They have become increasingly difficult to distinguish from those whose skills were suddenly rendered unmarketable for non-time-travel-related reasons.
It’s a time-looped Jack and Shelley, returned to their starting point the long way around. Shelley is enraged by her inability to prevent their younger selves’ actions, while Jack is more philosophical.
I find it impossible to believe that Shelly could be in a situation where she was trying to persuade someone of something, and choose NOT to use her boo-boo eyes.
I used to be a weirdness magnet, attracting any crazy within a mile radius to focus on me and whatever I was doing, wherever I happened to be. At first, it was funny & provided for amusing stories. After a while, it became intrusive & borderline dangerous. It seemed to slow down & then stop when I started getting hostile in return, even going so far as snarling at loonies who even looked as if they going to get close. The ones at the pub were the worst, because they were both nuts AND tanked. I don’t miss it.
My partner is a magnet for people’s life stories and problems wherever she goes, and doesn’t seem to be able to turn it off. She is Irish, which I think doesn’t help with this – people interpret her accent and easy way with a chat as license to get involved. I, on the other hand, seem to have an innate ability to signal disinterest and invisibility and thus not get sucked into such interactions – I don’t think I can teach it though.
Once in London as I looked up and casually glanced at a highrise, a gentleman in a dark suit and a bowler (I swear) suddenly popped out of the crowd, looked at me, pointed at the highrise and said “Built in the 50’s that was! Held up very well!” and the disappeared back into the crowd. It was like he was some kind of architectural trivia-dispensing superhero.
I can only assume that being displaced in of time is like being a scotsman passing through London. Like spots like. I was lying in a tiny park in central london enjoying the sunshine when “HAW, SPARE ANYHING FUR A BEVY” “Sorry no” “HEY YUR FAE GLASGAE! AHM FAE LENNOXTOWN!” *facepalm*
Well I never expected vagabonds highly prejudiced against temporally displaced persons to be present in Tackleford. I always expected that to be more of a Tredreygyn thing.
It very well could be Sheffield. As far as I can tell, Tackleford is not a university town (On that note, where did Claire eventually end up after LSE?). Also Tredreygyn does veer a bit more towards horror than Tackleford (while there was also a strong horror element, Sci-Fi scenarios were also more prominent) or Sheffield
Tackleford does have a university! It’s where Neil (Mildred’s father) works, and it looks curiously like the University of Birmingham, where I spent a few years myself. I’m pretty sure this isn’t it, and John is being deliberately vague about where.
I’m fairly certain that Jack and Shelley are in Manchester (or at least somewhere strongly inspired by Manchester); the building that Jack and Paolo come out of on the previous page is a dead ringer for the Kilburn Building on Oxford Road (i.e. the computer science department), and the background for this page looks quite like the area between the Kilburn Building and the Precinct Centre. The geography isn’t quite right, but it’s certainly close.
(also Paolo’s comment that “this is a music city” completely tracks for 90s Manchester – the background for that frame also looks a bit like the exterior of the Academy, next door to the students’ union in the Biko Building)
One thing is for certain – it’s not Sheffield, because the computer science department is all wrong (it looks nothing like Regent Court).
(yes, my wife studied at both Manchester and Sheffield when we were first going out, and I am a computer science lecturer – why do you ask?)
This is great detective work. It was canon that Solver was in Sheffield, so on that basis I kind of suspected Manchester for this story, but didn’t have the architectural knowledge to back it up!
It’s funny: the logo on Jack’s ID looked quite similar to my old one from Manchester, and I debated saying something – “best not,” I thought, “that’s extrapolating somewhat.” Shocked that I didn’t recognise the Academy, though. Shame on me.
Except (as far as I can recall) that wasn’t the right Manchester logo for 1997; I think that they were still using the one with the stylised version of the gatehouse to Whitworth Hall.
I was wondering whether the halls might be Grove House, but the interiors don’t look right (although as I only went in there as a visitor in 1986 or so and wasn’t concentrating on structural details at the time, or at least not those of the buildings, I may be misremembering).
Anyway, it wouldn’t be Tackleford, nobody went to their home town university back then. Not sure they’d even managed to get completely rid of student grants yet by 97/98 entry.
£1000 tuition fees (“top-up fees”) were introduced for the start of the 1998-1999 academic year, and maintenance grants were replaced by loans from the 1999-2000 academic year. Jack and Shelley have just managed to squeeze in ahead of it.
