Wait, what?

anyway this particular group does (or did?) have kind of a nucleus of very committed members who were more tight knit and ended up taking on a lot of the practical work themselves. they were your more serious vanguard party type communists, very much structure and role enjoyers, which is probably why things eventually played out the way they did. they took their commitments seriously and were constantly sort of irked that others saw the voluntary nature of the group as a reason to deprioritise it in favour of what might be life necessities but are still basically capitalist pursuits. fair, maybe.

about this time last summer, that inner circle apparently decided to get more serious about recruitment and figure out how to do outreach in a way that would bring in more committed membership to reliably spread the workload. the way these things go, a couple of these guys had originally met through a local gay bar's drag nights (specifically the drag king circuit) so one of the first things they did was draft in another friend who did marketing for those events already and get him pushing for more eyeballs on their event listings via twitter and instagram.

now, bar guy was very very good at this. one of his big innovations was the idea of using club promoter type strategies to get more students more consistently engaged with the group's activities. that basically meant appointing some of the more active members as 'outreach officers' and encouraging them to do things like organise socials for new volunteers and train those people in turn as recruiters, with a tiny bit of a floating budget for pot lucks and house parties every couple of months.

this worked astonishingly well, like beyond anyone's wildest expectations. at a certain point they had brand new members throwing their own parties just to introduce their friends to the people who recruited them, who in turn had been recruited by the volunteers the outreach officers trained. it worked so well that it got to be a problem because most of these newer members were also relatively new to organising and didn't have a whole lot of theory. it was getting very vibes based and suddenly there was a huge influx of people to handle who most original members didn't know. and also, because they'd asked a gay guy who promoted gay club nights to organise all this peer-to-peer recruitment, it turned out almost all the new members were gay men.

in itself that's not necessarily a problem, but obviously it presents a challenge for a group that's supposed to be open and diverse. especially because outside of the little clique who started all this, most of the old guard were not gay men. it didn't blow up into the kind of messy schism it could have, fortunately, but a lot of the older members (especially those who were less into the hardline soviet-nostalgia communist utopianism of the main organisers) decided around this point that they didn't feel the group was a good fit for them any more, and split.

so now the inner circle had a new problem. the remaining group was overwhelmingly now made up of very sweet well intentioned young gay men who wanted to volunteer with this cool voluntary circle of other young gay men who liked to party, and vanishingly few of them actually knew a whole lot about mao or lenin or the practicalities of community organising or what have you. but club guy was like "don't worry I've got this", and suddenly out of nowhere started producing all this orientation literature and politics 101 material that he was chain emailing to his army of new recruits and recruiters. like he just had all this shit ready to go. he had slogans, he had essays, he had these weird point by point breakdowns of what karl marx would have to say about your college courses and why communism was like actually a lot like bdsm if you think about it.

you will probably not be shocked to learn that it very quickly came out he had been generating all this shit with chatgpt. the group went into absolute meltdown, the vanguard party shut down their website and disassociated themselves completely from the whole mess, and the last I heard they're back to organising with some of the older group members and whoever turns up whenever they turn up. but club guy was unrepentant, he'd already sent out all his ideologyslop to his recruiters, who had sent it to their guys who sent it to their guys, who I guess are still out there recruiting twinks into the fully automated contentless communism mill,

Mammoth Shaped Spear Thrower, 16,000 to 13,500 Years Old, 'Ice Age Art Now' Exhibition, Cliffe Castle, Keighley, Yorkshire

The value of a good spear thrower shows in this fragment which was repaired to keep it functioning. The mammoth's tail, later restored with a bone insert, originally curled over to form the hook. When the handle broke it could not be mended again.

The mammoth is sculpted for effect rather than realism. The holes that look like eyes are too large and incorrectly positioned. They once contained inserts creating an awesome appearance. The small ears are right, and the tusks are on the sides of the broken shaft. The legs pirouette unnaturally but the broad, snowshoe feet are realistic.

Yeah…I think he just uses our texts as his own personal tumblr at this point

Look at the amazing art by M.K. For my Winterhawk Big Bang! I LOVE IT! It’s for my Space AU!

