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.
This.
This This This. THIS!
Look around, Nat. There are two kids in the drink with you. They are reasonably safe. They are having fun. You are reasonably safe, and you should be having fun too.
So use that engineer brain of yours to think about what just happened. You asked Rodge to “stop being sexist and take things seriously”. This was his response. He seriously treated you like he would treat Neil, sex aside. He knows bloody well it will make you mad, and that, first order effect, that it will not improve his chances with you. But, second order effect, it might shock you into having fun. And, third order effect, perhaps that will open you to having fun with HIM. He’s not as dumb as you think.
And, zero order effect? He threw you over the rail. For a couple of delightful, wriggling seconds, he held you in his arms, and honestly showed you what he thinks of you, and that he cares for you.
~sniff~ I’m getting all teary eyed. Must be the sun and salt spray.
And, by the way, you may not have ASKED if he COULD throw you in the ocean, but he just proved he certainly CAN. He’s actually bigger and stronger than you are. You should think about that, too. Not, you know, that he can overpower you and that you should therefor do what you’re told, OR ELSE. But that you need to understand that, smart as you are, smarts aren’t everything, and you need to find other ways to work with the people around you.
No, I specifically said, “Not that he can overpower you and that you should therefor do what you’re told, OR ELSE. But that you need to understand that, smart as you are, smarts aren’t everything, and you need to find other ways to work with the people around you.”
Neil/Natalie is a wimp, and unable to stand up for himself. His genie, to whom he is Master, doesn’t respect him, though his merest wish should be Jeanie’s command.
Rodge is, I believe, honestly trying to get Natalie out of her shell, if not her swimsuit.
What exactly is the point you are trying to back away from? Everything you wrote before and after that sentence is exactly about “might makes right”. Its like a misogyny sandwich.
@TGS: My point? “Neil/Natalie is a wimp. ” I wish he wasn’t, and I’ve said that repeatedly throughout the history of this comic. But he is, and all he does when people make unreasonable demands on him is whine–and then go along with it.
Also, please do not confuse my guesses as to how Rodge thinks and feels with my own feelings. Rodge is indeed a bit of a jerk–but if Neil doesn’t like it, he needs to find a way to put a stop to it, or at least set limits he can live with. It is in the nature of jerks that they push, and if you don’t push back, they push some more.
So, because he can do something, she just has to accept it??? WTF is wrong with you. Or does the rule: NO means NO not apply somehow? Roger is a fucking asshole. Natalie should not be subjected to his shit when she tells him no. There is no other reasonable interpretation.
You don’t “work with” people who don’t listen to you. You don’t negotiate with people who don’t give a fuck about what you want. You walk or run away from those people.
OK, now apply that to what Jeanie did to him. She used her vast cosmic powers to change Neil’s gender – again. In the past she’s even used those powers to make him behave in ways he normally would not. Then she puts him in awkward situations with Rodge. He clearly does not want any of these changes but she keeps doing it to him.
Neil takes a great deal of abuse – when will he either stand up for himself or just GTFO?
I’m thinking back to IDOJ and Bewitched and they got away with similar things because of the over-the-top acting, the laugh track, and the fact that you knew it would be all wrapped up in 30 minutes and everyone would be back to normal. We’ve seen the alternate reality with Jean as master. We have seen Jeanie make apparently permanent changes to a number of people without any remorse. It makes you wonder what will eventually happen to Neil.
Even more importantly though, Jeannie and Samantha were likable characters who loved their master or husband. Jeannie might do something to Tony like the Neil-Natalie change for the yacht trip but she always had a reason, no matter how misguided. Samantha was usually undoing whatever her mother did to Darrin and on the rare occasion she did something to him she had a good reason. Jeanie capriciously changes Neil and there’s no other reason other than being unhappy with him.
I just wish there were more of an actual friendship between Jeanie and Neil, something that made it worth Neil putting up with her antics.
Jeanie is a fucking asshole. Always was. Still is. Always will be. Jean was never Neil’s friend. Jean was too big of a narcissist to actually have friends. Jeanie has not learned the power of friendship since gaining cosmic powers. There is no basis for a friendship to exist between Neil and Jeanie.
