lizvogel

daily_otter_feed

Posted by Daily Otter

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/7/our-rescued-female-pup-has-a-name-now

Via Alaska SeaLife Center, which writes:

Our first otter patient admitted in 2025, the young female from Homer, now has a name:

✨Meet Un’a! ✨

Un’a means “that out in the open water” in the language of the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people. It’s a fitting name for this special pup who has shown strong resilience in her recovery!

See our previous posts here, here, and here - or check out her new tag!

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/7/our-rescued-female-pup-has-a-name-now

arghink_jennycrusie_feed

Posted by Jenny

https://arghink.com/2025/07/argh-author-jeanne-oates-estridge-writing-as-opal-mason-in-harolds-harmonance/

https://arghink.com/?p=32070

Our own Argher Jeanne Oates Estridge has a new pen name—Opal Mason—and a new series—Ice Planet Octogenarians. A quartet of sci-fi romcoms, the first book in the series, Haroom’s Harmonance, released July 1.

Retired teacher Ginny Robinson is on the way to the casino to celebrate her birthday with her three best friends when she cuts off a convertible full of pretty young girls in traffic and gets caught up in an alien tractor beam.

You’d think being eighty-five years old would protect you from being kidnapped by sex-trafficking space aliens. But you’d be wrong.

Because my friends and I took out the slave traders only to crash-land on an ice-ball of a planet called “Oog.”

The natives here are huge and purple, with feet like beaver tails, two thumbs on each broad hand, and towering antlers. You wouldn’t think they’d be interested in a quartet of eighty-somethings, but their tribe is really short on females.

Also, their saliva contains a chemical that, when applied to the right location, turns back the clock on these rickety old bodies.

Before you judge us, let me ask you this: What if you were standing so close to the Grim Reaper you could see the whites of his eyes? And what if a strapping young fellow came along and offered you the chance to be twenty-five again?

Do you really think you’d turn that down?

Available in print and ebook: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F92YTP5W/

https://arghink.com/2025/07/argh-author-jeanne-oates-estridge-writing-as-opal-mason-in-harolds-harmonance/

https://arghink.com/?p=32070

wildelife_feed

https://www.wildelifecomic.com/comic/1484

New comic!
Today's News:

We now return to your regularly scheduled webcomic.

https://www.wildelifecomic.com/comic/1484

dinogrrl posting in

little_details

Hello wonderful people!

I've got a fantasy story that's set in early 18th-century Venice. I don't speak Italian, and definitely don't know the difference between the various regional dialects, so I'm looking for some help with a nickname in Venetian.

I have a priest who can use magic, who is not exactly a nice guy. Nobody likes to be around him, he's the kind of person you can just tell will erupt like a magic-spewing volcano the moment something doesn't go his way. My main character is ten when she first meets him and has a very visceral Do Not Like reaction to him, comparing him to a pack of rabid dogs. She is not told his name at the time, so in her mind she dubs him Father Mad Dog (creative, I know).

Several years ago I tried to parse "Father Mad Dog" into Italian/Venetian, and I don't know where I came to the conclusion that it'd be "Don Can' Pazzo" but that's what I've been using. I guess somewhere along the line I was under the impression that cane would get shortened to can when used like this. Is any of this correct? Or do I need another phrase entirely?

pcwrede_comments_feed

Posted by Kevin Wade Johnson

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-57069

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-57069

In reply to Mary Kuhner.

I’ve read Hellstrom’s Hive, many years ago, and for what it’s worth, I like the work of yours I read much more.

I can’t say that I remember Hive that well, just the shocking death you mentioned, and an overall memory that it just wasn’t very pleasant… (That’s a legitimate authorial choice, but it diminished my personal enjoyment.)

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-57069

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-57069

daily_otter_feed

Posted by Daily Otter

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/6/i-dont-understand-the-question-and-i-wont-respond-to-it

Via Andy Wallace

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/6/i-dont-understand-the-question-and-i-wont-respond-to-it

arghink_jennycrusie_feed

Posted by Jenny

https://arghink.com/2025/07/happiness-is-accomplishment/

https://arghink.com/?p=32057

After weeks of not being able to get into the book we’re writing, I went off on a tangent and wrote two scenes we hadn’t planned on. Then I sent them to Bob and braced myself, but he wrote back, “These are really good.” I’m still on a high from that.

