#buffalo bunch

[crydadoll]

Crydamoure night

[claypigeonpottery]

I’m love her 😍

I turned off the camera before I finished the vulture because I needed to look at the references on my phone 😅

I was a little nervous about making this piece too muddy with all the sponge texture and browns, but 😍

rambling about commissions under the cut

these kinds of commissions are the reason I don’t charge extra for original commissions (vs copies of my previous work), despite sketching and reference hunting taking hours at times. and why I love making variations on the copies too. I want to encourage people to ask me to make new things!

I always enjoy the commissions I take, I generally don’t take them if they don’t suit my art style or if I would find them tedious, but getting a commission that pulls from things I’ve already done and adds new elements, especially ones I wouldn’t have thought to add, is so satisfying!

[theonethatyoudreamon]

13. Where the Buffalo Roam

shout out to yellowstone national park bison photo gallery for inspiration

[goingtothebes]

pictures from various goats shows last week!! i don't recall which ones!!!

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Music Box • Intergalactik Disko (DJ Sneak's Version) • Lovers • Hysteria • Coral Twist • Gator • Wet Indiez • Mirage • Cherie D'Amoure • Wrath Of Zeus • The Turkish Avenger • Spaced Out • T.I.T.T.S • Number Seven (Le Knight Club Remix) • Intergalactik Disko • Troobadoor • Santa Claus • White Winds • In Flight (Raw Club Remix) • Boogie Shell • Coco Girlz • G.M.F • Holiday On Ice

Youtube

[woman-respecter]

taylor swift you do not have to go to buffalo new york in the middle of january. do not do this to yourself.

[buffa-z]

according to their animal motifs, buffa is the only character of the main four that cant see in the dark. however, he is the only one who can eat chocolate, so who's really winning

[damienthepious]

ough augh rhghg heyyyy!!!! we FINALLY get to the point that i initially thought was going to be the end of chapter ONE of this bastard!!!!! YAHOOOOO

the water that fills me (chapter 5)

[go read on ao3!!!]

[so-very-small]

Top 5 foods?

5. pork vermicelli bowls. i’ve literally never had one i haven’t loved

4. gumbo. like, NOT restaurant gumbo. they never do it right. it has to be someones grandma’s sister’s cousins secret family recipe that they had leftovers of and sent my way in tupperware older than i am. im in louisiana home-cooked gumbo is our life force. unfortunately i’m allergic to shellfish so it has to be chicken n sausage

3. my moms pork chop casserole. it’s just baked pork chops over french onion rice, and i have the recipe, but i swear only she can make it Right

2. salmon sushi or sashimi. i love any kind, but my specific fave is this roll a local place does with like, a huge piece of rice, then snow crab, lil bit of wasabi, then a huge peices of salmon w eel sauce

1. mushrooms. on their own, in foods, raw, cooked, any fuckin kind. i adore mushroom in any form. my favorite are baby bellas sliced thick and sautéed with garlic and butter.

[loveofmylouis]

.

[sein-zum-tod]

I think we have 15 bottles of whiskey in my house now. Lmao I might be an alcoholic.

[couldtransitionsaveher]

Pardon me but I still don't get why you banned buffalo bill when you've allowed so many other transphobic characters in in the past

Okay, I'm going to run through a whole bunch of stuff real quick. TW for transphobia and more specifically transmisogyny

So basically, for the last hundred years or so, trans women have been an acceptable punching bag all across pop culture. Basically every sitcom released within the last fifty years (especially 90s-00s ones) have had some kind of a "man in a dress" or "chick with a dick" joke, horror movies still love the "gender-confused serial killer" trope, and the average drama views trans women as trauma sponges. This is without going into how a lot of "good" trans rep is still very tokenizing, assuming it's even allowed to be canon (*cough* Taliyah League of Legends *cough*). If I were to exclude all transphobic and/or transmisogynistic, there would be nothing to post. I have to limit my restrictions to the most egregious examples of pop culture transmisogyny-- specifically ones that have caused material harm.

[catboybiologist]

The General Grant Tree.

