all made up with nowhere to go

I'm going to be getting new glasses! Technically, I have had new glasses with all my optician appointments, but the last three lots were reading glasses, so they don't count :q

But these ones are everyday ones, and I am very excite! According to my records, the last time I had new everyday glasses was 2016!! So we decided that yeah, maybe I was overdue a new pair. But also my eyesight has changed a little bit - my right eye, which is the worst one, has improved a little! The optician I saw said it's not by a lot, but because my eyesight is so bad anyway, it's more noticeable to me. (I am -10 in both eyes, whatever the heck that means). So it's probably better that I get new glasses.

Unfortunately, they will cost money, because the NHS help towards paying for stuff is minimal. I get £15 off the total price of the lenses, and that's it.

But new glasses, though! With seafoam green frames! Or some form of blue/green, anyway.

I also had the dentist the day before, and we will not talk about the shenanigans I had with the buses. Instead, we will mention that he was relatively pleased with the state of my mouth, which is a good thing. This doesn't always happen, so it's always good when it does.

~

In other news, at the beginning of the month, I finally remembered to look up how to do graffiti style writing, found a tutorial on youtube, and actually followed it!

And then I've been doing lettering stuff ever since (but not specifically any graffiti style, because that's not my ultimate goal here).

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it on here before, but I really like lettering, I just have next to no confidence in my skills. I've done more of it in the past few years than in my entire lifetime, so it is a thing I'm working on but, like I said, I don't really feel confident in my skills, so I'd like to improve them.

~

And, in news that is likely no surprise to anyone, I bought some Zebra mildliners. I got a set of three that has the blue-green, pink, and yellow pens. And...the pink and yellow are WAY harsher than I was expecting! My Stabilo pastel highlighters are milder than those two! The blue-green is okay, though, in comparison (and no, I'm not just saying that because I like that particular colour). I got them for cheaper than retail price (£4 for the set), so I'm not massively disappointed, and I will probably use them for arting anyway.

That feeling when you find a streamer you like who, for the most part, isn't terrible, but then constantly rags on lower difficulty settings for games as being "for babies" :|

I was watching said person play Everhood, and they went through the game on Hard, partly because that's the difficulty the game was based around, so you should be able to beat it on that. Which they did. But they also like going after all the achievements where possible, and Everhood has a bunch where you need to not get hit by the enemies you're fighting. So they did several on story mode, to get it done, and complained about it while doing so.

I suspect part of it was playing to their audience (some of the frequent watchers I see in the chat replay are...unpleasant, let's say), but also probably part of it wasn't. Which makes me sad, but I guess that's Gamers™, and I do realise that not everyone is like me.

To me, it really doesn't matter. If a game has difficulty settings, I pick it based on if I've played that game/genre before, and whether I want to have to think about shit or not. If you beat a game, it doesn't matter how you did it - if you set out to beat it, and you did, congrats!

Anyway, moaning about people complaining aside, Everhood is a game I will never EVER play, since its gameplay depends on quick reactions, and I'm not the greatest at that. But it has some interesting things going on story-wise, and the soundtrack is BANGING.

In other game news, Aoife streamed Inscryption for a bit, and that was aces (I don't know if she'll continue, though, and that's fine, but I'd love to see her reactions to the rest of it). And I also watched her and Ian stream some of Stranger of Paradise, which is out today!

I have no interest in it at all, and watching that stream did nothing to convince me I'd want to play it, either. It just looks like such a mess, and you shouldn't need THAT MUCH TEXT to explain everything! Also JFC your first boss fight should not be that hard or frustrating! Like, Aoife is no stranger to difficult games or bosses, but you could clearly see how irritated she was by it.

Apologies if you're looking forward to SoP, though! I hope you do enjoy it when you get to it, I just don't think it's for me. (Which is hilarious (by which I mean it isn't) since someone in the live chat said it's aimed at people who already like Final Fantasy a lot. I disagree).

