Rhapsodies

Well it had to happen sooner or later. I’ve been doing fanart on Deviantart for a while. I like to treat it as a professional exercise creating something that is not mine and therefore I’m not particularly attached to in a set period of time just as if it were a regular assignment.

Other than some strip related art I pretty much stick to fan art on Deviantart, mainly because I’m a bit paranoid about putting material on it. I’m not one of those people who think that someone will steal their ideas at the slightest slip of the tongue but that’s not the same as putting a potential intellectual property up where everyone can see it. (Deviantart runs on Creative Commons which speaking as a proud member of the Graphic Artists Guild I find charmingly naïve.)

The other reason is kind of sad. Sometimes it seems fanart is the only way to get any attention on Deviantart and what can I say, sometimes the limelight’s nice.

For a while I’ve been specializing in human versions of characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and for the most part I’ve been getting some good positive feedback.
Until the other day.

One of the pieces I did recently was Fluttershy as a dark-skinned Muslim girl. I’d seen some other artists play with this meme and liked it enough to want to give it a try. Later I found out there were a lot of people who didn’t like the concept either due to racism or thinking it was a PC gimmick. (I’d done it because I thought the pink hijab looked cute) I didn’t give it any thought, and besides I’d gotten good feedback out of it until I got this comment.

Why does she look like she’s retarded? Also why give her dark skin when she’s is literally yellow in the cartoon? I understand dark skin for twilight, but fluttershy is just no.

I was flabbergasted. I was nearly certain it’s someone trolling but still… How does having a character smiling make her look retarded? And Fluttershy can’t be dark-skinned because the original version is literally yellow? She’s also literally a pony what’s your point?

So I’m assuming I’m being trolled. (Because otherwise I’d have to assume a small minded racist git is singling me out.) I shouldn’t have a problem with this after all if you’re visible enough for people to do this sort of thing, that’s good right?

Still I can’t say it doesn’t hurt my feelings just a little bit.