evitcani-writes - Tumblr blog

[evitcani-writes]

Once again, we are social apes! Humans are animals and sometimes I trick my anxiety by thinking of things as “ah yes, the human engages with its group through ritual grunting—thus increasing its standing”

Also small talk leads to fascinating tangents. Like sometimes asking my coworkers about the weather will lead to them comparing it to their hometowns in different parts of the US, or China, India, Brazil… all kinds of different places. It offers you new perspectives.

the allergy i am seeing grow up around small talk in any form is troubling to me. do you know how to make friends with people in your physical environment? it typically starts with small talk. do you want to live in community? small talk. do you want to have the type of relationship with your neighbors where you can run over and borrow a battery for your smoke detector when it starts beeping at 10pm? small talk!! do you want leeway from your coworkers when you fuck up something small? you gotta be able to build a relationship and that's small talk, baybeee.

"but i don't need friends and i don't care about community!" okay, lone ranger, what about the people in your community who need you? "but i have social anxiety!" me too, bud! we simply must soldier on. making up lists of questions to ask people helps. and people are predisposed to be generous, i've found. even if you make some kind of mistake, what is this but the natural give and take of human interaction? nobody is perfect.

you were not put on this earth to live by yourself and then die. you need people and people need you. treat those around you with curiosity and generousness of spirit and you will gain so much goodwill in return.

[evitcani-writes]

Given this is the internet, I had to look this up.

This post doesn’t mention there are not one, but FOUR such letters with drawings.

Source: Archivblog Lippe

Unfortunately, these letters did contribute to the death of the then 80 year old Welman in 1669. He confessed after being tortured and was summarily executed.

According to Elmar M. Lorey—who has written some books and articles on German werewolf cases—Welman was a rich pharmacist accused of witchcraft by the letters in 1650. As he owned one pharmacy and leased another in the same county, he held a monopoly for the county. This created tension with his neighbors which led to the accusation.

Lorey considers this a rare example of a werewolf drawn by someone who is not a trained illustrator, representing an oral tradition of how werewolves were depicted which has now been lost.

Thinking about the werewolf from the hate mail Lemgo council pharmacist David Welman (1595 - 1669) got after being accused of being a werewolf

[evitcani-writes]

I went through the five stages of internet while looking up bumble bees.

stage 1: wow. i love bumble bees. 🙂

stage 2: they are so fuzzy. look at all these pictures of the bumbles

stage 3: i wish i could get over my instinctive fear of them. google explain.

stage 4: you can pet bumble bees???

stage 5: do NOT pet bumble bees!!! it messes up their delicate fuzzes they need for their important work!!!

[evitcani-writes]

Did I ever tell ya’ll I never once encountered Wyll during my first playthrough. I was trying to scour and be a perfectionist. I found Karlach just fine.

My friends have all been amazed I managed to completely miss the dude. I had no idea who the hell they were talking about.

If you're not bringing Wyll with you I'm sorry and I hope you get well soon

[evitcani-writes]

do you ever hear people talking about something and you’re like. fuck. let me be real for a second. i’m too much of a commie to have this conversation

[evitcani-writes]

my favorite out of context quotes from my archeology professor so far in no particular order

and floridians are just as human as you and me!

and the moral of the story is that there are no deadly snakes native to alaska

you might know this guy as one of the only archaeologists cool enough to be mentioned by indiana jones

it’s my dream to have my name said by harrison ford

i’m not going to apologize for having this class at 6am because you paid for it and it’s your fault. 

we don’t all dress like lara croft. i tried to get it to be a thing on a dig and my colleagues yelled at me. 

they were pretty good archaeologists except they were too racist to realize anything they found. 

i take back what i said about us not dressing like lara croft because lewis binford here is wearing nothing but short shorts and a cowboy hat. take notes for an academic halloween costume!

archaeologists can be good artists! not me, though. or anyone i know. but if you can draw just know you have options.

sometimes you find dead bodies when you dont really expect it and you just have to deal with it

archaeologists are the only people allowed to get exited when they find corpses. 

once i ruined thanksgiving dinner when i told my family i had gotten my degree in archaeology and my uncle commented he liked dinosaurs too

the closest i’ve ever been to a grizzly bear is when i left my glasses in my tent on a dig in alaska,  saw a big rock in the distance, and almost screamed

[evitcani-writes]

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[evitcani-writes]

Restored Conklin Slim Pocket Crescent Filler from 1923

Here’s my process of restoring it! I didn’t take great before pictures, but it wasn’t in great shape (and certainly didn’t work).