And then, for me and video games, I've done with the nonsense that is the marks/hunts/Cie'th stones/whatever in FFXIII. I had a go at Attacus, and it's SO HARD to damage, and has 9 million HP????? I get it's part of that specific enemy type - the Wladislaus is also difficult for the same reasons. But after the Neochu and then that, I was fed up, and I was only really doing those quests until I decided to play something else anyway.

So I switched to Persona 5 Strikers, after thinking I'd broken my PS4, but it turns out I was actually very tired and pressing the wrong button repeatedly (it doesn't help, imo, that they're so tiny as well!) So it was yelling at me for pressing eject when there was nothing to eject, oops?

I...am not sure how I feel about Strikers, so far. I'm only around 10 or so hours in. I feel it overexplains some stuff that I already know, but then doesn't explain other things like, say, how to use spells outside of battle!

I liked everyone for the most part in P5, so having another game with them in is aces. Also it's another Megaten game, so obviously I'm not going to be unhappy about that. But I'm not sure I like the play style (musou is a genre I am not familiar with), but that's mainly because I'm not used to it.

More when I get to it, though I will try my best to keep spoilers behind a cut since it's only been out in English for a year.

~

In non-video game news:

# I think I'm growing a psoriasis patch on my right elbow. My dad had one, also on his elbow (but in a different place, and possibly the other elbow; I can't remember now), so I'm honestly not that surprised I may have one.

# I haven't read a book since November, but I am weirdly sort of okay with that.

# I discovered if I'm watching a youtube video on my new computer, it will stay awake so the video doesn't cut out! THAT'S SO COOL. (I am only used to my phone and tablet doing this; I've never had a computer that did it).

# I'm making some art to actually sell the originals of! They'll go up in my ko-fi shop, no promises when, and they obviously won't be cheap, but I will also be offering prints of them as well!

I had to take Jazz to the vet for her six month check up yesterday, so obviously I am The Worst.

She is absolutely fine, for the most part, and was very well behaved, even when she had her claws clipped! Which is something none of the vets have attempted before, I don't think, and she won't even let me do it (I have tried holding her feet very gently and putting a claw out (but not clipping) and sometimes she'll let me do this and other times she knifes me, and that's fair).

The only thing that is a bit of a problem is that she has gained some more weight. In spite of me giving her less food since last time when I was told she needed to lose some weight! Both me and the vet think it's likely down to her dry food, so I have to switch that out for a healthier one. Which I can do, but it wil irk me because I just bought brand new dry food last week.

After we got back, I thought Jazz would run off and hide, but she actually spent a couple of hours hanging out with me in the living room. I mostly ignored her, and just gave her little fusses here and there, and when she went off upstairs, I left her to it. And now we are friends again, so yay!

~

So, since getting this new computer, I have actually got excited about doing stuff on it again. Like, I was thinking how I could do digital art (nothing fancy, just messing around in Paint to start with), and I got really hyped up thinking about it.

I haven't done any digital art in nearly four years (summer 2018 was the last time I tried, iirc). Partly because I never got that into it, and partly because it's just not something I've thought about doing much recently*. But the other night, I was sitting in bed with the new laptop, having played X amount of games of Solitaire, and I thought, I have enough room to sit here with my tablet and do art if I want to! (My downstairs set up is not conducive to this, even sitting at a desk). But then I was like, "My graphics tab, though it be a Wacom, is circa ten years old! Will Windows even recognise it???"

And the answer is yes, Windows does, although it runs it on a generic driver, so it's good job I don't want to do anything fancy.

Then I realised I can also do other stuff as well. Like write (hahaha**). Or talk to my friends, because you bet I downloaded the Discord app, even though I am chronically bad at remembering to sign into it! or talking to people on it! But I've always kind of been like that with IMs. (I'm open to recs for other IM programs, though. Discord kind of scares me a bit because there's just SO MUCH of it, and I still don't know what to do with my server, lol).

I could also, if I wanted to, hook the laptop up to the TV via the HMDI cable. I don't want to, but I totally could.

