The Tweed Jacket Man

by Sloppy Hooves

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, Human, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy
Length: 3286

A man goes to Equestria in a tweed jacket.

It comes to a point in the life of many men where they must consider the circumstances, the manner in which they have arrived at them, and if, perhaps, some degree of change or reform on their part might be necessary, sometimes this point can be encouraged by exposure to talking horses, and other times it can be prevented by a jacket purchasable for $29.99 at a Men's apparel store

Published 2012-11-27 23:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-11-27 23:20:01 UTC

Chapter 1

Once there was a man who was called Tweed Jacket Man.

He was called this because he wore a tweed jacket, and also because he was the useless sort of individual who had but one attribute to his personality and so wore it even in times inappropriate.

Fortunately, for our dearly beloved hero, beloved by himself most certainly, he was able to locate himself in such a manner as to be surrounded by others of similar disposition, and so was shielded from all his faults.

For, on rare occasions this man, who was taken to wearing tweed at all times and in some times to refer to himself as twee, though he had no such experience with the word as would normally permit one to use it, this man of twee and tweed would find himself at the target of others jabs which would send him into an immediate fit of despair.

It remains to be seen, in the passing of time and the establishment of historicity by the passing of time whether in time this man who exists in the present time will be remembered in future times looking back at past times as a man of worth to the present time through those inexplicably inscrutable ripples which one makes.

This is the tale of one such ripple spread by the cast off and about stone that is the Tweed Jacket Man.

A tale of how he came to be familiarized with several formerly unfamiliar creatures possessed of four legs, bright dispositions and the speaking voices of humans, that is to say ponies.

However, these speaking equines were not as such may be encountered during the regular dealings of the masculine endeavor with which Tweed Jacket man had become well acquainted in his time as a Google millionaire and self-described genius of all sciences with which he regarded himself familiar.

These creatures were, in no such terms, the scion of that most marvelous masculator of mashed peanuts, Mr Ed, nor were they of the persuasion which sent the majestic steed Black Beauty into a lifelong monologue on the meaning of oats and horse torture to a man’s life.

Yes.

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It was on a morning such as this (AN: please only read this story in the morning of your local time), that the Tweed Jacket Man, having spent his night in a most rigorously unsuccessful pursuit of the female form, was preparing himself to retire within the parlor of his efficiency apartment.

After removing his evening tweed, which he imagined made him irresistible to ladies, a belief he had never had to contest by actually talking to a lady, he donned his sleeping tweed and made his passage toward the couch which was his sole prideful possession in the world.

Reclining himself upon the couch, which it bears to mention was done in a tweed pattern so as to allow the Tweed Jacket Man to feel even homier as if he had slipped into his tweed womb, the Tweed Jacket Man closed his eyes and began his four hours of silent fuming at how he had, once more, been ignored or cockblocked at every turn.

Retreating to the sanctity of the voices in his head which, violating the pattern of voices in such circumstances, were not urging him to kill or sexually assault, but rather had only the highest interest in reassuring him that the women who had rejected him were simply offended by his in-depth and honest appraisal of their many faults, the Tweed Jacket Man became deaf and blind to the world.

So enraptured by the sympathy of the voices was he that he did not hear the voices in a slightly parallel dimension which were arguing over the nature of a store, one Quills and Sofas, and how it could be simultaneously out of both quills and recliners.

As well, he did not hear the summoning which acquired both his couch and the individual upon it, namely himself, nor was he aware of the two hours which he spent in this strange new world being observed to mutter to himself, "I'm not angry. I'm better than them. They are worthless."

Sensing that his time encased with his mental sycophants was over, the Tweed Man opened his eyes and found himself gazing upon a member of the species of horse which the reader has been before briefed.

"Hello, I'm-" began the purple creature. "No," interrupted the Tweed Man.

"No?" inquired the creature, moving her head to the side, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

"No," he repeated, then, after allowing a moment to pass, he continued, "I do not like you. At all. Change that."

"I'm not sure how ..." the unicorn, for that is what the number of horns upon her head would indicate as to her species or order, was perplexed by the betweeded being reclining before her.

"Where to begin? Your hair is sloppily groomed, and I find the proportion of your head to the rest of your body unnerving. Have you ever even opened an anatomy textbook? Your body is dominated by a single color, which I might forgive except I won't. Your line work is too smooth and while you might consider that a stylistic choice, it most certainly is not. Rather, in every bit you fail to be an expressionist painting or a toucan, which are both things I would rather see," the Tweed Man said all of this while remaining on his back and had not moved beyond the adjustments of his mouth and eyes.

"Okay," the unicorn nodded her head very thoughtfully, although not certain why this being had felt the need to arrive here when she had only been interested in the couch, "I'm not really interested in changing myself entirely to suit you."

"Well, in that respect you are wrong, mistaken, foolish, and utterly stupid. You’re being a horse, for instance, is something that only a few experts can pull off successfully, and you are not such an expert, I suggest you cease existing until you get better at it.”

At this, their conversation was interrupted by the non-mammalian occupant of the room, and Spike leaped forward to begin a petulant whine, "no one asked you come in here and insult us like this."

