Jeanie Bottle 672
Dec28
on December 28, 2021
at 12:00 am
and modified on December 27, 2022. at 1:00 am
Whoa. Mood whiplash. Justified, though.
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Whoa. Mood whiplash. Justified, though.
Adult Natalie Jean is in so much trouble. And a new timeline where Jean may have never become a genie also.
Maybe. It’s also possible that this Natalie always existed in the timeline “before” the time travel occurred. Closed loop time travel, in other words (like TNG’s “Time’s Arrow.”) We don’t have enough information, yet. Either time changes happened and will need to be undone, or no time changes occurred. All that had to happen is that this Natalie had to get the bottle, somehow. (Though that does suggest temporal alteration, unless some time has passed since the first time travel event, allowing Natalie to get the bottle. Or unless Jeanie’s return moved the bottle close to Natalie, I suppose.)
Also, I wonder if this Natalie and Zoey had a long friendship. Will Zoe (or did she) learn about the Wonderful World of Genies?
It’s a new timeline. Natalie would not have the bottle if it wasn’t.
I agree with Mad Ninja here, because, there isn’t any Neil in this time line after 6 or 7 years, because, he went into the past and became teen Natalie and lived that time with teen Neil, until Neil reached about age 24 when he become teen Natalie in the past. we now have a new timeline that is also a closed loop now too. The only way to break this loop, will be for Jeanie to go into the past and grab Natalie and then pull her back into the future and turn her back into Neil. Because there is no Neil after about his 24 birthday.
I actually agree with The Rare Delurker. It is plausable that this Natalie has had to wait for the right moment to get the bottle. She probably still had her old key, or ways to get in. She knew the moment to get the bottle back, waiting for the events to play out..
I am reminded of Rufus from Bill and Ted and I think it applies to Jeannie…
No matter when you go that clock… the clock in your bottle is always right. Otherwise there would be major paradoxes…
As fun as time travel stories are, I really hope it doesn’t get that complicated. I quit reading SailorSun because with all the time travel and clones (and identical twins/clones pretending to be other twin/clones – that you couldn’t tell apart because they looked the same) it just got too confusing remembering who was who.
The essence of the sitcom is that at the end of a story arc, everything gets set back more or less to the way it was before the arc began. This was a necessity for TV so viewers could miss episodes and not be totally lost, and I think it applies to comics as well.
There’s nothing stopping Jeannie from erasing her memory, turning her back to normal and making things ‘exactly as they were’ …
… but that would be such a waste I think
“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff.” – the 10th Doctor.
How Natalie managed to get the bottle in this timeline would probably be an interesting arc in itself.
@Pilgrim. The Doctor lies… always.
Sitcoms may need to reset at the end of each episode, but webcomics don’t. Look at CD’s own Sailor Sun, or El Goonish Shive, where characters grow and change over time. Actions have consequences and that’s the way life works. If Natalie has spent 6-7 years as a woman, changing back to Neil would be just as difficult – if not more – as the last 6-7 years must’ve been for her/him.
Then again, I’ve said before that Natalie is a much more interesting character than milquetoast/doormat Neil.
@Makaira Sitcoms always go back to the status quo specifically because:
1. People might miss episodes
2. The executives want every episode to potentially bring in new viewers
Because Webcomics have their entire archive available at any time, there is no need to return to a previous state after every arc
Same with tv shows available on streaming services, so many of them are telling full stories, because they know that people can easily access earlier episodes at any time
@Guardingdark … actually, I suspect erasing memory of her master would count as violation of genies rules … and actually, did she ever erased anyone’s memories?
So, it’s either turning THIS Natalie into Neil, or returning back in time and turning THAT Natalie into Neil, erasing this one.
Not necessarily a new timeline. Woman-Natalie might just have waited until the day she knew the initial time travel occurred, and moved in when they poofed to the past.
Follow that logic all the way through, that would mean there isn’t any Neil now, because, he in the past being Teen Natalie now.
Going to put this question out there…
I’m really curious what Nate/Natalie’s gender identity is now. They’ve now spent a *long* time, like, life-decisions-long time, as a girl.
Nate always seemed self-conscious and a bit shyier as a boy, I would have been willing to guess they may have leaned slightly on the trans direction beforehand, but not enough to do anything about it. But now, becoming male would likely be the harder social change, so there’s no *social* reason to make it.
It’s purely their internal preference at this point, and I wonder which it will be.
And do we consider her a transwoman (because her gender is different than the one assigned at birth) or a transman (because he is a man trapped in a woman’s body)?
Honestly? I don’t care. I militantly don’t care. Natalie seems to have invested in her femininity, and is fairly comfortable with it. We don’t know yet if that extends to having boyfriends, or being interested in becoming a wife and mother.
