Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an educational Marilyn Darling Show episode—because today I’m walking you through two things I get asked about all the time: how to make shimmer ink, and how to fill, use, and clean a fountain pen without making a terrible mess (or at least, minimizing it). I start with a purple base ink—Cross Violet—and mix up a custom “twinkle” version by adding a couple drops of Wearingeul Mind Control glitter potion. The big takeaway is to jostle gently, not shake like a maniac, because bubbles are not your friend—and shimmer will sink if you let it sit too long. Then I show you exactly how I fill a pen with a cartridge converter: what the nib, feed, grip section, and converter are, how to seat the nib/feed into the ink, and how to work the piston so you get a better fill with a smaller bubble. After that, I do writing and calligraphy basics—strokes, lowercase, capitals, and how I use guidelines (those parallelograms) to keep everything consistent. Finally, I demonstrate cleaning: flushing the converter, jostling water to knock shimmer loose, and fully disassembling the nib/feed so you can rinse, dry, and reassemble it the right way (it’s keyed—flat side meets flat side).