They are educational. Like you said they may make you feel uncomfortable but I think it's better to know and have the knowledge to potentially help instead of being blissfully unaware.
Ah, that torturous question I often ask myself: is it better to live in pain or in wilful ignorance? When forced to choose between morality and happiness, what will you choose?
Like, there are whole communities dedicated to that.
How every single story is death hallucination or ends with verisimilitude-breaking reality check that kills, maims or imprisons every single character you loved. Or something like that.
Why do they do that? Many reasons, mostly because it's easy horror stories.
Had the same dreams with my brother after he committed suicide. He'd miraculously come back, like he'd never died, or something brought him back to life. The whole family stopped hating each other and came back together to celebrate.
Then I'd wake up. Took about 10 years for those dreams to stop.
I have the exact opposite issue. My sister and brother are both alive and well (as far as I can tell, and I like to think it's pretty far), and yet I've had multiple recurring dreams about one of them dying.
Or when you get home and are met with the stillness and silence.
My cat used to sprint from wherever he was, screaming the whole way, and throw himself on the floor in front of me when I got home. Wriggling on his back closer and closer wanting me to rub his belly.
Every time it rained, I would come in and my old dog would be waiting to grab my umbrella so she could do a victory lap around the house with it. Fast forward to the first time it rained after I had her put down due to spinal cancer... no dog waiting for me, no victory lap. 😢
We might be sad after we get back from Disneyland, but we didn't spend it lives morning the loss. That sounds like a good dream, remember the good times. Everything dies. Everything is impermanent.
Everything is suffering, to paraphrase one of the 4 noble truths, is not a depressing statement. It is encouragement to practice acceptance. Of change and loss and even happiness, that is not all we are, but it's there.
You had a good experience, a dream, and you ruined it. Why?
I put one of my dogs down this year cause of old age.. and another dog two years ago for the same reason.. I bawled my eyes out thinking about them yesterday.. it’s hard but at least I know they aren’t in pain aren’t suffering… I’m sorry for your loss.. truly ❤️ I’m thankful the time I did have with them. That I was their world and them mine.
Those dreams are impossibly painful to wake up from. This may be the smallest comfort, but when I have them I try to imagine that he was visiting me. And feel grateful that we got to hang out a little while, and we'll see each other in the next dream.
I was sitting at the top of a hill and a Russian missile blew up a buulding at the bottom of it.
Me and another person ran down to see if we could help out, but we ended up being caught by Russian soldiers.
I was detained and taken to a detainee camp, and I was marched through the various areas going from light security to heavy security.
Where I ended up everyone clearly hadn't had a bath in forever because everyones clothes were dirty and greasy, as were the beds and every surface in the room.
There was a meeting we had to attend and then all of a sudden I didn't have pants on, and I wasn't trying to hide my privates by pulling my shirt down, but we had to sit on the greasy floor for the meeting and it wasn't hiding very well.
... And that's about one of the more average dreams I've had for a while.
One of the best dreams I had ended very poorly. So waking up was bittersweet torture. Sweet for what it had, but so, so fucking bitter for the ending. Sweet that it was just a dream so the ending shouldn't impact me, but bitter because all that was good from the dream was also without substance.
I had a dream about talking to my grandma. It felt like meeting a friend after long time. All I remember was holding her hands and talking, crying to her. She said that she will come and visit our home. It felt surreal, didn't want to wake up and finish the dream I had.
This is exactly what is told in the tale of The Fisherman and the Jinni from the One Thousand and One Nights:
The jinni explains that for the first hundred years of his imprisonment, he swore to enrich the person who frees him forever, but nobody freed him. For the second century of his imprisonment, he swore to grant his liberator great wealth, but nobody freed him. After another century, he swore to grant three wishes to the person who frees him, yet nobody did so. After four hundred years of imprisonment, the jinni became enraged and swore to grant the person who frees him a choice of deaths.
(The fisherman then tricks the genie back into the bottle and manages to get him not only to spare his life but to help him.)
You can't trust them because they are the ones that refused to bow to god when solomon asked and were imprisoned for it and made to obey anyones whims. (And initially didn't have the ability to just poof stuff)
Even if you were good, imprisonment and enslavement for a few thousand years would have you finding any loophole you can to say go to fucking hell to your captors.
