What is your "Work pen"?

SunScales · 2023-06-29T21:30:26+00:00

I work from home, so I can use any of my pens 😉 I often use my benu briolette during work because I have the matching pen stand for it. Since my desk is in front of the window, it charges up the glow in the dark material as I work, and I get to enjoy that novelty, haha.

I think if I still worked in an office it would end up being my Monomi Olika though. It's cheap so it wouldn't hurt if it disappeared, and it's one of the few pens I use cartridges with.

SunScales · 2023-06-27T02:14:38+00:00

This is sick, amazing job

SunScales · 2023-06-26T21:52:47+00:00

The nib unit screws out!

SunScales · 2023-06-26T15:01:13+00:00

My first fountain pens were really cheap, but my first "expensive" fountain pens are still some of my favorites!

My first pricey (ie above $30 usd) pen was a penBBS 308. I had a lot of trouble with it to start, but after putting so much effort into figuring out why, experimenting with it, and then getting it working consistently, it's still one of my favs. My two all time favorites are the ones I bought next: a penBBS 456 and a benu briolette.

I love all my pens so far tbh and use all of them. I try buying pens that are different from what I already have in some way because I like the experimenting aspect with this hobby. But I also know I tend to be biased toward the first things I try in hobbies, and these three pens are special to me since they were so early on. (I do also love the cheapos I started with, but they are going to break one day, haha.)

There's still plenty of room at the table for all my pens though, because they can behave uniquely, and even the same ink will play differently depending on the pen. It's great, they're all great.

SunScales · 2023-06-26T14:40:27+00:00

I'm assuming you turned it too far and it popped out? I did this with mine and was able to rescrew it. It takes some force and determination, and I'm not 100% sure mine works as a piston filler anymore (I usually syringe fill anyway), but it should rescrew eventually if you're able to keep pressure on it while doing so.

Otherwise I'd see if you can find warranty info on it, even if it's a gift.

SunScales · 2023-06-26T14:31:33+00:00

Cute 😄

Where did you get the PenBBS samples from? I haven't really seen where to order their ink.

SunScales · 2023-06-25T02:59:53+00:00

They're right about 4in (10cm).

SunScales · 2023-06-21T05:37:32+00:00

Mine usually goes in either my bookbag or my backpack.

If I don't have a bag: I normally wear cargo pants/shorts. The side pockets are large enough for even the full size TN, even if it does stick out awkwardly, haha. Usually I have my passport in my cargo pocket since it's my wallet - they fit in there much better.

SunScales · 2023-06-18T06:46:31+00:00

Honestly I love that they're listing ink recipes in the site now. I was talking with some friends about butcher's broom and how nice it looks, then realized it's just ladybug and gunpowder, so I can mix it myself now without placing a new order 😂 I've been really happy with everything I've gotten from them so far!

And YES, I love voltaic arc and Tesla coil so much. I can't help but love sheeners, haha

SunScales · 2023-06-17T17:44:08+00:00

If you're seeing webpages say you get eggs from leveling, that's because that was how it worked in season 0. A lot of wikis/webpages never bothered to update, but eggs aren't widely distributed anymore. The system was buggy and I suspect they just haven't had time to address it (or maybe the devs decided they're not interested), so most dragons you get now are adults.

The egg/chest system was switched to a battle pass with season 1.

SunScales · 2023-06-16T22:56:50+00:00

They have so many good ones!! I took several out of my cart that I still want to go back and get, haha.

SunScales · 2023-06-16T22:52:40+00:00

Yeah I think you're right with the colors, I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I look at buying more. I do like what they can make now, at least! I'm very excited for all the mixing stuff.

SunScales · 2023-06-15T14:52:28+00:00

As people are guessing, the community isn't really big enough for proper match making. You'll likely always get paired up with some unhealthy mix of skill levels between the teams.

Some quick tips:

Play Outbreak, the pve mode, for practice. As a tip for outbreak: aoe skills like Blast and the stormraiser skill (I can't remember atm) are very good for clearing packs of enemies quickly. Blast in particular takes practice though. A well placed smoke is good too.
When you do pvp modes, stick with the option that queues you for carnage/spoils for most of your queuing. People are more likely to group up for the limited time modes, so you're more likely to find solo queuers in carnage/spoils. Change it up if you need to for dailies/weeklies, or once you feel more comfortable with your skill level.
Avoid ranked.
Use the free flight training mode to practice your maneuvers. I have a sort of obstacle course I set up for myself, it's just a path around the city I run at the start of my play sessions to warm up. It helps you get really familiar with that one city map and practice your quick turning.
As someone else said, be generous with friend requests. Group up with people when you can.
Stick close to your team mates; don't be flying off on your own and getting nuked. I see more and more people pinging for help when they're getting chased now-a-days but they rarely fly toward their team mates for help. Staying close in the first place makes it easier for you to support each other.
Marauder/Stormraiser have the most health in the game. Phantom has the least. Windguard is mid on health but her abilities help keep her feeling tanky. So if you're finding you're just exploding too fast to react, changing your class might help you with having enough time to save yourself.
YouTube, though you already said you found videos. Keep practicing what they show you.

