pens, the writing utensil everybody uses.

it's a simple thing. you go to the store, pay less than a US dollar (pens we get here in Indonesia can go as low as the cost of a bottle of water), and write away. all it is is a shape (i've seen many weird shapes that pens take), with a metal/plastic/felt tip on the end that dispenses ink and a tube that holds ink.

but what i find interesting is how many different kinds of pens there are.

the most common being the ballpoint pen. people would go to the store and pick one of these up (there are more Bic Crystal pens than there are humans btw, with 100 billion of those sold and 8 billion of us here). it consists of a metal tip with a metal ball that rolls along the paper, leaving a trail of quick-drying ink behind. these pens write quickly, and really quickly, just zooms across the paper.

then there are gel pens, probably the next best thing. they're the same as ballpoints (though some gel pens have a long thin tip instead), but it has a watery gel along with the ink. this ink shows up clearer on paper and is easier to read, although in some cases it can smudge. they're not as easy to use for quick writing, but I guess you can trade speed for clarity.

and we also have rollerballs, which is just a thick ballpoint pen with watery ink. it takes longer to dry, but no pressure required.

along with those three main ones, there are many many many various kinds of pens. why do we need so many, i don't know. the same question could potentially be asked about fonts, why so many?

can we have a pen where you get the ink but there's no pen, so you control the ink with telekinesis?