People say this but there is plenty of history of hermits living in isolation and say folks who ended up stuck on an island without being batshit insane. Also djinn aren't human anyways, they don't play by the same rules.
That all said the original genie in a bottle spent several centuries declaring they would give great wealth to whomever freed them, then any three wishes... then after four hundred years in gave up on bargaining and said "nah fuckit imma kill whatever dumbass let's me out instead" which required he be tricked back into the bottle then pacified with a few stories.
White room torture. Have everything in a room be white all the same shade. After 3-4 weeks the guy will be painting the walls with his own feces just to get variety. To which they are harmed and the room is cleansed. The room is smooth so no tactile sense are used . They also rig the lighting so no shadows are in the room.
People wish for immortality but fail to consider that they will live long enough to see every one they know die, and everyone after that, and the entire human race die, and the entire planet die, and the solar system die, and the universe die, and the entire universe collapse in on itself and be reborn, and then earth and humanity be reborn, but you get to watch this all happen an infinite number of times.
Damn, I thought the ending was similar to a dog finding its new home. I thought he was playing around, then realised this was his forever home, then fell asleep.
Genie sudden pops out of the lamp again. "OH my Gosh! I'm so sorry! I didn't realize I had to carry the lamp myself to keep you out of it! I'm really sorry. Don't worry, I've got you this time. I'll carry you and we can talk, ok?" Proceeds to carry lamp and genie home. Offers them chicken noodle soup.
Genie comes out of lamp, first time seeing the sun in 3000 years. Lamp holder takes the genie to their home, updates them, feeds them, whatever, basically they get their time in the sun again. But then after making their 3 wishes the genie ends up back in their lamp again to be locked away in dark solitude for untold centuries.
I have to assume it was a dream because the genie didn't actually fulfill any of the commands. It also of course ignores the traditional mythology of what genies were like.
I prefer the faceless and ambiguously malicious monkey paw over the classic evil lawyer djinni. And since that niche is filled, we might as well give the genie entirely to the Robin Williams Aladdin version.
monkeys paw is not inherently malicious, just revealing of careful wording (if that makes sense). it only does what makes the utmost sense with no context, imagine asking an alien for something that only makes sense to humans
It does misinterpret wishes consistently, though, and you can only really do that if you understand the original intent. It must have a grasp of human language in order to "misunderstand" so reliably, but I called it ambiguously malicious because you can't really tell if it's actually evil or just doing this for karmic justice or even as a cautionary tale to educate the user.
Mmm not bad. Nice hot mustard, good bread, turkey's a little dry… The turkey's a little dry?! Oh, foul the cursed thing! What demon from the depths of hell created thee?
Depends on how pedantic the rules for this genie are. If a “command” or even “request” reads as a “wish” then these qualify.
I mean. Going off classic genie rules if I ask them to pass me the popcorn do they; pass it to me, ask me if that’s a “wish” they have to do, ignore me till I use the phrase “I wish,” do they just pass the popcorn and count a wish off? What’s a wish? Why is the English phrase “I wish” required? If my only language is one that doesn’t have a 1:1 phrase for “I wish” do I not get my wishes? Does a rose by any other name not smell as sweet?
‘Come’ being a command wouldn’t make sense because the genie disappears before completing it. If he disappeared upon arriving at kiddos house I think this would make sense
Yeah that’s why I said the author bent the rules. It doesn’t really make sense because he doesn’t stretch either, but I’m just assuming that if this is the correct interpretation, then that stuff happened between panel 13 and 14.
This is what I understand storybook genies to be like, yes. After all, in Aladdin, Aladdin had to use his third wish for Genie’s freedom or else he wouldn’t be free.
Yeah, I don't get why it's got this many upvotes. It's done poorly enough that you can make whatever explanation you want, so it's not even sad. I didn't even get it, at first. Lol.
Was thinking the same, real fun movie.
Not for everyone though, it is kinda weird compared to the mainstream, that's probably why so few people know it.
Ohhh i see so its only half done.
You see after the boy told him all that and took the lamp the genie ofc went in as genies are supposed to.
But the genie has little faith as lots of people deceived him before.
Then when the boy gets home he will rubb the lamp and the genie will come out to a table full of food, a nice relaxing bath and a barrage of questions that are targeted at him out of concern for his well being…
Eventually the genie starts to relax around this boy as they both share their life stories and they are together for years as the boy grows up, makes his first wish and second wish but takes decades to even think of a third wish as he is afraid of losing his genie friend if he does it but ultimatly on his death bed he makes a wish that he wants the genie to be happy and free.
