Asha is a genie who lives in LA, masquerading as a human Pop Star. Since her last master died before asking for his final wish, and being buried with Asha's Bottle. Haji has granted Asha the ability to stay in the human world without returning to her bottle.
Jean AKA Jeannie AKA Jeanie is a film, book, and magazine reviewer for a national magazine. Most of Jean’s work is done through email, which means he doesn't have to go into the office.
On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found an empty Genie Bottle. Upon picking up this bottle, Jean became the bottle’s new genie-powered occupant. Not only was Jean turned into a genie, but the bottle turned him into what he believed a genie of the bottle should look like. Which, due to his fascination with a classic 60s TV show, turned him into a busty blonde woman.
no man, that was the 19th century.
In the 19th century, and especially in the gay 90’s https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheGay90s
people had a profound optimistic belief in the future. This optimism was very much destroyed in 1914. 1939 didn’t make it better.
We never fully recovered, but by the 1990’s after the cold war ended, we at least began to heal.
That is what Jeannie should be more careful about telling Ifta about.
She fully expects the technological progress, most of the essentials like indoor plumbing, electricity and the telephone had already been invented in her time.
Those song titles in a row finally answered my long-standing baffled question who the asha-blonde genie is supposed to be. (Not that it really bothered me, it was just another random side character)
Has her name been mentioned before, and where? And no, 484 doesn’t count because the “guilera” was cut from the frame, and tons of people are named Christine.
No Kattgirl, I don’t think boredom would be a problem for an immortal. It is always possible to find some way to entertain oneself. it is much easier to get lost in time wasting activities. I can foresee an immortal spending a hundred years absorbed in doing a billion pearl mosaic or similar art projects.
Becoming a genie gives one the sense of time of a genie, since genies live for millennia, a hundred years feels like nothing
Though realistically this shouldn’t be an inherent part of them, but a consequence of having actually lived all those years (meaning genies under a century old should experience time in a manner similar to humans)
well I can tell thee as someone nearing 40 that I experiance time a lot differently from when I was 20.
What is important to keep in mind is that time is like a meter.
Regardless of how old we are, all of our past is 1 meter.
If we are 10 year old that means that each year is 10cm 10%, but at 100 it is only 1%
In order words, time inevitably slows down, as years become shorter and shorter relative to ourselves. I think Frieren beyond Journey’s end is a good example of what that means
If you’re practically immortal, time has little to no meaning for you and your sense of urgency may be altered as well. Nice using Frieren Beyond Journe’s End is a good reference.
the one serious problem to the otherwise perfect utopia I have written
If all hurdles were removed, so that everyone was immortal, Adonis, Prometheus herculean there would be no sense of urgency, there would be no reason for people to do anything.
Society would basically become frozen in time, never developing and changing. and there would be no innovations, that is the price we have to pay for immortality. That is the problem with elves, they are always stagnant, because why do anything when they have all the time in the world to do it.
But humans only have 80 years, so we better hurry. In most cases we only get one chance, so we better make it count
You never know, it seems like boredom would be a big problem for an immortal being. Maybe they even get so bored that they commit suicide just to end it all. So that could act as a check on the population.
Come to think of it, this could explain why immortal creatures are so often portrayed as evil; maybe they have decided to be nasty because it’s more entertaining than just wasting away.
Re: immortals. Likely any thinking being born immortal won’t think that way about time and boredom. Likely, too, the interrelations between these immortals will be complex and different from relations between those who aren’t. For an example, would marriage be “till death you do part,” or would it be down to, say, mating, hanging around till the nestlings are adults, then separating?
Somebody who has immortality thrust on them might think different about it…
Okay… she’d be in such a nightmarish level of culture shock to see what the modern world has become… she might be better off staying with the genies!!! Seriously, her cultural values and social mores would be so out of date that modern society would seem completely insane to her. The genies ironically would offer her more sense of normalcy.
You’ll recall from the backstory that steamships and steam buggies were new inventions at the time Kiran entered Ifta’s bottle and it will only be 5 years before the Wright Brothers take flight. I think that “nightmarish level of culture shock” might be an understatement.
Given that the first steam engine was invented in 1712, the first steamboat in 1787, the first train locomotive in 1804, the first aircraft (a glider) in 1804, and the first commercial prodiction motorcar in 1886, I doubt that Kiran will be much surprised at seeing various powered vehicles tootling around, although the working details of cars and airplanes will certainly be a mystery to him/her.
