Sure sex is great and all but have you ever fully disassembled a TWSBI fountain pen to fully clean every nook and cranny of it?

could you walk us through what notebooks & journals & pens /etc you use - they look so good!

I would be SO happy to, you have no idea!!

Alright, let's fucking GOOOO~

Starting off with my current "workhorse" pens - I have like *checks notes* 36 fountain pens and a bit too many inked up atm, but these are just the ones I'm currently reaching for or have inked up more often than not:

TWSBI Go (F): Kinda ugly! But also kinda cute! It's cheap and works great (I friggin love TWSBI pens tbh) and it has a little hole on the cap where you can attach a lanyard or charms, like I did! Makes it cuter imo and it's kind of my emotional support pen these days.

Opus88 Pocket (EF): This 2022 edition has a little Moon tarot design on the cap so it's pretty much the pen I use exclusively for my witchy/tarot practice journals! A lil bummed the cap doesn't post, especially since its a shorter pocket-sized pen, but not a deal breaker and I still love it.

Pilot Custom 823 (F): My grail pen that I've literally coveted for years and just recently acquired at the DC Pen Show this weekend! It's only been a day but I think it could potentially become my favorite pen. Ever.

Pilot Prera (CM): This is my third Prera lol. I just think they're great and really underrated pens! Also a recent acquisition from the DC Pen Show and this cursive M nib is suuuuper fun to write with.

Pilot Vanishing Point (EF): My favorite pen for planning! Super fine-tipped for writing task lists and schedules and love that it's so convenient/quick-draw with the click mechanism.

(I'm totally a Pilot pen ho, can you tell? asdjflaglsg)

Journals/Planners/Notebooks under cut–

Sterling Ink B6 Common Planner: For a good chunk of this year, I was in this planner because I honestly love the size and all the layouts. Super practical and flexible as a system. 10/10 would go back. I've used it to plan, as a reading journal, as a tarot log...

But I get the itch to move around so it's been sitting a little unused since like June, oop.

Leuchtturm A6: I started craving something tiny and minimal so I've been bullet journaling in this pocket notebook for the last month or two and I'm really enjoying it!

Standard-sized Tomoe River Paper notebook: This is pretty consistent in that I don't change up the system itself, but I'm in and out of it for memory keeping/scrapbook journaling! It's almost always a Tomoe River paper notebook of SOME kind that I usually buy in A5 size to go to FedEx and get it cut down to standard. Though I'm thinking of getting a blank Midori MD A5 to have cut down next time - I've been liking the freedom of blank pages for journaling instead of anything lined or gridded.

I really need to catch up with it tbh, but I love sitting in an explosion of printed photos, stickers, and washi and going ham with the pages.

(I do have a flip through of my January-March 2022 pages on YouTube)

Midori MD Cotton B6 Slim: I also have this sketchbook that sorta turned into a visual sketch diary of sorts. I fell off a while ago but want to get back into it because it's super fun to work in and to look back on!

Wide-sized Cosmo Air Light notebook & A5 Filofax Malden: These are my tarot/witchy journals. Grimoires I guess? One is for journaling and all my messier notes while the other is more for reference and ease of organization.

A5 Leuchtturm: I didn't know if I should include this guy, but I've been writing it in a lot recently so I guess I will lol. This is like truuuly a miscellaneous™ notebook.

I got this A5 notebook back in 2017 to use as my very first bullet journal, then found out that this size is personally waaaay too big for me to use as a bullet journal so I hopped off of it pretty quick. It now sits on my desk because since it's mostly blank I'll just pick it up to use it to write literally A N Y T H I N G.

Most recently, I wrote like 5 pages in one night on notes for a fanfiction piece I was working on (I'm not a writer, this fic is never gonna see the light of day by anyone but me lololol. Hyperfixation is so wild; I've put 80k+ words within just 10 days into it so far and it's been hella therapeutic.)

That's all, I think!?

It's funny because I actually have a NEW notebook arriving tomorrow that I'm going to try out as a bujo/commonplace/omni journal of sorts?? I might write an update post after I've set that up and see how I like it <3

I FUCKING LOVE PENS!

What are some great dip pens you would recommend to somebody who hasn't the slightest clue on inks or anything? (And what are some spicy takes on pens or pencils you agree on?)

