She was a gargantuan titan with a gray, fat body. Her face looked aged for a dragon, and multiple horns sprouted from her head, although they seemed fairly unkempt. Two came from the right of her head and stretched forward, parallel to each other, to end in upward curves. Tinier branches come from their sides and pointed in nearly every direction, but they were too small to be of any hindrance. The left horns, two growing near the top of the head and one right next to the jawbones, were snapped off and the nubs weren't even polished down. Several brown horns of various sizes grew out from the dragoness' cranium and interlocked with each other to form around her lower jaw, giving it a larger appearance. Some of the smaller growths almost made it look like her lower jaw had teeth on its 'lip'. Her eyes were a pale gray-blue and ripe with fatigue, and every step she took was a loud, lazy drop of her feet onto the ground beneath her, causing the entire construct to tremble under the strain of her immense girth.
"What's this? A new one?" she asked Zunzoo with her booming voice.
"Yes. She was just brought in, but she's much difficult with her thoughts."
"Zunzoo, you're slurring again."
Zunzoo punched herself in the head again and repeated herself. "Ah, I mean that she doesn't want to express herself."
"I'M NOT A 'SHE'!" Oliver shouted.
A massive hand of the Pueric Mother waved across the air in front of Scatch like a giant, slow moving whale. A wave of orange, sparkling magic followed the dragoness' palm like smeared water, then she leaned forward to get a better look at the tiny new-dragon.
"You are indeed a 'she'," the Pueric Mother corrected with a very calm tone. She outstretched her hand, inviting Zunzoo to drop Oliver onto her palm, which she did. "You are also a dragoness, and..." She grimaced when trying to focus on the tiny pink creature in front of her. "Hmmm. What a bizarre shape and form. Your colors are unusual as well, as is your general...appearance." Oliver opened his mouth to say something, but only air came out. He was too scared to speak. Sparkles of the orange magic appeared in front of the titan's eyes, and she nodded. "Your name is, or rather was, Oliver Howard Scatch."
"I-i-it still is! I'm still a m-m-man, a-and you're g-g-going to send me b-back home," he stuttered.
The Pueric Mother leaned in, her movements causing grumbles in the air. "And how do you plan on forcing me?" she asked. "You're here, and you're much tinier than I was expecting from someone new."
"But I thought you said you were expecting her," Zunzoo shouted.
The titan looked upwards and sighed in defeat. "Zunzoo, you can leave now."
"I can? Okay. I'll get back to the garden. See you later, Pueric Mother."
Zunzoo waved goodbye and charged again into the door. She took too much speed this time and passed through the wall on the other side, making the titan growl with annoyance.
"I apologize for Zunzoo. She's...uninhibited, for lack of a better term. As for you, I don't know what a 'man' is, but you are no longer such a thing."
"Get me out of t-this costume!"
The titan bellowed with laughter. "You think this," she pinched his tail. "Is a costume?!"
Oliver hugged his tail. "That hurt! Why did you do that?!" he shouted angrily. The anger slowly faded from his face when he realized what just happened.
"As for your appearance...I have something to help you. If only I could find it."
The titan started rummaging through her 'nest', passing by immense tables that could serve as the basis for houses to normal sized people. She threw some junk around then cheered once after finding her target.
"Here you go," she said.
The Pueric Mother lifted her middle finger and put the object against it. It was an uneven reflective surface with an eerie similarity to polished armor. It was here that Oliver saw the extent of his nightmare. He had been turned into a tiny pink dragon. His figure was actually slimmer than what he had soon so far, and his features were somewhat rounder compared to the more sharper angles the dragonesses around him have had. His once powerful square jaw now extended into a narrowing muzzle with a sharp, beak-like shape extending from his upper lip and ending right at the end of the lower jaw. His eyes were now a vibrant fuchsia and, thankfully, his pupils weren't heart shaped. He crawled around to look at his back and saw two strange wings. Unlike the large and immense bat wings the others had, his were single flaps of tough leather attached to long, bony protrusions from the inner section of his back next to his shoulder blades. The leather of his wings were rounded at the zenith of the bony protrusion's curve but sharply inclined inwards then back up to their beginning.
He noticed he even had cream colored horns: Five of them. Two of them -the smallest of the five- started just above his forehead and stretched backwards along his skull until they passed their 'surface' and rose up sharply. The largest horn was between these two and twice as large. It stretched just like the two next to it but, instead of riding sharply, protruded more and barely rose, preventing a sharp angle from being made. Then there were the two on the sides. That ran along the sides of his head equally in a straight line then sharply rose where his ears would've been, went towards the back of his head along the skin, then dropped down in a closing angle until their points were mere millimeters away from each other. By connecting the points, Oliver noticed that they formed a heart, and he felt great rage in his own.