Comparing the Jeanie of the comic the character of Jeanie in IDOJ makes no sense. IDOJ Jeanie is a good person. All the comedy in IDOJ is fish out of water based. Bewitched is a bit different, but again Samantha’s intentions are good. Much of the comedy there is from her family who don’t understand the lives of muggles.
I didn’t actually see the word “no” in any of Natalie’s comments.
I’m going back to my comment on the previous page. “Could it be that Rodge lacks the confidence to actually date women and Natalie is safe?” This is the sort of thing that close friends do. They are jerks to each other, even their opposite sex friends, and there is nothing unusual about it.
I don’t have any friend with whom I am ever a jerk to or treated poorly by. I don’t consider that friend behavior. Í’m not one to call everyone I know a friend.
Yes, what you describe isn’t unusual. That doesn’t mean it is right. In my experience, the “friends” who needle or prank their friends are usually found to be assholes you never should have been friends with in the first place. YMMV.
I agree! Roger is an ass and a bully! You don’t push someone off a boat! What’s next, will he jump in the water and duck Natalie? No wonder he is divorced.
Best plot twist would be for Natalie to get changed back to Neil, then have Roger turned into a girl. And age regressed. And sent to an elementary school for a month or two.
True, Neal is everyone’s punching bag, he’s constantly subjected to physical and emotional abuse. Now it even happens as Natalie. This IS what happens to guys who whine and won’t relax on vacation. The fact that it seems so very different is important.
“This IS what happens to guys who whine and won’t relax on vacation.” THANK YOU for saying so.
Also, describing the way people behave does not necessarily imply approval.
Because in one case, it’s an abusive prank and in the other it is murder?
I for one hate jumping off the five meter boards into any pool. I even have a problem with the three meter one. It’s NOT great fun, and I would hate if someone just surprise-picked me up and threw me 5-6 meters down into an ocean. Pushing is bad enoigh, but THROWING?!? Not to mention being thrown is not like jumping, you have less control and can potentially get hurt a lot. Speaking of control, not doing this in your regular body also plays a role. And here I am still only talking about physical damage, not emotional stuff.
This behaviour was not decent. With adolescents I’d understand it, but they’re adults in their… 30s? 40s by now?
Decent of him? WTF? As Onyavar said, are you saying he’s a decent fellow because he didn’t nearly murder his “friend”? Everyone on the boat should be calling Roger a bastard. Based on the image, Natalie was thrown from a height of over 20 ft into the ocean/sea. That is dangerous when someone jumps into the ocean under their own complete control. The yacht owner should be bringing it back to port and putting Roger ashore for his wrecklessness. Being thrown overboard is never a joke.
It’s kinda suspicious if you ask me. I’m rethinking the rather skeptical look on Araceli’s face in the previous two comics. The commentariat was of the general opinion that she was looking at Natalie, but maybe she was wondering if there was something up with Rodge? Araceli should know Rodge well enough to see if he was acting out of character, he’s close enough to Caley to get invited on this trip.
Remember, Natalie is Neil, a male in a female meatsuit. I dare say that if Neil, wearing his own skin, had been thrown overboard, people would not be so reflexively defending him.
And I’ll stand by my assertion that if Neil, in the Natalie suit, remains such an utterly clueless doormat*, she absolutely does need a male to protect her from worse than Rodge. Say, from severely abusive assholes like Jean.
===
* “Why did we need to change into swimwear?” i swear, Nat might as well have had her finger in her mouth, the classic expression of the vacant bimbo. Natalie suffers from having not grown up female, and thus lacks some of the social wiles beautiful women develop to protect themselves.
Well aware of the Nat/Neil dynamic. I think you would be surprised at how many people recognize shitty behavior, regardless of who it happens to. There would likely be fewer assertions of Rodge being sexist if Nat were currently Neil, but otherwise I think most of the reactions would be the same.
It is hard to read the blatantly misogynistic tone and attitude that pervades the rest of your thoughts. If you genuinely have no idea how you sound to others, please take this as a friendly tip and see if you can do better. If you genuinely don’t care how you sound…congrats on being an asshole.
Huh. He’s a dick AND an asshole? What a multi talented guy!
Come on, how else would he have gotten her into the water?
Discussion of buoyancy? Powerpoint presentation on the effects of sunlight on local currents? Threaten to smear sunscreen on her so she won’t get sunburn?
