I have a few controversial opinions on fountain pens and their usage. These opinions generally run counter to the opinions of the majority (por, at least I think so.)
- I don’t personally buy and use shimmer inks at all. I feel that using shimmer is a “cheater” way of archiving interesting property. I also don’t think they are worth the possible effort require to clean the pen.
- I don’t use non-demonstrator Piston Fillers. I do have multiple TWSBIs but they don’t go into my daily rotation often. I think I would go crazy not knowing how clean the internal reservoir are. Another point is that my hand is really, really warm which cause most piston filler to blurp ink. Unfortunately, that mean I won’t be buying any Visconti, Pelikan, or even the Lamy 2000.
- Shading. In many case I don’t find shading to be desirable property. I have somehow warm up to this due to the prevalent love in the community, but when I began using fountain pen I though there are some problem when the ink shades.
- Pens that doesn’t fit my lifestyle. I consider pens to be tools. I must be comfortable using all pens I own. Any pen that doesn’t fit this criteria are out (like the Namiki Emperor). My sole exception to this is the Jinhao 999 Dragon, because, well, Dragon.
Maybe there are people out there who would sympathise with me?