Jeanie Bottle 640
Jun08
on June 8, 2021
at 12:01 am
and modified on December 27, 2022. at 12:28 am
Seems like it’s time for a (reluctant) montage!
Welcome to
Normally Updates Weekly
Usually Tuesday or Thursday
Seems like it’s time for a (reluctant) montage!
Neil just have fun once in your life or Jean could mess with your hormones again. Please make this another double week update?
Probably won’t be a double update this week. But I wouldn’t totally rule out the possibility.
It certainly seems like Jeanie has mostly forgotten her previous gender as Jean. Outside of that, her personality is more or less the same as young Jean. As an aside, “Jean” as a guys name is pretty unusual; isn’t the spelling more often “Gene”? Of course, the reader’s universe and the comic’s universe are not necessarily operating with the same rules.
Yes, that generally is the way that a guys spell his name if he called Jean and it is generally spelled this way Gene. However we are use to the male version of Jeanie being spelled Jean and not Gene. So after over 640 Jeanie Bottle update, it been pretty much established that it is spelled this way Jean and not that way Gene.
>It certainly seems like Jeanie has mostly forgotten her previous gender as Jean
I noticed the same thing! Jeanie honestly doesn’t get it, probably because she feels entirely female, now.
Is it possible Lahab (https://jeaniebottle.com/?comic=jeanie-bottle-601) made some adjustments before Jeanie was sent back? 🙂
Even before Jeanie got to Lahab to have that discussion, most of that transformation into a female genie has already taken place as to who Jeanie is. Lahab may have made some fine tuning or added something else to the process of turning Jean into Jeanie now, but, this turning Jean into Jeanie is pretty much a done deal now. Across this entire Jeanie Bottle series, there been a gradual transformation of Jean into Jeanie and is one of the primary theme of this series.
@Robert:
“Try on a couple outfits. You’ll feel better.” Definitely a girl’s way of thinking.
@Mike:
It’s a form of gambling; with each outfit, you think “maybe this one will look good on me”. Then you find one that looks great, and its “Jackpot!”.
And let’s not forget all the men who create female avatars in games so they can play “dress up”, searching for their ideal woman.
Or she’s just an ass, just like Jean was. Jeanie has ZERO empathy. She never had any. And without it she doesn’t get why Neil is happy when she’s happy. This isn’t hard to understand. It’s not that she doesn’t care. She just literally doesn’t know what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes.
Jean is the French equivalent of John. Pronounced similarly too.
You’re correct. I had forgotten about that; thanks for the reminder. I am guilty of assuming an American-centric naming & spelling. My apologies.
there’s another possibility. she hasn’t forgotten but unlike Neil didn’t care much for being a guy. I don’t think he hated it or something like that but it wasn’t part of his identity either way So when she was no longer one she didn’t really feel like she had lost anything, and then when she started having fun as a girl she had no reason to look back, and so never did. that part at the start where she was trying to rush him to help undo the changes could be more about she was more upset about what it would mean for her to be stuck as a genie, then as a girl.
In the beginning, Jean didn’t want to be either a Genie or a girl either. Matter of fact, he went ballistic over being both Genie and a girl too. Jean didn’t even give up the idea of changing back to being a mortal man until Kazom said to her that it was permanent, irreversible and being a blond female genie at his core forever.
It was only after this point, did Jean stop actively change back to being mortal man, but, he still wanted to be changed back to being a mortal man even.
The order that it appears in the Jeanie Bottle series of Jeanie accepted her new roll of first, was being a Genie, but, not a girl genie. That was because of the power that she wheels as a Genie that she liked. Than as time go on, Jean has stop acting like a guy and acting more like a girl called Jeanie. Even at this late date, Jeanie still seem to have some fantasy of going back to being a guy. However at this point in time, she would be completely totally out of place being either a mortal or a genie guy or even a mortal girl even. She has changed that much over the last year of being a female genie. When many of those changes were taking place, I was calling it out as a change into acting more like a girl and less like a man and some people even complained that I was being overly picky about it. Now just about every else is saying it too.
