A fan emailed me last week, to say that he'd found my story via a forum message board, a board where all sorts of people were discussing my story. However, only the first 9 chapters had ever been found, and everyone wondered what happened next. This left me perplexed, bemused and confused. It's something that drives me a little crazy, people being unable to find my work, because for every person that tells me about it, there might be hundreds who just give up. I want everyone to easily find my work! Then I found myself wondering, what on earth is this forum, this strange place with a partial copy of my work. If I found them, would I be like the creator of some sacred text, passed down through the generations, finally here with the final message? Yiff carved in stone tablets?
I went on a safari across the internets, looking for reference to my name, and my work, seeing what there was to be found. For the most part it was recycled parts of SoFurry, over and over, or links from there to here. But then I found a review of the recent anthology I was in, including my work, which was cool - https://www.flayrah.com/3782/review-holidays-edited-aja... ). And then I found a bibliography on me on the 'Internet Speculative Fiction Database'! (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?167346 ) Which was surprising to say the least, and I know other furry authors who aren't on here at all. But it took the help of my dear fan, to track down this strange forum, where my isolated worshippers were stuck with this ancient and incomplete text.
Turned out to be e621.net, didn't it? All four commissions for my story art were on there, which I'd already been aware of, but never peered too close. Reading through the various comments though, again I saw people just being unable to find my work. Does Google not lead to it or what? On one image in particular, someone finally struck out and linked everyone to my work, they linked them to: http://story.theyiffgallery.com/viewstory.php?sid=6 . A place I've never heard of, a place that names me but doesn't link back to me at all, a place that mysteriously has only 9 chapters. I'm really at a loss, and kinda bugged by this, because the dates on those uploads are no older than July last year, and I posted chapter 9 a really long time ago. I'm really not that fussed about my work being shared, but if you're gonna do it, please upload all of it, and please link back to me. It's not hard :)
And so there the mystery was solved. The people on e621 had been discussing my work. The fake-out site had this weird incomplete version of my work. I found a little more about the weird and wonderful corners of the net I've crept into. The e621 pages have now been updated to link fully back to me. I'm trying to get in touch with whoever runs the yiffgallery site to see if they address the problems there. Here's the e621 links if anyone's curious:
And one more link. I'm thinking if anyone knows how, this ought to be turned into a disambiguation page that eventually leads to my story :P. https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Bump_In_The_Night .
*smiles* As Vendetta himself would point out, the entire "Bump in the Night" saga (so far) has been here all along. :) (As well as on SoFurry, the only other major cub-friendly furry site, as well as on CubCentral.)
d.m.f.
*smiles* As Vendetta himself would point out, the entire "Bump in the Night" saga (so far) has been