What made you happy this week?

https://arghink.com/2025/07/happiness-is-accomplishment/

https://arghink.com/?p=32057

pcwrede_comments_feed

Posted by Mary Kuhner

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56994

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56994

I was thinking about _Hellstrom’s Hive_, which made a big impression on me as a kid and surely is partly to blame for the WIS and WIP.

It has a strange structure. Except for one scene at the start which establishes the conflict (and the POV character doesn’t survive the scene), it’s in two points of view: the Hive leader and the secret agent who is trying to uncover what he’s doing. We start with the Hive leader and he’s pretty sympathetic, but the second half of the book is mainly the secret agent trying to escape the Hive, and being in such a bad situation makes him easy to identify with. They are clearly each others’ antagonists. I hadn’t seen that before (and I’m still struggling to come up with another example) and it made the ending shocking to me as a kid. (Trying to avoid spoilers, but you can see that with this structure, *someone* the readers are attached to is likely to come to a bad end. I guessed wrong on who it was.)

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56994

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56994

pcwrede_comments_feed

Posted by Gray Woodland

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56988

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56988

In reply to Mary Catelli.

It’s true that the grifter type of personality you’re describing is depressingly common, but I don’t know that it fits most villains in interesting stories. It can certainly be done very well – many of John D MacDonald’s villains are like this, I think, and some of them are scary as all get-out even when they’re not remarkably competent. But larger-scale stories are a different thing. If a villain is of the Relentless Conquerer or Dread Tyrant or Transgressive Savant type, for instance, I should say that hero-of-own-story will usually be a better fit – however horrible, and even inane, their private story might actually be…

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56988

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56988

pcwrede_comments_feed

Posted by Gray Woodland

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56987

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56987

I thought the BtVS Mayor was both really scary and extremely funny, for more or less the exact same reasons. I have a big soft spot for the sort of story which wants characters like that – both as a reader and a writer – but he’s very much adapted to his story’s particular tone. The choice of villains/ antagonists is going to have a lot of say in what kind of story one is telling, and vice versa, so I suppose it makes sense that coming up with useful generalizations about it is so difficult!

Personally I fall very much into the “Villany is boring and unpleasant” category for the most part, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like stories with villains, even “magnificent” villains, in them. It does mean that I don’t want to spend much time inside their heads, and that the amount and type of stage time they get needs to be watched closely. Classic case in point: I love Lord of the Rings, and admit it is a fair criticism that Sauron is more or less a faceless bogey throughout it. But we do – both from the book and from other material that became available later – have a sufficiently good idea of exactly what the Sauron of that period is like, and all I can say is that he’s earned his faceless bogeydom. More Sauron would distinctly not be an improvement: it would be a cup of cold sick. His secondary impact on people, places, and history is much more interesting and (from our point of view outside the fiction) almost certainly a good deal scarier.

Whereas the definitely antagonistic and unsympathetic Denethor of the book is not a villain, and needs his time onstage to come across as a tragic hero, whose pride and whose choices in hard places are bringing him to his personal and moral ruin. His cartoon villainization in the films really grated on me, and not because I like him!

Charlie Jane Anders is making some interesting related points on her Happy Dancing blog right now, in an entry about her being fed up with writing about horrible protagonists.

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56987

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56987

daily_otter_feed

Posted by Daily Otter

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/5/i-wonder-what-has-otters-attention-so-rapt-probably-food

Via pelican

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/5/i-wonder-what-has-otters-attention-so-rapt-probably-food

arghink_jennycrusie_feed

Posted by Jenny

https://arghink.com/2025/07/argh-author-barbara-monjems-lady-rosamund-confesses/

https://arghink.com/?p=32065

Our own Barbara Monajem has a new novella in her Regency Mystery series, “Lady Rosamund Confesses.”

After the terrifying experience of confronting a murderer, Lady Rosamund retreats, along with her father and McBrae, to the home of friends in the country for some much-needed relaxation.

But before long, they find themselves embroiled in the affairs of a neighboring family, and soon this involves a corpse.