This would be a great time for Neil to wish that he is a guy again and to wish that Jeanie would stop messing with him now.
About three wishes to late for that. Hope that sandwich was at least good.
Well, naked Natalie had better try on something before she steps out of that dressing room.
Does she really *have* to?? 😉
I wish Jeannie would get A LOTTA COMMON SENSE.. clobbered into her head. that goes double for her past guy form.
She doesn’t need common sense, she has magic. Makes a person sloppy.
Jean needs some bottle time when they get back. If it were me, then I’d drop hers in concrete at the nearest freeway construction site. Going back to your teens would be bad enough, but for Neil also having the genderswap and being in the middle of an important project, it cannot be a fun time at all. Okay, maybe not as vindictive as me, but Jean spending a day or seven grounded and in her bottle, might be a thing that needs to happen.
A part of me wish Neil would ask Calley to switch genies.
The other part is terrified about the possibility of Jeanie as a magical sitter.
Technically, the project doesn’t matter. Even if they spend months here back in the past, as long as they return shortly after they left, Neil will have lost almost no time on his project.
Go with that outfit. Tasteful without being gauche. A lot of guys can’t wear something like that.
“Tasteful, not gauche”. Uh-HUH.
When are we getting the full-view banner that Jeanie got?
(Sorry, had to be asked. Willing to take the hit for the team.)
I’ll second that… we need a Natalie banner.
Honestly, I think it’s less the “girl” part (Neil has been Natalie plenty before now) than it is the “teen girl” part. Especially, “you are making me be the prom date for my younger male self”.
Awww, cute little bottom there, Natalie. Maybe a bit pale, but nothing I can’t fix with 10 or 12 good swats, and maybe a kick or two wif me HOBNAIL BOOT. Give it a nice warm glow….
If you’re worried about the “time-travel butterfly effect” (thanks, Mr. Bradbury) then you should MAN UP and accept your profound responsibilities as a genie’s master. Do you not know that it’s a basic tenet of management (and chain of command, for that matter) that when the subordinate screws up, it’s the supervisor’s fault?
You know Jeanie’s an impulsive, self-centered being, who has been endowed with near-infinite cosmic power, right? You know you are her official conscience, right?
You know that to get her to follow even your most benevolent, lightest touch guidance, she has to respect you, right?
You know that having frittered away the respect of friendship, or even roommate-ship, you will now have to earn it back, right?
This whole sequence started with Jeanie realizing that, yes, she’s a genie. You know that when you interrupted her at the kitchen table, she was making PLANS, right?
You understand, I dearly hope, that someone like Jeanie making unsupervised PLANS is more dangerous than driving a buckboard wagon full of leaking dynamite at a gallop over Washboard Road..right?
Go along with her prom prep plans, Natalie. Show your genie you are capable of having a good time. Tell her that she makes whatever she wears look good. Wear whatever outfit she puts you in. Go shopping. Have a good time. Let her have a good time.
Then give her something better to do than run that buckboard over a cliff. No,a mere killjoy scolding will not work.
That’s your job, Neil. Sorry about your aerospace career. This is much more important.
As I said, Neil isn’t very intuitive when it comes to the females of the species. You presume his knowledge is more extensive than it really is.
That is true–Neil is the classic nerd, smart and knowledgeable in his technical field, clueless when it comes to people.
That’s too bad, because he’s not dealing with a girl, but with a genie in girl form. He has a responsibility to his genie–and to his friend. Neil has no more choice in the matter than Jean did when he turned into a bottle girl. The only thing he can do is wait for the next Haji’s Day, and abdicate his mastership–but that could be very hard on Jeanie.
Jeanie’s desperately trying to get his attention here. And note she says flat out that she doesn’t “really” understand him. He needs to wake up and start trying to understand her, and his duties as master–or she’s going to go increasingly out of control.
I suspect the Manual he received says something about this, but I bet he only looked up Jeanie’s responsibilities, not his own. He likely hasn’t studied it since. He should be devoting his life to studying that thing, because his happiness and jeanie’s, depends on getting this right.