Me too!! Don't really know much about dip pens hah, but when it comes to fountain pens, lamy safari and twsbi swipe and eco have been good to me so far! Best I have with dip pens though is that glass ones seem pretty alright, might be bit scratchy if its cheap but you can sand them, don't really get much width flexibily compared to what you'd get with things like zebra g nibs (I'd assume, haven't tried them myself but I do want to) Also uhhh, the spiciest take I can think of is that i Loathe ink cartridges, they feel impractical and wasteful to me and go against the whole eco-friendliness of fountain pens, and I hate when they come as a bonus with pens because I want to use MY inks, so they just take up space because I don't want to throw them out either.

tell me abt ur fountain pens pls

you should not have sent this while i was eating half a pint of ben and jerrys. the autism levels are about to be catastrophic

WELL. i own eight pens now, with a fountain pen revolution himalaya V2 with an ultraflex nib on the way! the most expensive i own is the twsbi diamond 580 in iris, which i regret not buying in a stub, since the iris-finish nibs aren't sold seperately... a common twsbi L 😔

my favorites are..,,,, omfg looking at my pens i cant choose

my least favorite of the ones i own is definitely my pilot metropolitan. the grip section SUCKS, the ink capacity is SHITTY, you can't even eyedropper convert it because it'd degrade the aluminium, and the nib on mine is skippy and scratchy. AND the sharp stepdown to the section hurts my hand. FUCK the pilot metropolitan i have no idea why people like it. fuck the metropolitan

another notable failure is my ooly splendid, which sucks major ass. it doesn't even have an o-ring for a proper seal from the air so it just dries out and gets gunky with ink boogers. WHICH SUCKS BECAUSE I LOVE HOW IT WRITES!!!!! I LOVE HOW IT WRITES BUT I HATE CLEANING IT SOOO MUCH AND THE INK BOOGERS ARE THE WORST AND THEY DONT EVEN SELL THEIR OWN CONVERTERS YOU HAVE TO USE A PARKER ONE!!!! i need to resell my splendid and metro but income when youre on disability in the u.s. is weird

p.s. i love moonman, rebranded to majohn because of twsbi being dickheads but they're always moonman in my heart. i LOVE the m2 and the n6 is sooo novel and fun to use. the m2 in particular has an ink capacity that is honestly fucking ridiculous, it is SO fun. they also make a pretty reliable pilot vanishing point dupe! be warned, some of their pens are Shittáy so you need to look at the reviews before you buy a random one

SOME BITCHING:

i hate brands like sailor and benu that charge HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS for UGLY PLASTIC SHIT. just because you plated the clip with gold doesnt mean you get to charge $250 for partially translucent shitty looking plastic you fucking highway robbers

Drop the $50 fountain pen stationary sites 🥺

my favourite places to snoop around are cultpens [best ink selection in the UK imo], jetpens, andy's pens [mix of old stock and vintage stuff], the writing desk and thepencompany. gouletpens has a youtube channel that i keep abreast of but i don't like buying from them because they're obsessed with noodler's who i fucking hate. fountain pen network is a great resource but website seems to be down right now. i'm gonna use this as an excuse to waffle now bc i love pens thank you.

at the moment i'm most interested in the TWSBI iris colourways (rainbow anodised metal !!!) [piston fill / vac fill] also their rose gold and jade green eco-t. i like the look and feel of brass pens, there's a few available but the traveler's company one seems to have best reviews atm. kaweco's is a very nice design though. have heard good things about opus88 and i have my eye on the halo. conklin duragraph is a lot less fun looking than most pens i'm into but they are really nice to write with and last forever.

this one [sailor hi-ace neo] is actually very cheap but are apparently the best starter calligraphy pens available right now. ferris wheel press have this gorgeous pen i'm very curious about but i've never tried any of their ink.

my favourite that i own so far is moonman c1. completely impractical for carrying around with me but i insist on doing it anyway. i really like lamy nibs but all the ones i like the look of have irritatingly tiny ink capacity. most of the time i'm just using a set of beat up old wing sun 3008s because you can get 4 for less than 20£ on amazon and as long as you take care of the nibs they're very hardwearing. it's basically the store brand version of a TWSBI diamond so i would recommend those over the 3008 if you can afford it.