She is female. Her pronouns, for what that’s worth, are clearly “she” and “her”. What she wants, and what she will wish for, is entirely up to her, and as yet unknown.
I figured Natalie would explode at Jean. Hopefully we will get a backstory as to what happened after Jeanie left the party and Natalie in the past in the next comic.
I, too, want that timeline. I’m interested to know how deeply Neil has gotten in to being Natalie.
Would Neil have burst into tears? I’m guessing that’s Natalie’s influence.
Welcome to the Kelvin Time Line people and remember I was about the only one that was saying that this could happen while everybody else said, No we have a stable time here.
Like Right and I would also like to see what happens in this time line too. Before we go back to something more like the original time line and there could still be some minor difference, but, in the end, Natalie got to go in the end.
Neil initiates the glomp. Then brings the gloom, as well.
OK, seriously–I’m pleased beyond measure to see Jeanie so happy to be hugged by her Master.
Who may now begin to his Mastership seriously.
===
Again though, who’s going to cover for Julia?
And will the TVA send Loki to fix the One True Timeline?
Master? Shouldn’t that be ‘Mistress’? 😉
I wonder if Natalie is used to being a woman now.
Well, she been a girl for between about 6 or 7 years now. So the answer is probably, Yes. Whether or not she has come to like being a girl, that question is still in question.
Given the vagueness of time for narrative reasons it could be even longer. I suspect about ten years… in theory she could just be turned back but … it would have been long enough to establish her own identity and life… can history be so casually re written so her life never happened? Is that desired?
Poor Neil…
Of course, Neil is still out there, existing simultaneously with Natalie. Neil has parents and probably went to college and wound up at NASA, while Natalie was left with no family that acknowledged her, no valid identity documents, and no academic record, so probably did not go to college. From the conversation about covering a friend’s shift, I’m guessing she is working at a waitress or retail clerk. So Jeannie cannot simply “change her back.” That’s why we’re seriously into timey-wimey land.
Those bookcases look to be full of document/TM binders, bank boxes full of more documents, and the apartment itself certainly isn’t a 5th-floor coldwater walk-up. I’d say she has a successful career at whatever she is involved in.
Well current Natalie who was left in the past would know to do things like buy Bitcoin and invest in Tesla and a few other things, so she wouldn’t be dead broke in a few years. As for education hmm with money there are options. Not to mention she could end up working for SpaceX instead of NASA. So if she worked at it she could make her life better than Neil’s life. But still she be pissed as hell about being dumped an forgotten.
Time travel is complicated.
MUST BE SAID:
CD, this is my favorite storyline so far. Great job. I don’t really care about all the timey-wimey stuff, but the Jeanie/Neil-Natalie stuff is great.
Agreed.
You know what would be an even bigger shock to Jeanie at this point, Natalie is a mother.
don’t give’m any ideas. we still don’t have any backstory to when Jeannie left Neil in the past.
One more thing: Neil’s anger is rather unjustified. For once, Jeanie’s delay is not actually her fault. She’s as mystified as Natalie is.
But Natalie doesn’t know that.
She is used to Jeanie being selfish and leapt to the most likely conclusion.
I expect a blubbering explanation and apology from Jeanie, the emotional strain and confusion over what just happened must be overwhelming. Something along the lines of…
“myteenselftriedtohavesexwithmeandIgotsickandranawayandhereIamandI’msosorry”
Ya think? Or is there still too much of Jean inside that blond head?
I’d guess that after the shock of being propositioned by her old self, Jeannie instinctively poofed back into her bottle – which was still in the original timeline. But now, since that bottle can probably only exist once, Jean didn’t get it, and so may still be out there as his original obnoxious male self. How Natalie wound up with it is the big mystery.
No, I’d say it’s rather justified. Niel didn’t want to be a teenage girl in the first place. He just wanted a burger.
There is no possible world where Jeanie is not at fault in this scenario
Love that as a tall girl, Natalie has piled her hair up and added a topknot to look even taller. I can imagine her facing down MCPs with her attitude and chutzpah! 🙂
Beside, Jeanie running away Jean, we also don’t know what happen between Neil and Zoey or between Natalie and Danny. We kind of skipped that and came right back to the future of about 6 or 7 year time frame. I would kind of like to get the rest of this story, before everything kind of go back to something like what was suppose to happen with possible minor alteration added in.
Shit oh dear! I didn’t see this coming! Most excellent twist.
Hopefully for Jeanie this is all a dream. But if she instinctively poofed back to her bottle in the present…
To be honest, I’d probably be more angry 1st then be happy to see Jeanie again in Neil’s shoes.
You’d be more happy than angry. Because if you never see Jeanie again, this is your life for the rest of your life. So priority #1 is finding Jeanie again so you can fix things. Being mad at her for stranding you in the past is secondary.