Same with the telegraph (1832), telephone (1876), telescope (1608), phonograph (1877), radio (1895), photograph (1822), movies (1895) electric motor (1834) and electric lights (1805). Much of common technology is older than we tend to think.
All true, except that it’s unlikely any of those items were commonplace in 1898 Luxor. Kiran knows of these things (as explained in the backstory) even if he doesn’t know how they work. It’s Ifta that found them strange and surprising since she’s been inside her bottle for several hundred years prior to Kiran letting her out. Salāh ad-Dīn Khalil, heir to the Bahri Sultan of Egypt was a real person and was a clue as to how long she’d been in there. (CD asked that I not include the exact number in the text, but you can look it up.)
as I said. People in the gay 90’s had a tremendous optimism about the future and believed it would bring nothing but progress. Seeing that progress will not surprise her at all, and she will take it all with glee.
BUT
there is a reason why all of the “gayness” didn’t last. That is 1914 and all of the horrors that followed. We call them the lost generation as that was when hope was lost. We only started to regain that in the 1990’s after the cold war had ended and the world could finally start to heal. I would be very careful about telling her anything about these events, but on the other hand she shouldn’t just discover them by mistake that would be even worse.
My recomendation. Wait there is time, then sit her in a quiet room, with a cup of earl grey and some calming Mozart music. Have lots of soft furniture, tissue paper and a teddy bear for hugging.
hast thou seen Egypt? not much difference from a hundred years ago.
She might be happy that her country is now independent, and a little surprised by the new type of junk the street vendors try to push on the tourist, but really Cairo is still Cairo.
It would have been a lot more shocking if she had been from London or New York
We saw Kiran say that he wanted to know what it was like to be a genie, and we saw Ifta change him into her double and stick him into a bottle. Nowhere did we see Ifta change. In ALADIN, the Blue Genie changed Jafar into a genie without being changed. So why should we all believe that there was any sort of body swap?
The real Ifta is still around someplace. Maybe hiding. Maybe Ifta was in some sort of trouble and zapped Kiran, so she could leave him behind as her decoy double. Or some enemy trapped her in whatever is causing the problem to the folsk on the boat.
Having read the fanfic attached to Ifta’s first appearance, she basically swapped bodies with Kiran, taking his body for a spin while leaving him stuck in the bottle. The bottle got washed away and while looking for it, Ifta ran into a guy who found the bottle in the first place, brandishing a gun. Ifta accidentally startled him got shot, and bled out.
Reportedly, the backstory of what happened with Ifta and Kiran is told in a fan-fiction piece, written with CD’s blessing and aid. I haven’t read it yet, so that’s all I can say.
I guess this is proof that passage of time seems different in the bottle, which explains why the genies don’t all go completely insane through isolation. You get an awareness of time passing, but not experiencing every passing minute. Honestly, I’d accept that as a viable tradeoff. Wouldn’t want to end up blue though, or like a British Panto Genie. Although ending up as Lenny Henry would be okay.
Kiran was a nobody, a “street rat”, a server at an outdoor cafe in Egypt with few if any prospects. All of a sudden is surrounded by beautiful women who seem to hold him in great esteem and respect. He isn’t stupid, I can see him switching teams for that life. The feminine ” Hieee” at the end indicates she is willing to play the part
And has spent the last hundred years as a girl. Remember being sealed in a bottle doesn’t mean the Genie sleeps. Its how Jeanie was able to escape so Kiran has had a long time for her mind to adjust.
I wouldn’t mind it, myself. It’d be sad to see freinds pss away, but heck, as a human you get that anyway, and without even the benefit of near-immortality.
CD that little round shiney thing. Compact Disc. Or it could be short for CDRudd. I know, everyone is evolving to the thumb drives or is that obslete now? I remember that Araceli had issues with the TV set.
I think Jeanie’s popularity is going to get a major uptick if everyone thinks that “Ifta” is her friend. Of course, when the truth slips out, she might be in for yet another setback.
oh man, this is turning into a Fry situation.
The original djinn turned human are long dead by now, so our clueless friend might as well just accept that she is Ifta
Funnily enough, the story says Kiran is Egyptian but Kiran Shah is an Indian name, and not Muslim. So is Kiran an Egyptian or an Indian who immigrated to Egypt?
Jeanie’s going to be glad to no longer be the one with the most Genie culture shock. Kiran probably got used to his new body while in the bottle, but eventually being stuck in a bottle got really boring and he used magic to suspend time until the bottle was opened.