But it feels nice to be excited about art stuff! I know I've said this a lot over the past few years, but it feels like little bits of me are slowly returning. I don't know where they went, but I'm glad they're coming back. Especially when you consider that I almost stopped doing art altogether. I'm immensely glad that I didn't.

~

ETA: Please enjoy this small video of this extremely smug Pallas' Cat! And also this cat dressed as lion for Lunar New Year![/eta]

~

*Except when I look at stuff by the amazing pixel artists I'm following on twitter, and then I'm like, "DANG".

**My want to write fiction has been slowly declining since ~2013 and I'm at the point now where IDK if I'll ever really pick it back up again.

So I watched this video last night, about lazy bullet journalling, and I thought both lassarina and althea_valara might be interested to watch it, since I know they both do BuJo (I don't know if any others among y'all do, but you might like it?)

I found it interesting, because Ying calls her style lazy, and yet from what I can see, it's very much like how it was intended to be when Ryder Carroll designed it. Also it makes way more sense to me. AND it made me realise that what I call my planner is essentially a BuJo, but I don't really think of it in that way.

Anyway, I thought y'all might find this interesting, so I thought I'd link to it.

~

I am almost at the end of my Now... journey :(

But it's been really good, though! As I said in a comment on my previous entry, the enjoyment of the music as well as the nostalgia has been SUCH a serotonin boost!

Also it's been interesting.

Obviously, the mid-nineties, which was also my mid-teens, was the height of the whole Britpop thing. And the whole Oasis versus Blur thing.

Now. I liked both Oasis and Blur. Emphasis on the past tense because, while I still like Blur, I can't bloody stand Oasis for a variety of reasons.

I've thought recently it would be nice to get hold of their first two albums again, because I loved them as a teenager, and listened to them a lot. Except that for every single Oasis track that's come up on these compilations, I've not been able to listen to more than thirty or so seconds.

And that's because I'm more familiar with The Beatles' back catalogue and it's now SO CLEAR to me how much of a rip off of them Oasis were in the beginning. It's not like Noel Gallagher didn't state they were an influence, because he did, repeatedly. In fact, Oasis were probably my Beatles gateway* (although I came out the other side not that bothered, and I've certainly gone off them a lot more in recent years).

But, like, you can pick almost any Oasis song from their first two albums, and you can bet it will remind you of a specific Beatles song.

Anyway, that alone was enough to make me skip songs I'd once enjoyed listening to. I honestly thought I'd be like, "oh yes, here comes a massive nostalgia hit!" and while that's happened with a lot of stuff, it just didn't with Oasis. I'm not really sad about it, though. Like I said, I went off them a long time ago and literally the only enjoyment I get from them these days is that Wonderwall's become a meme (I don't know how, but it amuses the heck out of me).

(Also this is where I link you to the Mike Flowers Pops version of it because it's hilarious and amazing).

I don't have a logical conclusion to this bit, except that I found that interesting to experience.

~

Meanwhile, in FFXIII, I beat the boss on the Palamecia, on my first go, without even grinding for CP, and using the default team as recommended by the strategy guide, which is arguably a kind of hard mode, since you don't have Haste.

I did it just before Doom ran out (yes, I am terrible; yes, it took me 22 minutes).

But the point is that I did it, and I don't think I ever have before! \o/

I think I must be getting better at video games? I know I've said this in the past, but I think it's true. I only looked at the strategy guide to see what it said, I wasn't intending to follow its guidance - I thought I'd try it, but I'd probably have to have another go with a different set up (i.e. using Sazh for Haste) - but I didn't because ??? somehow I managed it anyway.

And now I am on the Fifth Ark, getting my arse kicked by slugs, because it's always the smaller enemies with drain attacks that I have problems with - see also: the frogs at Sulyya Springs. I can't remember if there is a boss in this area, but I know which area is coming next, and I'm looking forward to it (mostly).

