I agree with your broad point that stroke order need not be dogmatic to good writing, since if you look at Chinese calligraphy, it's also clear that stroke orde

I agree with your broad point that stroke order need not be dogmatic to good writing, since if you look at Chinese calligraphy, it's also clear that stroke order is not set in stone. Nevertheless, I think it would interest you that you can achieve very expressive line variation with even pencil and ballpoint; the trick is to write on a stack of paper so you can vary the area of contact between tip and paper: e.g. see https://www.bilibili.com/video/av21114247/ https://www.bilibili.com/video/av21114247/