Amalthia's recs and fan works

I'm attending Escapade and it sounds like January 2025 is just a tough time for con attendance this year and that is reflected in Escapade putting out a call to bolster this year's attendance or to help the con in other ways.

This is my favorite convention to attend, it's great meeting fans in person and California has nice weather in the winter. :) I hope more people on my friend's list are able to attend or are able help in other ways.


Escapade is the world's longest-running annual slashcon! Let's keep it that way!

Escapade's call for help on Dreamwidth.
Escapade's call for help on the con website.

The article The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction by by Elizabeth Minkel on fansplaining.com covered one of the topics I plan to moderate at Escapade this year. The lack of reader engagement with the authors. She did a great job expressing my growing disquiet as I see more authors bring this up as an issue. T

I consider reader engagement with the author one of the fundamental differences between "published" for profit fiction and fan fiction. No one expects if they write to Stephen King that they might make a life long friend, but I've made so many friends writing to authors, artists, vidders, and other fellow readers in fandom. Basically, if the author hasn't disabled comments on their Ao3 posted story I assume they want to know if people read and liked their fic, or at least a thank you for sharing what they wrote.

She also brought up other information that I didn't know was happening in a broader fandom sense.

I've finished registering and making a hotel reservation to attend the slash convention Escapade.

I always have a good time at this convention, I like that is run by fans for fans and it's a less than 150 people attending so it's a great way to meet fellow fans and hang out and learn about new fandoms.

Hello everyone,

I'm seeing mixed messages online about how to clean your paint brushes. Some people say use buckets and other articles say if it's water based paint and on city water line you can rinse in sinks. I'm also finding a lot of youtube videos of painters washing their paint brushes in sinks. Even home depot instructions show someone rinsing the brush in a sink under running water.

I sadly didn't look at this topic until after I'd already washed my 2 inch paint brush in kitchen sink. Otherwise, I would have just tossed the brush in the trash and moved on with my life already.

I think my plumbing should be okay because the paint I used was water based, I used warm water and dish liquid soap, and I don't think I had that much paint on the brush. I also only ended up rinsing this brush one time.

It seems weird that rinsing brushes in sinks would clog drains. If that was the case how are artists cleaning their brushes? I have a hard time imagining them be rinsing all of their brushes off with buckets of water and waiting for the water to evaporate before they throw away the paint pieces that fell to the bottom.

Also, how are professional painters handling their brushes? Based off youtube videos they are rinsing the water based paint off into sinks. Not sure if that's a good idea or not, but I think they'd lose a lot of money if they had to throw away their brushes every day instead of cleaning them for use.

Home renovations are hard. With every step I'm discovering more things I don't know, worse I don't even know I need to know something before it's too late. I'm just glad I had used paper towels to clean the worst off my tools when I fixed the grout holes in my shower. Basically, you do not want to rinse grout down sinks either, or caulk. I did end up rinsing some of this stuff down the sink because it was on my hands but I tried my best.

I'm venturing into the realm of DIY home renovations. I am going to install of the backsplash and side-splash that finally arrived at Home Depot.

Unfortunately, Home Depot did not have the matching side-splash for the vanity I purchased. I purchased side-splashes longer than needed and I found a place that'll trim the piece of cultured marble for me since I don't have any of the equipment.

Word of wisdom, if you ever replace your bathroom vanity, make sure what you're buying comes with the matching backsplash AND side-splash. You do not want to know how many hours of my life I spent searching the Home Depot website for backsplashes to match my vanity top, in the right lengths.

However, if you do go the route of buying a vanity, and you buy the side-splash and backsplash separately. Make sure you have all the parts in the house before any contractors arrive to install the vanity. Then everything will be taken care of at one time. Our bathroom, has been in this weird half finished stage for over a month now.

I've also spent an untold amount of time going through youtube tutorial videos on how to install these in my bathroom. I'm really nervous doing this myself and I have to remind myself this can't be harder than building my own computer way back in 2002 and gluing the processor to the motherboard....

I think the part that has me the most nervous is I need to scrap off all the caulk on the vanity top first so my backsplashes fit properly, then re-caulk everything.

Wish me luck, I plan to work on this project over the weekend.

Hello everyone,

Real life update, our sinks were dying so last month we decided to replace our vanities along with the sinks. The upstairs vanity install went okay. It's the downstairs vanity install that didn't go as smoothly.

The downstairs vanity required the installer to cut a hole in the bottom because the heater vent in the bathroom came up under the vanity. Now the problem is the downstairs bathroom smells strongly of wood/sawdust, the vanity was made out of particle board. At first I thought I was just smelling sawdust from when the installer removed the previous vanity (and didn't clean up the floor), however we were able to vacuum up most of the sawdust through the hole in the vanity. But now I'm now wondering if I should get a air quality monitor to see if what I'm smelling is just the particle board off-gassing?

I was hoping someone on my friends list would know if it's normal to smell particle board for weeks after a vanity install and I just need to be patient, or if I need to buy an air quality monitor and if it says the VOC levels are too high look into some sort of sealant? I'm worried after reading that some VOCs can make you sick if exposed to them a long time.

I'm wondering if I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, but I figured it doesn't hurt to ask for advice.

This is the first time I ever did a home renovation like this and in hindsight I probably should have looked for a vanity that already had a air hole for heat to escape. I'm seriously questioning the mental abilities of the person who designed the condos in my neighborhood, who thinks it a good idea to place a forced air heater vent under a cabinet?

Last November on vacation while swimming in the ocean a strong wave caught me and swished me around like a dish rag and spat me out. Since then I've had lower back pain, nothing bad enough to need pain killers but it's always there. I kept waiting for it to go away on it's own but decided today that I've waited six months and made an appointment to see a doctor. I'm guessing it's a herniated disc and I'm hoping the doctor will have physical therapy exercises that can help.

But seriously waves are terrifying.

I'm wondering why I waited so long...my husband said I should try the physical therapy exercises he got for his back pain and that may be what ends up happening, the doctor giving me the same exercise sheet my husband has. However, in this instance I think I'd feel better knowing what exactly is wrong and what the doctor's recommend as treatment. My main concern is what if I make things worse using the wrong exercises. My husband says if this appointment pushes us past our deductible I should look into going to physical therapy too and have someone guide me through the exercises.

Two nights ago I slept in a BAD position and for the last two days the pain has been worse than normal which I think is what kicked me out of complacency into taking some action. I even bought a knee pillow for sleeping.

I think this is the year I've been getting all of my physical stuff checked out which is why we are so close to reaching our deductible for the year. I think it's safe to say I'm no longer a fresh spring chicken!