Yes, there’s a Gosset (one T) Street in the East End. Shelley said the medical centre was at Gossett (two Ts) Street and, based on a similarly desultory Google, there doesn’t seem to be any street of that name in the UK. That coupled with the obscured university name on Jack’s ID card, does lean towards this looking like Manchester without necessarily being Manchester.
(But I agree that isn’t her. I’m just saying, the fact that her post-imprisonment presence here would require time travel isn’t much of a barrier, given the premise of the story.)
She might be one of those Aura Readers, who can tell. But Paulo is saying a prepared line and I’m beginning to suspect him as a Sekret Agent who must know something.
I could also just be having an aversion to hair on the face, but in panel 3, does it look like the guy leading the woman away is wearing a fake beard? Could just be some shading but it kind of looks like it’s coming down over his regular hair
If you’re interested Zoe Thorogood wrote an illustrated story about that- an autobiographic memoir, [It’s Lonely At The Center Of The Earth]. Just got it yesterday, funny and scary and maybe even an exit from the psychological distress caused by that kind of abusive treatment. It’s very good and you might find something valuable in it!
Do homeless people become more sensitive to temporal anachronisms, or do people who have that sensitivity struggle socially and end up homeless?
Time travelers, stuck in the past with unmarketable Rust programming skills and hence destitute, recognize their own.
They have become increasingly difficult to distinguish from those whose skills were suddenly rendered unmarketable for non-time-travel-related reasons.
It’s a time-looped Jack and Shelley, returned to their starting point the long way around. Shelley is enraged by her inability to prevent their younger selves’ actions, while Jack is more philosophical.
I find it impossible to believe that Shelly could be in a situation where she was trying to persuade someone of something, and choose NOT to use her boo-boo eyes.
I’m disturbed by how much sense that makes
I used to be a weirdness magnet, attracting any crazy within a mile radius to focus on me and whatever I was doing, wherever I happened to be. At first, it was funny & provided for amusing stories. After a while, it became intrusive & borderline dangerous. It seemed to slow down & then stop when I started getting hostile in return, even going so far as snarling at loonies who even looked as if they going to get close. The ones at the pub were the worst, because they were both nuts AND tanked. I don’t miss it.
My partner is a magnet for people’s life stories and problems wherever she goes, and doesn’t seem to be able to turn it off. She is Irish, which I think doesn’t help with this – people interpret her accent and easy way with a chat as license to get involved. I, on the other hand, seem to have an innate ability to signal disinterest and invisibility and thus not get sucked into such interactions – I don’t think I can teach it though.
Once in London as I looked up and casually glanced at a highrise, a gentleman in a dark suit and a bowler (I swear) suddenly popped out of the crowd, looked at me, pointed at the highrise and said “Built in the 50’s that was! Held up very well!” and the disappeared back into the crowd. It was like he was some kind of architectural trivia-dispensing superhero.
That’s just a thing which happens in London. I had a similar experience at the Victoria Monument outside Buckingham Palace.
I can only assume that being displaced in of time is like being a scotsman passing through London. Like spots like. I was lying in a tiny park in central london enjoying the sunshine when “HAW, SPARE ANYHING FUR A BEVY” “Sorry no” “HEY YUR FAE GLASGAE! AHM FAE LENNOXTOWN!” *facepalm*
(it goes downhill from there. He got the money)
Well I never expected vagabonds highly prejudiced against temporally displaced persons to be present in Tackleford. I always expected that to be more of a Tredreygyn thing.
I don’t think this is Tackleford, but I’m not sure where it is. I *want* to say Sheffield, but I could be mixing that up with “Giant Days”.
I’ve been wondering where they are since the beginning. Especially when John made it a point to cover up the name of the university on Jack’s ID.
“Universityville, UK”
It very well could be Sheffield. As far as I can tell, Tackleford is not a university town (On that note, where did Claire eventually end up after LSE?). Also Tredreygyn does veer a bit more towards horror than Tackleford (while there was also a strong horror element, Sci-Fi scenarios were also more prominent) or Sheffield
Little Claire ended up studying in Sheffield. Hence “Steel City Solvers” being how Lottie answers the phone in Solver.
I don’t know if “where Shelley Winters got her law degree” is entirely germane to the narrative, but we’re definitely not in Tackleford, Toto.