When the Civil War ended, the United States had an abundance of soldiers in the East, and a bunch of recently-brutally-colonized lands to the West. So, they put two and two together, and waves of soldiers went West. Most of that legacy is brutality. But some of that is positive- the first park rangers for newly-formed national parks in the Sierra Nevada mountains were part of these companies. Among others, this includes the Buffalo soldiers, all black regimens that scouted and mapped the Sierras, and helped establish better public access.

When they were sent to survey the West, they found giants. The Giant Sequoias, ice age relics clinging to isolated groves on the West slopes of the Sierras, are the largest single stem trees in the world. The largest individual trees were given names by these soldiers, and naturally, they named them after their commanding officers.

The General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park is the largest single-stem tree on the planet, but many come close- including the General Grant tree in Kings Canyon national park.

Unlike the Sherman tree, however, the Grant tree obtained a kind of mythic quality. It's been named a national shrine to veterans and the military, as well as the Nation's Christmas tree.

But me? Well, I like the Sequoias themselves as a symbol of enduring nature more than I love the military or Christmas. I love the towering immensity of Sequoias, and largely disconnect myself from the other meanings that this tree has been given.

But y'know what else I love?

Tgirl tummy.

That's right.

This is a tgirl tummy Tuesday post.

Happy tgirl tummy Tuesday from the General Grant tree! I hope I'm being adequately degenerate at this "national shrine" to help divorce it from the US military. I stopped for the night in Grant Grove on my way deeper into the Sierras, so yeah, this is past Sierra with a scheduled post. Apologies for the image quality, these were all taken at twilight. Stay gender fucked, stay faggoty, eat well, and enjoy your public lands!

@xenasaur @lilithtransrights @anarqueeen @whalesharkcat @godless-of-the-hunt @shakukon-to @sagasolejma @eruditegeek @havingsecondthots @subsequentlysilly

[karlachismylife]

Tough Spot || The Queen of the Clan pt.2

CW: fem!chubby!reader, mentions of animal marking/spraying/urinating

When you took a break in trying to get your behaviorist degree and took off to partake in this documentary on a whim, you certainly were prepared that it won't meet the highest expectations - life isn't a movie, after all, so perhaps you weren't hoping to find the purpose of life magically after you somewhat lost the direction, or to make an earth-shattering discovery that would turn behaviorist world upside down and earn you a place among scientific hall of fame. A distraction from an all-consuming apathy that creeped up in your life, perhaps, some useful experience close to your field of interest. Some connections and friendships, if nothing else - these were your (pretty reasonable) expectations.

Definitely not having to share a tent with a man you barely knew, because a huge hyena sprayed its stink all over your things, making it impossible to stay near your posessions for a long period of time.

Sure, lucky you - most of your stuff inside the backpack was very salvageable, your clothes and food intact. But everything that got under a direct attack - your little tent, sleeping bag, your favourite thermos and a little sitting mat, all that was most definitely due for a deep clean with some heavy scent remover, and your crew was in for a filming trip for the next several days without returning to your main dislocation at a sanctuary just next to the nature reserve you were filming in. So no cleaning and washing for you in aproximately a week. In short - you would've been fucked, sleeping in a smelly tent and sleeping bag or completely unprotected in a roofless vehicle, if not for Kir.

As you stand there with an apologetic expression on your face, hands clenched guiltily, he just laughs all your muttered thanks and apologies off, flashing you the friendliest of smiles as he sets up his own tent. A true knight in shining armor (some cargo pants and a blank, tight-fitting T-shirt in his case), Kir doesn't even let you help, telling you that your chatting is more than help enough as he prepares your new sleeping arrangements. Out of everyone on the crew he was the first to offer you to share his tent, and the fact that he had a backup sleeping bag only nailed the decision in.

"Don't worry, it's not a bother at all. If I was a newbie and something like this happened to me, you'd help me out too, I'm sure," he makes it hard to argue and feel like you're being a burden. Already a veteran of these filmings, Kir disctracts you from your upset mood with similar stories - about some scientist guy walking straight into a buffalo shitpile, a bunch of monkeys ravaging crew's backpacks and pulling out some poor girl's vibrator to play hot potato with it, a jackal finding one of the timelapse night cameras and flooding it generously... "They're animals, they just have a sense of humor like that. No one blames you for that guy taking a liking to you."

