The pony stared up at the ceiling, only barely conscious of his surroundings. The oscillating fan in the corner of the room blew a cool breeze over him once roughly every fifteen seconds. Twice during those fifteen seconds, the sound of papers being rustled came to his ears. His notes sat in a pile on his desk, held down with a single jar of mild queso. Every time the fan passed by, the papers flapped futilely beneath the glass jar. He'd bought the queso years ago, and while it had enough preservatives to last a decade, he could never quite find the appetite for it. Even after it went past its sell-by date, it would probably remain a paper weight.
Cheese didn't agree with him anyway.
The fan continued its endless drone, and the pony rolled onto his stomach. His mind continued sending him back and forth between his cold, one bedroom apartment, and the happy realm of his subconscious. Well, his "usually" happy subconscious. As of late, his subconscious had been filled with nothing but doubt and self-loathing. Stupid things he'd done as a colt replaying on an endless loop were usually the first things to present themselves. There was the time he'd performed during a school play and forgotten his lines. His only two lines. How he'd just stood there blankly, and the parents in the audience pointing and laughing.
Then there was the time he'd been home alone with the filly he had a crush on. How they'd been wrestling playfully, and when he somehow wound up on top of her, couldn't fathom that she'd wanted him to take her. And how he just looked at her awkwardly before standing up.
"Idiot," the stallion cursed aloud. His ears felt hot and he rolled over again. The pillow beneath his head had lost all form, and the three on the floor were too far out of reach. The cool breeze from the fan finally found its way back to him, but it only stayed for five seconds before rustling the papers on his desk again.
He closed his eyes and counted the seconds before the fan would turn in his direction again. The papers on the desk rustled, and he knew it would be a few more seconds. Three, four, five...six...seven? He counted in his head, confused as to why the breeze didn't return on five like it had done a million times before. The papers continued flapping loudly as the fan remained faced toward his desk. It's an old fan, maybe it finally broke, he rationalized.
It didn't really concern him. The fan was only kept on because he required white noise to sleep. At first, he thought the rustling papers might be too noisy for him to drift off to sleep, but eventually, it blended into the monotonous hum of the fan. He found himself thinking of the papers trapped beneath the jar. They were the culmination of everything he'd written in the past three months. Some were beginnings of stories, others were simple mental notes. Final Draft's rough drafts, he called them.
That was him; Final Draft, author of the Generic Series. His name was rarely associated with anything else, and it was a fact that slowly ate away at him. He'd published several stories before that accursed series, but they'd only sold well enough for him to continue living as he was. Sometimes, he'd go to the local book store just to see his hardcover novels sitting on the shelf. His first published work had been his favorite to write, and had taken five years to complete. Seeing it on the shelf brought a sense of pride, but all too soon, it was moved from New Releases to the bargain bin.
No amount of promotion could seem to move the book's ratings; ponies just didn't want to read it. Well, what do they want to read? he'd asked himself angrily. He'd check back at the bookstore regularly and scan over the Hot New Releases shelf. After several weeks, a theme became present.
Red and black alicorn stallions. Every single book cover on that shelf had a mare being held tenderly by one. He'd picked up one titled, Rustling Feathers, and skimmed through the pages. From what he could tell, the book was just a sexually repressed house mare finally getting to live out her fantasies. "This is smut," he'd said aloud. He'd been unaware a mare was behind him, and she'd scoffed before trotting off with her copy of the erotic novel.
He'd placed the book back on the shelf and picked up another. It was the same garbage, just told in a slightly different way. The titles were different, they were by different authors, but the premise remained the same. There were twenty books on that shelf, and he received more than a few strange looks as he grabbed a copy of every single one. The cashier had tried not to look at him as he rung up the strange purchase.
"It's for research," Final Draft said to no pony in particular. The mares behind him whispered giddily as his purchase was bagged up. They probably thought he was trying to impress a mare, or that he was a colt cuddler. He didn't care which. When he got back to his apartment, he threw the heavy bag on the table and watched the books spill out. It was disgusting how much they looked alike.
Over the course of two weeks, he read every single one, keeping a pile of notes beneath his jar of queso. Every time a recurring theme happened from one novel to another, he'd scribble it down. Pretty soon, he'd filled up a ream of paper with the nonsense. Through each story, there was always a heroine, and of course, a mysterious red and black alicorn stallion. The stallion in each story seemed to be filled from the same mould, having a tragic backstory, amazing powers, dashing looks, a strange name, and so on. After the tenth book, all the others just seemed so generic.
"I can write this crap," Final Draft said to himself, setting the last book down. "I'll write a story so generic that they'll have call it just that; A Generic Story."
