Bubbles

Bubbles is a fan-written short story that chronicles the childhood of Derpy Hooves. Its author is uncredited.

Style
"Bubbles" is written in the third person, but narrated exclusively from the perspective of a young Derpy Hooves. It uses the historical present, repetition, short sentences and a limited vocabulary to imitate the mindset of a child.

Plot and characters
The 2500-word story consists of a series of vignettes narrating either typical or notable events in the life of Derpy Hooves, a generally cheerful but slow, clumsy, and possibly mentally challenged pegasus pony. For instance, one paragraph tells of an eventually unsuccessful attempt at sending Derpy to school, which ends with her messing herself.

Her father appears to be a loving parent but is often absent because he has to go to work during the day. Derpy's mother is a more unsympathetic character, shouting at her, calling her "retard", and slapping her around; she regularly takes what appear to be anti-depressant drugs.

The story's ending is ambiguous: in the final vignette, Derpy's mother takes her to the countryside, where she sits the young pony under a tree and shows her how to blow bubbles using a bowl of soap water she brought along. Derpy enjoys this activity greatly, so much so that she does not notice her mother leave. It is implied that Derpy has been abandoned.

Rainbow Dash Presents: Bubbles
One of several derivative works is an abridged and illustrated reading of the story by FlimFlamPhilosophy, the writer and main voice actor of The Mentally Advanced Series. He reads it in-character in his "Rainbow Dash" voice, who comments on the story. The reading is accompanied by a series of still images credited to Petirep, some of which have a small amount of animation in them.

"Rainbow" is not a particularly attentive reader, mixing up words, skipping some sentences entirely and (wrongly) paraphrasing others. She also gets easily distracted and often goes off on a tangent about an episode in her own life. Her annotations increasingly draw parallels between Derpy's and Rainbow's childhoods, at one point identifying herself as Derpy (which is reflected in the corresponding image). Halfway through the reading, "Rainbow" inserts herself into the story and starts making substantive changes to it that lead to a happier ending. The illustrations follow Rainbow's interpretation of the events, so for instance, Derpy's parents eventually change their looks to resemble Rainbow's parents more closely.