I believe that the inside of a genie’s totem (bottle or lamp) is a pocket dimension where time flows differently. Kiran/Ifta stated when she emerged that she felt like she’d been in there for over a year, but we all know from panel 4 that it was actually well over 200.
Thank you for the fourth of july banner. Jeanie, it is not approate to wear a swimsuit made out of the flag. Lets be a good girl and take off that top. I doubt if there will be too many objections.
I don’t think her swimsuit is actually “made out of the flag” – presumably it is just designed to resemble the U.S. Flag. If you don’t believe me about the latter being acceptable, perhaps you’ll believe this website: https://www.legion.org/flag/questions-answers/91517/it-permissible-wear-item-clothing-looks-united-states-flag
Admittedly, I would not personally object to her taking off the top (or even the whole swimsuit), as long as she does it of her own free will, rather than being forced to do so (though whether fictional characters can be said to have free will is a thorny question…)
The late 1890’s not the 1990’s Jean different eras. But think all the fun showing Ifta modern convinces like tv, computers, cars, and movies.
And the nervous breakdown at the overwhelming culture shock of 100 years of the most “history on fast forward” century in history!!!
no man, that was the 19th century.
In the 19th century, and especially in the gay 90’s https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheGay90s
people had a profound optimistic belief in the future. This optimism was very much destroyed in 1914. 1939 didn’t make it better.
We never fully recovered, but by the 1990’s after the cold war ended, we at least began to heal.
That is what Jeannie should be more careful about telling Ifta about.
She fully expects the technological progress, most of the essentials like indoor plumbing, electricity and the telephone had already been invented in her time.
Those song titles in a row finally answered my long-standing baffled question who the asha-blonde genie is supposed to be. (Not that it really bothered me, it was just another random side character)
Has her name been mentioned before, and where? And no, 484 doesn’t count because the “guilera” was cut from the frame, and tons of people are named Christine.
Panel 3 – … you said you WHERE in the bottle…” should be WERE.
Whoops. Will fix.
Time is shorter on the bottle’s inside and longer on the outside. That must be the answer. Either that or she’s dumber than she looks.
Or maybe she just didn’t have a clock in the bottle? It would be easy to lose track of the passing time…
No Kattgirl, I don’t think boredom would be a problem for an immortal. It is always possible to find some way to entertain oneself. it is much easier to get lost in time wasting activities. I can foresee an immortal spending a hundred years absorbed in doing a billion pearl mosaic or similar art projects.
Becoming a genie gives one the sense of time of a genie, since genies live for millennia, a hundred years feels like nothing
Though realistically this shouldn’t be an inherent part of them, but a consequence of having actually lived all those years (meaning genies under a century old should experience time in a manner similar to humans)
well I can tell thee as someone nearing 40 that I experiance time a lot differently from when I was 20.
What is important to keep in mind is that time is like a meter.
Regardless of how old we are, all of our past is 1 meter.
If we are 10 year old that means that each year is 10cm 10%, but at 100 it is only 1%
In order words, time inevitably slows down, as years become shorter and shorter relative to ourselves. I think Frieren beyond Journey’s end is a good example of what that means
I’ve mentioned this idea, which I came up with as a teenager, to many people. All like it, but I’ve never seen anyone espouse it independently. Cool!
If you’re practically immortal, time has little to no meaning for you and your sense of urgency may be altered as well. Nice using Frieren Beyond Journe’s End is a good reference.
the one serious problem to the otherwise perfect utopia I have written
If all hurdles were removed, so that everyone was immortal, Adonis, Prometheus herculean there would be no sense of urgency, there would be no reason for people to do anything.
Society would basically become frozen in time, never developing and changing. and there would be no innovations, that is the price we have to pay for immortality. That is the problem with elves, they are always stagnant, because why do anything when they have all the time in the world to do it.
But humans only have 80 years, so we better hurry. In most cases we only get one chance, so we better make it count
You never know, it seems like boredom would be a big problem for an immortal being. Maybe they even get so bored that they commit suicide just to end it all. So that could act as a check on the population.
Come to think of it, this could explain why immortal creatures are so often portrayed as evil; maybe they have decided to be nasty because it’s more entertaining than just wasting away.
Re: immortals. Likely any thinking being born immortal won’t think that way about time and boredom. Likely, too, the interrelations between these immortals will be complex and different from relations between those who aren’t. For an example, would marriage be “till death you do part,” or would it be down to, say, mating, hanging around till the nestlings are adults, then separating?