~

*I mean obviously, I'd grown up hearing Beatles songs, because it could be argued that they are/were Britain's most well-known band. But there was a lot I wasn't familiar with, because neither of my parents had any of their albums, so I only heard select handfuls of stuff on the radio.

I went and got my flu jab (among other things) the other day, and it has knocked me sideways this year! Not as badly as my second covid vaccine did, but I've felt really tired for the last two days for no other reason that I can see. My lymph glands are still swollen and a bit sore, so that's probably what that is.

It's a good job I'm still on holiday from work!

(Not that I've been sleeping in much later than usual, but at least I don't have to worry about my alarm for while).

I have also managed to get all the Xmas presents already! I don't know if the recipients will like what I got them but eh. It's nice to actually know what to get someone for once instead of not. (Also yes, I know we are not even halfway through November yet, but I prefer this to a mad dash around everywhere in mid December).

~

In other news, I started watching a let's play of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon. IT. IS. ADORABLE.

The plot is messed up in parts (by which I mean weird) and I'm not sure it makes 100% sense (yet), but I don't care because everything is ADORABLE.

Except for the Hero Xs.

This may be the only FF game where I don't like moogles, and that is because the Hero Xs are irritating a f.

On the other hand, the soundtrack is mostly rearranged tracks from previous games, so that's awesome. Except for when I know that I know a track, but I can't remember or don't know the name of it. I had to look up the soundtrack listing when my brain got stuck on Sealed Away from FFV, which I knew I knew, and I knew which game it was from, but do you think I could figure out which track it was? NO, I COULD NOT. But that's because I just don't know the track names of a lot of the FFV soundtrack (for shame).

But anyway, I think the LPer is in the third main dungeon, so there's only one after this, and then that's the end of the game! But I noticed in their playlist, that there is a whole bunch of post game stuff as well, which is kind of neat. So at least I've got that to keep me entertained when I'm not watching the usual stuff on youtube.

~

Talking of youtube, here are some streams you may be interested in?

On Tuesday, Jane streamed a chill game called Unpacking, which is exactly what it sounds like. (At one point, she called it an unboxing video, and that made me lol).

And on Thursday, Ellen started streaming Dark Souls III, so of course I watched it (having now watched Johnny and Aoife play it twice, heh).

It has been over a year now, and I have yet to figure out why I am so obsessed with Dark Souls/Soulsbourne games when I know dang well they do my head in. I don't even like straight up medieval inspired fantasy, so W T F, brain???

On which note, I also watched the livestream of the Elden Ring server test yesterday morning/afternoon (this is Oxtra's stream. Eurogamer also did one, but I haven't finished watching that yet because it's three flipping hours). I have zero interest in Elden Ring (mostly because GRRM, sorry if you like him), and I still have zero interest after watching this stream. I do like the double-jumping horse, though, but that's it.

In stationery news:

I got two more of those notebooks from Asda. I thought I might as well while I remembered what brand they were. Also, as I said to my boss, if I use them as sketchbooks, at the rate I draw, they'll last me best part of a year between the three of them, as they're 100 pages each, and I know that means it will take me about 3 months to use one up.

Also it's nice to have books that play nicely with ink! I have actual sketchbooks that don't handle ink this nicely. Looking at you, Winsor & Newton, and Derwent! Yes, you've got 150GSM paper, but you can't deal with inks AT all!

If we're talking proper sketchbooks I do like, I'd recommend Daler-Rowney all the flipping way. Their paper is lovely, and handles most media really well! I'd also recommend Seawhite as well, since their cartridge paper is nice, and the books aren't expensive compared to other brands. Also Seawhite do SQUARE sketchbooks, if you're into that kind of thing! Caveat, however, that both brands may not be available outside the UK/might be more expensive because of importing.

I also bit the bullet and bought a 72 set of Staedtler coloured pencils (the fancy ones that they've rebranded as Design Journey. Mine don't say that on the box, but they are those ones). They come in a tin, and should have cost £45! But I got them for a tenner, which is part of the reason I decided to go for it.

