Most Obscure Reference you've ever used...

I think that my use of this song pretty much sums up how weird I'm willing to be sometimes...



Let's see, I've referenced Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Obscure Robert Graves footnotes, and Mystery Science Theater 3000, in addition to my obvious Firefly and Greek Mythology jokes/homages.

Anything totally obscure/personal you've put in your work, just for the hell of it, because, hey, your reality, your rules? You know, that you enjoy writing. (There's a reason I don't write action sequences anymore. ;P)

 

I throw in the odd hockey reference, which must be lost on 97% of my long suffering readers. But at least a few have enjoyed me having a character insult Toronto Maple Leaf fans so it’s not wasted effort

My newest story is set in Toronto so it’d be weird if the MC was a Leafs hater so instead he just really casually mentioned that it sucked that the leafs were swept in the first round of the playoffs so that’s enough to satisfy me

 

Made plenty of obscure music references (Dance Gavin Dance, I the Mighty, The Blood Brothers, Eternity Forever among others).

Reference the line 'What I have in mind for you is on a completely different level of fuckery' from the show Happy! in Taming the Dom (and that line aptly describes the show)

And there was that one time I got meta and referenced CHYOA itself in Roxy's New Roommate

 

WHOOT! Nothing like a fun fourth wall break. I think the first time I actually saw an author put themselves LITERALLY in their own work was in a CYOA. (IIRC it was Robert Packard)

IMHO, the interactive format is just... designed for self insert. Which is why it's so fun, and I'm surprised more people don't join in, honestly. I mean, a format where your fanfic is on the SAME LEVEL of validity as the original author? WHOOT! (Course, the whole "I can't write" thing seems to be endemic in modern times. Sigh. Just wish people would understand that NOBODY can write perfect at the start. Just like nobody used to be able to pick up a video game and be awesome at it the first time. The skill floor for writing and actually getting attention/coherence is a bit higher than I'd like in English, honestly. Maybe we should start writing in a newbie friendly language like Newspeak, I'm sure that will get PLENTY more writers. )

Sorry, couldn't resist the snarky joke, but Im in a great mood this morning and thanks for the fun references/thoughts folks!

 

I have some obscure character names in my story Becoming a Bitch. The Principal is named after the main character in The Principal. Mr. Roberts is a play on Mr. Rogers since he is the neighbor. Mr. Dessad is a sadist like Marquis de Sade. The gym teacher is named after the one from Nightmare on Elm St 2 and the english teacher from dead poets society. There are probably more dumb little jokes hidden as well, but I often forget them shortly after posting them.

 

Good grief. Let’s see, my last couple chapters were kinda meta, but that was sorta integral to the plot line, and my last chapter used a reference to the Discordian Operation Mindfuck. I’d say that the most obscure shit I did was in my prematurely aborted first story. I end and start each chapter with relevant song lyrics. Some of em are pretty obvious, like a line from Love Walks In by Van Halen. Others got a little... weird. Like quoting Ween’s LMLYP.

 

Hello, is this the Understatement Hall of Fame? I’d like to submit an entry for immediate enshrinement. Yes I can hold.

 

Argh, and Now I feel like I'm losing my mind because Eris, Goddess of Chaos shows up in my story. And shouts Fnord just to make the point. Then tells people to go read the Principia Discordia if they want to get to the real ending.

Yeah, Discordian stuff is WAY too fun to write, and even more fun if you don't take it seriously. Which is of course the entire point.

 

Most obscure I can recall was in a fanfiction of Buffy the vampire slayer. In a brief digression the vampire Spike recalls a meeting with a young man called Adolf in Vienna in the 1920's who is depressed after his rejection by the Vienna university and offering him some advice.

 

Before this site, I once wrote a climatic scene in a fetish fic that referenced Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot text, and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, in the same breath.

On this site, I once wrote the phrase "ever-growing Katamaris of natural lubricant". I hope that reference is what I'm remembered for.

 

In my recent ongoing forum rpg based on Star Wars, I wrote a scene heavily referencing the Auralnauts parody of the movies, wherein Obi-Wan buys drugs.



I dunno, I really like the term "recreational mind expansion".

 

The most obscure I've ever gotten is one scene where the protagonist of Super Magic School RPG walks quickly past a pair of characters about to make out who are from an old mIRC roleplay that only four or five people on the entire planet would recognize. Also pretty sure none of them frequent this website.

 

First chapter of The Lord's Companion is named after the first level in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

 

One of my stories name is inspired by "In another world with my smart phone". I don't know how widely known / unknown that is however.

 

a Princess Bride reference that would've been far more subte if I hadn't outright pointed it out to the audience by having the character chuckle about it.

 

Seem to recall I wrote a chapter in A Fantasy Dynasty where I tried to justify the etymology of the word "creampie" in a fantasy setting that had a few references to the scene in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where they talk about creampies.

 

Well... let's see:

In Whore of the Dragon: Many spells spells and names come from things like Magic Cards, old fantasy movies like Krull and thinks like that. Lunnara gets her name from a Malus Darkblade novel. The kingdom Of Numantia gets its name from an ancient pre-roman settlement in Spain were one of the most important battle of the Celtiberian Wars took place. I though I made a reference to the Magic Flute at some point but I don't remember what it was or where.

Very recently in Diary of an Incestual Cuckquean I called the character a Celestina, which is a term we use in Spain to call someone who schemes so that two other people fall in love/get together. It comes from a medieval novel they make us read in school.

Also, in my branch of the Fairer Sex, the main character is call Mark, and I couldn't resist to write "Oh hi Mark"... I'm afraid I won't explain that one.

 

A group in a not yet to be published chapter will be called "Tyrants in the school"

This is a reference to the Nihon Falcom game Trails in the sky, or rather it's in reference to it's acronym

 

I named the wrestling opponents in the futa x futa route of ODD after Yu-Gi-Oh cards (Makiu, Hurricail).

There's a route in Golden Witch where you play a spoof version of BATTLETOADS called BATTLEGOATS.

Despedida in Goodbye Girls is always using obscure anime/game references, although that's part of her character, like when she teasingly refers to Tschau as "Ninja Murasaki." I love sprinkling in goofy references.

 

I didn't think it was obscure, but I've had characters from my other series cross over. Often I'll use the main character from one series as a love interest in another. It seems to have gone entirely unnoticed but maybe someday a super fan will compile them all.