I'd prefer the details of Dark to be left to speculation, but this is pretty cool. It's a bit strange to say that there are multiple theories for who Dark is and then spend the rest of the page confirming the first one, though. Will PoIs be getting a hub?
Person of Interest - Mr. Dark / Discussion
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(account deleted)I see we've decided to leap immediately into this. Very well then. Some general issues:
- We can now expect a bunch of separate articles detailing personages.
- I notice you didn't tag this as collaborative, nor have I seen any indications that you plan on doing so. This means that, under the "dossier of famous people" model we are now apparently adopting, there are incentives for people to rush out these documents so that they can be the person who defines and essentially takes ownership of said character.
- This will actually discourage people from reading tales, since now instead of reading, in this case, the MC&D stories and basing interpretations on actual creative works, we now have a one-stop-shop for what the character is expected by one person to be.
- There is no disclaimer, anywhere, that this is not canon. Which means we can expect new members to see this stuff and assume that interpretations are limited to what appears in these pages.
Downvoting because of the multiple problems inherent to this approach. I don't care for this new "we must have more characters" approach anyway, but this seems like a really misguided way to go about achieving that.
I started writing this last month, before any of this character discussion started. It's meant to be for a (conflicting) canon on Dark, not a POI template.
The recent discussion got me to finish it, that's all.
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That sort of addresses my first two points. As an article, it now has an aura of official acceptance, and being posted in the midst of the ongoing discussion regarding characters, you might forgive me for linking the two concepts.
I stand by the entirety of my last two points, and I second Vezaz' comments regarding the extent to which this character is fleshed out.
Seconding more or less the entirety of Kalinin's post.
This honestly read like a tale about SCP-1716 more than anything to me. And really, the personnel of any given SS character has never stopped anyone from writing whatever they want about said character, so I don't see why this would do it any differently.
And really, nobody gives a shit about contradicting tales these days. I fully suspect that within a year, if this is still around, there will be some tale having people in 2030 wondering who this mysterious Mr. Dark figure that has suddenly taken the anomalous world by storm is. Just because they can, or even just because you said they wouldn't.
Honestly, I think you seriously overestimate how blindly people follow precedent. Like, shit, we can't consistently get people to format things properly, and you think new tales about Dark will dry up because some guy posted a tale claiming to be the Foundation's brief on him? Have a little faith in people's antonym-of-complacency.
And the disclaimer that this is not canon is the "tale" tag at the bottom and the fact that it'll be linked from the Foundation Tales page. It's been asked of precisely zero other (seriously intended) works of fiction on the site that I know of, and just because this tries to mimic a Foundation internal document doesn't make it any different.
if your reading this your gay
I would like to see some sort of disclaimer. I understand this predates the POI discussion, but it also is far more fleshed out than what I'd like to see for that. Even as a standalone, I don't like Dark filled out so.
On a writing level, lines like "the following is an excerpt from a book not confirmed to exist" are comical; did the person writing the report just make up this biography, then? Not a fan of protocol 12 either. The rest is fine, though as I said overdeveloped for my taste.
I sing of arms and the man
Storm-tossed by Hera's jealousy
I don't mind adding some sort of disclaimer. What would you like it to say?
Re: Nonexistent books, have you been to the WL site? That's exactly the kind of thing you'd find there.
Re: Protocol 12, I wanted the implication that Dark has some kind of deal with the O5s.
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For the disclaimer, not sure, just something to the effects of "this bio concerns the character of mr dark within the xx canon and is not definitive" or somesuch.
I am familiar with the library but the way its presented here is silly…how could they quote it if it did not exist in some fashion? Why would they make totally unverifiable claims the basis of the report? But, ah well.
I sing of arms and the man
Storm-tossed by Hera's jealousy
I agree with Vezaz. If this is intended to fit in with the idea I stated in the forums last night, it might stand to be a bit more vague.
Not sure how much of a disclaimer you would need on this as a tale, though. Tales are all fluid, and generally self-contained unless stated otherwise.
While I balked at 1716 giving Dark a face, I like the approach this takes. It's "Here's what we know", which is practically nothing, and "Here's what we know we don't know", which is everything else. Even with that last segment from the Library (as an aside, the Library stuff still doesn't do much for me and feels a bit self-indulgent as a consequence, but you've at least prefaced it acceptably), it's "this information is quite likely wrong, but it's all we've got", and despite the fears stated above, I daresay this leaves open a lot of room for creativity on behalf of others.
Interesting stuff. This sentence, though:
Then again, the author knows about "████ ███" taking place in 2012 – definitely cause for concern, at least in terms of information security.
Is really off-tone.
if your reading this your gay
I thought this was alright - and then you got Wanderer's Library woo-woo stuff all over my nice headcanon of Dark as the sort of ultimate old-fashioned gentleman's-club capitalist. Immortal? Maybe, but only so he can accrue more power and make more money. Go to the WL? How very coarse. Even if I bought into the Ways as part of the Foundationverse, my Dark would just have a minion or ten go for him. Downvote, I'm afraid.
If you're wondering why I put that stuff in, it's a good place for him to hide out with his anomalous "inventory" — the Foundation and/or the GOC can't get to him there. It also explains why he is so seldom seen, but can turn up more or less instantaneously if the situation calls for it (like in the Game Day tales).
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While I'm not entirely averse to the idea of POI profiles, Dark is probably not a good candidate for one. Giving him a writeup like this solidifies him in a way that is a disservice not only to the character, but to the (admittedly few) other authors that have used him in ways that don't jive with this. I don't want to see a formal definition of Dark any more than I want to see a formal definition of Nobody or the O5's. Even ignoring that bit of prejudice, this interpretation of Dark doesn't interest me all that much…
OK, it feels like I am getting negative feedback on this for stuff I'm not trying to do.
This is not meant to be site-wide canon.
It is not meant to be a template for other Person of Interest files (they'd probably be a lot shorter). I can't control what other people decide to write, but I don't really expect this to serve as a model.
This, along with SCP-1716, are meant to be part of this project, which several other writers have expressed some interest in writing for, but none have produced a finished tale yet. Part of the reason, I assumed, is that everyone was expecting me to go first on it, since it was my idea. There is no hub page yet because it's not a mini-Canon until three people have written tales for it. It's not tagged as collaborative because it isn't collaborative yet — I have no clue who is actually working on their tales right now (and also because I never tag anything…I leave that to the experts).
The only connection it has to the big discussion on characterization is that I figured it would be a good time to finish and post it, since people are paying attention to this kind of tale now more than usual. You can see that I started this thing six weeks ago.
What I'm trying to end up with here is a collection of tales about Dark that all (at least mostly) disagree about his nature. I think that will be a cool thing when more stuff gets written. I can see how one might get the wrong idea right now, with just my take posted.
If the bio I posted doesn't fit your headcanon, consider it a big, elaborate lie. Then go write your own. :)
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Well, I can say that on my part I downvoted because it seriously contradicted my headcanon to an extent that I found jarring. But that was just me exercising my right to vote based on preference. I certainly don't think articles like this are objectively a bad idea.
/forum/t-717026/person-of-interest-mr-dark#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