This scene just came to me. Accidental-Prostitute!Clint and Trying-to-get-back-in-the-game!Bucky. Wrote it to get it out of my mind so I could concentrate on my Big Bang.

So, his interview went to shit, the dog-walking’s keeping rent covered, but Clint’s down to his last few tins of food, and he really needs a fucking drink.

A drink he can’t afford.

Lucky’s with Kate, and Clint’s out because there’s only so long he can stare at the walls of his lousy apartment that costs way too much to rent before he actually goes mad. So he’s at a bar, looking for someone who might buy him a drink. It’s not the first time, and if he pitches it right he can get through an entire night without needing a penny.

Of course, when he doesn’t pitch it right, he ends up beat up and washing dishes in the back. There are a couple of bars down the block where he’s not allowed anymore - photo on the wall and everything. Turns out they like it when you pay for your drinks. Who knew? But it’s near to closing time and Clint’s willing to try his luck.

There’s a guy at the bar whose eyes have darted his way a couple of times: pretty, broody. If Clint’s apartment didn’t smell of damp and desperation he’d be thinking about taking him back there, but he’ll settle for a drink. It’s been a long week. God knows he needs something.

“Hey,” he says, sauntering up to the guy, who glances up out of the corner of his eye, sly through pretty eyelashes.

The eyelashes aren’t the only thing that’s pretty. This guy is out of Clint’s league. Clint should be buying him drinks. He’s built like an action star with a face like a model. Abort. Abort. Clint’s about to apologise and claim he mistook the guy for someone else when the guy opens his mouth.

“Hey,” Eyelashes says, his lips curling in what wouldn’t pass for a smile on a passport photo, but Clint thinks maybe it is for him. For all his pretty, his face seems built to scowl. Clint really wants to make his day better. “Can I get you drink?” Eyelashes asks.

Well… that was easy.

Turns out everything’s easy tonight. Pretty guy’s called Bucky, apparently, buys him two drinks in a row. Maybe he’s noticed that the rips in Clint’s jeans aren’t exactly there for style, or that the t-shirt is tight because it’s old and too small, rather than a deliberate fashion choice (although the choice was deliberate: Clint’s success rate at getting free stuff is way higher when he’s wearing his lucky purple shirt). Clint doesn’t mind so much, he’s not too proud right now, his past has taught him to never turn your nose up at a free drink, and it seems like maybe this evening’s turning out to be a bit better than the rest of his week has been.

Bucky’s funny as well as pretty, with a sense of humour that sneaks up on you and stabs you in the gut when you least expect it. When Clint finally notices that he’s down one arm, he tells him – with a completely straight face – that he lost it in a poker game. Clint’s momentary gaping fish expression earns him another smile.

Bucky’s smiles are just as stealthy and startling as his sense of humour, lighting up his eyes that little bit, making crows-feet crinkle at the edges of them, and Clint’s feeling a little like a dick for aiming to stiff this guy out of some money. But his clothes are good quality, and he hasn’t complained about Clint not paying his way. In fact, Clint’s pretty sure they’re flirting with each other.

Well, Bucky’s flirting, Clint’s making unsubtle innuendoes about shot glasses. But that’s what counts as flirting for him.

Then the night’s pushing to a close, last orders is called and Bucky tilts his head, raises an eyebrow.

“How much for the evening?” Bucky asks and the only reason Clint doesn’t choke on the drink he’s swigging down is because he doesn’t work out what Bucky’s asking until he’s already swallowed it.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, his head spinning wildly. He opens his mouth to ask what the hell is going on, but then he’s reminded of the fact that he’s got no food in his apartment, a dog who eats like a horse, and his only job is playing with rich people’s dogs in the park (it’s an awesome job, but the pay is shit).

So when he opens his mouth to say ‘what?’ what actually comes out is “that depends on what you’re after.”

[image: colored line drawing of Clint Barton (Hawkeye) from Marvel. He's wearing a crop top that has a cut-out over his chest, arm bands around his upper arms, a quiver that straps across his chest, joggers that are tucked into knee-high boots, and dramatic pointed sunglasses. end ID]

> looks inside

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 6/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata