The Referenced Road

First of all, I have a wonderful audience. A big thank-you to those who notice my spelling and grammar goofs, and another to whoever posted Love Is Its Own Reward on the TVTropes wiki. All the folks who favorited are a big help too, as are all you lads and lassies who have thumbs-uped the story. After the initial posting, a story's popularity is usually up to its viewers. I hope you enjoyed the second chapter, and the third is in the works. More on that in a moment.

Perspective changes things. From one perspective, the Earth is a massive place, full of all kinds of people. From another, it's a little speck being constantly blasted with cosmic radiation from bazillions of lightyears away. That applies to mundane things as well. To myself, I am an industrious author, diligently tapping out the next chapter of a well-recieved story while dealing with the inconveniences of Life. To the Internet, I am a lazy and ungrateful author with two incomplete stories on my profile. For all the Internet knows, I might be dead.

I am not, as far as I know, dead. Perspective changes things again. It also affects references. What seems to be obscure to one mind is obvious to another, and the reverse is also true. I referenced several old franchises as I imagined the warriors of Celestia's Great Crusade. Almost everyone caught the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference, which is most excellent, dudes! However, fewer picked out the "bounty-hunter", and nobody mentioned that they figured out who the "keen griffin commander" was. I plan to give a little more in-story 'splanation to those in the future, but for now, here are a few clues that might help you guess.

= When I was imagining these warriors, I was thinking back to the good old side-scrollers of yesteryear. The Great Crusade was a long time ago, after all. TMNT was a fun arcade game for four buddies to lose a ton of quarters on, so of course they got a slot. The others all starred in a side-scroller as well.

= The Bounty Hunter wore technomagical power-armor. No, Celestia didn't hire Boba Fett. This is someone else who wears power-armor and gets a score at the end of the mission. (Luna, on the other hoof... I could see the Princess of the Night demanding "No Disintegrations", but that for another story, perhaps. If anyone wants to run with the idea, let me know how it turns out!)

= I thought this one was too easy, but I cloaked it too well. It's a "Keen Griffin Commander". This one was inspired by Scootaloo, a little pegasus on a scooter. Why not a Griffin child genius with a pogo-stick, since his wings don't work just yet?

= The dragon-duke is the only one designed with a story-plot purpose. He is an amalgam of several characters, so that he could serve as an example of all a dragon could aspire to be. An unstoppable force, an ancient ruler who was called again to battle, the Sun's warhammer. I used him to underscore that Spike not only was true to his own kind, but he was trying to reach for the very highest of mantles, and that the Princess supported her little dragon fully. That said, the primary character I based this dragon on had several games of his own in the side-scroller days. He even made the jump to 3D. Any parallels to a certain god-king from tabletop wargaming are also fully intended.

= A final bonus, Celestia described her elite soldiers as a "daring, highly-trained special mission force." What other Hasbro property has that description? Mind you, I speak of the version from the 80s'. Back when they had the USS Flagg.

The next chapter of Love Is Its Own Reward will be out "Soon". It's the hardest for me to write, as I have to completely reconfigure how I look at the situation presented by the story to pen it. I have only you to blame for this, my audience. The story was originally supposed to be a one-shot. How dare you motivate me to delve deeper into the project?