May not be THAT bad life NOW, when you already used to it and starts cashing in those bitcoins …
No, Jean does not think of anyone else. Jean is a self-centered narcissist.
Nice Strip! Thank you!
So, from now on there will be a Neil and a Natalie coexisting at the same time?
Until Neil reaches about 24 when he goes back into time and becomes Natalie. One person advanced the idea that this is 10 years later, if there right, then that would make Natalie 28 or maybe 30 years old and Neil has already gone into the past to become teen Natalie.
Stupid question but was that senior or Junior prom?
This timeline will be hard to correct.
Natalie have been a girl for over 10 years, that is too long to go back, and Neil got shot down in the most humiliating for fashions with witnesses around, so there is no way that didn’t scar him for life too.
Jeannie could have turned him down gently, maybe ending the night with a little kiss on the cheek, but instead she became physically ill by the thought of it. Yea this is a very different world.
Luckely Natalie seems to have adapted well to it, but Neil is properly some fat, always alone screen junky.
Correction, Alastir… Jeanie humiliated Jean, not Neil. And that action alone does not indicate a dramatic change in Jean’s lifestyle. He was a narcissist in school, he remained a narcissist later in life and continued to be Neil’s best friend.
Daaaaaamn… 😉
OK, explain how Neil being Natalie for 10 years would be “too long to go back” when being Neil for 24 years prior to becoming Natalie wasn’t “too long” to go forward?
well in general because we can never go back, we can never become the person we once were.
Natalie have seen things, done things in a decade that she will never have done as Neil and that she will never be able to take back or forget.
She didn’t look like the kind of person who have been living in celibacy for instance. She looked like a very easygoing and outgoing person
And yes I meant Jean not Neil before, but it that matters little, I do not think this event can have not scared him. events like that in ones teenage years have a big impact on later life.
I think there is a good chance that he is a fat virgin living in front of his computer now.
@Alastir
Damn, friend … I give Jean a bit more credit. Its also possible that after that experience he decided to stop chasing girls focus on career and is now well off and successful. People react to failure in different ways. People who have suffered humiliation will rarely make that mistake again…
@Guardingdark
Yes that is another possibility and a more uplifting one at that, my point was simply that he could not stay as a narcissistic womaniser after that, he needed to be someone different, and him and Jeannie are now firmly two different people
The timeline might not even need correcting, actually. Natalie knows what day Jeanie and Neil went back in time, so it would be a matter of Natalie having to wait until after they poofed away before “stealing” Jeanie’s bottle from Neil’s place. That for several years now Natalie has been a woman with no known personal history but who has a deep understanding of rocket science and an uncanny ability to predict the future could explain how she initially drew the attention of Agent Anderson as a suspected spy, too. Of course, what remains to be seen are the consequences of being forced to spend the better part of a decade as Natalie in order to be able to return to place and time that Neil and Jeanie went to get burgers.
She is not really a woman without a history, yes she was first seen as a young teenager at a ball, but after that she have had ten years to build up a life and a history for herself. For one thing we know she have befriended a girl named Julia. And she also does not dress like someone uncomfortable with herself or her body
Interesting. This means that in terms of subjective time, Natalie has now experienced being female for *far* longer than Jeannie has.
I wonder what the outcome of that will be? Certainly, Jeannie will no longer have as much right to complain about her situation to this Neil. (Not that I’d expect that to stop her, however.)
I wonder how that chess game went lol I do hope she adjusted to her new life growing up as a girl.
And then her kid shows up, considering she was a teenager and now a full bloom woman
Ahh, the Back To The Future Part II timeline. Do we fix this by going back to before they went back in time and stopping it, or by going back to the last point Jean remembers and … I guess she’s gotta at least make teenage boy Jean think they did the deed?
That what I was saying. She can’t just Change Natalie back into Neil now, because, we have a new time line now and it has replace the old time line that everybody remembers. There no way to repair this time line either to make it into the old time line, it gone now. There no way to have this time line and the other time line too, because, they counter dict each on just about every level also.
Jeanie of this time line can’t intercept herself in the other time line, because, that would cause a paradox, because, she can not do it and then then not do it at the same time and they both have to happen too for everything to come out the right way. This is what know as the paradox that can not happen.
Jeanie only option now, is to do another time travel number and back to just after she got sick with the idea of having sex with herself and change the future events from that point forward. Which will eliminate this time line and only Jeanie will remember that this time line ever existed, because, for everyone else, this time line never happened and that would include Natalie/Neil too.
As bad as thing are with her Teen Jean was, he a narcissist and there not much that Jeanie can do with him. He will remain narcissist all the way up until he turns into Jeanie. She might do so cosmetic work on Jean, but, basically, she will have to leave him the way he is, she may install memories into his mind, but, other that that, it is what it is.