As I said in comments to the last strip, the real pity here is that Neil would likely make an excellent master. Not greedy, not lustful, not power-mad–but likely capable of making some really great wishes, once he got the hang of it. He and Jeanie could have a ton of fun together.
I suspect that part of Neil’s problem is that he’s fighting a physical attraction to his friend. Early in the strip he “suffered” through a few spontaneous reactions that I think he found embarrassing, one of which resulted in his first appearance as Natalie. Distancing himself from actually thinking of Jeanie as female instead of as his former buddy may be hindering his accepting their relationship.
@mike: “part of Neil’s problem is that he’s fighting a physical attraction to his friend.” Absolutely, I’m sure. He’s also suffering the sense that being “Master” implies some sort of sexual bondage/discipline kink.
I don’t think so. He just needs to think of interesting things for Jeanie to do for him, and with him.
Will he and his genie become lovers? Wouldn’t be surprised. That seems a likely way to cement the bond between a genie and her master, given that both are inclined that way.
And if Neil learns anything at all from this incident, it should be that Jeanie isn’t Jean anymore–something many of us have noticed.
@50sRefugee: There’s also the matter that, as a Millennial generation American, Neil has been brought up in a culture that associates the concepts of “Master” and “servitude” with our nation’s history with slavery and racism. Calling oneself a “Master” is uncomfortably close to calling oneself a slaver.
1st of all slavery was blimp in America’s history very short lived most didn’t practice it 2nd it wasn’t racial there were whites slaves 3rd every country is racist its call looking out for your people
Ugh, let’s not get into a political argument over it, since we clearly disagree. My point was that, for a non-dominating personality like Neil’s, it is emotionally uncomfortable to assert “your role in life is to serve me” over someone, especially an old friend.
@ijuinkun: “Neil has been brought up in a culture that associates the concepts of “Master” and “servitude” with our nation’s history with slavery and racism. ” Nod-nod. ” for a non-dominating personality like Neil’s, it is emotionally uncomfortable to assert ‘your role in life is to serve me’ ” NOD-NOD-NOD There’s a great reluctance to acknowledge that in any group, even a group of two, someone has to lead. Someone has to be captain of the ship. That doesn’t mean that the Captain doesn’t have to attend to the well being of his crew, or listen to their advice and expertise, or that the crew must abandon their own goals and desires in favor of the Captain’s.
As nice as the montages are, they are slowing the plot down to a crawl.
I hate criticising someone who is doing something for, essentially, free, but yeah. Montages are for daily webcomics. And daily ones like Kevin and Kell, not daily like how Misfile was theoretically daily. For the latter, it moved even slower than this. This one strip would have been a months worth of strips on old Misfile. The artist on it could spin just that first panel out into a week’s worth of comics. But, yeah, montages are for fast moving multistrip per week, comics.
Slowing WHAT? 🙂
Jeanie-you might consider some support undergarmets. Some of those skirts are really short.
Neil you could have said at least poofed me in my underwear.
Shouldn’t there be a *POOF* in the fourth panel? Or has Jeanie invented a silencer in her spare time?
And now that Neil/Natalie is going to have to buy an outfit, will they be spreading around more “counterfeit” money? Prom dresses, too. Which weren’t cheap. (My senior year prom date could sew and made her own. I just learned last week that she passed away last fall…)
The POOF is there. Zoom in and you’ll see it.
founf it but I won’t tell.
I meant the actual characters “*POOF*”
Nothing Jeanie tried on was a prom dress. OTOH, Neil/Natalie in the last panel could be wearing one–they were quite often off-the-shoulder or strapless. Still are. If the girl could “support” the style. And didn’t care about showing too much.
My proms were in late April or early May, four weeks or more before graduation. I think I had made my invitation to the girl in February or March. Post-prom parties were planned for weeks. The story where dates aren’t set until the day before is just not realistic. Prom angst (will he ask me? will she go with me?) began months before. In recent years, prom invitations have gotten more elaborate than marriage proposals. Oh, and being that they were formal events, boys had to rent a tux–and agitate over white vs. black jacket, black or colored accessories, ruffled or pleated shirt, etc. And I also remember how sophomore girls who were dating junior boys and got to go to the JS Prom were the envy of their peers.
