fountain pens

• moonman A1 (smooth) - pilot gold nib in M
• moonman A1 (ridged) - moonman A1 nib in EF
• platinum preppy - M nib
• (gifted to my bf) pilot metropolitan - F nib

fountain pen inks + thoughts

• pilot iroshizuku - tsuki-yo

my go-to ink. beautiful dark teal, flows very well, no notes! iroshizuku inks are very no-fuss and write beautifully in all of my pens. iroshizuku inks are my favorite line so far.

• pilot iroshizuku - kon-peki

another go-to of mine. i like this one in my M nibs because of the shading. feels like channeling a cloudless day into your writing.

• pilot iroshizuku - take-sumi

a beautiful ink but i just prefer the other colors; why use black ink when i have freedom to use whatever i want? (ok so this is actually a very dark grey and it does get some nice shading but still)

• sailor shikiori - nadeshiko

i bought this thinking it was MANYO-nadeshiko, which i wanted because troublemaker milky ocean was not behaving like i wanted it to. oops. this is still a very pretty ink, but a little lighter than i wanted it to be, and it's a lilac color instead of the blue-indigo i was really wanting.

• troublemaker inks - moon river

honestly i have not tried this much because milky ocean gave me so many problems. but the swatches are pretty

• (out) troublemaker inks - milky ocean

this ink is what got me wanting to try out fountain pens. it's beautiful. unfortunately it's so dry i could NOT get it to write well in any of my pens. i tried buying an additive to help it flow better, but that didn't seem to help except make it bleed through my pages. i gave up and got rid of it, which made me very sad because it's gorgeous.

• diamine inks - oxblood

really nice rust-red although it reads closer to brown in my F nibs. was hoping for something more crimson. i will have to get writer's blood next time.

• (sample) robert oster vanness exclusive - charred hickory

beautiful deep reddish-brown. i added it on because i needed some ink additive (see milky ocean entry) and they were out of the other brown ink i wanted to try (diamine ancient copper). i might get a full-size when i get through the sample of this though.

• color verse - arrokoth

not impressed with this one. it is a very light brown that is a little difficult to read, even while it's drying. sad.

• sailor manyo - nadeshiko

finally picked this up after my mistake buying the wrong type of nadeshiko ink. haven't had a chance to try it out yet.