Friendship is Absurd Outtake (sort of)

I've been wanting to make a blog post mentioning that yes, I am still working on Friendship Is Absurd, and in fact the next chapter will hopefully be up soon...ish. But it felt odd to make a blog post just saying that, especially because it's been "only" a month and a half since the last chapter. I do try to write at least a little every single day (even if it's just a sentence), so I'm always making some kind of progress, no matter how small.

Luckily, I do have something new to post: An "outtake" of sorts from Friendship Is Absurd. This happened to be in its own text file, and it looks like was originally part of the "Sonic Rain-Dust" chapter, happening right after the first scene with Lightning Dust and Gilda. I'm not sure why I put it in another file (I'll have a little more commentary on it at the end of this post), but it did have some funny gags that didn't go into the original story that I felt were worth sharing. So, here we go:

A very short time later…

“Hi Sunset!” declared Lightning Dust as she crashed through the roof.

Sunset sighed, rolled her eyes, then said, “You know, it’s been a while since you did that. I was waiting on pins and needles for you to do it again.”

“I know, right? That’s why I did it!”

“That was sarcasm, you idiot.”

“Who cares?” asked Lightning Dust. “The point is that you should totally come with me to Cloudsdale to watch me at the Best Young Flyer Competition!”

Sunset stared at Lightning Dust. “You realize that I can’t fly, right?”

“Enh, you can use some kind of spell or whatever to walk on the clouds, I’m sure. Heck, just tying some balloons to yourself might do the trick.”

“You know what?” asked Sunset. “I’ll go with you if you’ll pay for the stuff you broke and sign a contract promising to pay for any further damages you cause to my house.”

“No need for pay! I can fix it all for you!”

“No!” shouted Sunset. “I am not going through that again. You pay me, and I’ll go.”

Lightning Dust considered the matter. “Nah,” she said before zooming out and making another hole in the roof.

Life is pain, thought Sunset to herself. Her inner loathing was soon interrupted, however, by a knock on the door. She spent a moment wondering if she even cared enough to open it, but the point was rendered moot by Gilda simply opening it and walking in.

“Hey, has Lightning Dust been here?”

Rather than answer verbally, Sunset simply pointing upward to the holes in the roof. “Huh,” said Gilda. “Did my cheering do that?”

“Huh?” Sunset said, confused.

“Oh right, that joke would’ve only been funny if Lightning Dust were here. You don’t happen to know where she went off to, did you?”

“Not only do I not know, I also don’t care.”

“Enh,” said Gilda with a shrug. She walked out.

“Finally, someone who can actually use a door,” muttered Sunset to herself.

There was a pause as she stared at the door.

“Wait, it didn’t fall over right after I said that? Maybe my life is turning around! Hooray!”

Elsewhere…

“Aw, c’mon, Suri. Nopony else is interested. I need people to cheer me on! You’re my last hope!”

“Lightning Dust,” said Suri, “you are aware that I am neither capable of flight nor capable of casting a spell to make myself fly? And that balloons are not an effective way of traveling around on clouds? And that even if I did have a method of safely visiting Cloudsdale, I have no incentive to?”

Lightning Dust opened her mouth to try to give an explanation, but suddenly found herself interrupted by a knock on a door. “Mail delivery!” said a familiar voice.

“Oh, maybe it’s some new orders!” said Suri, her tone rapidly changing from cynicism to optimism. She ran over and opened the door.

“Hi!” said a gray-coated pegasus mailmare. She inspected the mail. “It looks like you’ve got a big order to Cloudsdale that they want you to deliver in person!”

“How in the world am I supposed to deliver something like that in person to Cloudsdale when I can’t fly?!”

“Enh,” said the gray pegasus, “I just get paid to deliver these.”

“Why is it that you seem to always deliver these right when we’re discussing something related to them?”

“Well,” said the pegasus, “keep this under your hat… actually, you’re not wearing a hat, but keep it under something. But I actually listen from outside the door and try to deliver mail at relevant times. Anyway, here you go!” She dropped the letters next to Suri and flew off before anyone could respond to her comment.

“Huh,” was all Suri could manage.

“Haha! Now you do have a reason!” Lightning Dust said. “So you going to go get that spell or whatever?”

“I suppose I might as well. But,” she said, getting in Lightning Dust’s face, “the reason for my visit is to deliver the clothes that were ordered. I am under no obligation to watch your race!”

“Enh, good enough,” Lightning Dust said before zooming off.

A short time later…

Yes, it does end with "A short time later..." There's also two notes (when writing, I put little notes to myself to remind myself of things I want to make sure I don't forget, like a joke I want later on in the chapter or what I was doing when I cut off), one noting Gilda is next, and the other suggesting I end the whole chapter with Sunset's door falling down, a callback to Sunset being cheerful it didn't.

Anyway, it looks like I was originally trying to come up with explanations for why they would all go to Cloudsdale. Probably the reason I clipped it was because I was having trouble thinking of reasons for everyone and I figured it would take too long (causing me to do what I did in the actual chapter, saying there were reasons but not going into detail), but I didn't want to erase all my work so I put it someplace else for safekeeping, maybe planning to re-integrate it back into the story but forgetting to do so. Ah well. Guess you can read it now and decide if you think it would've been worth going in that direction with the chapter. And hopefully you'll be able to read the next actual chapter soon! I am working on it, really!