Kir's bright smile and cheerful words reassure you. He's being a gentleman about everything else too - allows you to take the higher ground to sleep there since the spot where his - and your now too - tent stands has a bit of an angle to it, lets you choose which sleeping bag you want, stays outside as you change for sleep even though you were perfectly fine doing it in the sleeping bag itself. The only un-gentlemanly thing Kir does is stay up with you until deep into the loud wild night, telling you more stories, already from his job at the sanctuary. As you whisper to each other and try to muffle your giggles, you hear rustling outside, someone walking around on soft paws, stopping several times at your tent and even sniffing loudly - you left your backpack nearby, unwilling to put the stinky thing into the tent. But the smell seems to work for you this time, since whatever it was, it leaves soon after.

In the morning you barely get out, a bit tired after your late night talkshow with Kir, only to learn that there were two hyenas in the camp - a bunch of the crew are crowded around a patch where the parprints are especially visible, getting the footage just in case it'll make into the final cut. One of the scientists measures the prints and estimates the sizes of both hyenas: both could be up to 1,8 meters in length judging from how wide apart their footprints lay. In other words - fucking huge, even for spotted hyenas.

"You think your friend from yesterday came with a buddy to spread some more perfume?" You scrunch your nose at Kir's joke and rush to check on your backpack, but it doesn't seem to be chewed on or reek worse than yesterday. Great news, honestly, since you'll be driving with that thing tucked into the back of a Land Rover while you follow the path of the lion pride you should be filming.

The sun is alredy high up and pretty ruthless by the time you come across any significant wildlife - and it's not lions, but something equally good for the documentary: a big herd of zebras. Once again, you are mesmerized, majestic striped horses so close to you that it doesn't seem real. They are aware of your crew's presence, but stay chill, perhaps seeing people and their weird appliances not for the first time.

Following your instructions, you carefully tread the tall grass to move a bit further from the parked vehicles and take some shots of the herd; you choose your favourite zebra - a mother with a little baby waving it's puny tail and constantly shoving its adorable snout under mother's belly for milk - and zoom in on her, setting quite a neat shot. After you settle the videocamera, you take out your personal one to take some photos, but suddenly the zebras perk up, ears twitching and chewing coming to an end. You lower your camera at first, confused by their reactions - you didn't hear anything? - but then lift it up againt to search for the source of zebras' worries through zoom.

And source of worries you find.

Two hunched silouettes, out in the open, dark manes fluffed up and tails in a clearly aggresive stance - a couple of enormous, compared to the zebras, hyenas are creeping up to them, hind legs tucked up under their bulky bodies, ready to pounce... and then one of them, a smaller one with darker fur, darts forward.

A hunting hyena is an impressive view, their speed exceeding what one might expect just looking at their burly, asymmetrical builds - but exactly that legs length difference allows them to speed so fast that your camera struggles to capture them. But what's impressive onscreen, is fucking terrifying in real life.

Because a herd of zebras is panicking at the sight of a predator closing in on one of them, and in panic they start to run.

You're in their way.

The sound of dozens of hooves hitting dry, solid ground mixes with your own blood pumping in your ears. In an act of brain malfunction, you somehow find yourself more worried about the expensive camera (it's not even yours) being trampled than yourself, and try to pick it up with the tripod - seconds dragging on like molten resin boiling under the cruel noon sun. The ground is trembling under the scared animals, dust and dry grass up in the air.

A high-pitched sound breaks you out of stupor. Loud cackling with an undertone of alarm gets closer too, and as you stumble backwards, a big dark form zooms past you, rushing fearlessly towards the fear-crazed zebras. It's reckless even for a carnivoure they're afraid of: nothing can guarantee that the herd will stop or turn away as the hyena approaches them head-on, and you prepare yourself to witness a gruesome scene of a hunter falling by the hooves of hunted.