Below the cut is the original state and my process of restoration.

Original State

It came with a cracked and scuffed lid. The lid was pretty fragile. Light pressure would likely break it. The crescent and nib are 14k gold and the body was pretty “sunburnt” ebonite. The filler sac had melted and the shellac had calcified.

Process

First was a LOT of cleaning. By hand, sanding off the white… stuff from the lid. Then a lot of rounds of a hypersonic cleaning before everything was ready.

The ebonite needed re-dyed. I decided to go for a matte black and went the route of using Black 3.0 in light layers. Once completed, I painted the engraved letters to match the nib and crescent which was tricky.

On the lid, I used UV resin on the crack to strengthen it. Then sanded it mostly flat. It got the same treatment as the body with coats of Black 3.0.

I left everything to dry after spraying a coat of protectant. After another round of UV protective sealant and drying, everything was reassembled.

Attaching a new sac was interesting. As the shellac used in attaching latex ink sacs had calcified, I began a process of carefully whittling away each layer of old latex until I reached the ebonite feed tube. Finally got to that satisfying cinch of dropping the tube onto the feed tube and testing it worked.

Writes great! Has some feedback, but is very flexy. Fun to write with.

What the Process Should Look Like

If you can't tell, I'm not an expert at this. I don't know how well this will hold up to wear. The cap cracked in the same place when I screwed it on. I'll have to fix it again, but it doesn't affect the function of the pen, the ink has stayed pretty wet.

Many people think re-dyeing the ebonite to any capacity is hurting a historical object. I went this route so as to bring the pen in line with my own aesthetic (and its original state) while also being temporary and harmless to the pen itself. The paint and sealant can be easily peeled away without taking off the UV affected layer of ebonite (something which could cause significant harm).

I also used a lot of hypersonic cleaning to avoid having to use brushes which could harm the ebonite. The objective was preservation while wanting to keep the pen used as it was intended to be.

And what a beautiful little pen I've found in this one. Nothing writes quite like it except a dip pen. The tines flex beautifully, able to create wide pathways and sharp points in a moment while still easily writing as well as any rollerball for quick notes.

If you manage to get your hands on one, I urge you to consider restoration. They are beautiful little things, made to last. Plenty of videos on youtube can walk you through restoring the ink sacs.

[evitcani-writes]

every single time I grieve something I forget how to do it

[evitcani-writes]

Pens, inks and paper

Sailor Shikiori with Sailor Medium-Fine nib in Robert Oster’s Fire and Ice (“Can’t spell Ruse without”)

Conklin Duragraph with JoWo Omniflex nib in Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-Syogun (“Can’t spell Ruse”; “Can’t spell”)

Nahvalur Peter Draws with JoWo 1.1 Stub nib in Wearingeul’s Robinson Crusoe (“Rue”)

Paper is Midori MD Paper Cotton

Anyway it turns out our friend’s sword—Rue—was a manipulation demon this whole time

[evitcani-writes]

Anyway it turns out our friend’s sword—Rue—was a manipulation demon this whole time

[evitcani-writes]

(source)

Unsplash -  photography, illustration, & art

Pixabay - same as unsplash

Pexels - stock photos and videos

Getty Images - photography & illustration

Veceezy - vectors and clipart

Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)

StockSnap.io - stock photos

Canva - needs login but has lots of templates

Library of Congress - historical posters and photos

NASA - you guessed it

Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie

Even Adobe has some free images

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without plagiarizing! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own. 

Please add on if you know any more resources for free images <3

[evitcani-writes]

so i have a cat now

[evitcani-writes]

Got a Sailor Shikiori with a 14K medium nib.

Beautiful pen. My first nicer sailor, second 14k nib. Been fun to write with. The nib is stiff, gives some feedback. I have to use it gently, it doesn’t like pressure much.

The Celadon Cat by Diamine ink I used is a bit too light for this thin of a nib. Definitely thinner than western style medium nibs. Probably 0.3-0.5mm line width.

[evitcani-writes]

if you boop someone enough times you can deactivate their blog

[evitcani-writes]

I have gotten. A lot of notifications.

I'm at work I can't keep up with the boop economy help

[evitcani-writes]

the funniest part about the april fool’s boops is it weaponizes a tumblr user’s need to both be annoying and receive validation