"What did you do to me!" he pointed accusingly at the titan.
"I didn't do anything. YOU did this to yourself."
He stared at her with a bizarre, unqualifiable expression, but disgust was in there. "What?"
"You saw a strange symbol, did you not?"
"Yeah."
"And you approached it willingly."
"I was going to clean it from my yard! Men are supposed to keep their yards clean and presentable. That's how the world works," Oliver raged.
He was nearly blown away by the Pueric Mother's huff. "Your world is broken and backwards, then. Why would specific tasks be allotted to a gender? Or is that a cultural thing?" She shrugged with one arm. "I've seen my share of bizarre cultures and backwards thinking. This wouldn't surprise me. So," she continued. "Where in Equestria do you hail from, tiny dragoness?"
"STOP CALLING ME A DRAGONESS!" Oliver pointed to his chest with a thumb. "I'm a MAN from EARTH. Not your weird hellscape here!"
The titan flinched her head back. "Earth? This is a country in this world?"
She turned around to look at a tiny map, easily ten meters across by five meters in height, placed on the wall. In front of it was a magnifying glass held by a wooden contraption with springs bolted into said wall. This allowed the titan to view everything with relative ease.
"I can't see it on here." She faced Oliver. "Is it new?"
The new-dragoness' eye twitched. "It's a planet. It's the world!"
The titan's eyes widened. "Then you're from an entirely different universe." She bounced with joy.
"Hey watch it, Krakatoa. We don't need another eruption."
"You're extremely rare, but..." She became disappointed. "Your disdain for depicting your emotions is disheartening. It might have to do with your curious appearance.
"I--" Oliver tried to yell but was interrupted.
"I am the Pueric Mother of the Lovie Dovies, but you can just call me 'Pueric'."
"Lovie Dovies?!" Oliver clutched his head and started stressing again. "This is worse than I thought!"
"You know, we didn't always have this name." The titan tapped her chin and looked back at the tiny pink creature in her palm. "This reminds me. You need a different name."
"WHAT?! I'M KEEPING MY N--"
"Your appearance and behavior make me think you'd be perfect for simply being called Lovey Dovey." Oliver just frowned at her. "In fact, considering you can't even walk, I'll have someone take care of your guidance here in your new life."
"But--"
"I won't tell you anything or even why you came here, but I CAN tell you that this was all of your choosing and fault, be it conscious or not." The Pueric Mother took in a deep breath then bellowed as loud as she could. "Scarlet Fever!"
It took a few minutes, but a tiny red figure went through the smaller doors built into Pueric's. The dragoness' body was a shade of wine red and was, to be completely descriptive, complete shades of various reds, and with a rather bulky frame to boot. A single horn grew along her head to the back and took a spiral form as it listed to the right. This caused several bright red strands to wrap around it and get stuck in place. Long patches of hair drooped from her head and thinned down to the middle of her back, creating a spade-head of red hair with white tips. This allowed her large wings to be able to move freely without fear of entanglement. The flaps of leathery skin of her wings were completely covered in red scales whilst the tips at the end of the wings themselves were a bright line of white. They would certainly create bright white streaks in the air if she could fly fast enough.
Pueric placed 'Lovey Dovey' down next to her, letting the new dragoness to realize that Scarlet Fever was thrice her size, not to mention muscle mass. Where Lovey Dovey was reformed with a softer frame than normal dragons, Scarlet was the opposite, yet she still looked happy and with a somewhat fluffy and gentle air to her. Upon closer inspection, she was wearing a scarf of vertical, diagonally declined stripes of a darker shade of wine red and black around her neck. One of the arms dangled along her chest whilst the other was hidden behind her wings. She grabbed Lovey in a hug then placed her back down, and the red dragoness put her hands on her hips and displayed proud confidence on her face.
"Alright newbie. I'm Scarlet Fever and I'll show you the ropes around here. Ready?"
"WHY IS EVERYONE A GARGANTUAN BEAST HERE?!"
Scarlet rolled her eyes and gestured Lovey to follow her, but the tiny pink dragon didn't move. "Can't you walk?"
"I have inverted knees. I wasn't born a chicken. I don't know how to cluck my way to the door."
"Using terrible humor to get her anger through whilst avoiding us potentially harming her through insults." Pueric nodded with her thoughts. "Could have potential.