But it somehow works. Last moment, the zebras notice the hyena flying at them with a scary laugh and change the direction of their fleeing route, less lucky among them falling and getting pushed over, but hyenas - more of them now, four, it seems? - don't bother pouncing the fallen ones, putting all their efforts into... simply chasing their prey away?

Confused and still stunned into a frozen mode, you watch the little baby zebra buck its tiny legs at a hyena barking at it lazily and clamping its huge maw, capable of crushing huge bones, on thin air. Trotting for a few more meters, the predator stalls and then simply turns away, casting you a glance before slowly treading back to its buddy. The one whose disheveled mane and wide stance you recognize immediately.

Blinking, you finally find yourself able to collect your equipment, although with trembling hands - your shoulders are still tense in a protective manner, and you flinch, when Kir rushes to you to help with the heavy camera.

"Oh my god, are you okay? I thought I'd shit myself when I saw them running at us," he looks sickly, you're probably no better. You dump the tripod and the camera into his arms happily, clutching your own, and walk on stumbling legs back to the rover.

You're met with a pair of bit wet eyes when you finally get to the car.

Somehow a single hyena - where did its buddies go? - doesn't seem all that scary after you nearly avoided being stomped by a hundred zebras, so you take a few more steps before finally remembering to be cautious. Kir is just a few meters away, loading the camera into the car, so it means he walked past the hyena unharmed, right?

You don't get to ask that question or shoo the animal away: just like yesterday, it appears up next to you in a gracious pounce, nuzzling your hip again. The noise that leaves its throat is absolutely horrid, an annoying screeching, sightly hoarse and just as high-pitched as its laugh. Wagging its tail, the hyena circles you several time, bumping into your legs - each time you don't respond or move, the screech gets only louder, until you give up.

"Stop it! Hush! S-stop yelling, shut up!" Bold of you to try and order a wild animal around. Maybe that's exactly why it works - the noise cuts off abruptly, the hyena taking a step back to plop its chonky ass on the ground. It looks at you just like a tamed dog would - mouth slightly agape in a toothy smile, head tilted and ears fluttering, as if it's eager to hear what else you have to say.

You're not made of steel to stay indifferent an wary at this sight.

"Huh. So you do listen sometimes. I guess you just hated my backpack that much," you still grumble at the hyena, and it flattens its round ears with guilt, slowly dipping down to the ground. Aren't they supposed to be like cats? But this one looks at you with the definition of puppy eyes. "You could've done worse... and I guess you saved me today. Thank you, Stinky."

The hyena lights up and sits back up with its chest puffed out as it hears you acknowledge the way it steered the scared herd away from you and your crew, but all its pride fizzles out as soon as you give it a name. You get a disapproving look and a loud giggle, clearly mocking your sense of humor in naming the hyena.

"Don't look at me like that, I can't sleep in my own sleeping bag now because of you. Have to share a tent with Kir," you nod at the young man sitting in the driver's sit with an amused expression, and the hyena turns to look at him too. Judging by the way Kir's smile fades, the look he recieved from the animal wasn't a kind one.

"Come on, we have to get a move on, still about fifty kilometers to cover today," he mutters, and you try to move past Stinky (oh yes, you're keeping the name) to the car, but it suddenly jumps to its feet and barrels at you again, rubbing at your legs and nuzzling your thighs. It even shoves its snout into your crotch, tail flailng up high, but the loud sound of an engine starting right behind it finally scares the weird animal away. It trots to the side, stops to look at you again, as if checking if you're still stumbling after being scared half to death by the herd, then resumes its leisurely pace, waving its tail.

You huff, getting into your seat, and dust your pants of some coarse fur the rascal left.

"Weird fucking guy," you mutter about the hyena more to yourself than yo Kir, who already jokes about you being a hyena whisperer. "And stinky, too."

You'll just have to hope his buddies won't try to follow into his pawsteps.

