Thanks for your encouragement,
@Erica McPhee - I will have to come up with a new theme this year; I'm sure everyone is tired of the portraits.
@Lyric - Don't feel bad about it! There's no time like the present to put that "All the Best" (2021) into one of your Parallel pens and give it a try! Everyone is so kind and helpful here on the Forum!
@AnasaziWrites - I am excite! And I only have 19 or 20 green inks at the moment!
I think the pre-release prices for the Green Edition are all around US$115. But if you're a frequent flyer at Atlas or Pen Chalet, you can apply your rewards points toward discounts on it.
@NikkiB - didn't you want a set last year? If you resisted buying it then, maybe join us this time?
You can refill an empty cartridge for a Pilot Parallel (actually, you can refill any empty cartridge on any fountain pen). Just rinse it out and refill it with a blunt syringe. Those cartridges don't hold very much ink, considering how much ink a Parallel puts out. If I'm using a 4 to 6mm nib, I can go through a whole cartridge in one drafting or practice session. Parallels are compatible with the Pilot con-50 or con-70 converters, but they hold like three teardrops worth of ink, so I usually just refill the empties.
If I'm really serious about using a particular Parallel nib & ink combo extensively, I swap the Parallel nib unit into one of my Opus 88 fountain pens. Pull the whole Jowo nib+feed unit out; reinsert the Parallel nib+feed of your choice. Opus 88s have a massive ink reservoir (dropper/syringe-fill), and a nifty shut-off valve, so you can take them on airplanes with no worries.
https://www.atlasstationers.com/collections/opus-88/products/opus-88-jazz-fountain-pen-clearYou can transfer tiny portions of ink into a loaded Parallel in a couple of ways -- the easiest is to hold two loaded Parallel pens, nib to nib against each other; ink will flow between the nibs, but won't infect the whole reservoir/cartridge. The other way is to decant a drop or two of ink onto a hard surface (like an empty watercolor palette or a tea saucer or the ink jar lid), and then put your nib up against it, and you'll see it get sucked up into the nib. When you write with it, it'll give you an ombre effect as you run from one ink color to the other. Oh, you can also feed it plain water through the nib like that, and it'll shade out as you write.
There are a bunch of videos online showing people doing this - google "Pilot Parallel blending ink" and you'll get some good hits. Or maybe I should do a post on using & hacking the Parallel sometime. Would anyone be interested in that?
Here are a few close-up images that sort of show that ombre effect better (I got a cool new clip-on macro lens for my phone camera)