There's SO MANY COLOURS! I've never had a 72 set of pencils before - my current biggest set is 50 (also in a tin) of WH Smith own brand*. Oh, and there is also the 50 colour set of Crayolas (not in a tin :( ). So now I have even more coloured pencils. But I do intend to use them, and I have been thinking for over a year now about getting rid of some of the stuff I don't use any more. I just don't know where to - as I don't live in a city, my options are a bit limited.

Related: I just wondered if there's a coloured pencils subreddit, since there seems to be one (or more!) for everything and whaddya know...

~

In vidya:

# I'm slowly getting through NEO: TWEWY. Being tired from work and my hands hurting isn't conducive to playing, sadly. But I'm getting there! I don't really have comments on anything at the moment, except to say that I was absolutely right about a plot element, and I think I misread something on the TWEWY subreddit, so now I have a loopy theory about what's actually going on. Also I'd like to punch the antagonist because they're a dick.

# I also started watching Aoife from Eurogamer streaming Boyfriend Dungeon. I haven't finished watching it yet (because tired brain, wehhhhh). It's that game where people (specifically men?) can turn into weapons which is weird, but okay? (I'm sure I've played games with weirder premises than that). You might like it, you might not? I can't say because I've only watched about half an hour of the stream so far!

~

In books:

I started Lords and Ladies! It's weird, because I thought I wouldn't remember anything at all, but I do! My memory isn't quite as bad as I thought! Though I did read this, like, five times at least, so no wonder parts of it are seared into my brain, despite my thinking otherwise.

~

And that's all I have to say right now!

~

*They used to be my mum's, but I think I've used them more than she ever did. I guess they are vintage, too, as I remember using them on GCSE coursework Back In Th'Day™

Related to yesterday's post, I realised that I watch two artists on youtube (one of whom was the one I was talking about in that post), and both of them talk a lot about their OCs and also they make a lot of fanart! Which. Most of the artists I watch on youtube don't do that! Kasey Golden does, and Doodle Date do (certainly fanart, less so OCs), but most of them don't do that for whatever reason or they don't create art with people in.

I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here, except that it's been cool seeing these two drawing their OCs? (And I've been watching them both for nearly a year now, so possibly it's taken this long for their influence to seep into my brain? WHO KNOWS).

Talking of artists I follow inspiring me to do stuff: I recently started following an artist on twitter who is from Bradford, which is where I went to uni. Anyway! She does comics and stuff (she's had a book published!) and she uses dip pens for some of her inking work (she also uses Pilot G-TEC-C4 pens sometimes and they're one of my faves). She has a G nib that she uses, and it made me think that I ought to get more practised with mine. I've got a Nikko, but I don't know what make hers is, as all G nibs look alike, it turns out!

I mean, I have neglected using my dip pen of late in part because I've been feeling uncreative and also wanting to do other stuff, like painting, and lino cutting. But I bought the G nib back around Xmas time because I read somewhere that it's what most manga artists use to ink comics and I wanted to give it a go, and see what I thought. Except that I haven't really done much with it since I got it.

So perhaps it is time to do some practice! If only I liked sitting at my desk, where all my pens and inks are! (I prefer curling up on my bed or a sofa/chair, but neither of those is really a good environment in which to have an open bottle of ink).

It's nice to feel inspired! Especially since I remember this time last year, and I was feeling so mushy and uninspired, and I didn't know what to do with myself. But now I want to make stuff! And it feels great!

So, I had my second Covid vaccination yesterday!

Currently, I have a sore arm again, although it is nowhere near as bad as the first time (i.e. I actually slept last night, though it hurt every time I laid on my left arm). Also it didn't kick in till the afternoon, and my jab was in the morning, so that is also good.

I also feel extremely tired, although I was already feeling tired from work, so possibly how I feel now is coincidental (I was almost falling asleep playing P5 at 8pm on Tuesday night, which is unusual and how I know it's not just down to the vaccine side effects). At least I am not in work again until Sunday, so I can sleep if/when I need to.