My guess on what happens next
– Natalie tries on a dress
– Truant officer turns up
– Jeanie says with older family member
– (Poof) Neil in changing room wearing dress and no male clothes around
For all I’ve criticized Jeanie, I have to say:
I believe Jean, and now Jeanie, truly cared and now cares for Neil, who seems in danger of turning into a drudge. She doesn’t know how to make Neil wake up, but she knows she must get his attention somehow.
Jean really cared about Neil before, but, it was in a way that guys care for other guys. There is nothing sexual here or anything like that. But, as Jeanie there is a desire building up inside Jeanie for Neil and it is sexual too or it going in that direction. When I first said that were this thing is going, just about everybody poop pooped that idea. I said then, that Jean is turning into a girl inside of himself and not just turned into a girl on the outside of himself. When he was first turned into Jeanie on the outside of him, it was still obvious that he was still Jean on the inside of himself and that changed over time to being a girl inside himself instead of being a guy inside of Jeanie body.
Yes, it’s been clear since very early on that Jeanie is attracted to her Master, or wants to be. But she’s no Aracelli–she also needs Neil to deserve her affection. Unfortunately, Jean’s rebellious character caused her to react badly to Neil’s early signs of attraction, and he is now quite reasonable cautious, perhaps even fearful, of appearing to be sexually attracted to her, or to attempt to “boss her around” by wishing for even small things.
I’m really hoping that this little segment is going to give both of them the opportunity to cope with this.
Jeannie (and Jean before her) are completely empathy-free. She likes Neil. But she has no concept of how her shenanigans hurt Neil.
Jeanie being empathy free, or nearly so, is an excellent point. I still think she cares about Neil, but can’t really understand that Neil’s priorities and goals are very different from her own.
This lack of empathy is a big part of why I think she needs a Master.
Jeanie needs a Master because she’s a genie. While we are all still rooting for Neil, maybe he just doesn’t have the right stuff. If he does, he’d better start demonstrating it or sooner or later he’s going to lose her.
@mike: “Jeanie needs a Master because she’s a genie.” That’s the other big part, yes.
“Maybe [Neil] just doesn’t have the right stuff.” I hope he does. That’s what I’ve been whining about almost since the start of this comic. It’s exactly what I’m pointing at when I say things like, “[Jeanie] needs Neil to deserve her affection”. Or at least her respect.
Neil being a clueless doofus is funny for awhile. But long term, it’s a serious problem.
My rooting for Neil is exactly hoping that he finds his right stuff. I know he has it.
Neil learning to be Master is every bit as interesting to me as Jeanie learning to be female. (And learning to be a genie.) They need each other so much.
I find it hilarious that Natalie is effectively almost a completely separate character from Neil at this point
Or at least it feels like that
Why do you think she has her own tag and Character entry? 🙂
I didn’t see this comic until today; more wifi problems. Anyway, none of you seem to have absorbed that Neil and Jeanie being their own prom dates is what’s supposed to have happened in the timeline they jumped back from. I thought that Neil had already realized that, but now I know he hasn’t, or he would be doing everything possible to make the prom go as he dimly remembered it did. Obviously he didn’t go with Zoey the last time around or he would have brought that up by now to Jean(ie).
As for truant officers, do they even have those these days? Or even those days? I went to high school in the Sixties and skipped school a time or two with absolutely no trouble, and I never heard of anyone getting into trouble for that.
What would be appropriate, I think, is for Zoey to show up, maybe in the next fitting room–kind of like Agent Anderson was in the next fitting room awhile back (or forward, since that is supposed to be in the future from when we are now).
This is at least the third time Jeanie has screwed with the time stream. The first was in I Dream of Technicolor when she went back to 1969 with Neil, and the second was in I Dream of an Escape when she sent those two jerks who were bothering Agent Anderson back to June 6, 1944, on Omaha Beach just before the German machine guns opened fire.
