finding each other: social media

Hi everyone!

I'm going to take you away from fountain pens to talk about some more meta stuff, a crack in the fourth wall if you will.

Firstly, I want to thank you for reading. It is a wonderful thing that there are people who like reading what I write, it still seems a little unreal to me.

Secondly, I will be taking a break for two weeks. It is the last exam season of the year and I need to pass this one class. It's mostly CAD design work, which doesn't leave me enough room for using my fountain pens as much as I like. I'm also trying to prepare my projects for next year, so time is in even shorter supply than usual these days.

I will be trying to stay active on Instagram if you like scrolling through photographs of pens.

Lastly, I want to mention something that I have been thinking about for some time. I'm not much of a social media person, but I loved Reddit. The fountain pen community (r/fountainpens) there was always welcoming, no matter what pens you (don't) have. r/Pen_Swap was pretty much the only place that I bought/sold pens too. It seems like the subreddit will continue on for now, and I am extremely grateful for that. Even if it hadn't, it would've been very understandable with the situation of things there. I wasn't the most active user, though I tried to sort things by "new" and leave nice comments on new pens and answer some questions every now and then.

This blackout arching over many subreddits reminded me how fragile our communities are. I follow some of the same people on various social media platforms, but still, different platforms have varying levels of comfort.

So, I'm looking for new places to follow fountain pens and stationery. Leave a comment about someone you like watching, reading or listening to. I'll try to check it out, and maybe there are other people out there feeling a little lost after the situation with Reddit.

Hopefully you're having a great weekend and enjoying the hot weather with lots of swimming and ice cream!