Jeanie Bottle 720
Jan17
on January 17, 2023
at 12:00 am
and modified on January 16, 2023. at 11:44 am
Chapter: Story 15: I Dream of Three Wishes
Oi. Jeanie. Learn some tact.
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Oi. Jeanie. Learn some tact.
Cause he doesn’t talk back and go with the plan.
how dumb is dummy neil is he dummber than Patrick Star?
Patrick Star is not dumb, he is evil.
He likes to play dumb, in order to cause maximum suffering in others, because he gets a thrill out of it.
He is lazy though. And it is important to remember that not all evil geniuses dream of world domination, some just likes to cause maximum grief in their neighbourhood.
Could be worse, “real Neil.” She could be calling him “Smart Neil”!
Now please, find a way to thank Jeanie, while cautioning her about doing stuff like this in the future.
Gods, yes. THANK HER. You’ve already done enough cautioning.
Just.
Say.
Thank You!
“like the last one”???
When was there previously a dumb Neil?
WAAAAAY back, she tried creating a copy of Neil, I forget the reason. Didn’t work, the copy wasn’t bright enough to walk and chew gum at the same time. So she poofed it away again.
Actually it did work. It got Guano off Neil’s back. (See Shadowrnnr below.)
Well, in that sense, yeah.
Heck, a Neil-shaped ardboard cut-out would have been enough to fool Guano.
Dummy Neil appeared back on page 70 when Jeanie was fooling Guano into taking the collar and chain off of Natalie.
https://jeaniebottle.com/archives/comic/jeanie-bottle-70
Congrats, Dork Neil. You’ve changed a happy, excited Jeanie into disappointed, scornful Jeanie.
Meanwhile, Dummy Neil is more observant than either of these two.
Seems to be searching for something. Dummy Jeanie?
The police coming to ask what he knows about the ex-roommates. Let’s see… one got arrested with a mentally disturbed woman, one was at work and one vanished. And you, dear Neil, moved out the same day.
I think Sgt Friday might like a few facts.
“Just the facts Mam, just the facts.” I was a police officer for four and a half years, never used that line.
Naaah, Neil moved week ago.
Real Neil looked at Dummy Neil, who is now trying to figure out what Real Neil was looking at (past/beyond) Dummy, because he’s too dumb to realize that *he* was being looked at (no awareness of self).
No, silly, he’s looking for his brain.
He might need a magnifying glass.
Wasn’t that what he pulled out through his nose in the last strip?
I could while away the hours
Conferrin’ with the flowers,
Consulting with the rain;
And my head I’d be a scratchin’
While my thoughts are busy hatchin’
If I only had a brain.
Neil, if you don’t like what Jeanie’s doing, and how she’s doing it, perhaps you could, like, just, I don’t know, maybe, wish for something else? You have been given custody of a powerful magical being. It is in this being’s nature to do the bidding of her master. At her core, she wants to perform magic, and she wants to do that to grant your wishes.
There was a discussion a few comics ago where I mentioned that Neil doesn’t have to work anymore. Someone objected that Neil HAS to work, HAS to solve problems. And that’s true–it’s just that the nature of the problems he has to solve has changed.
I’m proposing that in the same way, Jeanie HAS to grant wishes–and I mean that in the sense that she NEEDS to grant wishes. Neil is either being selfish or cowardly in refusing to give Jeanie wishes to work with.
Neil, you are an aerospace engineer. You know how to sit at a control console. You are sitting at one right now. The annunciators are strobing red. The klaxons are going off. The meters are either at dead zero, or pinned on overload. Smoke is coming out of the vents. There’s a suspicious, crackling zzzt coming from behind behind the panel.
Now, while pushing the “SILENCE ALARM” button wouldn’t actually fix the problem, saying, “Thank you!” would at least quiet the noise so you could think. Don’t forget you actually have a manual.
I’m not sure Neil has any real authority over Jeanie, after she granted his three wishes. Much less about her having the core desire to serve anyone.