The point you seem to be missing is that there is only one person who gets to decide if Nat goes in the water, and that is Nat. “How else would he have gotten her in the water” assumes that what Rodge wanted was more important than what Nat wanted, which is flat out unacceptable when you are talking about what happens to Nat. Rodge had no respect for Nat’s autonomy. THAT is a far bigger issue than Nat being a doormat.
How else could he have got her.into.the water? Ahhh…maybe asked her if she wanted to go for a swim? I doubt the children jumped from that height to go swimming.
Natalie, that EEEKKKK! certainly sounded like a girly response to being thrown overboard by your fiancé.
When Rodge joins you, you should try having some fun by holding his head under water. Of course, he’s stronger and will escape drowning, but you might enjoy trying. Get that heart of yours racing.
Maybe because Neil gets treated like dirt by his entire harem? Araceli is a nepo-baby who can’t accept that he’s just not into her, Rodge lost his ability to horseplay when he showed that he’ll 100% take advantage of a mentally incapacitated Neil en femme, and Jean is an outright monster that views him as a convenient excuse to not do the whole genie thing at best. The guy needs someone in his life who sees him as a person.
> Rodge lost his ability to horseplay when he showed that he’ll 100% take advantage of a mentally incapacitated Neil en femme
Rodge had absolutely no idea that there was any sort of “mental incapacitation” going on when Natalie got mind-whammied. He had every reason to believe that she’d simply changed her mind about being into him.
Given his extremely depressed reaction after she got un-whammied and then broke off their whirlwind romance, he was likely legitimately in love with her. Lilly was his “rebound” after his heart was so severely broken.
Excellent points. I have to wonder if part of what’s motivating Rodge is resentment over the whole affair. Natalie dumped him then; now he gets to dump her, sort of thing. I’m not claiming that would justify his actions, only explain them, at least in part.
@Robert – okay, that’s . . . I don’t really want to say “fair”, even though it is, because he was refusing to take “No” for an answer about the boat trip and keeps trying to push himself onto someone who has made it clear isn’t attracted to him. I honestly kind of want to rant about how gawd-awful Rodge and Jean have been lately, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just make it worse if I do.
Good point. Neil has been the butt of Jeanie’s rebellion against being reborn as a genie for far too long. Haji Day is an annual thing, and it would serve her right if he sent her back to genie land. As for getting even with Rodge, there must be dozens of little things that could upend his life. The problem with that is that we know very little about Rodge… he might take it as a challenge or worse–come to believe that Natalie actually likes him.
You have made multiple comments about how Nat is cute when she is angry, which is one of the most dismissive and patronizing tropes of all time. I seriously dare you to try that when someone is furious and not being respected. Its on par with twlling someone to just calm down. I agree that Neil/Nat needs to stand up for themself more often, but the method of your critique is going off into some very sexist directions.
See, that’s the thing. I DON’T think women are delicate flowers who cannot defend themselves. I DO think that women should be strong and independent. Not sure what I’ve done that makes you think otherwise except voice my opinions in the first place. But Im not doing that because I think women need me to. Im doing it because I want to. I reached a breaking point, and I enjoy speaking out against shitty attitudes and behavior.
@TGS: “Nat is cute when she is angry,”
Compare “You’re cute when you’re mad.” with “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
The first is personal, aimed at a specific person–in this case, Neil as Natalie.
The second is general, noting a characteristic of most women.
Everything I’ve said is directed at Natalie, and much of it applies to Neil as well. It’s not so much that I’m sexist, it’s that Natalie is playing out the female stereotypes.
The “cute when mad” stereotype is as common as it is because some women, like Natalie, cannot be effective in their anger. They’re like fluffy kittens picking a fight with a Doberman–the dog simply cannot take the threat seriously.
Neil’s the same way, but I think being Natalie brings that side of him out even more strongly than usual.
Perhaps it will help to say that I agree, absolutely, that Rodge is an asshole and a dick. Men like that can be a real threat to women like Natalie, because those women don’t know how to defend themselves effectively, with words or fists.
And that’s all I have to say about this issue for now. Let’s wait and see what happens this coming Tuesday.
If you just wanted her in the water, you could have been nicer and jumped in with her, and she wouldn’t be nearly as angry with you, and neither would we as readers.