Pretty sure if we were in Tackleford, Jack would be reacting even more strongly to his predicament
Tackleford does have a university! It’s where Neil (Mildred’s father) works, and it looks curiously like the University of Birmingham, where I spent a few years myself. I’m pretty sure this isn’t it, and John is being deliberately vague about where.
I’m fairly certain that Jack and Shelley are in Manchester (or at least somewhere strongly inspired by Manchester); the building that Jack and Paolo come out of on the previous page is a dead ringer for the Kilburn Building on Oxford Road (i.e. the computer science department), and the background for this page looks quite like the area between the Kilburn Building and the Precinct Centre. The geography isn’t quite right, but it’s certainly close.
(also Paolo’s comment that “this is a music city” completely tracks for 90s Manchester – the background for that frame also looks a bit like the exterior of the Academy, next door to the students’ union in the Biko Building)
One thing is for certain – it’s not Sheffield, because the computer science department is all wrong (it looks nothing like Regent Court).
(yes, my wife studied at both Manchester and Sheffield when we were first going out, and I am a computer science lecturer – why do you ask?)
This is great detective work. It was canon that Solver was in Sheffield, so on that basis I kind of suspected Manchester for this story, but didn’t have the architectural knowledge to back it up!
It’s funny: the logo on Jack’s ID looked quite similar to my old one from Manchester, and I debated saying something – “best not,” I thought, “that’s extrapolating somewhat.” Shocked that I didn’t recognise the Academy, though. Shame on me.
Except (as far as I can recall) that wasn’t the right Manchester logo for 1997; I think that they were still using the one with the stylised version of the gatehouse to Whitworth Hall.
I was wondering whether the halls might be Grove House, but the interiors don’t look right (although as I only went in there as a visitor in 1986 or so and wasn’t concentrating on structural details at the time, or at least not those of the buildings, I may be misremembering).
Anyway, it wouldn’t be Tackleford, nobody went to their home town university back then. Not sure they’d even managed to get completely rid of student grants yet by 97/98 entry.
£1000 tuition fees (“top-up fees”) were introduced for the start of the 1998-1999 academic year, and maintenance grants were replaced by loans from the 1999-2000 academic year. Jack and Shelley have just managed to squeeze in ahead of it.
Also, I asked my wife about the halls interior, but she was in Whitworth Park and then Oak House (when she was in halls), so wasn’t much help.
I was thinking they were in London, from some desultory googling when they were trying to find the medical centre. I blame Jang Dang Den.
Yes, there’s a Gosset (one T) Street in the East End. Shelley said the medical centre was at Gossett (two Ts) Street and, based on a similarly desultory Google, there doesn’t seem to be any street of that name in the UK. That coupled with the obscured university name on Jack’s ID card, does lean towards this looking like Manchester without necessarily being Manchester.
Maybe it i*is* a Tredreygyn thing. Are we sure that isn’t Mrs Clovis?
Poor woman. The same power that make her able to notice times anomalies probably destroyed her life.
I appreciate the Invasion of the Body Snatchers reference.
At first glance I thought Mrs. Clovis had escaped captivity…
This is the ’90s. Mrs Clovis won’t be imprisoned for a couple of decades.
Unless she escaped captivity via TIME TRAVEL!
(But I agree that isn’t her. I’m just saying, the fact that her post-imprisonment presence here would require time travel isn’t much of a barrier, given the premise of the story.)
I think this is a alt-dimension Clovis and Penrose.
She might be one of those Aura Readers, who can tell. But Paulo is saying a prepared line and I’m beginning to suspect him as a Sekret Agent who must know something.
And Paolo is obviously wearing Groucho glasses. Very suspicious.
I could also just be having an aversion to hair on the face, but in panel 3, does it look like the guy leading the woman away is wearing a fake beard? Could just be some shading but it kind of looks like it’s coming down over his regular hair
Maybe it’s just a beard-replacement because she set fire to the other one.
Makes sense, as it obviously didn’t belong
Poor Jack. It really upsets him
I imagine I’m not the only one who’s heard that voice yelling “Him! He doesn’t fit! He doesn’t belong!” all their life.
If you’re interested Zoe Thorogood wrote an illustrated story about that- an autobiographic memoir, [It’s Lonely At The Center Of The Earth]. Just got it yesterday, funny and scary and maybe even an exit from the psychological distress caused by that kind of abusive treatment. It’s very good and you might find something valuable in it!