Союз авторучка / Soyuz fountain pen

From what I can tell, this pen was two steps up from a cheap school pen and two steps down from the most expensive pens that I'm assuming only party members would usually have. (or if I'm overcomplicating things, the middle pen of a range of 3) Being made in the USSR, the "brand name" isn't particularly important. This doesn't say "Союз" anywhere on it. In fact, there are no letters on it at all. As with all pens, it ought to get even better to use over time as it adjusts to my hand. The nib is fairly broad and there is a little bit of flex to it, though it's not obvious when writing because the variation of the line is so slight.

Written with my new Союз fountain pen.

Noodler's flex pen

Does my writing look like it's running downwards to you? I checked, in the scan the lines are perfectly horizontal. I think it's the way I hold my hand to get the right angle for the flex. Proper Spencerian pens have angled nibs so you don't need to do that.

This, the cheapest Noodler's flex pen, is finicky, has design flaws, and smells weird due to the plastic used, but with deliberation you can get results worth many times the cost of the pen, which only costs as much as an average bottle of ink.

First fountain pen / Writing setup

Lamy Safari / EF nib / Lamy blue ink

Pencast from my new Lamy Safari