Talk:The Blake's 7 Wars

First editing note: I am linking to the Fan History account rather than quoting it. That account had no source information, the author was never identified and it was vague on details (in fact it was written so vaguely that it was difficult to figure out what happened). It still is one version of events so the link should remain. We will also be adding a Timelime of events that will be sourced using public and published statements from the parties directly involved.--MeeDee (talk) 18:30, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Inner Circle Additions

So happy to see another B7 contributor! The observations about Paul Darrow's inner circle and the fans who felt they were part of of it are interesting, and I'm glad to see the new information you're adding. In order to unify it more with the rest of the page and maintain a consistent tone, I'd suggest we edit it to simplify and summarize. The original text below would be good for a personal blog post and we could link to it. We could also link to a few additional examples of the inner circles posts that were posted after Darrow's death for reference. MeeDee (talk) 04:43, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Here is the proposed edit:

Relating to the idea of obscuring “the line between performer and audience” mentioned above is the fact Darrow appears to have maintained the practice of having an inner or elevated group of fans throughout his career. In the days following his death there were a number of blog posts from members of this “inner circle”, who wrote of an “extraordinary friendship”.In one blog post, the basis of this special friendship seems to have been one or two meetings with the star, one special group dinner in a “country hotel” and “many special private evenings with Paul”. Details of these meetings were kept secret, only revealed after Darrow's passing. To some fans these posthumous revelations, posted in the days after the actor's death raised the question of who really belonged to Darrow's inner circle and what purpose was served by posting about it after his passing. [insert link to Libgals' blog post with the original text] In any event, the issues over who had access to the actor spanned decades and continued to play a role in some fandom quarters even after death.

MeeDee (talk) 04:43, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Original text, posted by:

Related to the idea of obscuring “the line between performer and audience” mentioned above is the fact that the practice of having an inner or elevated group of fans is something Darrow appears to have maintained throughout his career. As the details above demonstrate, where members of this “inner circle” betrayed his trust by secretly writing slash, there also seems to have been another betrayal with the latest incarnation of this “special” group of fans. In the days following his death there was a number of blog posts from members of this “inner circle”, ostensibly offering condolences but in reality they seemed to be more about elevating their own egos and status. They wrote of a “special friendship”, or an “extraordinary friendship”. The basis of this seems to have been one or two meetings with the star. In these blogs great mention is made of one special group dinner in a “country hotel”, there are also photos, but the majority of them are just standard convention photos with the star with one photo of this mythical “hotel dinner”. There is also vague mention made of “many special private evenings with Paul” but strangely no tangible details of when and where these subsequent meetings took place. Surely if there had been many meetings as claimed, there would be more details and even photos and not just the same single regurgitated one? Therefore the proven basis of this “extraordinary friendship” appears to be one dinner and the rest are just ordinary conventions that any fan could buy a ticket for. The fact that these narcissistic posts appeared the same day or the day after his death is particularly unsavoury. It is ironic that they boast about keeping the “lunatic fans away” and keeping these inner circle meetings “secret” (implying that they are ever so discreet and above all that kind of thing.) yet the very day after his death was announced, they are informing the world of all the details! Of course it was up to Darrow to choose to have “special status” fans or not, but judging by these examples, one can only conclude that having such an “inner circle” was ill-advised.

[libgal's reply] Thanks for your comments, however there are a couple of points I wish to query in your reply:

1. At the moment I personally don't have a blog post myself to link to. 
2. While of course I have no objections to you editing it down, I feel that the point is slightly lost in 1 or 2 sentences that you have edited, where I was trying to highlight the fact that there was no real details about most of the claimed meetings, so perhaps if you could just add the word "alleged" (or similar word) so it would read:

In one blog post, the basis of this alleged special friendship seems...

and allegedly “many special private evenings with Paul”. Details of these alleged meetings were kept secret...

Wonderful. We will need at least one more example to support a number of blog posts - otherwise this could read as a personal attack on the one blog. Re adding 'alleged' - perhaps one at the start (again for clarity and consistency and also to stay within Plural POV): In one blog post, the basis of this [alleged] special friendship seems... followed by Details of these meetings [are sparse], and they were kept secret, only revealed after Darrow's passing. MeeDee (talk) 14:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

[libgal's reply] I have decided, on reflection, to delete my contribution. I still stand by what I wrote in it but I do not want to potentially risk any conflict with people if I have to provide links to the sites as you have requested. I therefore feel it would be more appropriate to post it on a personal blog without the need to link directly to other sites.

Thanks for letting us know about your plan. I double-checked your text removal on the article page and it looks correct. Just a reminder that Wiki articles are intended to be transparent public records. This includes the discussions on Talk pages. Removing citations once they're on the page is a form of hostile editing unless they're broken, in which case they would be replaced with something else hopefully.MeeDee (talk) 18:22, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Story about the Darrows themselves

I was a relative newcomer to B7 fandom when "The Feud" began. I did hear that someone gave the Darrows a story at a convention. It speculated in detail about Janet and Paul getting frisky in a hotel room bed at a fan convention.

Obviously, I don't know if it is true or not, but it did spread about. I must say that if the fan writer thought they would appreciate it as a private tribute or gift of some sort, they were apparently wrong! (And people were always giving guests tokens as gifts at conventions. I once witnessed an audience member offer Paul a teddy bear, calling it a "Kerr Bear", probably a pun on the popular "Care Bear" toys of the time.) It was also tied to the "teddy bear on the set" prank that fans had heard of, which managed to crack Paul up during a serious scene

This is mentioned in one of the quoted sections on this topic, with the speaker saying that details such as where and when are hard to pin down, so perhaps it was just a rumor with no basis in fact. Just wanted to confirm it was out there. My reaction was that it was crossing a line of decorum to write fan fiction about the show's actors as real people! (Huh. Guess times have changed?) Pcdfanwriter (talk) 20:38, 31 August 2020 (UTC)