Merlin's Keep (and the Far, Far, Away Site) is gone and it's actually a big deal.
I don't know much about this situation, so if anyone can shed more light on this I would appreciate it, but I do want to take a moment to point this out for anyone else who may not know, because it feels important.
farfarawaysite.com is gone (and their socials on Tumblr and X/Twitter deactivated, too). This might sound dramatic but this is a significant loss for the Merlin fandom.
The site had been running since 1997, and was (in my opinion) a pillar of the Merlin fandom as an archive of every single high quality image of Behind the Scenes, Promotional photos, and individual galleries for all cast members from the core four, to the Knights, to characters like Freya (Laura Donnelly) and Eira (Erin Richards)--the woman who tricks Gwaine in the Diamond of the Day episodes.
I used this site back in 2011 and 2012. I know it existed before then, I know so many fan creators who used this website to this very day.
They didn't just do this Merlin, either, they did it for many, many other shows. This was a non-for-profit, fan run website, who seems to have simply done it for love and archive purposes.
I don't really know if I can even put into words how sad of a loss this is. Decades of work and care is just gone. This website was in many ways a love letter. If I can get one message across to anyone who ran the site, I just would want them to know they were deeply appreciated by so many people in this fandom.
The website is archived through the Wayback Machine here, but this doesn't include a backup of any of the high quality photo files they had stored. You can browse through and see what kind of images they had. I would argue thousands, if not hundred of thousands of pictures, are just gone. I am not quite sure if there is anywhere else that these photos were archived.
This is a sad day for our fandom. I love u farfarawaysite; and again, if anyone knows anything or is in contact with anyone who ran the website, I'd happily talk with them. I would love for the farfarawaysite to rise again.
Yeah I found out about this this morning and it actually has made me very sad 😭 It was my go-to site for art reference and getting quick screen grabs of all the episodes..
WHAT??
Noooooo
Omg why this is so sad and disappointing
I'm guessing whoever made the site didn't have the funds to keep the url, usually that's the reason.
But dang, what a sad, sad day
WHAT THE FUCK??? I'm sure I went to the site a month ago or less to search a Katie's pic, and there was no message warning about about a lack of funds or an upcoming deactivation.
I never backed up Katie's gallery! Now it'll be an hassle to find pics of hers! And I used it for other historical tv shows. 😭
Such a sad day. 😥😥 If anyone involved with the site reads this,
thank you for all you did.
(I still remember with fondness when you reached out to share links with fanlistings I owned back before the 2010)
Message:
I HAVE THE WHOLE* MERLIN GALLERY BACKED UP.
I DON'T KNOW HOW AND WHERE WE COULD SET UP A MIRROR/REPOSITORY, BUT IF ANYONE DOES IT, I CAN PROVIDE THE PICS.
*I never downloaded the screencaps, but it's not a big deal compared to loosing the rest of the Merlin's Keep and FFA: there are a couple of sites that have the tv show screencapped.