On the other hand, if someone else is possessing Rodge’s body in order to turn this into a parody subplot mimicing Gilligan’s Island, I expect next strip he’ll either steal the boat and drive it away somewhere, stranding the rest of them there, or wreck it, stranding all of them there.
Y’know, it occurs to me…Neil / Natalie might not be so concerned with what Rodge just did now than what Jean did earlier. And at what point would Neil see Jean not as a friend, but as a danger and a threat?
Everything that is happening now has its roots in Neil failing to engage with Jeanie, to nurture a healthy Master/Genie pairing. Rodge is definitely a jerk, but is nowhere near in the same class as Jean/Jeanie.
I know that Araceli cannot undo Jeanie’s majic, but if she finds out what Rodge did to Neil can she switch natalie and redge into each other’s bodies. Rodge needs to get TGed.
Clearly, there’s something going on with Rodge beneath the surface here, and maybe everyone should just chill a bit and let the story play out over the next week or two… or five, or ten… or twenty. (Yes, this strip moves very slowly.)
Yes, something weird is going on. There is no excuse for Rodge’s throwing her overboard unless 1) there’s magic involved that is controlling his actions or 2) we’re about to get a callback to when Rodge and Nat were hiding in the movie theater which reveals the Disney movie they were watching was one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and Nat told Rodge it would be cool to suddenly fall into the water like Elizabeth Swann. #2 is preposterous, so since this is a comic strip I give both explanations an even chance.
You folks need to lighten up. No one is being misogynistic or abusive. This is a comic representation of a sitcom and people are commenting on the characters’ motivations as if they were real. You do all remember what a sitcom is, don’t you? You can’t tell me you never laughed at slap stick comedy when the subject didn’t know it was coming.
Natalie you’re on a Yatch have some fun for a few minutes. Lucky number 777.
This.
This This This. THIS!
Look around, Nat. There are two kids in the drink with you. They are reasonably safe. They are having fun. You are reasonably safe, and you should be having fun too.
So use that engineer brain of yours to think about what just happened. You asked Rodge to “stop being sexist and take things seriously”. This was his response. He seriously treated you like he would treat Neil, sex aside. He knows bloody well it will make you mad, and that, first order effect, that it will not improve his chances with you. But, second order effect, it might shock you into having fun. And, third order effect, perhaps that will open you to having fun with HIM. He’s not as dumb as you think.
And, zero order effect? He threw you over the rail. For a couple of delightful, wriggling seconds, he held you in his arms, and honestly showed you what he thinks of you, and that he cares for you.
~sniff~ I’m getting all teary eyed. Must be the sun and salt spray.
And, by the way, you may not have ASKED if he COULD throw you in the ocean, but he just proved he certainly CAN. He’s actually bigger and stronger than you are. You should think about that, too. Not, you know, that he can overpower you and that you should therefor do what you’re told, OR ELSE. But that you need to understand that, smart as you are, smarts aren’t everything, and you need to find other ways to work with the people around you.
Ah, that is what relationships are about! The physically stronger ones gives orders, and the rest has to follow!
No, I specifically said, “Not that he can overpower you and that you should therefor do what you’re told, OR ELSE. But that you need to understand that, smart as you are, smarts aren’t everything, and you need to find other ways to work with the people around you.”
Neil/Natalie is a wimp, and unable to stand up for himself. His genie, to whom he is Master, doesn’t respect him, though his merest wish should be Jeanie’s command.
Rodge is, I believe, honestly trying to get Natalie out of her shell, if not her swimsuit.
What exactly is the point you are trying to back away from? Everything you wrote before and after that sentence is exactly about “might makes right”. Its like a misogyny sandwich.
@TGS: My point? “Neil/Natalie is a wimp. ” I wish he wasn’t, and I’ve said that repeatedly throughout the history of this comic. But he is, and all he does when people make unreasonable demands on him is whine–and then go along with it.
Also, please do not confuse my guesses as to how Rodge thinks and feels with my own feelings. Rodge is indeed a bit of a jerk–but if Neil doesn’t like it, he needs to find a way to put a stop to it, or at least set limits he can live with. It is in the nature of jerks that they push, and if you don’t push back, they push some more.
Sorry, indeed I misread that.
So, because he can do something, she just has to accept it??? WTF is wrong with you. Or does the rule: NO means NO not apply somehow? Roger is a fucking asshole. Natalie should not be subjected to his shit when she tells him no. There is no other reasonable interpretation.