some of my favourite inks: l'artisan pastellier [callifolio equinoxe 6 / classic vert lumiere] robert oster [signature blue denim] pilot [iroshizuku yama-budo / tsutstuji / tsukushi] diamine [soft mint / earl grey / writer's blood / monboddo's hat / peach haze] herbin [bleu calanque]

i also desperately still want this colorverse special edition set the colours are soooooo nice [new horizons]. for years you couldn't buy colorverse anywhere in the uk so now that it's available here it's taking immense self-control to not go absolutely batshit.

and honorable mention to this bad boy because she's 140$ but i want her so bad: YSTUDIO classic revolve

What's your favorite pen and ink?

I'm going to assume you mean fountain pens, because I have a ridiculous amount of thoughts about those, so:

my favourite pen is the TWSBI Eco. it's so good and so inexpensive for what it is, and it comes in so many colours and I love that (I think I have six of them now). my second favourite is the Lamy Aion, mostly because it's a bit wider and heavier - my hand hates writing but with this pen it's okay (relatively speaking, it still hurts after a while). and a new favourite is a random Pelikan that I found while cleaning my pens the other day - my friend gave me a few old pens that she had no use for a while ago and this was one of them. apparently it's from the 1970s and has a gold nib, and it writes really well (especially for a pen that was filled with ink for years, maybe decades).

my favourite ink brand is Diamine; I have way too many of their inks. I love inks that have sheen and/or shimmer, right now I'd say my favourites are probably Skull & Roses, Maureen, Polar Glow (those three are almost identical but they're different okay! they're not the same! I needed all of them!! :'D) and Writer's Blood. a few favourites from other brands are Souten (Sailor), Emerald of Chivor (J. Herbin), Lavender Purple (Montblanc), Apache Sunset (Noodler's) and Verdigris (Rohrer & Klingner).

like I said, I have a lot of opinions about this stuff, and I have... way too much ink. actually, here's a photo of my ink sample cards, since I just looked through them to remember what my favourites are called (these are only the ones I have in bottles, I have more than that in samples 😬):

and here's what one of them looks like (this ink is seriously so fucking beautiful in real life, I don't use it often but I love looking at it)

I'm sorry for going into so much detail about a topic that no one else cares about 😬

You're going to be the drain of all my birthday money with all this talk about fountain pens RIP

Anyway, I'm hooked, do you have any recommendations for pens that feel really nice but are under $100?? Do they exist?

To make matters worse: I'm a lefty, so I don't know if I even could write with one. But I'm also an artist, so I could try drawing.

Thanks for all your advice!!

I regret nothing, let your wallet suffer as mine has!

please god no don't be like me

Not only do the pens you ask about exist, I have several recommendations for fountain pens under $100, fret not! There's a fountain pen for every budget, but I especially have some great recs if you want something that feels luxurious without paying top dollar.

My top recommendation in your case would be the Lamy Safari or the AL-Star (and you can go for one of the special limited editions that are on sale pretty much everywhere right now; you can find the regular editions under $20 at Amazon and some other online retailers; the AL-Star is a little more expensive).

Here's my reasoning:

1. They're not expensive.

2. Interchangeable nibs. Find that the fine is too thick? Why buy a whole ass other pen? Buy an extra-fine nib! And yes, technically many fountain pens have interchangeable nibs, but the Lamy's are by far the simplest I've encountered.

3. Lamy makes a left-handed nib (designated by LH). Now, this might make a big difference or not, but I have some lefty friends who swear by them, and they're not hard to find, nor are they more expensive than the regular nibs.

4. They're light. This can be a good thing or a bad one depending solely on your own preference, but since you seem to be interested in trying to draw with it, lighter is usually better (according to my fountain-pen peeps who actually draw with them!)

OK, so, it's no secret I love the Lamy Safari/AL-Stars -- they're my daily drivers, and have been for several years. However, not everyone is a fan, and that's OK! Here are some things people don't like so much about it:

1. The triangular grip -- while the grip is there to make sure you keep the pen at the correct position when you write, some people don't like it, because they grip the pen a little differently. This may be especially true for lefties -- if you've adapted your grip to write overhand, for example, the angle may be a little bit uncomfortable.