~

I was hoping to have finished Persona 5 by now! Except that because I felt naff yesterday, I watched Ian from Eurogamer streaming Returnal on his personal channel, but then couldn't continue with that as I was too tired, and went straight to bed at 8pm!

I am very definitely at the end of P5, I just haven't got to the final boss yet (not helped by tired brain/puzzles that remind me of maths coursework problems from high school). I'm getting Nocturne vibes at the moment, although the TWEWY vibes continue, esp when ( this LARGE spoiler happens )

On the other hand, I am very happy ( about this spoiler )

Since my last entry(?) I have maxed Mishima's, Takemi's, and Morgana's links (although the last one is automatic, so there's no way I could fail that unless I stopped playing). It kind of bugs me that your friends aren't available in the evening, because sometimes I want to do more than one friendship link on one day, and I can't because they're only available in that weird After School period of time (also bloody stat requirements, GDI! I wanted to get Haru at least up to Baton Pass, but nope! Whichever stat she requires isn't high enough!) Although this is probably a gripe I've had in P3/4 as well, but it's so long since I played either of those that I can't remember.

I like Makoto more now I've got used to her (but I found her annoying to begin with, but she grew on me). I really like Haru, which surprised me, because I thought I'd find her irritating a f. But I don't. I'm still lukewarm on Ryuji after all this time. I don't hate him, but I don't love him, either? Ah, well. I also like Futaba more than I thought I would, given she's everything The Internet likes in a character (allegedly).

~

I don't have much else to say, except since I started writing this entry, I've woken up a bit, so yay! Also I bought an activity tracker and a brand new copy of KHIII for cheap, so also yay? Going to go and play some more P5, I think.

Because I was so excite! about Persona 5 in my last entry, I forgot to link some stuff I've been meaning to link to for at least a week (although one of it is new since yesterday, but eh).

Anyway, you remember Johnny from Dicebreaker (formerly of Eurogamer)? Well, now he is just plain Johnny, since he left Dicebreaker back in March! He's set himself up doing both video game and TTRPG stuff, with a patreon! This is relevant because for his opening stream on his youtube channel, he streamed a game called Loop Hero!

I initially didn't watch it because I think Ellen was streaming Dark Souls (and we all know I am currently obsessed with DS, although who knows why. NOT ME). And then I was like, I've never even heard of this game, who cares. And then I thought, as I have done with several game streams of late, that I could watch it and switch it off if it was boring.

LET ME TELL YOU FOLKS: Loop Hero is not boring. It is my jam, in that it is set post-apocalypse, no-one knows wtf is going on (though they do eventually find out), and it has rogue-like elements. Oh, and the art is pixels, the soundtrack is chiptunes, and the titles for the music are all JJBA references.

I watched it in two sittings after work (it's a four hour stream), and it was the perfect thing to watch and not think about. Although I also want to play it for myself (but I don't have Windows, boooo).

And then, a little later, he was going to stream Outriders, which I didn't have the slightest bit of interest in. Except that it was a stuttery mess, and eventually crashed completely, so instead he streamed a town building game called Dorfromantik, which I also now want to play because the art is gorgeous and it looks like the most chill game ever. But my version of Linux is not up to date, boooo*.

(There is half an hour of Outriders in that stream before we get to the chill part, and, again, it's a four hour stream, jsyk).

So that's that.

Then yesterday, I watched Aoife stream 45 minutes of a game called Returnal (that was all she was allowed to stream for review purposes). It's about an astronaut called Selene**, who is stuck in a time loop while investigating a planet called Atropos. It's more interesting than I just made it sound. Also it has rogue-like elements, much like Loop Hero.

And, you guessed it, I probably want to play that as well, but alas, I do not have, nor can I afford a PS5, even if they were available to buy anywhere.

~

Then, in Persona 5 news, I am up to the beginning of June (let's say 6/6 because I can't quite remember), which means I've done the second palace!