If this isn’t trouble enough, Rosie can’t figure out what McBrae’s intentions are—not to mention her own. Will he ask her to marry him? What will she reply? And what more must she confess before daring to say yes?

This novella takes place immediately after Lady Rosamund and the Plague of Suitors.

https://books2read.com/Lady-Rosamund-Confesses

https://arghink.com/2025/07/argh-author-barbara-monjems-lady-rosamund-confesses/

https://arghink.com/?p=32065

fred_mouse

I need some down time this weekend. I have any number of things I want to have done, but I'm restricting myself to things that can be done sitting on the bed, minimal movement. To whit:

Finish reading The Dictionary of Lost Words - DONE! Highly recommended fictional account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary
Read Attached - book on romantic relationships. in progress (started Saturday)
Finish Creating a Second Brain - collected from the library yesterday, read a chapter on the bus
Finish Library of the Dead - this one is due back on Monday, and being Libby, will get autoreturned.

Which, not actually outside the bounds, as long as I am actually doing those.

stretch goals, of which I'm hoping to achieve at least one

close tabs (current: 526, goal: <500) in safari
finish reading the fic I'm part way through (there might be more than one of these.
progress Eldest's quilt (this is not an 'on the bed' activity; it is added so that if I need to get up and move around, I have a task)
write up my goals for the next 6 months
blog post about how the study is going.

asakiyume

My mood improved markedly with a visit from the tall one and his son, my grandkid, little treelet.

Wakanomori brought down a diary the tall one had kept as a kid: here is the entry from July 25, 2000, which includes our visit to Lloyd Alexander's house, where we put on a play for him and his wife Janine. Also included is a visit to the US mint in Philadelphia and commentary on the Delaware River (big!)

Current Music: Naomi Westwater: the empress

asakiyume

Having some feelings, so ... have some microfictions.

May 20, prompt word "serve"

Directions for serving certain abstract dishes:

--revenge is a dish best served cold
--pornography is a dish best served hot
--satire is a dish best served salty
--mockery is a dish best served bitter
--disappointment is a dish best served sour
--romance is a dish best served sweet

June 26, prompt word "kind"

"May I pay you in kind rather than currency?" the woman asked. The man was selling Dastrian funerary masks, perhaps war loot from the last conflict.

"That depends. What you got to offer?" He was suspicious--she looked Dastrian.

"These magical birds."

Impressed, the man agreed.

As he neared home that evening, the birds suddenly took flight. They plunged through the windows of his house, seizing precious objects in their talons, and flew off.

Payment in kind.

July 2, prompt word "clear"

"I'm not guilty," I insisted. It was true. Sure, I'd taken the bribe and misplaced evidence, but I did NOT betray Pereira. Yet now all I got were angry looks and curses.

"My spell will clear your name," Lady One Eye said. I believed her and didn't notice when she added, "Clear it but good."

The next day, no one knew me. I introduced myself and they looked confused. I wrote out my name, but it was like they couldn't see it.

My name had been cleared into invisibility.

daily_otter_feed

Posted by Daily Otter

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/4/the-perfect-summer-activity-for-otters-or-humans-really

Via Oregon Zoo

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2025/7/4/the-perfect-summer-activity-for-otters-or-humans-really

arghink_jennycrusie_feed

Posted by Jenny

https://arghink.com/2025/07/argh-author-jean-marie-wards-brigid-and-the-snakes/

https://arghink.com/?p=32060

Our own Jean Marie Ward has a story, “Brigid and the Snakes,” in the anthology Intergalactic Rejects, out now (Calendar of Fools, June 20, 2025).

For readers: A collection of exciting, powerful science fiction and fantasy stories. For writers: a reminder that rejection isn’t the end and to never give up on stories you believe in.

A man who lost his son finds family again piloting a lab-grown dolphin and helping it navigate loss while, hopefully, preventing more; an Irish goddess must contend with the magic of a saint to save her people; and a bullied boy finds common cause with the ghosts of dead horses in the basement of the Hermitage Museum.

These stories and many more await in this anthology of stories. Each one powerfully demonstrates the point of this anthology: that great stories are rejected every day. From Science Fiction Grand Masters and New York Times bestsellers to writers just starting their career, this anthology is packed full of strong stories that waited a long time to find a home. Every story is accompanied by a rejection history from the author themselves, each with different lessons on the nature and meaning of rejection as well as words of encouragement for their fellow authors on those days when the rejections roll in too many at a time.

