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==Behind the scenes== | ==Behind the scenes== | ||
=== | === Backround and genesis in Callum Phillpott's works === | ||
The Man in Grey was introduced in 2022 in ''[[The Tribulations of Jenny Over-There (short story)|The Tribulations of Jenny Over-There]]'', an [[April Fools' Day (real world)|April Fools' Day]] story by [[Callum Phillpott]] which also introduced [[Jenny Over-There (925th Universe)|Jenny Over-There]]. Phillpott's rendition of “[[the Paragraph]]” released Jenny Over-There as an open-source character in her own right under similar conditions to Jenny Everywhere and other recurring characters, and also said of the Man in Grey:<ref>https://archiveofourown.org/works/38095315</ref> | The Man in Grey and [[the Man in Black]] were both devised by [[Callum Phillpott]] in loose reference to the 1980 song ''[[Man at C&A]]'', whose fairly mysterious lyrics identify singer {{w|Terry Hall (singer)|Terry Hall}}'s character as “the Man in Grey”, seemingly distinct from “the Man in Black”, with both of them being knowledgeable but powerless figures in the context of the Cold War abruptly erupting into a nuclear World War Three. | ||
{{quotebox|''Warning, warning, nuclear attack!''<br>''Atomic sounds designed to blow your mind!''<br>''World War Three! Nuclear, nuclear attack!''<br>(…)<br>''The Man in Black, he told me the latest Moscow news about the storm across the red sea.''<br>''They drove their ball-point views.<br>I'm the Man in Grey, I'm just the Man at C&A,''<br>''And I don't have a say in the war games that they play.''|Man at C&A}} | |||
[[File:The Specials - Man At C&A|thumb|right|The Specials performing ''Man at C&A'' live on November 24th, 1980.]] | |||
The first incarnation of the character to make its way to released media was [[the Man in Black]], who appeared in Phillpott's novel ''[[w:c:tardis:Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)|Cyber-Hunt]]'', set in the [[Third Universe|''Doctor Who'' universe]]. Adapted from the earlier audioplay of the same name, which featured no such figure, the book depicted “the man in black” (then uncapitalised) as a highly mysterious figure with whom [[Nth Doctor (Third Universe)|Fred]] makes a deal. Various possible identities for the man in black were proposed or hinted at, including some version of the Doctor's nemesis [[w:c:tardis:The Master|the Master]], the [[w:c:tardis:Time Lord messenger (Genesis of the Daleks)|Time Lord messenger]] seen in the ''Doctor Who'' episode [[w:c:tardis:Genesis of the Daleks (TV story)|''Genesis of the Daleks'']], [[Death]], or [[Nyarlathotep]]. | |||
A month after ''Cyber-Hunt'' was released, Phillpott published a short narrative Twitter thread, later collected as ''[[What Went Down at Facebook (short story)|What Went Down at Facebook]]'', satirising the then-current Facebook blackout. The narrative presented a tongue-in-cheek summary of a crescendo of strange supernatural events occurring at [[Facebook HQ]], including water in the watercoolers turning to liquid mercury, alien-looking black mould growing in the server room, and “chanting in the server room”. Two items explicitly connected to the Man in Grey idea: one of the strange occurrences was an employee going into the server room to investigate, and coming out “wearing grey robes”; the other was an explicit name-drop of the character. | |||
{{quotebox|January 2021, room 5b is finally found. Inside it are five prone bodies, later identified as the missing employees from January 7th of last year. During the funeral service, one of the deceased employees gets up, babbling about how the Man in Grey doesn’t care for our troubles. When the employees ask what they’re talking about, Mark Zuckerberg fires them on the spot.|What Went Down at Facebook (short story){{!}}''What Went Down at Facebook''}} | |||
As stated by [[Callum Phillpott]] on the Jenny Everywhere Discord on July 8th, 2023: | |||
{{quotebox|The Man in Grey definitely got tweaked a bit conceptually ''after'' [''[[What Went Down at Facebook (short story)]]''], but he's been around for a while — in fact he might predate [[the Man in Black]] since a similar figure did pop up in an abandoned draft of a novella I was writing, but I can't remember which name I chose then. The story never got far (so it's entirely possible the Man in Black/Grey never left my loose story notes), but the story itself was a sort of romcom riff on ''Beyond the Wall of Sleep'', with the Man in Whatever acting as a cold and removed eldritch matchmaker who was heavily implied or stated to be Nyarlathotep. This story was doomed to fail. This did nearly make it in to Minalopa as a subplot, but we all know what happened there. (…) It's probably a safe call to treat [''What Went Down at Facebook''] as a different universe. (Also, the reason it's a 50/50 chance of either being the Man in Grey or Man in Black is because I got both of these names from the Specials song ''Man at C&A'' — obviously they're quite generic names that have been used centuries prior, but that's where I got them from.|Callum Phillpott}} | |||
The Man in [[PROSE]]: ''[[What Went Down at Facebook (short story)|What Went Down at Facebook]]'' would go on to be referenced in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Man in Grey's Christmas Carol (novel)|The Man in Grey's Christmas Carl]]'' as “whatever grey-robed busybody worked at Facebook all those years ago…”, suggested to have been an initially-distinct individual whose identity the 925th Universe's [[the Man in Grey (925th Universe)|Man in Grey]] had subsumed, as part of a wider claim that the Man in Grey had a tendency to subsume other people's pasts into his own, although the ''Man at C&A'' Men were not specifically referenced. | |||
The definitive Man in Grey was introduced in 2022 in ''[[The Tribulations of Jenny Over-There (short story)|The Tribulations of Jenny Over-There]]'', an [[April Fools' Day (real world)|April Fools' Day]] story by [[Callum Phillpott]] which also introduced [[Jenny Over-There (925th Universe)|Jenny Over-There]]. Phillpott's rendition of “[[the Paragraph]]” released Jenny Over-There as an open-source character in her own right under similar conditions to Jenny Everywhere and other recurring characters, and also said of the Man in Grey:<ref>https://archiveofourown.org/works/38095315</ref> | |||
{{quotebox|You can also just use the Man in Grey if you want, I won't get on your case about that, he's public domain now.|Callum Phillpott}} | {{quotebox|You can also just use the Man in Grey if you want, I won't get on your case about that, he's public domain now.|Callum Phillpott}} | ||
[[PROSE]]: ''[[Open Sourcing (short story)|Open Sourcing]]'' would go on to humorously reference the connection to [[the Man in Black]], now actively implying that the Man in Grey of ''The Nine-Two-Five Universe'' was the same character as [[the Man in Black]] from ''Cyber-Hunt'' under a false identity. [[PROSE]]: ''[[Lovie Dovie Stuff (short story)|Lovie Dovie Stuff]]'' referenced the connection further, but altered the implication, with the Man in Grey now depicted as amnesiac about his past, unable to remember his origins as the Man in Black clearly. The backstory would ultimately be delved into in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Man in Grey's Christmas Carol (novel)|The Man in Grey's Christmas Carol]]'', where the [[Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles]] ended up diegetically retconning the ''Nine-Two-Five Universe'' Man in Grey a new backstory to replace the Man in Black. | |||
=== Later development === | |||
When he devised [[the Man in Gray]] in ''[[Fragment: A & E (short story)|Fragment: A & E]]'', [[Scott Sanford]] specified in the copyright note | When he devised [[the Man in Gray]] in ''[[Fragment: A & E (short story)|Fragment: A & E]]'', [[Scott Sanford]] specified in the copyright note | ||