You don’t “work with” people who don’t listen to you. You don’t negotiate with people who don’t give a fuck about what you want. You walk or run away from those people.
OK, now apply that to what Jeanie did to him. She used her vast cosmic powers to change Neil’s gender – again. In the past she’s even used those powers to make him behave in ways he normally would not. Then she puts him in awkward situations with Rodge. He clearly does not want any of these changes but she keeps doing it to him.
Neil takes a great deal of abuse – when will he either stand up for himself or just GTFO?
I’m thinking back to IDOJ and Bewitched and they got away with similar things because of the over-the-top acting, the laugh track, and the fact that you knew it would be all wrapped up in 30 minutes and everyone would be back to normal. We’ve seen the alternate reality with Jean as master. We have seen Jeanie make apparently permanent changes to a number of people without any remorse. It makes you wonder what will eventually happen to Neil.
Even more importantly though, Jeannie and Samantha were likable characters who loved their master or husband. Jeannie might do something to Tony like the Neil-Natalie change for the yacht trip but she always had a reason, no matter how misguided. Samantha was usually undoing whatever her mother did to Darrin and on the rare occasion she did something to him she had a good reason. Jeanie capriciously changes Neil and there’s no other reason other than being unhappy with him.
I just wish there were more of an actual friendship between Jeanie and Neil, something that made it worth Neil putting up with her antics.
“Neil takes a great deal of abuse – when will he either stand up for himself or just GTFO?”
Yes. To all of it.
Jeanie is a fucking asshole. Always was. Still is. Always will be. Jean was never Neil’s friend. Jean was too big of a narcissist to actually have friends. Jeanie has not learned the power of friendship since gaining cosmic powers. There is no basis for a friendship to exist between Neil and Jeanie.
Comparing the Jeanie of the comic the character of Jeanie in IDOJ makes no sense. IDOJ Jeanie is a good person. All the comedy in IDOJ is fish out of water based. Bewitched is a bit different, but again Samantha’s intentions are good. Much of the comedy there is from her family who don’t understand the lives of muggles.
I didn’t actually see the word “no” in any of Natalie’s comments.
I’m going back to my comment on the previous page. “Could it be that Rodge lacks the confidence to actually date women and Natalie is safe?” This is the sort of thing that close friends do. They are jerks to each other, even their opposite sex friends, and there is nothing unusual about it.
I don’t have any friend with whom I am ever a jerk to or treated poorly by. I don’t consider that friend behavior. Í’m not one to call everyone I know a friend.
Yes, what you describe isn’t unusual. That doesn’t mean it is right. In my experience, the “friends” who needle or prank their friends are usually found to be assholes you never should have been friends with in the first place. YMMV.
I agree! Roger is an ass and a bully! You don’t push someone off a boat! What’s next, will he jump in the water and duck Natalie? No wonder he is divorced.
Best plot twist would be for Natalie to get changed back to Neil, then have Roger turned into a girl. And age regressed. And sent to an elementary school for a month or two.
When smarts aren’t enough, a sucker punch to the throat often works well.
Kick in the shin, knee in the nuts, even a good hearty slap, are all traditional alternatives I heartily endorse.
Of course, I also endorse spanking unruly genies early and often.
Not everyone thinks being manhandled is fun.
True, Neal is everyone’s punching bag, he’s constantly subjected to physical and emotional abuse. Now it even happens as Natalie. This IS what happens to guys who whine and won’t relax on vacation. The fact that it seems so very different is important.
“This IS what happens to guys who whine and won’t relax on vacation.”
THANK YOU for saying so.
Also, describing the way people behave does not necessarily imply approval.
This is NOT what happens to people who can’t unwind while in vacation. It’s abuse.
should of listned to natatile(Neil) befre thowing her overbord
ps 1st
He did. He asked if she could swim, which was right decent of him.
Because in one case, it’s an abusive prank and in the other it is murder?
I for one hate jumping off the five meter boards into any pool. I even have a problem with the three meter one. It’s NOT great fun, and I would hate if someone just surprise-picked me up and threw me 5-6 meters down into an ocean. Pushing is bad enoigh, but THROWING?!? Not to mention being thrown is not like jumping, you have less control and can potentially get hurt a lot. Speaking of control, not doing this in your regular body also plays a role. And here I am still only talking about physical damage, not emotional stuff.