Somebody who has immortality thrust on them might think different about it…
Okay… she’d be in such a nightmarish level of culture shock to see what the modern world has become… she might be better off staying with the genies!!! Seriously, her cultural values and social mores would be so out of date that modern society would seem completely insane to her. The genies ironically would offer her more sense of normalcy.
It could be worse – based on her outfit, I’d have thought she was from 1200 BC or so.
You’ll recall from the backstory that steamships and steam buggies were new inventions at the time Kiran entered Ifta’s bottle and it will only be 5 years before the Wright Brothers take flight. I think that “nightmarish level of culture shock” might be an understatement.
Given that the first steam engine was invented in 1712, the first steamboat in 1787, the first train locomotive in 1804, the first aircraft (a glider) in 1804, and the first commercial prodiction motorcar in 1886, I doubt that Kiran will be much surprised at seeing various powered vehicles tootling around, although the working details of cars and airplanes will certainly be a mystery to him/her.
Same with the telegraph (1832), telephone (1876), telescope (1608), phonograph (1877), radio (1895), photograph (1822), movies (1895) electric motor (1834) and electric lights (1805). Much of common technology is older than we tend to think.
All true, except that it’s unlikely any of those items were commonplace in 1898 Luxor. Kiran knows of these things (as explained in the backstory) even if he doesn’t know how they work. It’s Ifta that found them strange and surprising since she’s been inside her bottle for several hundred years prior to Kiran letting her out. Salāh ad-Dīn Khalil, heir to the Bahri Sultan of Egypt was a real person and was a clue as to how long she’d been in there. (CD asked that I not include the exact number in the text, but you can look it up.)
I should have specified that the inventions were new to Ifta in my earlier comment. My mistake.
as I said. People in the gay 90’s had a tremendous optimism about the future and believed it would bring nothing but progress. Seeing that progress will not surprise her at all, and she will take it all with glee.
BUT
there is a reason why all of the “gayness” didn’t last. That is 1914 and all of the horrors that followed. We call them the lost generation as that was when hope was lost. We only started to regain that in the 1990’s after the cold war had ended and the world could finally start to heal. I would be very careful about telling her anything about these events, but on the other hand she shouldn’t just discover them by mistake that would be even worse.
My recomendation. Wait there is time, then sit her in a quiet room, with a cup of earl grey and some calming Mozart music. Have lots of soft furniture, tissue paper and a teddy bear for hugging.
hast thou seen Egypt? not much difference from a hundred years ago.
She might be happy that her country is now independent, and a little surprised by the new type of junk the street vendors try to push on the tourist, but really Cairo is still Cairo.
It would have been a lot more shocking if she had been from London or New York
We saw Kiran say that he wanted to know what it was like to be a genie, and we saw Ifta change him into her double and stick him into a bottle. Nowhere did we see Ifta change. In ALADIN, the Blue Genie changed Jafar into a genie without being changed. So why should we all believe that there was any sort of body swap?
The real Ifta is still around someplace. Maybe hiding. Maybe Ifta was in some sort of trouble and zapped Kiran, so she could leave him behind as her decoy double. Or some enemy trapped her in whatever is causing the problem to the folsk on the boat.
Having read the fanfic attached to Ifta’s first appearance, she basically swapped bodies with Kiran, taking his body for a spin while leaving him stuck in the bottle. The bottle got washed away and while looking for it, Ifta ran into a guy who found the bottle in the first place, brandishing a gun. Ifta accidentally startled him got shot, and bled out.
Reportedly, the backstory of what happened with Ifta and Kiran is told in a fan-fiction piece, written with CD’s blessing and aid. I haven’t read it yet, so that’s all I can say.
June 11, 2024 # 798 here is a link to the fan-fic
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bFM0hodPwKKAS6yaUTMm1dnabVfIo2KGMnk46sSYC0M/edit?usp=sharing
I guess this is proof that passage of time seems different in the bottle, which explains why the genies don’t all go completely insane through isolation. You get an awareness of time passing, but not experiencing every passing minute. Honestly, I’d accept that as a viable tradeoff. Wouldn’t want to end up blue though, or like a British Panto Genie. Although ending up as Lenny Henry would be okay.
Kiran is taking being gender swapped remarkably well. And being stuck in a bottle. And being addressed as someone else.