2. It doesn't come with a converter. Yeah, this one bothers me as well. There are plenty of cheap pens around that give us a converter to use bottled ink. The Safari doesn't -- if you want a converter to come with your pen, you have to shell out for the AL-Star. Lamy, why??

3. The line may be thicker than you expect. This is especially true for people who want very, very fine lines (usually for sketching, or if they have handwriting like my wife's, whose writing resembles morse code to the naked eye). This is true for most European-style nibs. If you want like, hairline-fine nibs, you gotta go for the Japanese extra fines!

If you'd like to delve much, much deeper into the countless other recommendations I have, see below the cut! You've been warned!

Here are some other recommendations, from least expensive to most expensive! I'm attaching links to certain fountain pen retailers, but feel free to look for these models elsewhere.

1. Jinhao X450/x750 ($6-$10)

Pros: Cheap, hefty, comes with a converter, several colour options

Cons: May be too heavy, nib comes in medium (and it can be juicy!). Luckily, you can buy separate #6 nibs that you can swap out.

2. Jinhao 8802 ($12-$20)

Pros: Cheap, pretty, good heft, comes with a converter, and comes in a fine nib!

Cons: ... struggling to think of any, tbh! I love this little pen!

3. Hong Dian Forest Series ($15-$20)

Pros: IT PRETTY and also one of the most reliable pens I own. Comes with a converter, fine nib options, it's all-metal.

Cons: May be a little too slim if you have big hands!

4. Diplomat Magnum ($18-$25)

Pros: Ink-window so you can see your ink level, converter included, soft-touch nib (it can take a bit more pressure from people not used to fountain pens), several colour options

Cons: It's light. Very, very light, and some people really don't like that. It also has a triangle grip, so avoid if you're not into that.

5. Platinum Plaisir ($17-$43)

Pros: Japanese fine nib, so it goes very fine. Also, the Platinum seal on the cap is fucking phenomenal -- this shit NEVER dries out.

Cons: These nibs are pretty stiff and have a little feedback (a Platinum quirk). Also, the crazy difference in price reflects the addition of special editions.

See also: Platinum Preppy, Prefounte (cheaper!) and Procyon (expensive!)

6. Pilot Metropolitan ($15-$30)

Pros: classy look, good weight, smoothest fine nibs you'll find pretty much everywhere

Cons: a converter is included, but it is the shittiest one imaginable!

See also: Pilot Kakuno, Explorer (close or cheaper), Prera (expensive)

7. TWSBI Diamond 580 AL R ($50-$70)

Pros: It's a piston filler -- that means instead of that measly little cartridge or converter, you get a massive chunk of the pen body to house the ink! And it's a demonstrator, so you can see it sloshing around. It also has Fine and Extra-Fine nib options.

Cons: the TWSBI fine nibs are closer to the Lamy fines than the Pilot/Platinum ones -- they're overall juicier, which may be a hindrance for lefties.

See also: TWSBI ECO (cheaper, unless we're talking special editions), TWSBI Vac700r (expensive!)

8. Lamy Studio ($70-$80)

Pros: It's beautiful, comes with a converter, and has a nice weight to it without being too hefty. Plus, it takes the standard Lamy nibs -- from the Safari, AL-Star, LX, Aion, Scala, Logo, CP1... etc etc etc!

Cons: The usual with Lamy nibs (thicker line than you may expect). Plus, some people may find the grip a bit slippery (it's stainless steel).

9. Kaweco AL-Sport ($80-$90)

Pros: This little pen can take a beating. Toss it in your backpack, your laundry (pls don't), run it over with your car (pls pls don't). It's very compact, as it's a pocket pen -- fits in your palm!

Cons: It... tiny. Very tiny, with teeny ink capacity to match. No converter. Short cartridges only. Clip sold separately...

See also: Kaweco Sport Classic (cheaper, along with Frosted Sport and Skyline Sport!), Kaweco Sport Brass (same price or higher) Kaweco Perkeo (cheapest!)

WHEW, there you go. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg--there are many, many more pens around in this price range and below (and obviously, above). Have fun in the rabbit hole!

If you click read more, you are probably exposing yourself to the worst and cringiest content I have ever put online.