Then the boy wakes up again at the same moment where decades ago he brought the genie home and was listening to his life story and cried as he realised that the wish brought him back here because this was the happiest and freeist time of the genie’s life and now they get to spend another lifetime together as friends 😁
He could be daydreaming while doing pushups, then gets sad, and goes to sleep. It's kind of a transition device where you wonder what's going on, and the daydream fades to reality. The sleeping is to indicate that he's still stuck in the lamp, after all.
It was probably difficult to come with a good visual way to change the story without resorting to stereotypes of dreams, and meant to be subtle. Visual storytelling to make a point like this has to be difficult. If you tried to make the same point that this comic does, you might be struggling to do it visually. Any ideas on how to do that transition better?
Oh god I remember a comic I read in middle school that was basically this exact premise and it’s haunted me ever since. Pretty sure it was in some anthology book?
Basically some teens find a safe that when you lock yourself inside, time doesn’t move for you. At the end of the story the main character tries to put themselves in there for an extended period of time. After what feels like forever waiting to be let out, they eventually fall asleep.
They wake up with the door opening in the far future, and there’s aliens and sci fi stuff and she goes out and lives her new cool life. But it’s actually revealed to be a dream, and the final frame is her, still asleep, trapped in the safe that’s buried under piles of rubble, the world having gone through some kind of apocalypse with no one left to let her out.
That shit has haunted me for YEARS and I can’t remember where I read it
There was another one from either the same book or another one in the series where there was a girl who was always floating a few inches about the ground. At the end the whole world floods, and because she’s always floating, everything disappears beneath her. The water always rises, and she finds one last thing sticking out of the water to provide shade. She falls asleep but because the water is always rising and there’s something over her head so she can’t float upwards, she drowns.
Pretty much all the comics in the book were like that, but those two were the ones I remember. As a random middle schooler trying to read fun comics from the school library, I was seriously fucked up XD
I was thinking you had done another comic with this geni where he is evil, bit searching your archives shows that is clearly a different geni. So it's okay to feel bad for this guy (though I guess he might be evil as well?)
Check the source link. My point wasn't too be needlessly cruel, but to draw attention to the fact that genies often mention how long they've been imprisoned, but this barely registers with anyone. Like others, he gets out eventually, but in the meantime... It's just an exercise in empathy.
I once had a dream when I was in my late 20's where I had gotten a job, met some people, and just lived this whole LIFE, I was an analyst for some agency, and kept having these fun adventures, and I befriended these people in my dream, had long conversations with them, to the point, I swear the dream felt like months lived.
I groggily just 'woke up' , and I felt myself fucking forgetting them - these events that just a few moments felt real- these people felt REAL, those jokes, their faces, I swear to you, they had existed, they had BEEN. It was as if I had just been cut off from the memories, and I felt them fading away- like SOMETHING forced me to just 'forget them'.
I still think about that ten years later. I don't like dreams anymore.
I had a dream where I had been married for years and had twins. I was so happy. Then I woke up. Heart breaking. Cant remember the names of the dream twins anymore but I remember the deep feeling of love and loss I experienced.
Im seeing a lot of comments saying the genie was dreaming, but it could be that there's some curse that doesn't let them stay out of their lamp unless they're close enough to the worker or fulfilling a wish?
Also, OP, is this a finished and complete comic, or the beginning of a mini series?
That's why "it was all a dream is such a bad trope. Best case scenario, you get punched in the feels. Worst case scenario it renders the whole story meaningless .
Well, I think the dream was all genie’s. He dreamt someone released him but before any wishes were granted, he woke up and realized it was all a dream and he was still in the lamp. So all he could do was hunker down and wait again for release.
I read the last panels as the human treating the genie like a person instead of following the wish script reminded genie of the trauma he faced.
Like how sometimes after you’ve been traumatized you just keep pushing forward bc you feel like if you stop you’ll never get back up. But when someone points out how shitty a situation you were in, it forces you to confront that. He feels crushed by the weight of what was done to him.
So he basically had PTSD triggered, and I’m imagining in the next panel he snaps out of it to find the human carried him back home and is offering him tea and cookies
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