Scarlet Fever picked up the pink dragoness and cradled her in her arms. Lovey hid away behind her arms and blushed with both embarrassment and seething rage.
"This is so humiliating!" she mumbled.
"Let's go. I have plenty to explain to you, and not just from the plants growing all around."
8076730 Lovie Dovies R00L, Cutiemark Crusaders DR00L
Oliver Howard Scatch is related to Vinyl Scratch, right?
8079196 No. How dare you rhyme in my house.
I may not be a woman but he's turning out to be quite a sexist
This should be expressed in the previous chapter when the character is introduced. Using multiple proper nouns to refer to the character that the reader has to guess at being part of a whole name makes things awkward. It is also strange to refer to someone by their middle name unless it is an expressed preference.
I don't see it, though someone would have some volition over their name. Especially if they can get away.
8353197
What do you mean by the first thing? I omitted it? That can be easily corrected.
Not really. Not here, and it's for multiple reasons he was called that.
Thus far it seems very ham handed, with the protagonist verbally stating how hes a "Manly Man who Mans Manly", and all the dragons simply not giving a single shit about... anything their newest member feels or says. At all.
Will read further, hopefully things will clear up.
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/
8436295
I found that comic way back when.
You have a stone that would teleport you to a place of your heart's desire. Your girlfriend is about to fall from a bridge, but you're too far away to save her. You active your stone in order to save her, but it teleports you to Disneyland instead. Is it your fault that she died? For me, it doesn't matter if your subconsciousness wanted her death/is indifferent, the fact that you consciously tried to save her is admirable.
8463823
The bizarrety of the Lovies is mentioned later on. Dontcha worry.
8463827
She is basically blaming him for getting caught in a trap when he didn't know what it was thats like blaming a kid falling in mud puddle on the kid when you dangled his/her favorite toy over the puddle which was behind a trap that would trip them into the puddle, that is a perfect comparison when you compare the two worlds scatch is essentially as inexperienced as a child when it comes to actual magic, so far I don't like any characters and I the only one I can even slightly sympathise is cartoonish in his ridiculous masculinity and the only reason I can do this is because he was essentially caught in a trap
10399081
If this is what they count as choosing or consenting to something, then actual consent for anything doesn't exist to them. Or it doesn't exist for their victims, or thry've instituted that lower ranking dragons cannot refuse higher ones. This being the method of "recruiting" ultimately refutes everything they say about themselves and how they have goodwill and wish to help.
And on the topic of Oliver's masculinity, whike he IS overtly hyper-masculine to me he never really seems to take it into the realm of harmful/cruel action. This makes him sympathetic, and since the dragons seem intent on changing him by force any change on his part to accept what they want would come qcross asthem corrupting him rather than helping.
Edit: also, say this story pop up and thought "Might as well go give it another read-through".
10402968
And the behavior of the current lovie dovies aren't exactly going to make the oldest of them all happy.
10403995
This being their primary recruiting method also raises some political and diplomatic concerns. For one, them doing this to Oliver means they commited q great deal of felonies towards another nation. If they ignore this, they're basically saying they can go in and break other kingdom's laws with impunity, which would have others aghast at them. I doubt Equestria would like that. For one Oliver could easily throw them for a loop with them breaking human laws as well as him telling them abducting him could be seen as a needing a hostike response, and I doubt they'd like the reputation of having started a war. Of course he doesn't necessarily need to tell them humans don't have the magic to reach their world, just that they coukd end up causing all humans to be hostile.
This could also potentially gut their numbers. Any who have any similarities to Oliver coukd very well not be "legitimate" members of the Peurics, instead only saying they like it and want to stay because they were kept until their minds were changed by force. If Celestia knew this she'd be furious that they were taking her ponies, likely demanding them be given back. If they said no that'd cause conflict, and I think even dragonlord Torch was against war with ponies, even if he had no intentions of friendship.
10405793
Didn't I play with that in the story? I don't remember if I did. I just remember that Aurora was hyper pissed off at what the lovies were doing now as well as their recruiting methods.
10405874
I don't think they did, ir at least it didn't go beyond questioning if there were others like Oliver to which the dragon in question gave a "Ummm....". Lightly touched upon the idea that Oliver isn't the only one, but didn't (I think) go into the rest before things proceeded onwards.
Huh. Well, I stand behind my previous statement that the MC has a fragile sense of self, but these 'lovie dovies' are, frankly, kinda terrifying with what they can do so far. Able to take anyone from anywhere at any time and they have no say in the matter. And to strip someone's name away is incredibly cruel. Let's see where this goes.