I wonder how far C.D. is going to go with this. Are Neil and Jean going back to a future that’s changed, and go back to un-change it? Spielberg got around that in the first Back to the Future movie with that family photo where Marty McFly’s older siblings and then himself fade away as the plot progresses, but that’s what happened in the two sequels. Even if C.D. did something like that here, it wouldn’t be nearly as twisted as the Timey-Winey arc in his SailorSun.org.
> As for truant officers, do they even have those these days?
Maybe in small towns? But yeah, they’d be utterly worthless in any population center large than a few thousand.
> Are Neil and Jean going back to a future that’s changed, and go back to un-change it?
No, I think the evidence we’ve seen so far firmly plants this story as a “stable time loop”. Everything their present selves do, while in the past, will be what already happened to their past selves when they were originally teenagers.
It’s like Time Turners in Harry Potter. You can’t change the past with a Time Turner (they’d never give them to children if you could. Not even wizards are that dumb. You can only ensure that events happen as you remember them having already happened the first time around.
Truant officers exist in that they are someone whom the school contacts when a student has been absent from class for a period of time without notification, and they liaise between the school and the kid’s guardians to get the kid back in school, and have limited powers of enforcement in those instances, but they don’t go out doing mall sweeps or picking up kids from corners anymore. That died out with the baby boom, when there were too many schools and schooling options, to be able to say that X kid ought to be in Y school. They work out of offices, and see parents mostly in offices or designated home visits, it is all by letter and appointment, and has been for a while.
As Neil and Jean are not registered students at any school whatsoever, then, even in the [I assume the nineties is where we are?] strip’s current timeframe a truant officer picking up random kids would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Also, any truant officer would be too busy with officework or homevisits with students actually referred to them to be cruising the mall. Even if they were, and were not prepared to risk a lawsuit, they’d still have no power to compel Neil and Jean to go with them without a cop and a court order. And even if they all that, and they were still prepared to bluff it, all Neil and Jean would have to say is they are homeschooled or visiting from a different school district.
There is a reason Ed Rooney was a joke for tracking down Ferris like he did, even in the eighties. That sort of overzealous enforcement is long gone. Thankfully.
Also, Jeanie and Natalie are posing as high school Seniors during the springtime—i.e. they would be within three months or less of graduating anyway, and there would be better-than-even odds that both would have already had their eighteenth birthdays. First, in many states, the ability to legally compel school attendance ends when the student turns eighteen. Second, when they’re not actually at the school, they could claim to have graduated last year. All Jeanie has to do is poof up a pair of phony drivers licenses for them.
> I assume the nineties is where we are?
Nah, it’s the late 2000s at the earliest. Jean and Neil went back in time by around 7-10 years, as best as we can guess based on the clues that have been compiled in these comments.
Have we seen Jeanie refuse a direct command from Neil? I looked back through some of the early comics and it seems like every time he’s told her to do something, she’s done it:
https://jeaniebottle.com/?comic=04142010
https://jeaniebottle.com/?comic=jeanie-bottle-196
https://jeaniebottle.com/?comic=jeanie-bottle-210
I wonder if we’ll see Natalie get angry here and demand to be turned back? That wouldn’t fit with the stable time loop theory though.
It might, or it might not. We just don’t know what actually happened. Teen Jeanie going to prom with teen Jean seems to be a forgone conclusion. Teen Natalie going to prom with teen Neil, or not, is just not defined in earlier chapters or panels. It could go either way and still not disrupt the stable time loop.
And here, Jeanie grants a series of requests she’s less than enthusiastic about:
/?comic=jeanie-bottle-206
My sense is that Jeanie will grant wishes more or less by default, but if Neil tried to get her to do something even her feeble conscience objected to, she’d be able to refuse. Might be tough on her, though.
I doubt we ever see that, because i think Neil wouldn’t hold her to a command she had a moral objection to. I doubt he’d even make one, because his own conscience would object.
That is by far the best rendition of Natalie in the entire strip.
