awhile ago”, and didn’t even go to prom at all.
Jean took Present Jean to prom.
Does that mean that Neils money can’t be uses because they changed the money to the new type after that time period
When we’re the portraits on the twenty get larger?
That’s a tipoff that the currency is extra temporal. Or fake.
I was just wondering how someone time traveling to the late 50s would handle that.
Convince the bank the currency is genuine.
(It has to meet 3 or 4 criteria…engraving…watermark… Those loops…paper )
Hand over 5 $100 bills. Take out a loan that requires $500 to pay off after 70 years.
Collect $37 in 1957 cash. (No. I didn’t do the math.)
E-yup.
The new style of currency has been around for at least 12 years. See my response below for more info.
The currency is not the problem. Unlike me, Neil is a savvy young professional- he may not HAVE $25 in currency, because he has been paying for stuff with his phone and credit cards. He wasn’t planning on buying lunch when Jeanie poofed them to the past.
Kibble burger is at least a slightly upscale burger place, because they are asking for money AFTER the meal has been eaten, rather then when it was ordered.
Would your credit card be accepted if you used it years before you open the account?
Oh crap. That’s… some futurama, “I’m my own Grandfather” stuff.
And Grandfather Paradox-esque loop confirmed
My “someone is really wrong about paradoxes” senses are tingling!
It’s not a paradox, it’s a stable time loop. Stable time loops cannot be by definition paradoxes, since they’re stable. Paradox by its very nature goes against the normal flow of time, i.e. killing your grandfather before he can have children is one, becoming your own grandfather isn’t.
Technically speaking, becoming your own grandfather also is a paradox, as 1/8th the generic makeup of you comes from your grandfather. Hence your own genetic descendance depends upon itself, which is a paradox. Well that, or you’ll find yourself lacking the delta brainwave 😛
I don’t usually see paradoxes in comics or most media them mixed up, so thus I just went ‘grandfather paradox-esque’ to at least get the general thought across. It’s either that, a loop or predestination. All in all, I think Jean is going to end up taking her past self to the prom.
One could argue it’s a bootstrap paradox since it’s part of what he remembers so it changes his decisions, however slightly, causing this loop to come about.
@Andy Technically, it’s possible for the exact half of the DNA that you got from your parent to be the half that goes to your parent in cases of the “I’m my own grandfather” thing
Statistically the odds are so low that you would need the lifespans of multiple universes (big bang to heat death) for it to happen normally, but the thing about time loops in a deterministic universe is that the odds would actually be 100%, because it had already happened
it seems his girlfriend’s not the only one who had multiple dates under their black book’s belt. semi-related, who WAS that transfer student that Jean took to the Prom back then?
Pretty sure this page is implying that Jean took Jeannie to the Prom. I mean, blonde, “transfer student”, the names being guessed sounding suspiciously like “Jeannie”, a “weird” last name (that was probably Jeannie panicking and making up something on the spot)…
Or could be using the new married name of Lord Guano i.e. Jeannie Guano
A weird last name like for example bottle?
Yeah, I was figuring that she’s introduce herself as Jeannie Bottle again, like she did at that party in New York.
Does this count as a date?
This is getting interesting…
Haha .. go with Gigi you magic girl 😉
Hopefully a few future bills won’t change anything …
I’m sure none of them are dated 2020, and no one will be going to jail for counterfeiting bills with a future date.
If Jean is taking Jeannie to the prom, then this follows an explanation to avoid time paradoxes.
According to this explanation, a time travel has to happen exactly the way it does, so the timeline comes into existance.
For the grandfather paradox, that means:
If a timetraveler kills his own grandfather intentionally, he will have to become his own grandfather. The explanation: The timetraveler finds the husband of his grandmother and thinks that is his grandfather. What he doesn’t know is that: The supposed man isn’t his real grandfather. He was just the first husband of his grandmother. That husband was murdered or disappeared (if it was the perfect murder). Maybe the Grandmother never talked about it? Maybe she did, but the grandson didn’t realise the murdered man was the first husband.
Umm, no, that is not what Grandfather paradox means. That is one plot that uses the Grandfather paradox as a hook but the paradox itself is something more basic. Put simply, the grandfather paradox means making a change to the past that would make your trip back to the past impossible. It could be killing your grandfather, it could be killing yourself, it could be any number of things. “Butterfly effect” means making a change to the past that affects the future but does not make the trip impossible, and “Killing Hitler” means making a change to the past that makes your time travel unnecessary.
What T.Hippo is describing is closer to the Ouroboros theory (or serpent eating its own tail). See Heinlein’s “All You Zombie’s.” This is the paradox that is “going on here” (supposing):what this paradox is is that the time traveler interacts with the past in such a way that in the future the time traveler has to got back in time in the same manner or they will cease to exist.