Favorite Pen: Kaweco Steel Sport.

Favorite Ink: Fuyu-Syogun.

Will take approximately five armageddons to destroy, along with a solid, water-resilient ink.

Favorite Pen: TWSBI ECO Black Rose Gold, medium nib

Favorite Ink: Writer’s Blood

Edgy, flashy, yet ultimately practical and a hell of a workhorse.

Favorite Pen: Sailor Pro Ruby Red, Broad Nib

Favorite Ink: Baystate Blue

Because fuck literally anything that isn’t stained.

Favorite Pen: Kaweco Brass Sport

Favorite Ink: Noodler’s Walnut

A weighty pen with an unforgettable weight that gains character with age, with a distinct ink color

Favorite Pen: Kuretake Yumuginga Dream Galaxy Antler

Favorite Ink: Bungubox First Love

Expensive blue pen, expensive blue ink. Because she deserves it.

Favorite Pen: Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age, Medium Nib

Favorite Ink: Noodler’s Eel Black

Carved from basaltic rock from a volcano, shimmering in the light with it’s gold and bronze, inked with the blackest ink you can find.

Favorite Pen: Pilot Cavalier Marbled Black and Red, fine nib

Favorite Ink: Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts

A reliable brand, with fitting colors and a waterproof ink.

Favorite Pen: Opus 88 Omar Amethyst

Favorite Ink: Diamine Golden Sands

A wicked purple exterior, with a not-so-hidden golden interior.

Favorite Pen: Eboya Ricchiku, Blue-Green, Fine Nib

Favorite Ink: Iroshizuku Chiku-Rin

A green bamboo-styled fountain pen, with a fine nib to make the natural green last much longer

Favorite Pen: Pilot Cavalier, Metallic Pink, Medium Nib

Favorite Ink: Noodler’s Ottoman Azure//Robert Oster Aussie Gold

A slim pen with colors to match it’s owner, and a small capacity so a swap between the relaxing blue and intense yellow is never too far away.

Pretty Purple Pens 🖋💜

Here is most of my fountain pen collection 🖋 Can ya tell what my favorite color is?? 😱😂

From left: TWSBI Eco (M), Monteverde Monza 3 (M), Platinum Plaisir Amabie edition (F), Platinum Preppy (F), Pilot Plumix (M), and Pilot Metropolitan (F).

My favorites in order:

TWSBI Eco

The Eco is a banger 💣 it has good looks, personality, and it writes smooooth as buttah. It looks very modern but has an updated, yet old school filling mechanism which I appreciate. It's a juicy, inky pen-just the way I like 'em! It reminds me of the Pilot V7s that I have been using for YEARS (still my favorite non-fountain pen, hands down 👌🏾). I really like the piston filling mechanism vs using converters. It's definitely convenient not having to take apart the pen to fill it. It also holds a shitton more ink to boot. I'm a lazy bitch so it means that I can go longer in between fillings 😂 The M nib let's down a fat, juicy line and I'm so excited to use it with a shimmery ink ✒

I'm really obsessed with this pen model and I have decided to collect all the special edition colors that catch my eye. I already have two more Ecos on the way! Expect more in-depth reviews of the Eco soon 🤑

Platinum Plaisir

The Plaisir is such a beautiful pen that's suspiciously cheap! (I got it on sale for $17) It's actually tied for 2nd place with its even cheaper sister, the Preppy ($4) in terms of quality and bang-for-your-buck 💵 For a F nib (they have the exact same nib), they write smooth with little to no scratchiness or skips (which I appreciate) and even though I write bigger than what the nib calls for it still makes my writing look good. They also don't bleed through on cheap paper, which is mostly what I use 👌🏾

The pearlescent aluminum finish is sleek, expensive looking, and apparently scratch resistant; I appreciate the latter attribute since I'm a fucking klutz. The Platinum pens also have a special mechanism in the cap that prevents the nibs from drying out from disuse for at least a year! That's good enough reason to keep them in my rotation. The regular version has a M nib (which I prefer), so I'm going to pick it up in the future.