This behaviour was not decent. With adolescents I’d understand it, but they’re adults in their… 30s? 40s by now?
I will point out that despite one’s physical age, there are those people who never really advanced beyond middle school or junior high.
That’s one way to sneak a feel and not get slapped for it….yet.
It should be quite obvious they are adolescents in their 30s. They might’ve grown older but not more mature.
They’re in their mid-20s. The time travel storyline established that their High School Prom was like 7 years ago.
“it’s an abusive prank”
It’s called horseplay. Neil/Natalie needs to find a way to play or prank back.
Like waiting until Rodge isn’t watching, then kicking him hard in the nuts, and saying, “Oh, what’s the matter, can’t you take a joke?”
I agree!
Decent of him? WTF? As Onyavar said, are you saying he’s a decent fellow because he didn’t nearly murder his “friend”? Everyone on the boat should be calling Roger a bastard. Based on the image, Natalie was thrown from a height of over 20 ft into the ocean/sea. That is dangerous when someone jumps into the ocean under their own complete control. The yacht owner should be bringing it back to port and putting Roger ashore for his wrecklessness. Being thrown overboard is never a joke.
I wonder if a fish will swim in Natalie’s swimsuit.
No, I think she fills it out very well. No room.
That will not get Natalie to like you any more Rodge, and none of the others should think that was a nice thing to do.
On the other hand, it’s something Neil needed. As already mentioned, Rodge did to Natalie what he would do to Neil.
After calling him sexist, Natalie needed to be manhandled and thrown into water 20 feet below? Needed.
Just like Data
Man, Rodge is being an actual dick this time.
Wow. Rodge made a quick switch to Asshole.
It’s kinda suspicious if you ask me. I’m rethinking the rather skeptical look on Araceli’s face in the previous two comics. The commentariat was of the general opinion that she was looking at Natalie, but maybe she was wondering if there was something up with Rodge? Araceli should know Rodge well enough to see if he was acting out of character, he’s close enough to Caley to get invited on this trip.
how much would I have to offer CD to to have Natalie slap the s***** out of Rodge. At this point he’s being a blatant a*******
I’d like to see Natalie slap Rodge. Not because Rodge is an ass and deserves it, but because it would show Natalie’s growing a spine, if not a pair.
Otherwise, she needs a strong man like Rodge to take care of her. Yeah, hate if you want, but Nat’s weak and defenseless.
Holy fuck, your name is spot on. Are you this misogynistic all the time, or do you just let it out in comic book fantasies?
Remember, Natalie is Neil, a male in a female meatsuit. I dare say that if Neil, wearing his own skin, had been thrown overboard, people would not be so reflexively defending him.
And I’ll stand by my assertion that if Neil, in the Natalie suit, remains such an utterly clueless doormat*, she absolutely does need a male to protect her from worse than Rodge. Say, from severely abusive assholes like Jean.
===
* “Why did we need to change into swimwear?” i swear, Nat might as well have had her finger in her mouth, the classic expression of the vacant bimbo. Natalie suffers from having not grown up female, and thus lacks some of the social wiles beautiful women develop to protect themselves.
Well aware of the Nat/Neil dynamic. I think you would be surprised at how many people recognize shitty behavior, regardless of who it happens to. There would likely be fewer assertions of Rodge being sexist if Nat were currently Neil, but otherwise I think most of the reactions would be the same.
It is hard to read the blatantly misogynistic tone and attitude that pervades the rest of your thoughts. If you genuinely have no idea how you sound to others, please take this as a friendly tip and see if you can do better. If you genuinely don’t care how you sound…congrats on being an asshole.
Huh. He’s a dick AND an asshole? What a multi talented guy!
Come on, how else would he have gotten her into the water?
Discussion of buoyancy? Powerpoint presentation on the effects of sunlight on local currents? Threaten to smear sunscreen on her so she won’t get sunburn?
Would that make him an ass/dick, or a dick/hole?
The point you seem to be missing is that there is only one person who gets to decide if Nat goes in the water, and that is Nat. “How else would he have gotten her in the water” assumes that what Rodge wanted was more important than what Nat wanted, which is flat out unacceptable when you are talking about what happens to Nat. Rodge had no respect for Nat’s autonomy. THAT is a far bigger issue than Nat being a doormat.