"Ah, white knighting for your idiot friend? I'm sure it makes you feel almost as big a man as randomly appearing in a library and insulting the first creature to voluntarily begin a conversation with you in two years. Most importantly, you are not a toucan!"

"Well, you're not a toucan either," Spike continued to whine in a highly petulant and not very dragony manner.

"I never said I should be one. Do I need to know how to cook to steal cookies from small children?"

"What are you," asked Twilight her exasperation at the Tweed Jacket Man's demeanor growing to such a point that, were there an appropriate word for it in the dictionary, such a word would be very rude.

"I am the Tweed Jacket Man,” the Tweed Jacket Man replied, leaping from the couch and to the floor, he rose his arms into the air as he prepared to discuss his own virtues, an item of interest to him second only to the many and constant failings of others, “I was raised in the basement of a log cabin that I built with my own hands."

"So, you're like a dragon?" Twilight rummaged through her brain trying to remember all the anti-social creatures she had encountered over the course of her life, but finding nothing that matched the present creatures mix of anti-social unpleasantness and uselessness.

"Hello, Twilight, I just thought I heard somepony say dragon and wondered if you needed a pony to engage in needless panicking over a small issue for about 15 minutes until my psychological issues are miraculously resolved."

“No, that would not be helpful at this time or any other time,” Twilight turned in place several times giving the appearance that she was chasing her tail, which she was in a metaphorical sense, but in the literal sense she was simply turning in place in order to soften the spot of the floor she was about to lay down in.

Upon having assumed a posture more familiar with the ground, the grape juice horse turned back to the butter horse in a thoughtful moment of reflection that carried with back with some part of the Tweed Jacket Man’s mad ravings, and having thought of a solution by which her and her visitor’s mutual existence might be solved, she spoke, "Fluttershy, you own a toucan don't you?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to show this man your toucan?" "No," replied the buttery cracker which was demonstrating an abnormal amount of strength of character for her given the presence of a larger entity.

Twilight, the mauve, majestic specimen of the female gender of the horse species which is small, smaller than males as is proper for though they are a matriarchy they still retain the petty chauvinism necessary in a world which is to value commercial acquisition, marriage and the inheritance of property, became discouraged by this news and expected that she may now have inherited the social retardation of two shut-ins, three if one were to count the dragon, but steeling herself she pressed forward with a question, "are you afraid of him?"

"No, I find him instantly unpleasant," replied the pink-haired pegasus, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the pathetic sight before her represented both by the utterly unwelcome intruder into her happy little world of sunshine and smile and the unicorn who, for some reason, lacked the wherewithal simply to hurl him from her house through physical force.

Indeed, as much as one might have expected from the nature and character of the yellow pegasus, such was not even remotely the case, for the Tweed Jacket Man, while uniquely unpleasant and annoying, was so blatantly lacking in a capacity for harm beyond petty nuisance that no creature had ever feared him.

Twilight thought a moment on the subject, and it occured to her that this feeling of inadequacy, as the Tweed Jacket Man most certainly felt inadequate, had lead him to a live of needless hostility in the only forum he felt able to express himself.

Perhaps, were he not so utterly repugnant, she would have utilized her marginal knowledge of psychology to attempt to assist the creature, but really, what was the point in assisting something so utterly beneath the interest of any other creature, living or dead?

The Tweed Jacket man, realizing that the attention of others had drifted away from him, began another barrage of insults designed to harm the self-image of those few who, similarly lacking personal character as he did, were vulnerable to the opinions of complete strangers.

“Why are you yellow? Your coloration scheme offends me as a person, and, as well, I have no interest in the content of your words due to their presentation.”

The yellow pegasus rolled her eyes at the hostility and walked away, a demonstration that would have been most out of character had the Tweed Jacket Man possessed even the slightest trace of personality or presence, but, lacking as he was, his words were utterly meaningless and even the minute abuses of a rabbit were more intimidating.

Twilight turned; from some window which had hitherto been left open or at least a jar, the wind played across her mane, driving it billow across her face and behind her neck in a manner the Tweed Jacket Man felt utterly unsatisfyingly referential, or perhaps even plagiarized, from some earlier event that had been depicted. The unicorn, said, with a voice that was tearful, perhaps from joy or perhaps from despair, “Go with her.”

The Tweed Jacket Man shook his head and crossed his arms at this display, his defiance now redoubled from before that he should not ever leave the company of this first individual he had met until such time as she recognized his supreme brilliance, and certainly he should not allow her to possess the last word, as such would be equivalent to admitting he had nothing more to say and the Tweed Jacket Man always had more things to say, such as when he stated, “Your hair is billowing stupidly. Why have you not closed all the windows. This library is pointless. Look at all these shelves which are not fully stocked. I have no intention of leaving.”

“But she has a toucan,” replied the mystical, magical non-monster as she felt despair sink through her skin like an arrow that had been fired from a bow at such velocity sufficient to penetrate the hide of a horse and reach her deepest core, “you said you wanted to see a toucan.”

