Richard I, actually?

[cimorene]

After reading the introduction to Scott's The Talisman, I was kind of like ... Whoa Richard the Lionheart was somewhat horrible? I only knew about him previously from like. Robin Hood. And Ivanhoe, which is almost the same thing. (In retrospect it's not surprising that these sources were not very reliable.)

Now that I've read a bunch of articles on Wikipedia I know that historians debate, but he is widely considered arguably a bad king and not great guy, although definitely a very good warrior and general. And he did punish anti-semitic rioters one time. But other than that, there's little to be said for him except that his brother John was worse.

Scott was a fan, but his introduction doesn't really have any more to say in his favor, just basically: He was brave! and He was super into the Crusade! The latter may argue for his emotions and conviction of purpose, but I can't count it as a positive overall.

All that said, clearly people are not reading The Talisman, or there would be way more Richard I/Saladin on AO3.

Comments

[cimorene]

TWSBI is a fairly sturdy brand and they are good about replacing parts, but their clear plastic (resin?) is prone to fatigue and breakage. I've broken one already but I still have two more because I prefer piston pens to converters and they are SO much cheaper than Pelikans, but you get what you pay for. However, the nib is also much stiffer than Pelikan's nib, which is less bouncy and fun to write with to an extent but it is also more useful for some use cases, being less fragile.

As far as writing thin and thick lines - the essence of italic-style calligraphy which are all my favorite styles... although I think you are maybe talking about freestyle handwriting and not specific calligraphy 'styles' where you learn the stroke orders and historical forms? However, either way:

A stub nib is designed for everyday handwriting as opposed to calligraphy and the corners of the nib are rounded as opposed to the pretty sharp corners you get on a 1.1 italic nib. The Pilot Plumix is supposed to be an inexpensive way to test these - I can't remember if that's the one I had or not, but I bought one that was specifically for calligraphy and it was a lot scratchier. The rounded edges on stub nibs in principle mean the shapes aren't as clean and crisp. But that also means that stroke order doesn't matter as much and you can write faster/more casually without paying attention to the angle the nib strikes the paper. The 1.1 stub that I kept is a Lamy nib that can go on my Safari. Of course this is converter-filled so it's not as elegant as a piston pen (but I'm not buying proprietary cartridges). The collective wisdom in the fandom seems to be that Lamy stubs are a bit flatter and more italic than some, but it isn't scratching the paper up. And of course if you have a Safari already, you can try it just for the price of the replacement nib.

[viggorlijah]

Ahhh you have saved me from an expensive mistake. I’m rewarding myself for some extremely boring housework with a writers desk and I want a fountain pen or two because the inks are SO pretty. No proprietary cartridges I will just constantly loose them. So if I wanted a swirly freehand pen a stub nib and a piston? And metal is better?

[cimorene]

Well, plastic pens are usually fine. It might be something about clear plastic specifically. I found a discussion post on Reddit about it a few months ago when I was looking for something else talking about scientific ways to measure plastic fatigue and saying that after years of anecdotal claims about this from fandom, somebody tested them and proved it is more prone to break than Pelikan resin pens... but again, they're more expensive, and have more delicate nibs. Example https://www.jetpens.com/Pelikan-Classic-M200-Fountain-Pens/ct/4952. I have one of these in an m nib and it's my favorite, but you don't want to press too hard on the nib.

However! For reliable quality and an affordable piston pen? Twsbi is still the way to go. You have to be careful not to over tighten the screw-on joints including the cap (that's how I broke one), but even if it breaks after a few years it is arguably a good purchase. Once you get much cheaper than this a piston pen is usually just not very good. And you wouldn't want the first one you bought to be a Pelikan - the price is too high for an experiment!

But if you want to give stub nibs a try affordably, I would probably recommend a Lamy Safari fountain pen with a stub nib and a converter. You have to purchase the converter and the italic/stub nib separately but it's still more affordable than most other options. Also you will have the other nib if you don't turn out to like stub, and the classic Safari is extremely sturdy, nearly indestructible (the shiny plastic ones are made of ABS aka Lego). It's a pen you can carry with you anywhere (hence the name). I used to have four of them and a bunch of different nibs and I will say that their nibs are good and easy to switch and their converters are quite good too. So I'm really mad at Lamy about the proprietary cartridges but otoh... I can't not use or not recommend them at the cheap price point. The difference in quality and reliability of their nibs vs Kaweco! Read the fountain section of the Safari guide, which links to an article about converters: https://www.jetpens.com/blog/LAMY-safari-A-Comprehensive-Guide/pt/176#LAMY%20safari%20Fountain%20Pens


As for metal pens... It's a love/hate thing. Sometimes I really want one and they are generally more durable... but they have a serious problem with posting the cap on the back of the pen - in tons of metal pens it just won't stay on! And that is practically unusable to me.

[cimorene]

So the compatible converter is Lamy Z28 (5 Usd at jetpens) and the compatible nibs are Z50 (14 usd at jetpens). The Safari is about 30 bucks, I think. So actually the twsbi eco would be slightly cheaper.

A bit less durable, but otoh, there's something soothing about a piston-filled pen instead of a pen with a separate piston adapter. It holds more ink and it just feels conceptually more elegant because it's direct! When you have the piston converter inside the barrel, there's all this wasted space because of the screw end. And I suppose it also eliminates the chance of the converter coming loose and leaking ink that way, but that probably isn't a very big risk. Piston pens can still leak - around the feed usually, I think.

But the Twsbi is potentially just nicer and more fun to hold, fill with ink, and write with as well, although not everyone's taste is the same of course.

I've just read some reviews and it seems twsbi doesn't have as good quality control for nibs as Lamy and it's possible that you would get one that is scratchy or writes with great difficulty. Lamy nibs are all tested before shipping, so they are the safest in that respect. But Lamy stubs are reported to be a little less smoothed and more "italic".

I have a Kaweco Sport stub nib I like, and the smoothness of the Kaweco stub is apparently a known thing...but I can't recommend using Sports with anything but standard international cartridges, the other filling systems just aren't reliable enough. To me it's too much bother refilling these cartridges with the syringe anymore although that is possible - I just bought cartridges for them. And Kaweco is also very well known for nib quality issues, much worse than Twsbi (I've never heard this about their nibs before and I've owned three with no serious problems). That said, Kaweco has other larger pens that work fine with converters, I've just never bought one.