Sie probably still thinks that the swap can be reversed. At the moment only we know what has happened to the real Ifta/Kiran’s body.
Kiran was a nobody, a “street rat”, a server at an outdoor cafe in Egypt with few if any prospects. All of a sudden is surrounded by beautiful women who seem to hold him in great esteem and respect. He isn’t stupid, I can see him switching teams for that life. The feminine ” Hieee” at the end indicates she is willing to play the part
You saw that too. Apparently, Kiran is not only a fast learner but very intuitive.
And has spent the last hundred years as a girl. Remember being sealed in a bottle doesn’t mean the Genie sleeps. Its how Jeanie was able to escape so Kiran has had a long time for her mind to adjust.
That, plus the magic powers and a fifty-times-longer lifespan. A great many people would like to potentially be able to live for four thousand years.
I wouldn’t mind it, myself. It’d be sad to see freinds pss away, but heck, as a human you get that anyway, and without even the benefit of near-immortality.
Vinyl’s been making a comeback of late…but I haven’t seen any new wax cylinders lately.
Weirdly enough new production cylinder phonograph records are available, they’re just not made of wax.
In my life, I’ve seen just one cylinder player that actually worked. But I’ve always thought some could be repaired.
I have an aunt that has one and it plays just fine. She also has about a dozen cylinders for it.
I had more than that on my iPod classic, but that’s broken now, too.
“CD”? Is that a new streaming service or something?
CD that little round shiney thing. Compact Disc. Or it could be short for CDRudd. I know, everyone is evolving to the thumb drives or is that obslete now? I remember that Araceli had issues with the TV set.
I think Jeanie’s popularity is going to get a major uptick if everyone thinks that “Ifta” is her friend. Of course, when the truth slips out, she might be in for yet another setback.
Yes—notice how Asha’s anger calmed down considerably upon learning that “Ifta” was apparently acting as Jeanie’s chaperone.
Is anyone else having issues with the site? If I use my normal browser I just get “denied” returned as plain text
If you’re denied, how did you post that question?
quote “if I use my normal browser” Hint: I’m not posting this from my normal browser.
That’s strange. I’ve never seen that before.
It did the same for me for serveral days on 3 different machines. It’s working fine now.
The culture shock of being over 100 in the future’s going to cause an aneurysm.
oh man, this is turning into a Fry situation.
The original djinn turned human are long dead by now, so our clueless friend might as well just accept that she is Ifta
Funnily enough, the story says Kiran is Egyptian but Kiran Shah is an Indian name, and not Muslim. So is Kiran an Egyptian or an Indian who immigrated to Egypt?
Ishaq Bux is also an Indian name. (There was an Indian actor based in Britain during the latter half of the last century with that name)
OH very funny. All those names are from the cast and crew of “The Raiders Of The Lost Ark”.
Looks at the ceiling and hums Dr. Jone’s theme music.
Jeanie’s going to be glad to no longer be the one with the most Genie culture shock. Kiran probably got used to his new body while in the bottle, but eventually being stuck in a bottle got really boring and he used magic to suspend time until the bottle was opened.
I believe that the inside of a genie’s totem (bottle or lamp) is a pocket dimension where time flows differently. Kiran/Ifta stated when she emerged that she felt like she’d been in there for over a year, but we all know from panel 4 that it was actually well over 200.
1898. That’s like 126 years.
Oops. Typo.
Thank you for the fourth of july banner. Jeanie, it is not approate to wear a swimsuit made out of the flag. Lets be a good girl and take off that top. I doubt if there will be too many objections.
It’s the same one as last year. Still nice, though. 🙂
I don’t think her swimsuit is actually “made out of the flag” – presumably it is just designed to resemble the U.S. Flag. If you don’t believe me about the latter being acceptable, perhaps you’ll believe this website: https://www.legion.org/flag/questions-answers/91517/it-permissible-wear-item-clothing-looks-united-states-flag
Admittedly, I would not personally object to her taking off the top (or even the whole swimsuit), as long as she does it of her own free will, rather than being forced to do so (though whether fictional characters can be said to have free will is a thorny question…)
If Kiran/Ifta slept 99 days out of every 100, that could explain the time-passing discrepancy.
Oh no Jeannie has been distracted and she was doing so well.
History the short course:
*plays “We didn’t start the fire “*
If she did take off her top I wonder if anyone will complain. Now I am dreaming of a wet t-shirt banner.
Even more problem.
Now they BOTH need supervision.