Platinum Preppy

The Preppy was my second fountain pen! It was the one that really made me fall in love with using them vs my rollerball/ballpoint pens! (I've talked about why that is in the Plaisir section above). It’s a cheapie, and it looks/feels like it. It stays in my pen rotation mostly because of the Violet cartridge it came with. I'm in love with the ink color! They don't make it in bottled form, sadly 😔 but I don't mind buying more violet carts for it... It's that good. The carts are also usable in the Plaisir, which is a nice bonus for me 😄 The only drawback is it only comes in either EF or F nibs, and I really prefer M to write with 😔

Pilot Metropolitan

The Metropolitan is a great pen. It's just kinda... Boring. I like the design and it writes nice and smooth, but I guess my boredom comes from the basic ass black ink in using with it. I love purple ink, but I figured I need at least one grown up ink color on hand in case I need to adult... Whenever that'll be 🤷🏾‍♀️ I do use it from time to time just to keep the ink flowing from the cart installed. I'm still debating whether to keep it my "boring ink pen" or put something more exciting in to inspire me to use it more.

Pilot Plumix

The Plumix is a pretty unique looking pen but it feels cheap. It's not a bad pen; it's just that it came with a *shudder* basic ass blue cart instead of the purple I was expecting. I'm going to turn it into an eyedropper once I get around to it, and then I'll do a more in depth review with it. I haven't used it beyond a few doodles to test and see if it worked after I installed that blasé blue cartridge.

Monteverde Monza 3

Last, but not least... The Monza is a decent pen. It came with 3 nib pieces (F, M, Omniflex) that you can install so it's like having 3 pens in one, which is definitely unique. It currently has the M nib installed ✒ It's a smooth wet writer that I actually enjoy using. My problem with the pen?

I was cheated, tricked, bamboozled.

Apparently it's just a rebranded Jinhao 992 with the additional nibs/converters thrown in and marked up 12x the price. I didn't find that out until after I got the pen and I was hunting for in depth tips and tricks 😤 Maaaan I was so upset! I literally could have bought a 6 pack of them for $12 on Amazon, and even cheaper on Alibaba or eBay! Ugh 😥 But it taught me a valuable lesson: do 👏🏾 your 👏🏾 research 👏🏾 diligently before buying a new fountain pen. I'm lucky I've had no issues with it, but the betrayal has left a bad taste in my mouth so I don't think I'll ever buy another Monteverde pen.

I have nothing against cheap Chinese pens (I own a few and love them) but I knew what I was getting into and adjusted my expectations accordingly (and paid a lot less for them 😒)