Better yet, read Jack L. Chalker’s “Downtiming the Nightside”, Chalker wrote it in response to “All You Zombies” fundamental implausibility. It’s probably Chalker’s best book and certainly better than anything Heinlein wrote after he entered the “bloated ego” phase of his career. “Nightsided” even entered the lexicon, however briefly, to describe characters cut off in their own past by a time loop. CD himself included a nightsided character in Sailor Sun. I don’t think he used that phrase himself but it showed up in the TV Tropes description of the character.
According to Physics, there cannot be a paradox. When you go back and kill your grandfather, you are not really killing yours, you are killing your alti-timeline persona. Thus, what Jeannie will do here and create a new timeline. A good explanation of how this works is in Back to the Future 2, where they create a different timeline. In order for it to be fixed, you would have to return to the original timeline before the events happened.
Ah yes, Jeanie is going to prom, dragging poor Natalie along for the ride (since Neil can’t show his face)… where do I send my suggestions for prom dresses?
Wouldn’t our Jeanie remember going to prom with himself?
Jean is notoriously self-centered, and Jeanie will no doubt disguise herself. She may put Neil in her place as the transfer student, and she may mess with her own memories to protect the future.
I’m betting that Jeanie will discover that her teenage self couldn’t get a date and decides to “improve” his life in ways that turns him into the unrepentant horndog he eventually becomes. Less like Les Nessman and more like Herb Tarlek.
Our Jeanie just said that he barely remembrs the “blonde transfer student” that he went to Prom with. To high school-Jean, she was just some cute blonde he probably only met once.
No paradox — so far.
Paradoxes only arise when you do something which didn’t happen the “previous” time you “played that scene”. Jeanie doesn’t plan on killing or impregnating anybody. Whether you can change the past is the basis of 10,000 SF stories (and a lesser, but still substantial, number of articles in physics journals.)
Paper money, depending on denomination, only lasts about 5 to 7 years. So it's quite likely some of what's in Neil's wallet is dated post-prom.
"Weird last name", eh? Do we know Jean's last name? Has it ever been mentioned? Everyone human in the cast-list has their full name spelled out — except him/her.
Jean’s last name is Nessman and she is from Cincinnati Ohio. Now where have we heard that before? 🙂 (hint: sitcom universe)
US paper money all looks the same and the date on Neil’s notes probably won’t be noticed unless someone specifically looks for it, and few people do that? Though I do remember one time travel story where the traveler from the future bribed the protagonist by giving him a one dollar bill that had his own signature on it as a future secretary of the treasury.
As for killing or impregnating someone, that’s only a paradox if it didn’t happen the first time around, and often doesn’t require any planning.
Actually I just realized (belatedly) that Neil and Jean could have gone to High School before they increased the sizes of the portraits on the notes. We’ll see if that matters.
That story was by Alfred Bester.
And, yes, paper money does look different today. But now that the “unknown” blonde transfer student has been introduced, I doubt the dates on the currency will be an important plot-point. Nor any coronavirus the travelers might be carrying.
Now that I think of it, becoming your own ancestor usually assumes the time-traveler is a man. The “hero” could “have his way” with mom or grandmom and then depart. Neil wouldn’t be such a cad. However, I believe Lazarus Long left his “long life” genes in a closed time-loop.
Old joke: Salesman claims supercomputer can answer any question. Potential customer types “Where is my father?” Card pops out: “Your father is fishing in Canada”. “Wrong!! My father is dead!”
Salesman explains you have to phrase questions carefully. “Where is his mother’s husband?” Card pops out: “His mother’s husband is dead. His father is fishing in Canada.”
Mark. The current currency design has been around for at least 12 years according to Wikipedia. If Neil and Jean are supposed to be in their mid-twenties, that would mean the new bills came out when they were around 13 or 14 years old. Therefore the current design was already in use. That only leaves the dates on the bills being a problem, and as other people have mentioned, who looks at the dates?
$24!! What year is this supposed to be? Sounds like they went back in time to 2018 if two fast-food burgers for two people cost $24.
20 years ago I left my hometown. Before I left one of my favorite burger restaurants was a specialty place and in the 1990s it was normal to drop $15 a person there. So for a specialty place like this place, I would expect it.
Yes, burger can cost anything. But weren’t they in high school at the time? What high schooler can drop $12 on a burger 10ish years ago? This place had to be the pinnacle of dining for those two at the time.
And this isn’t a “specialty place”. It’s a best a diner. At worst it’s an upscale McDonalds. The guy behind the cash register is a dead giveaway that this is not a normal table service restaurant.
The price apparently includes the fries and drinks as well–if you look at the previous page, they have fries visible on their plates. I can see the whole meal coming to about eleven dollars each plus sales tax.
Way too much for McDonalds, sure. But ~10 years ago, $12.40 each (after tax) for burgers and fries at a diner would be about right. A little on the expensive side, but not completely out of the realm of possibility.