Well said. Thank you.
How else could he have got her.into.the water? Ahhh…maybe asked her if she wanted to go for a swim? I doubt the children jumped from that height to go swimming.
I really dislike Rodge…
Dick move, Rodge. But Nat really should loosen up a bit. She’s already in this situation, she might as well try to have some fun.
Roger is a dick. Physically pushing around anyone is not cool. Doesn’t matter if Natalie needs to ‘loosen up’, he’s being a bully and a tool.
Just wanted to see her top wet, right?
Bikinis look same wet or not.
Natalie, that EEEKKKK! certainly sounded like a girly response to being thrown overboard by your fiancé.
When Rodge joins you, you should try having some fun by holding his head under water. Of course, he’s stronger and will escape drowning, but you might enjoy trying. Get that heart of yours racing.
Natalie is the epitome of “cute when she’s mad”.
> lol wtf are you doing, Rodge?
There’s nothing funny here. People are witnessing abuse and laughing about it. Sad.
People are witnessing horseplay, rough-housing, even outright challenge, where no real harm was given, and calling abuse.
Maybe because Neil gets treated like dirt by his entire harem? Araceli is a nepo-baby who can’t accept that he’s just not into her, Rodge lost his ability to horseplay when he showed that he’ll 100% take advantage of a mentally incapacitated Neil en femme, and Jean is an outright monster that views him as a convenient excuse to not do the whole genie thing at best. The guy needs someone in his life who sees him as a person.
> Rodge lost his ability to horseplay when he showed that he’ll 100% take advantage of a mentally incapacitated Neil en femme
Rodge had absolutely no idea that there was any sort of “mental incapacitation” going on when Natalie got mind-whammied. He had every reason to believe that she’d simply changed her mind about being into him.
Given his extremely depressed reaction after she got un-whammied and then broke off their whirlwind romance, he was likely legitimately in love with her. Lilly was his “rebound” after his heart was so severely broken.
Excellent points. I have to wonder if part of what’s motivating Rodge is resentment over the whole affair. Natalie dumped him then; now he gets to dump her, sort of thing. I’m not claiming that would justify his actions, only explain them, at least in part.
@Robert – okay, that’s . . . I don’t really want to say “fair”, even though it is, because he was refusing to take “No” for an answer about the boat trip and keeps trying to push himself onto someone who has made it clear isn’t attracted to him. I honestly kind of want to rant about how gawd-awful Rodge and Jean have been lately, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just make it worse if I do.
Are you talking about pages with Jeanie, like the one when she transformed Neil into Natalie?
Did Rodge lift Neil up to toss her over that railing in the third panel?
He’s stronger than he looks.
Yup. Look at panel two: Rodge’s forearms are as big as Natalie’s thighs.
Regardless of his/her outer gender, Neil desperately needs to grow a pair and stand against the bullies in his life.
Maybe is time for some small time vengeance. Aren’t engineers good at setting things up?
Good point. Neil has been the butt of Jeanie’s rebellion against being reborn as a genie for far too long. Haji Day is an annual thing, and it would serve her right if he sent her back to genie land. As for getting even with Rodge, there must be dozens of little things that could upend his life. The problem with that is that we know very little about Rodge… he might take it as a challenge or worse–come to believe that Natalie actually likes him.
“Neil needs to grow a pair.”
Jeanie has a pair, she just keeps ’em hid.
Rodge, hell has no fury like a woman. She doesn’t have to be scorned, just mad. OK time to cue the bedroom shark.
The problem is, Neil/Natalie’s “fury” is impotent to the point of cuteness. All she can do is splutter-cluck like a wet hen.
Tell me you don’t respect women without saying you don’t respect women.
Tell me you think women are delicate flowers who cannot defend themselves
while saying they’re strong and independent.
Also, explain how my comments about Neil, a man who has consistently proven himself to be a doormat, demonstrate that I don’t respect women.
In reverse order.
You have made multiple comments about how Nat is cute when she is angry, which is one of the most dismissive and patronizing tropes of all time. I seriously dare you to try that when someone is furious and not being respected. Its on par with twlling someone to just calm down. I agree that Neil/Nat needs to stand up for themself more often, but the method of your critique is going off into some very sexist directions.