The Tweed Jacket Man was, once more, struck with the hideous, painful realization that all residents of all worlds except for him were naught but children, petty and stupid, and if it weren’t for his supreme brilliance and the need to constantly prove that brilliance, he would have long ago done himself a favor by just shutting up and going away; yet, he did not shut up and did not go away, nor did he do any other action likely to produce both happiness in himself and others, and instead he continued to protest most vocally and personally against the individual before him in a manner guaranteed never to satisfy anyone other than his own petulant ego, and even then for not but a short time, “I do not want to go to where there might be a toucan, I am here and demand that you be a toucan for my enjoyment.”

“Is there no other way to content you?” asked Twilight, having finally been broken by the persistent badgering, perhaps some concession could finally end this ridiculous siege of insults.

“Well, if you were to don a jacket of tweed,” replied the Tweed Jacket Man, fondling the edges of his superior jacket which had taken him a whole five minutes to rip off the corpse of a movie director he’d seen lying in the street.

Twilight, lacking both the individual initiative to violently rid herself of her guest and the jacket in question, decided it was time for a trip to Rarity’s boutique in order to acquire the item of clothing and perhaps settle her guest down by an item of acquiescence, though she knew the effort would ultimately prove futile as the act of complaining and the pleasure that came from seeing others concede to his demands was one of the few things that the Tweed Jacket Man understood well enough to enjoy.

Upon arriving at the front door of the Carousel Boutique and passing within the Tweed Jacket Man witnessed the sight of the presence of the pony known as Rarity who owned the Boutique and therefore was inside it with Twilight and the Tweed Jacket Man who had just entered.

Upon the sight of the new unicorn, who was also not a toucan, the Tweed Jacket Man gagged audibly, and launched into a fresh spiel, “I’m not going to tell you in depth, or in any particularly useful manner, what I find wrong with you, because to detail a total and complete list would bore me, and you are simply not worth my time, however, I will provide a list of vague buzzwords I’ve heard used before: fat, boring, annoying, whiny, ugly.”

“Darling, if I wanted your opinion I would have shoved my hoof up your ass and moved your jaw for you,” Rarity replied, turning her head back to the creation of a dress.

“You only dislike me because I dare speak the truth to you of your many failings. It certainly could have nothing to do with my toxic personality, refusal to learn from my mistakes, and utter lack of either wit or originality.”

Rarity sighed, lifting the strange creature with the powers of her horn, powers which far surpassed both the mortal ken and the mortal Barbie, and launched him with the airspeed velocity of a terrible reference that has been used so many times before that any reader still engaged could have finished this sentence for themselves.

Lying in the gutter, once more rejected and blocked from entry into polite society, the Tweed Jacket Man felt himself filled with pride, as he had once again spoken truth to power, by which one means the powerless and often indifferent, and he certainly had made a difference.

Indeed, though it was literally impossible that any should ever thank him for his never requested service, he could at least rest well knowing that some handful of like-minded individuals might have been in the audience and they might think that his grandstanding at another’s expense in their own house was clever and worth the time required to remember it.

As he lay there, he witnessed a pony passing by of similarly vapid disposition, and indeed wearing a rain jacket inside out; however, this equine was not being rejected for his insults and slurs but was being praised by a group of similarly clad equines.

Watching the horses, the Tweed Jacket Man was suddenly filled with envy off this concept of friendship that might be absent from his life, and he began to plot how to steal it or at least borrow some portion of it for himself.

“Oh, you miserable little rat, laying in the gutter!” shouted the approaching equine with a gleeful whinny, "your manner of reclining makes me sick to my stomach."

The Tweed Jacket Man winced and rose from the gutter, much to the satisfaction of the speaking equine, who derived much pleasure from seeing others bend to his whims and from the sudden box of hugs which his comment found him surrounded by, and it was this last event, that of a complete circle of jerks, that drove the Tweed Jacket Man to ask the first honest question in his entire life, “How do you do that?”

“It is simple, by having a gang. When I attack someone, they back me up and enforce my whims as facts, and when I am attacked they are there to shout down any opposition. When I have doubts, they are there to reassure me that I am perfect just as I am, and when I am being a whiny bitch, they are there to assure me my complaints are valid. If you wish to join my group, you need only lick my hooves,” replied the pony, stretching forth a leg tipped with a hoof that did not resemble the hooves of the other ponies so far encountered, rather it seemed covered in and emitting a sticky white substance.

Leaning his head forward, the Tweed Jacket Man lapped gently at the offered limb and soon was overcome with a feeling of ecstasy and belonging that drove him to throw himself under the new pony and hug him deeply across his chest in a manner suggesting very rude things would be done in the future.

Together, the Tweed Jacket Man, Sloppy Hooves, and a couple hundred other brainwashed hooligans ran through the streets of Ponyville causing a menace and hugging one another merrily in a manner which shielded them happily from any and all criticism, and under the auspices of this mutual protection and ego-reinforcement they became a marginal nuisance to every other pony in Equestria, which totally showed all those jerks who didn’t want to hang out with a bunch of self-important losers, and a slightly more than marginal nuisance to any who refused to behave in exactly the manner they prescribed.