Way, way back when I was in school the last week of school was senior week. The seniors got the last week off to visit college campus one more time, apply for jobs and yes, shop for that perfect prom dress. If that school has senior week nobody will think twice about two girls shopping for a dress. Although as cute as natalie is any boys out and about would definatelly think twice about her. Truant officer is not a problem.
You’re right. Boys and hormones might be the greatest issues to overcome.
Wonder if we are going to see a version of having incest with one self.
What happens if — when — Jeanie accepts her new female self? If she gives up on Jean’s old life there’ll be trouble. Jean had friends, including a girlfriend, family, and a job. If Jean just disappears, people are going to come looking for him, wondering what happened. And how does Jeannie — and Neil — explain his absence?
It has been a few months, if they haven’t come by now, they ain’t gonna come. I don’t know about family, but as far as friends go Jean seems to have had few non-online friends other than Neal. Jean was an ass that women actively set up a website to warn people away from.
I am kind of in agreement with Random here. With the exception of maybe a few family members and his former girlfriend, there aren’t too many people that would miss Jean or go looking for him either. It been about a year or so since Jean came up missing and they would probable use the same cover story on anyone else that may come look for him that they used on Belle too. About the only other problem they may have had was when he was being honored for his work of being a book review author for other people work and had to go to New York to receive those honors. They covered that by turning Rodge into a look alike of Jean old self.
Wasn’t that Neil she changed?
No, your thinking of the first time she changed someone into her own lookalike. The first time she did that was because, she was afraid that she would lose Belle and Neil was turned into her old self to go out with Belle. The trip to New York was to honor him in his work of doing book review or something like that. She tried to get Neil to be her lookalike again and this time Neil bailed out on her, so she turned Rodge into her lookalike and took him instead.
Well 6 years ago on this date I found I Dream of Jeanie Bottle and today its still my favorite webcomic thank you Robert and CD RUDD for this amazing webcomic.
I’m so glad you still like it so much. 🙂
I believe Jean and Neil were always meant/fated to be together as Master and Genie.
Changing rooms do not have clothes in them so jeanie is going to have to pick out Natalie’s clothes. Poor Natalie, this is going to be interesting with Jeanie’s taste in clothes.
“Changing rooms do not have clothes in them”
A minor technicality when magic is involved. Besides, I didn’t notice anything wrong with the outfits Jeanie just tried on.
but this time she is picking something for Neil. I keep remembering a centain “club” she sent Neil to.
I meant the actual characters “*POOF*”
Nothing Jeanie tried on was a prom dress. OTOH, Neil/Natalie in the last panel could be wearing one–they were quite often off-the-shoulder or strapless. Still are. If the girl could “support” the style. And didn’t care about showing too much.
My proms were in late April or early May, four weeks or more before graduation. I think I had made my invitation to the girl in February or March. Post-prom parties were planned for weeks. The story where dates aren’t set until the day before is just not realistic. Prom angst (will he ask me? will she go with me?) began months before. In recent years, prom invitations have gotten more elaborate than marriage proposals. Oh, and being that they were formal events, boys had to rent a tux–and agitate over white vs. black jacket, black or colored accessories, ruffled or pleated shirt, etc. And I also remember how sophomore girls who were dating junior boys and got to go to the JS Prom were the envy of their peers.
I have never been to a prom and didn’t even want to go to one even, but, Tramline is right, they are formal events and there is a lot of preparation that goes into them too. Even if you don’t go to one of those event, you still hear about in through the grapevine two or three months before the event happens. You will hear who going with who and what kind of tux that guy either ware or is going to wear and what the girls wear too. Most of the guys that go to the prom, go to a rent a tux place and they don’t buy a tux, because, they cost several hundreds of dollars to buy them. I don’t know is the girls buy those prom dresses or if they rent them too. In the old days, they even had chaperons even, but, they don’t do that no more, like in the 1930 or 1940 or so.
Jeanie is never going back now. Was this what he was always destined to be? Pushy and with magic powers to make it effective? I don’t mean the female thing, he’d still be pushy as a male.