See, that’s the thing. I DON’T think women are delicate flowers who cannot defend themselves. I DO think that women should be strong and independent. Not sure what I’ve done that makes you think otherwise except voice my opinions in the first place. But Im not doing that because I think women need me to. Im doing it because I want to. I reached a breaking point, and I enjoy speaking out against shitty attitudes and behavior.
@TGS: “Nat is cute when she is angry,”
Compare “You’re cute when you’re mad.” with “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
The first is personal, aimed at a specific person–in this case, Neil as Natalie.
The second is general, noting a characteristic of most women.
Everything I’ve said is directed at Natalie, and much of it applies to Neil as well. It’s not so much that I’m sexist, it’s that Natalie is playing out the female stereotypes.
The “cute when mad” stereotype is as common as it is because some women, like Natalie, cannot be effective in their anger. They’re like fluffy kittens picking a fight with a Doberman–the dog simply cannot take the threat seriously.
Neil’s the same way, but I think being Natalie brings that side of him out even more strongly than usual.
Perhaps it will help to say that I agree, absolutely, that Rodge is an asshole and a dick. Men like that can be a real threat to women like Natalie, because those women don’t know how to defend themselves effectively, with words or fists.
And that’s all I have to say about this issue for now. Let’s wait and see what happens this coming Tuesday.
If you just wanted her in the water, you could have been nicer and jumped in with her, and she wouldn’t be nearly as angry with you, and neither would we as readers.
On the other hand, if someone else is possessing Rodge’s body in order to turn this into a parody subplot mimicing Gilligan’s Island, I expect next strip he’ll either steal the boat and drive it away somewhere, stranding the rest of them there, or wreck it, stranding all of them there.
Y’know, it occurs to me…Neil / Natalie might not be so concerned with what Rodge just did now than what Jean did earlier. And at what point would Neil see Jean not as a friend, but as a danger and a threat?
Definitely too late.
Everything that is happening now has its roots in Neil failing to engage with Jeanie, to nurture a healthy Master/Genie pairing. Rodge is definitely a jerk, but is nowhere near in the same class as Jean/Jeanie.
I don’t want to embarass the girl but in the last page Araceli’s top had shoulder straps.
Good eye.
What top? 🙂
Looks like that was an art error. I’ve corrected it.
awwww
I know that Araceli cannot undo Jeanie’s majic, but if she finds out what Rodge did to Neil can she switch natalie and redge into each other’s bodies. Rodge needs to get TGed.
Even THAT might count as messing with Jeanie’s magic. However, she definitely CAN TG Rodge.
… and who knows, maybe Rodge would learn from it.
Araceli doesn’t roll that way; she’d probably hit him with a large object.
We’ve seen her turn him to stone before.
That wasn’t Neil, she was “playing house” and that was just something she created.
She turned Rodge to stone for Caley, because he kept making her mac n cheese.
At this point, Rodge should not only get girl-ified, but should be sent away for a month to be a household slave in, say, Yemen.
Jean didn’t learn very much from being turned into Jeanie. I’m not sure Rodge is even as smart as Jeanie is.
Rodge needs a punch in the face next time he sidles up to Natalie.
a punch yes, maybe lower.
Clearly, there’s something going on with Rodge beneath the surface here, and maybe everyone should just chill a bit and let the story play out over the next week or two… or five, or ten… or twenty. (Yes, this strip moves very slowly.)
Yes, something weird is going on. There is no excuse for Rodge’s throwing her overboard unless 1) there’s magic involved that is controlling his actions or 2) we’re about to get a callback to when Rodge and Nat were hiding in the movie theater which reveals the Disney movie they were watching was one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and Nat told Rodge it would be cool to suddenly fall into the water like Elizabeth Swann. #2 is preposterous, so since this is a comic strip I give both explanations an even chance.
You folks need to lighten up. No one is being misogynistic or abusive. This is a comic representation of a sitcom and people are commenting on the characters’ motivations as if they were real. You do all remember what a sitcom is, don’t you? You can’t tell me you never laughed at slap stick comedy when the subject didn’t know it was coming.
You need to grow up. This is abusive. Like a bully who makes fun of someone until they react, then they say, “Haw haw, it was only a joke.”