I don’t think he could command her to do something she really didn’t want to do, or anything at all, really, if she just didn’t want to do for him, right then. But she keeps trying to please him, and is always excited at first, then Neil disappoints her. That can’t go on.
Imagine what would happen if Neil casually asked, “Jeanie, how would you like to….” Go star gazing on the dark side of the Moon, or go hang gliding in the clouds of Jupiter, or surf the Sun? or whatever. How about, “You know what would be really freaky? If the Voyager probes suddenly showed a 20% jump in power, and the it never went away! The Voyager teams would never figure that out, but a lot of cool science could get done.”
Or just, “Hey, remember that witch you had a duel with because you thought she was a genie, and she thought you were a witch? Why don’t we invite them over for barbeque. You ladies can talk about the cool stuff you could to with magic, and us guys can talk about how to keep our impulsive little magical girls from destroying space-time. It’d be great!”
Or maybe, “Let’s ask the chief genie lord, no, not shithead, the big one, if there’s anything we can do for him. You know, secret missions and stuff. Might be fun, or at least interesting, don’t you think?”
Or even, “I was flipping through the genie manual the other day, and found something interesting. Did you know you can [whatever]? Wanna try?”
Anything, really. Just take an interest in Jeanie, and her powers. Try to work with her, find things she’d like to do but never thought of. I think it’s guaranteed that Jeanie would love it.
Jeanie seems to have some urge to serve her Master (and remember, she chose to stay with Neil and server her Master in 77 and 78, to avoid going back into her bottle and getting a new Master). She doesn’t seem to be compelled to fulfill Neil’s wishes/commands. But getting this house is as much for Neil as it is for her.
Yup. And all Neil has to do is encourage her, just a bit. Instead of putting her down every time she tries.
She’d never admit she has this urge, but it keeps bubbling out of her.
https://jeaniebottle.com/archives/comic/jeanie-bottle-68
TL;DR the book list. Not sure Jeanie is buying any of it.
I like to imagine Neil saying that last line sarcastically.
“You call _him_ ‘Dummy Neil’? How is he dumber than me?”
That said, Dummy Neil might be the result of Jeanie’s opinion of their relative intelligence.
Genies are not capable of creating souls via magic, so any attempt at creating a person will produce a body with all of the built-in responses, but there’s nobody home inside, and Jeanie thus has to do all of the thinking and decision making for Dummy-Neil.
I wonder if that might be called artificial intelligence in so much as Dummy Neil seems to be able to motivate himself to do routine things like he’s demonstrated so far.
I forget who it is, but there is a science fiction author who argued that artificial intelligence was an exaggeration and should be termed artificial stupidity (AS instead of AI). While AI can perform better on some tasks than most humans, it has no ability to adapt to unexpected situations. Ask it to solve a problem outside what it’s trained or programmed to do and it performs worse than a stupid human.
love the banner. Jeanie always looks good in pink.
Good thing pink is one of her main outfit colours then.
Well, back to the regular banner I see. I guess the next one will be for Valentines Day? 🙂
It takes a while for it to sink in. Today is Lunar New Year. The beginning of the Year of the Rabbit, Like i said, nice banner.
Year of the Jeanie Rabbit.
Plot? Plots? This thing has PLOTS???
Would it speed things along if he didn’t draw clothing on her? Look at 2023 Rabbit Jeanie- a 2023 Raw Jeanie would be much, much faster!
Oh, I’m sure C.D. would find other details to spend his time on.
Jeanie did do one banner in the nude. She was lieing on her stomach and raised up on her elbows. One properly placed arm saved CD’s rating.
The current pose is fine- just the bunny suit needs to go!
C.D. Rudd: I am a Big Fan of creators working out plot issues in advance. Thank you. Here’s hoping you can also beat your rebellious equipment into submission; the cheeky blighters do get above themselves at times.
You have to very careful working with plot, it can be extremely toxic and volatile stuff. Plot exposure is a leading cause of death for fictional characters. Entire franchises have imploded after they lost plot containment, leaving just a smoking hold where their website used to be.
But only if you don’t properly utilize Plot Armor.