I actually had to _drop_ the price that CD originally had the cashier quote, because it was way too high. Though to be fair, he was working with Canadian cost reckoning, so he wasn’t really that far off after converting to USD.
If you factor out Ohio’s 7.1% statewide average sales tax the price drops to $11.50. Canadian sales tax could be anything from 5% to 15% depending upon the province. CD probably lives in a small hut in the northern Yuko where pizzas are delivered by dogsled and everything is super expensive. His neighbors are a couple of American expats who moved there because Alaska was way too crowded. Silly note: Ohio’s sales tax rate depends upon what you have in your coffee.
Considering that I’ve visited CD’s home, that’s a very amusing guess as to how he lives.
Ahh, man… After covid is over, I would love to come visit again. I had a blast last time.
Now I feel stupid for misspelling “Yukon”.
My second theory is he’s the only monolingual person in Moncton and his neighbors refuse to tell him what’s going on.
My third theory is he’s an air conditioner repairman in Whitehorse which leaves him plenty of time to work on the comic.
True story: a young woman I knew from Moncton who was perfectly bilingual had to take an English proficiency test to attend college in the US and a French proficiency test to attend Medical School in Moncton because they considered her a “foreign student” both times.
CD has actually mentioned his profession on here at least once before. But I won’t spoil your amusing guesses by repeating it. 🙂
my headcanon is now Jean’s appearance is based on his lost date not the tv series. like capaildi did in series 8
good point on hiding the money though sure she could poof some up
Just another indicator that “Jean” is becoming more and more “Jeanie”. What guy calls another guy adorable?
I noticed that, too. 🙂
She also just totally got Neil to pay for their “date”.
Taking him back in time to a long-gone favorite restaurant wasn’t enough of a favor?
Here’s another indication… look at how Jeanie is standing in panel 3, and the look on Greg’s face (as opposed to his expression on page 622). Jeanie is definitely acting more and more like a female that knows she’s attractive.
Holding your hands behind your back like that makes your chest stick out and she does have a nice one. Looks like Jeanie has learned how deadly that thing is.
If Jeanie drags Neil along to prom as Natalie she will need a date. Please tell me that Rodge did not go to their high school.
I’m pretty sure that if teen Natalie shows up at the prom, she won’t have any trouble finding someone to dance with, that is is Neil can overcome his guy-ness. Maybe Jeanie will have to tweak her endorphins again, as explained on page 481 (I Dream of an Escape).
Wow, Jean’s really dating himself.
I’m wishing him all the br-, uh, ‘best’!
bilevel puns could have gotten you burned as a witch in a less enlightened era.
Predestination paradox. It is almost always a predestination paradox.
Ah…so that means they’re a natural part of history and there’s no time paradox. Unless Neil pays the guy with cash and coin with future dates and signatures on them, then there’ll be problems.
There would only be problem if someone notices. If the cash stays in circulation without anyone looking at the date until that date passes, it doesn’t matter.
Paper money has a lifetime of around 18 months.
It is then returned to be destroyed.
I would rather see Neil be the Blonde that ends up taking Jean to the prom instead of the obvious.
That would be an interesting twist. But how would Neil be convinced to become Jean’s date?
I can totally see Jeanie doing it as a self-promotional thing. “Hah, see how awesome my teen self was? He took a girl this hot” (points to self) “to prom!”
I’m betting Jeanie discovers that her teenage self desperately needs self-promotion, we all receive a more insight into Jean’s character, and Neil discovers the root of Jeanie’s apparent narcissism.
I won’t imagine it be too hard to set up that twist especially if Neil concern about paradoxes and an adult lurking around the high school.
Jeanie, stay away from the punch bowl.
And it all goes sideways – again
Jeanie, don’t do anything that can alter history, unless the action was supposed to happen, in which case, for the love of god, DON’T NOT DO IT
That seems like less than helpful advice… 🙂
All we need now is for past Jean to get lucky, present Jean to travel FURTHER to the past, give birth to himself and give baby Jean up for adoption. Robert Heinlein would be proud. Jean: “I know where I come from, but where did all you zombies come from?”
I loved that story. Weird but good.
*facepalm* it wasn’t a time paradox afterall.
Its interesting that now where I know where the story is going, I’m suddenly on board.
I’m not sure what proms were like in Cinti in recent times. But awhile ago, the prom was a big deal. Girls would experience anxiety about getting asked for months. Parents would plan post-prom parties to forestall other activities. Girls would agitate over their dresses for weeks. Boys would dither over formal wear–white jacket or black, ruffled shirt or pleated, etc. One certainly would not take a girl one barely knew, nor would one forget her name. This depicts Jean as way beyond narcissistic. Sociopathic, really. (I certainly can tell you the names of my dates for my junior and senior proms. And they weren’t exactly recent.)
There have always been the guys and gals who didn’t conform to the norms, though. Jean may very well have been one of them. And I know that crowd well, as I went to high school “awhile ago”, and didn’t even go to prom at all.