One week. All it took him was one week to write three hundred and twelve pages of the worst literature to ever come from his hooves. The plot was garbage, the pacing was terrible, and the characters were so bland and uninteresting that he even called the alicorn Generic. Generic the red and black alicorn. What a laugh.
He brought it to his publisher just so she could get a laugh. She looked at him skeptically as he dropped the manuscript on her desk with a grin on his face. "What's this? Something new?" she asked, levitating the first page up. "A Generic Story?" By the time she looked away from it, Final Draft was already out the door. The stallion had trotted back to his apartment, feeling like he'd just played a wonderful prank.
When his publisher showed up at his apartment at 2 A.M., he thought she might be returning the favor. A rapid knocking on his apartment door woke him, and he stumbled out of bed to find his publisher standing in the hallway. She wore a heavy winter jacket over her frilly undergarment, indicating she'd left her house in a hurry.
"What is this?" she asked, completely out of breath. She brought the manuscript for A Generic Story up for him to look at. "It's brilliant!"
"You're shitting me," Final Draft said with a laugh. Her expression remained sincere and the smile slowly faded from his face. "No, really, you're joking, right?" he asked.
"This is exactly what the industry has been missing, Draftie! Satire! It's pure gold!" she said, using the stallion's pet name. What happened next was any pony's guess, but Draft's publisher was on him like he was Generic himself.
A Generic Story hit shelves a week later and sold out faster than any of the novels it was parodying. Not just mares were buying it, either. An unheard of amount of stallions were buying the book, to Final Draft's surprise. How had something he'd written as a joke become the hottest book to ever hit shelves? And could he do it again?
They wanted more of the generic alicorn, so he gave them a sequel. Just as little effort was put into A Generic Story 2, and it became just as big. At that point, he had enough money to do what he wanted. No more worrying about rent or bills; he was set for a while so long as he kept busting out those Generic Stories. But he had other ideas he wanted to work on.
The next story he published was devoid of red and black alicorns, and got little attention. Some who recognized his name picked it up out of curiosity, but it quickly found itself in the bargain bin with his non-generic works. Both his fans and publisher began demanding a third book. He spent long sleepless nights looking over his notes, trying to pull something fresh from them. The result was A Generic Story 3. The longest book by far, and of course, the least popular. It never found its way to the bargain bin, but the sales had been less than impressive. If nothing else, Generic was dead, and he could move on with his life.
Just as sleep was finally taking over his weary mind, the smashing of glass shook him to reality. The rustling of papers was suddenly deafening as all of his hard work flew into the air. Without thinking, the stallion rolled out of his bed and put his hooves on the floor. He felt the crunch of glass and the squish of processed cheese beneath his hooves, but before his mind could process any of that, his body was already trying to walk forward.
His hooves slipped on the queso, sending him falling back onto his bed. He lay there in shock until his eyes could adjust to the darkness. For whatever reason, the fan began oscillating again, sending whirlwinds filled with his notes around the room. He jumped back up and swatted at the flying pieces of paper, resorting to catching several between his teeth. The papers seemed to flock to the puddle of queso like they were ants to honey.
Shutting off the fan never occurred to him as he wasted what little energy he had chasing around his written ideas. When it was over, more than half the pages were covered in queso, some of which would never be read again. The stallion organized the pages into a sticky pile and looked at it in dismay. Bits of red pepper had found their way into his mouth and he knew the taste would stay with him for the rest of the night.
I don't even like queso, why did I buy queso? he asked himself as he ran his tongue around his mouth. A breeze rustled through his matted, brown mane and he looked back to his fan. It had begun oscillating normally once more. Before he could reach his hoof out, several of the cheese-covered papers went back up into the air.
"Oh come on!" he shouted, simply watching the papers drift away, some of them sticking to the walls when they made contact. He went to grab at a page that hadn't been completely ruined yet, but it stopped in midair. The stallion stared at it, sure it was a freak wind current keeping it suspended for so long. After a moment, the paper hadn't budged, and he squinted to see what was written.
It was in his own sloppy hoof writing, and eventually he could make out the first words. The paper must have come from the bottom of the stack, because he didn't remember writing it. "No pony can make you happy but you," he read aloud. "Do what you want, regardless of what others want. Making others happy will not make you happy."
"That's pretty dismal advice."
The stallion jumped at hearing the voice, and he turned to look in his doorway. A cloaked figure stood in the darkness, a glowing horn sticking from its hood. It was only now that he noticed the paper he'd been reading from was encased in a faint red aura. The same aura emanated from the figure's horn.
"W-who are you? What are you doing here?" the stallion asked, nearly falling backwards over his desk.
"My name is Generic, and we need to talk, Mr. Draft."