I don't know how I have managed to avoid most spoilers from this game, although I can only assume it's because I wasn't on tumblr post-release/no-one I know on twitter has played it. Or if they have, they didn't talk about it on there.

( spoilers, including a couple of large ones )

I also meant to say: I'm getting huge TWEWY vibes from this game as well! Particularly because you can hang about in Shibuya - I went and said hi to Hachiko last night, because I finally remembered he was there - and because it frequently shows Scramble Crossing. But also when Akira uses his Third Eye ability, because it makes me think of Neku reading people's minds.

But TWEWY is one of my favourite games, so, yanno.

As for characters I like, Ann is my favourite right now! I want to hug her and tell her it's going to be okay! I am lukewarm on Ryuji, which is surprising to me (usually I like characters like him). Yusuke, I'm currently finding irritating for reasons noted above, and I don't like Makoto.

Oh, and Akechi can do one. I haven't seen much of him, but I know how fandom feels about him, and that's enough to make me realise I probably won't like him.

And I think that's all I have to say about that right now!

~

*I would like, eventually, to buy a new computer, and I'm in the process of figuring out if I can do it without feeling excessively guilty. I'm probably going to stick with Windows because, as much as I like Linux, I still don't feel I've got to grips with it after eight years.

**Her ship is called Helios, which made me groan out loud. Mind you, so did the name of the planet when I read it on Wikipedia.

So I've been reading stuff about fountain pens, because that's the hole I'm in at the moment. (No, you just bought two cheap fountain pens off ebay*).

There's a problem that your pen nibs can have that's called Baby's Bottom (due to over-polishing the nib during the manufacture process), and I am absolutely twelve years old, because I laugh every time I see it written down.

Also I think I finally found out what the no-name fountain pen (that I actually really like) is! It is entirely possible that it's either a Jinhao or a Wing Sung, because both companies make grey demonstrators (clear or translucent pens), and both of them look similar to mine! I have no way of knowing for sure, but that's neat that I have some kind of idea now.

I also put a cartridge in one of mum's Sheaffer's** that has a fine ballpoint on it, and it writes like a flipping dream! It started straight away, and it's so smooth on paper, I love it. It's not quite as, uh, buttery as my Kaweco, but it's still bloody good. The only problem I find with it is having a nice paper for it to write on (Pukka Pads paper seems to be the best so far). This is down to a combination of things which I won't bore y'all with (I imagine you're bored enough already, right? ;) )

My Kaweco, on the other hand, writes on everything I've tried it on, without feathering, and that's with the cartridge it came with (own brand), and Diamine Oxblood in the converter I got for it. Which, I suppose, proves that you get what you pay for? Although from remembering using fountain pens when I was younger, I never (iirc) had trouble with ink feathering on paper, and I was using cheap ass pens then because my mum couldn't afford to buy me anything better. So honestly, WHO KNOWS.

Look. I just really like pens okay, and I need to tell this all to someone, because if I tell my friend Sarah I bought cheap fountain pens, she will yell at me (I mean, not really, but also pens are SRS BSNS for her - she recced me the Kaweco, and she owns at least one Sailor, and TWSBI Eco. She doesn't do pens under £10, probably. I will have to ask her one day!)

All of this makes me wish I'd kept using a fountain pen past the age of twenty. I was about eleven when I first started using them (either on my mum's instructions or because other people at school did, and I wanted to be like them). But as I gradually got older, I turned to gel pens and biros instead. The last time I remember really using a fountain pen was when I was copying hieroglyphs from books when I was around twenty. BUT. I'm going to restart using them! Especially if it means less hand pain/stress on my wrist. Not that I write tons of anything these days, but maybe one day I will write more again, who knows.

Okay, time to go and do something else, I think, since I don't think I have anything else to say!

~

*The Jinhao 992 (Sailor 1911 clone), and the 599 (Lamy Safari clone). I partly wanted pens of my own, but I also wanted a cheap one I could use outside the house and not cry (too much) if I lost it.

**There are A LOT, as Sheaffer were her favourite brand of fountain pen.