Reflecting on poor financial choices - HD Remaster

TL;DR: Earning my own wage really didn’t help my pen addiction. My pen collection now totals an amount where I could’ve bought a reasonably nice used car, but where would be the fun in that? However, I only bought some of the pens I’ll mention, all the Montblancs for examples where gifts from relatives who took a liking in that their old pens will be loved and used once again. But I will keep to the chronological order. As spoilered before, I recieved a Meisterstück 149 in platinum trim with my initials engraved into the clip. It’s sexy as fuck, it’s got a gorgeous BB nib which is very smooth, very wet and makes even my scribble look stylish. In short, it’s a brilliant pen, and deserves the name masterpiece. There is loads of information about it out there, I don’t have to reiterate what others can do better. I personally recommend Figboot on Pens’ Review over on YouTube, I like his no nonsense style. Then one of my older relatives came along and gifted me to Meisterstück 144 pens. One a cartridge converter with a satisfying cap click and even tho it is very, very thin and light, it is well balanced and I find it a comfortable writer. It is nice, but wasn’t my highlight by far. My highlight was a 144 with Montblancs old telescoping piston mechanism, a star in beautifully yellowed ebony, a nib that while actually very feedbacky requires no effort to use, is bouncier and softer than your girlfriends tiddies and just a joy to use. It’s still unreal to me that I can call this pen which is borderline 70 years old, my own. The best thing is: It works like a charm, it’s nearly embarassing how well everything still works. Now, two Lamys. I bought a Lamy Persona in black titanium oxide and gold trim because I fell in love with the flush clip. It is a gorgeous pen with a nib that on Tomoe River feels like writing on glass but isn’t very wet. The quadruple start threads ensure that the cap is of in less than a third of a turn, in short: it is a great notetaker, quite the looker with a styling thats as fresh now as it was in 1990, a satisfying posting mechanism for the cap wich reassuringly clicks and doesn’t even backweight the pen that much, but I rarely post pens, quick threads and a nib that is basically designed for craptastic paper. Then I bought a Lamy 27 because one of my trainee teachers showed me an old advertisement for it and I just had to have it. It is lovely, even with a crack in cap, but it writes well, it came in its original box and with its instruction and damn, it’s a good pen, again, with a very timeless styling, just the basic cigar shape and few trim pieces. Bulletproof piston mechanism too. And then I made a mistake. I reread ukfountainpens review of the S.T. Dupont Line D/Elysee and decided that I needed a bit of french styling and while searching for the Elysee I stumbled upon someone selling ther S.T. Dupont Olympio in Laque de Noir (Or at least he claimed that). The urushi laquer with what appears to gold flakes inside looks stunning, very fitting for late autumn and holy shit, everyone who raved on and on about Duponts superiour cap click: You were right. This pen got me that fucking hooked on Dupont with its looks, hinged clip and glasslike nib (even better than the Persona which it on its own conquered my collection regarding smoothness) that I ordered a Elysee two days later, as I wanted a specific model since I found the version with the diamond dimple much classier than the ones with a laquared shield and damn. Its looks are so stunningly simple yet detailed that my moms boyfriend declared it his favourite pen in my collection while my uncle, who gifted me the 149 declared that in case of my very untimely departure from the mortal plane he would lay claim to both the 149 as we share the same initials and the Elysee as it is as timeless as the Meisterstück, even blacker, arguably more classy and is just stunning. I will borrow this quote from Anthony: “You could call all this boring, but somehow the Line D / Elysee comes off as composed, well executed, classy, versatile. Like a well-made grey suit, you could use the Elysee every day at work, and nobody would ever notice it, but you’d never find it lacking, never tire of its unassuming style.” It is simply gorgeous.The engraving is sharp as a knifes edge, the capping even resonates a bit more than the Olympio, perhaps to better emulate the opening of Duponts iconic lighters and I could go on for days about why this fountain pen has probably set an end to my permanent pen buying as there are very few pens out there which I find as visually appealing or write as good (pains me to say, but for about half the price of a 149 its a better writer. A 149 is still worth every cent to me, as it has a century long heritage, is a pen that basically serves as the template for classic pen design with its cigar shape, has a piston filler and is comfortabe, but while I find it’s nib sexier, it isn’t as smooth. But my true recommendation is: Buy both, they look like to fine gentleman about to offer you otherworldly opportunities next to each other) I will probably buy myself a Lamy 2000 with an EF nib as I am curious about this classic, but for now, I don’t see myself making any additions to my fountain pens. I currently have 15 of my 27 pens inked, three of those are for work (a TWSBI Eco and two Reforms, one for calligraphy as a textmarker) and I want to get at least a few of these pens out of my system as it is very unlikely, that I’ll ever use or be able to use them again.

JESUS FUCK YOUR PENS ARE ALL SO PRETTY. i specially love the diamond in iris one oh my god i wanna bite it i hope its fucking amazing to use cause itd be so sad otherwise

also the fact you gave your gf a pen you hated is hilarious to me im so sorry im glad she likes it xksjfkdjkfjd

unfortunately the twsbi diamond in iris is SO MID. plus twsbi sells seperate individual nibs... but not the iris finish nibs... so to get every iris finish nib, you'd have to spend a ridiculous amount of money buying like five $80 pens. it is beautiful but truly not worth the ridiculous price tag, especially because the nib is kind of scratchy. that ink capacity is bee youtiful and the finish is beautiful but the way it writes is disappointingly middling. plus the section (the place where you actually grip the pen) is slippery as fuck. wouldnt really recommend unless youre really desperate for the aesthetic

it's technically "limited edition" but they've been floating around on fountain pen sites for months now, don't fall for the fomo

AND ITS OK I ASKED IF SHE WANTED TO TEST IT OUT. i didnt just. give her a shitty pen without telling her it was shitty or anything. we talked about it and she wanted to take it, so i gave it to her! she was previously using a bunch of dip pens, which she gave to me. gift exchange, yaaay!! turns out dip pens are a pain in the ass but i tried.... i need an inkwell OTL anyway yes she likes it a lot