by Adelaide Song on 2025-07-10.
Tags: stationery
In order to write, you must write1. I’m significantly faster writing at a computer than on a page, but there’s definitely something about pen and paper that can’t be beat. To me, short-term notes in digital form feels vaguely like littering on your hard drive, even with the assistance of grep and the like. A big yellow legal pad or a cheap 2-dollar notebook gets the thoughts somewhere permanent, siloed and retrievable with basically zero thought required. Nothing I’m dashing off will need anything more than a quick glance to distinguish on the page. It helps that I don’t feel myself losing diopters in real time while staring at a piece of paper, nor do I get the overwhelming urge to doomscroll my Twitter feed.
When I want to handwrite, these are my preferred tools of the trade2. These are recommendations only insofar as you agree with me on:
This pen got me through university until I swapped to a tablet. Unless you desperately need documentation-grade ink, or are lethally allergic to plastic, this pen will get you through anything. It cost less than 2 AUD the last time I went to buy one and the refills are 50 cents a pop. They come in every conceivably usable color and in most practicable thicknesses. My only true complaint is that the refills routinely run into patches of dry/spotty writing, but this is a problem that will generally fix itself over time, or with a strategic application of known ballpoint hacks (e.g. subjecting the nib to open flame.) Everything else is gravy.
This is a lovely pen and I’m extremely happy whenever I get the chance to use it. Unfortunately, that’s an increasingly rare occurrence these days, because I’m a wrong-hander who writes extremely quickly. You don’t just unlearn the habits that let you blaze out a 10 page essay in 45 minutes. Every output method I have has to compete with my ability to type at 150-200 WPM. Being distraction-free is useful, being tactilely satisfying is nice, but if it falls too far behind my train of thought I’ll just resort to the keyboard instead.
The driest fountain pen inks dry in something like 5s. Combine the wet inks I favor (Iroshizuku, Tsuki-yo or Kon-peki) with a fairly wet-writing pen and you have a recipe for turning paragraphs into smudged dreck. I’ve tried all kinds of notebooks of various qualities and thicknesses, tried holding the pen all different ways, but nothing will fix the fact that I’m writing in the wrong direction.
If you’re a right-hander looking for a fountain pen at an intermediate price point, this is a truly excellent tool. It feels durable in a good way, without being so heavy that it’s like writing with a tank. The clip feels like a more natural evolution of the Safari’s triangle grip as a means of guiding the user’s fingers into position. It looks classy, my greasy-ass fingers have yet to ruin its finish, and arguably most importantly of all—it’s capless! Why bother using a pen you can’t operate one-handed? Nice strong spring (even if it’s a little long for my liking), snappy feedback on the toggle… it’s all there. That is if you’re actually able to write with it, instead of just distributing ink all over your palm.
I fucking hate it, I’m sorry. I can’t get this to consistently write with a smooth line. Maybe I just got a dud refill, but they’re ludicrously expensive. The first time it died on me I felt faintly insulted.
As far as steel pens go, the body is… fine. It’s a little thin for my giant-ass piano hands, even with the slight flare at the base, but if you’re more tarsally challenged than I am, you’ll have a good time. Total weight is good. The click is short and responsive and the clip is almost comically rigid. Unfortunately, its finish has been absolutely nicked to shit despite being a pencil case princess for most of the time I’ve owned it. Not for people wary of patina.
As much as I resent the feel and waste of cheap plastic pens, this is going to be an extremely difficult one to beat for me. Outside of exactly one stop that I can remember, which sorted itself out with a couple of hasty scribbles, this pen has yet to deliver anything other than a vivid, whisper-smooth writing experience. Smudging is extremely minimal where it does occur—again, wrong-hander here, so this is absolutely non-negotiable. Fine details remain legible even in handwriting barely-distinguishable from Cyrillic cursive. Supposedly, it can even take fountain pen refills3, and naturally it takes a Pilot standard size---perfect for use with the converter from the VP.
If anyone has a metal body version of this pen I don’t think I could convince myself to use anything else. Yes, I’m aware that a classic Hi-tecpoint exists in metal, but the added hassle of having to homebrew refills (and also having to find one of them at reasonable price without being in Japan) would probably outweigh the upside for me.
Ideation does not make you a writer. ↩
I would use the term “everyday carry” if it didn’t make me feel like a white power militia member. ↩
Yes, yes, I know, le reddit link as source but also I dare you to find a better one in our post-GPT hellscape. ↩