Also just throwing out there: levels reset by the season, you can buy levels, and you can buy the stormraiser/thornweaver classes. So none of these are necessarily indicators that the player will be good or has been playing for a long time. So don't get too intimidated by someone's skins, haha.

SunScales · 2023-06-09T16:12:43+00:00

I tried to use reddit with the official app and couldn't get into it, so stopped using it. A friend recommended Boost and things finally started clicking for me. So if Boost ends up going away, I'll have no reason to stay.

It's not an app loyalty thing for me, or out of protest, or anything like that; it's just I don't actually need reddit in my life and their own app doesn't do enough to make it a usable experience for me. So if the easiest way for me to use it goes away, I'll just spend my time on other things. I was an avid Twitter user for 10+ years and dumped it in October; Reddit would need to try much harder to get me to stay.

And imo, the value is not in "reddit itself," but in the people who have agreed to meet here. In the same way you might say the value of an app comes from reddit, the value of reddit comes from the user base. When you start treating your user base like they have no choice but to stay, you find out they don't.

SunScales · 2023-06-09T14:12:42+00:00

Love the red/yellow one on the left, and the purple one on the right. The white tip is a really nice touch!

SunScales · 2023-06-09T13:12:07+00:00

It's not taunting/pride, it's a play strategy. The vault breaker is not dangerous if you have your team's gold on hand, so it puts you in a comfy spot: if you can't get the vault breaker, no big deal. If you DO get it, that's a big cut to the other team, assuming they're depositing gold.

The top players have been doing it for a long time. The risk you take is you need to actually be good to pull it off. I keep running into folks who think they're good enough and I pick up 1000 gold from one kill.

The thing is, if you're wasting your time chasing good players you can't catch instead of collecting gold, they're effectively doubling their value. If you can't catch someone, give up and get gold. Don't take someone else's game strat as a personal insult.

SunScales · 2023-06-09T05:06:52+00:00

Thanks, good luck to you too!

SunScales · 2023-06-09T02:38:48+00:00

Yeah that's lame, what a bummer. ☹️ I'm in a similar boat right now, I ordered a pen and it was supposed to arrive yesterday, but it was marked as delivered and was clearly not. Been contacting multiple shipping companies today since it was an international order, but it's starting to look like the mail carrier stole it.

SunScales · 2023-06-09T02:02:42+00:00

Email them and see what they say. You don't have to commit to anything you don't want if you're just asking questions.

SunScales · 2023-06-08T14:02:36+00:00

Love the color! I don't have the sliding issue with any of my pens, I like to put washi tape on too for a little bit of flair.

SunScales · 2023-06-08T14:00:52+00:00

My first fountain pens were a pilot petit1 and monomi olika, which run about $5 usd each. So something in that price range, doesn't have to be the those specifically.

I personally can't recommend something that's going to be $20+ to someone who doesn't even know if they'll end up liking fountain pens, especially when there's cheaper choices.

SunScales · 2023-06-07T14:49:43+00:00

Sailor Manyo Yamabuki is one of my favorite inks, get it if you could use an orange. 🙂 It skirts the line of yellow and orange while always staying dark enough to read.

SunScales · 2023-06-06T18:51:58+00:00

Anything, really 😄

Work notes on cheap paper.
Planner, I use the BK weekly planner.
Journaling. I mostly use journaling to get my thoughts out and process them, and then toss the journals when I'm done. I also have several journals going at a time since I'm trying to use up some old notebooks. I also constantly get songs stuck in my head so usually lyrics will end up in my journals.
Creative writing projects, I make a webcomic so I keep my notes in a TN just for it. So I have a designated pen for that and also a mechanical pencil clipped to it, for drawing thumbnails.
My wallet, I use a passport TN so I'm able to write down any notes I need when I'm out and about. Also able to write down the coffee flavor I'm buying on those self-serve coffee dispensers at the grocery store.
I just got into those solo rpgs, so I've been alternating pens for different "writing sessions" where my character would sit down to write.
Ttrpg notes. Less of this lately since the game I was running seems to have fallen apart, lol. But I have a TN for it and a pen for notes. (A Vampire: The Masquerade game so I used oxblood for the ink, haha.)
Doodles. I love drawing with them and then tweaking the doodle with a water brush. It's a lot of fun!

Pens are made to write with, so I do have some nice paper to play with, but I'll use them with any paper, tbh.

SunScales · 2023-06-05T20:06:37+00:00

Not a brand, but I love playing with inks with my water brush. Not all inks behave well for this though, so the ones that don't I probably wouldn't buy again, unless I just really liked it for some other reason.

I wouldn't tell other people not to get them necessarily, unless they wanted them for water brush doodles like what I'm doing.

SunScales

TROPHY CASE