Part 1 | Part 1.5 | Part 3

Series masterlist | Main masterlist

Tagging: @elaineiswithyou-blog

[jesncin]

Thinking about Disney and how we talk about Cultural Representation

(concept art by Scott Watanabe)

Old essay originally written on Cohost in November 2023. With additions.

With all the promo stuff about Disney's upcoming animated film Wish, I can't help but think about Raya and the Last Dragon again. I spent a year intensively researching things about that movie and the discourse surrounding it for a series of videos on Xiran Jay Zhao's channel, and oh boy did that reveal a lot about the current way we talk about cultural representation in casual media criticism.

Lately we've grown a habit of looking at signifiers to culture, things like a cultural dish, a nod to a martial arts style, a piece of clothing, maybe a hairstyle, a weapon and so on, and then projecting a bunch of intentions onto the work regardless of authorial intent. I witnessed this a bunch of times in discussions surrounding Raya and the Last Dragon.

You basically get a bunch of 4d chess-style justifications for the lazy implementation of culture in Raya.

random examples cuz there's too many to name:

The movie will do something like make the leaders of the villain nation women, and people immediately assumed it was some kind of bespoke reference to Minangkabau matriarchical society.

the art book of Raya specifically stated that they purposely misplaced things as a stylistic fantasy choice "we could take something that is known and place it in an unexpected location, like coral in the desert and cacti in the snow". But when people saw a water buffalo placed in the desert they assumed it was some super clever environmental story decision.

The movie will tell you it includes things like Borobudur, Angkor wat, Keris, and most people will take their word for it without hesitation. Never mind that Southeast Asians could barely recognize these nods to our culture through how amalgamated the designs are.

(early concept art by Scott Watanabe)

Moving forward, I think we need to talk less about "what" parts of a culture are being represented in these movies, and more about HOW they're being included, we need to ask:

What is this piece of media's relationship with the cultures it represents?

Because Raya and the Last Dragon is not a cultural movie, it's a monolith film pitched and written by white people and a Mexican director with 2 SEA writers added later in production to avoid backlash. Culture serves the purpose of aesthetic set dressing in the film, as opposed to something that informs its themes and characters.

it wasn't even initially pitched as a Southeast Asian movie. The white writers who pitched it were going for a vague East Asian sci fi fantasy story under the working title "Dragon Empire". Southeast Asian culture was an aesthetic change added much later.

This is what happens when a corporation tries to put representational value on a shallow aesthetic. Because of the way Disney constantly marketed Raya as this big authentic cultural film, it primes its audience to read cultural intention in the most benign details. And when we get lost in the details, we lose sight of the bigger picture.

Contextualizing Cultural media criticism

(visual development art by April Liu)

We need to start demanding more context in our analysis. The next time we see a reference to culture in media we consume, take a step back and ask what purpose it serves in the narrative. And most importantly!! What Is Its Relationship With The Culture It Represents? We shouldn't just accept things at face value.

start asking yourself,

through what lens is this cultural dish and its spicy flavors being presented to us? Are the customs surrounding the food being respected?

If martial arts or dance is represented, how is it translated in the adaptation? Are you getting generic hollywood-fu or are you seeing specific movements with purpose and motivation? Are the philosophies or spiritual contexts of these traditions present in the text?

Are the clothing, hairstyles, and presentation of the characters being de-yassified through a colonial filter? Is the non-conformity of the cultures' different framework for gender presentation being adjusted to fit a more recognizable binary?

If language is present, what role does it serve? Is it presented as other through being exclusively used by villainous beings? Is it being made a monolith as one "non-English" language?

is this temple actually a place of worship or is it just a set piece for a goddang Indiana jones booby trap action fight sequence

This way, instead of unquestionably defending a piece of media because a character wore a traditional outfit one time, or because some characters took their shoes off at a temple, or because there were Arnis sticks in that one fight scene, we can approach the text with a more nuanced and holistic understanding of how culture informs narrative.

To quote Haunani K. Trask (author of From A Native Daughter):

“Cultural people have to become political… Our culture can’t just be ornamental and recreational. That’s what Waikiki is. Our culture has to be the core of our resistance. The core of our anger. The core of our mana. That’s what culture is for.”