Then it back to the Prom where Teen Neil, Zoey, Danny and Natalie are right now. It here that Jeanie has to do her work to getting everything back to the was it was suppose to be. But, before that happens, it would nice if CD investigates this alternate time line before it get erased from existence and never to have been.
Here is where CD can either keep everything the way they were before or can make minor changes here or there. There are some thing like Natalie beating Danny in there own chase tournament that won’t change story line much if any. Then there Zoey and Neil, do they actually develop a boyfriend girlfriend relationship out of this, that would have minor alteration to our story line now. But, having Neil as Natalie. well that can’t be allowed to stand in the end.
now you made my brain ache.
If Natalie and Jeanie are now at a point after Neil was zapped back to the prom era, only Natalie exists at the time of this strip. With the reunion in this strip, though, she can command Jeanie to turn her back into Neil… if she still wants to be Neil. If Jean was altered by the rejection, though, Nat will have to command Jeanie to go to the prom and fulfill Jeans desires in some way, be it in reality or through deception.
Why are so many people assuming that this is a new time line? Unless time travel always creates a new future (i.e., you never go back to your past, only to a past that looked like yours up until you got there, and I have to admit [ IMHO ] is the way time travel has to work to allow both time travel and free will and no paradoxes) we’ve seen nothing that indicates they are not in their own continuum, futureward of when they left. If Natalie kept track, she’d know when they left for past-Cincinnati, and could have then gone into Neil’s apartment (getting any of his roommates to let her in, since his key was likely in his pocket when Jeanie poofed their gowns) to grab the bottle.
Everything that happened then/there in Cincinnati was consistent with their memories, such as they were. And as for Jean’s getting shot down hard leaving a mark, well, maybe that mark has been his attitude and behavior towards women since we’ve known him. Or her, as the case may be. ^_^
I see no reason to assume it’s any later than about 36 hours after they left for burgers, plus however long Jeanie was asleep in her bottle. Except for one thing, as I mentioned yesterday: We still don’t know how or why or when they went back to page 383.
Yes, except that somehow Jean goes from being humiliated in public to becoming a cad who has so many ex-girlfriends that they form an online group. Perhaps Jean’s prom night with Jeanie might not have ended with her poofing to the future? Unfortunately for Neil, though, the past several years are set in stone; Neil has been living as Natalie as this is her first time seeing Jean since the prom.
The “thought I’d never see you again” line suggests that it is currently some tine after Jeanie and Neil had departed for the past. Presumably, once Natalie realized that Jeanie had probably time traveled forward without her, she would have expected Jeanie to return to the same time from which they had departed. Then, if Jeanie were to fail to return within a few days after that time, Natalie would begin to lose hope of her returning at all.
@Foradain, there are only two choices here!
1.We either leave Neil being Natalie after he reaches 24 years old and have no Neil after that, because, this is when Neil went into the past to become, Natalie.
2. Or we retrieve Natalie of the past and transform her back into Neil and everything goes back to it original path of what going to happen.
Foradain, If the first thing happens, the second thing doesn’t happen or could it happen even. If the second thing happens, then the first thing can not happen either. This is what the paradox is right now. The two thing that I mention happening above, they both can not happen, because, counter dict each other from happening.
For a short span of time from when Jeanie and Neil are about 24 years old when both Jeanie and met themself at about 17 or 18 years of age, we will have both Neil and Natalie until about the age 24 years old. Natalie will continue to grow older and Neil will disappear into the past to become Natalie. This is what known as a closed time loop that goes around and around and around again. Neil will never grow older that 24 years old, because, he, became, Teen Natalie at that age. That how Natalie end up with the Genie Bottle, there isn’t any Neil anymore, because, he in the past now being Teem Natalie.
This basically just a side trail in the Jeanie Bottle series, which CD can play around with for awhile, but, then it going to have to go back to it original form of there Being a Neil and Jeanie only and no Natalie.
Natalie could be working her way through college again which would account for all of those books on the shelf. It would also account for having to work a shift somewhere. Since she has already graduated from MIT ? she would be making straight As and getting scholarships.
She may even have decided to continue on to graduate school and pursue a Master’s degree, which would definitely account for her still being a student.
Natalie is working her way through college with a waitress job at the “Bistro on Cocoa Beach. Her boss is Lilly. It really is a nice place to eat now that they fixed the hole in the roof.
Must’ve been hell, what with no proper ID or origin story…having her fingerprints identify her as Neil even if he’s standing right next to her…reestablishing some kind of identity…
Probably some humiliating jobs to stay alive, coupled with some abusing the future to invest in certain companies until she got enough money to get rich and then buy her way into having an identity?