Along with the seven stories from our anchor authors Samuel R. Delany, Robert J. Sawyer, Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Gregory Norman Bossert, Jean Marie Ward, William Joseph Roberts, and David Boop, we also have an original essay from Robert Silverberg, and a foreword by Neil Clarke, the editor and publisher of Clarkesworld Magazine.

Finally, there are also thirteen original stories slushed from our open call by Christopher Blake, Laurence Raphael Brothers, Marie Croke, Sam Harris, Andrew Jackson, Stephen Kotowych, Rich Larson, Sam Loiaconi, Amelia Dee Mueller, Sam W. Pisciotta, Erica Ruppert, Paul Dale Smith, and Catherine Wells.

• The website(s) that has the book info on it: Calendar of Fools https://calendaroffools.com/intergalactic-rejects/

• Buy links:

Print on Amazon <https://www.amazon.com/intergalactic-rejects-calendar-fools-anthology/dp/b0f79rf23r/> and Barnes & Noble <https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/intergalactic-rejects-storm-humbert/1147397219>

Ebook
 Amazon < https://www.amazon.com/Intergalactic-Rejects-Calendar-Fools-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0F79V2DNN/>
 Barnes & Noble < https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/intergalactic-rejects-kevin-j-anderson/1147532343>
 Kobo < https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/intergalactic-rejects-a-calendar-of-fools-anthology?sId=30c2fa62-d21a-4aa1-8bf3-254c1f14f538>

Jean adds: “I’m really excited about being on the cover of a book with all those big names in the science fiction and fantasy field—and for being the only woman on the cover until Kevin J. Anderson got around to adding his wife. It’s also gratifying to be one of three stories specifically referenced in the jacket copy. Better yet, it’s the only story I’ve ever submitted that sailed from submission through proofing with no changes. I still don’t quite believe it.

“On a more productive note, for folks who would like to learn more about the anthology as a whole, Tangent Online recently published a review and recap of all 17 of the previously unpublished stories. <https://tangentonline.com/print-other/intergalactic-rejects-edited-by-storm-humbert/>”

https://arghink.com/2025/07/argh-author-jean-marie-wards-brigid-and-the-snakes/

https://arghink.com/?p=32060

pcwrede_comments_feed

Posted by Emily

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56924

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56924

Last week I was talking about my upcoming webcomic with some friends on Discord, and one of them said “Who will be the antagonist? You need a proper villain!” I wasn’t sure what to say at first, because it really isn’t the sort of story that requires a villain as such. Probably the closest thing it has to an antagonist is the MC’s estranged birth mother, with whom she has a complicated relationship.

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56924

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56924

pcwrede_comments_feed

Posted by Mary Kuhner

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56911

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56911

One of the first-readers of my WIS sent me guesses as to who the villain is when she was partway through. But I don’t think it has one. It has a number of very manipulative creatures who function, one way or another, as antagonists. I think Tyree is the striking one to me, as it genuinely loves the protagonist–in its fashion–and wants her to survive, but manipulation is the only tool it has. It would be dejected if you told it that it was the villain of the piece, but its intervention costs the protagonist her job, her freedom, and arguably her humanity.

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/villains-and-antagonists-but-mostly-villains/#comment-56911

https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/?p=12721#comment-56911

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

This week's questions were suggested by

lord_azurewave.

1. Who is your best friend?

2. Why did you become friends?

3. How did you meet?

4. Why have you stayed friends?

5. How long (realistically) do you think you'll be friends?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

Current Mood: pensive

Our Rescued Female Pup Has a Name Now!

Argh Author: Jeanne Oates Estridge writing as Opal Mason in Harold’s Harmonance

Wilde Life - 1484

help with Venetian dialect

Comment on Villains and Antagonists, but Mostly Villains by Kevin Wade Johnson

I Don't Understand the Question and I Won't Respond to It

Happiness is Accomplishment

Comment on Villains and Antagonists, but Mostly Villains by Mary Kuhner

Comment on Villains and Antagonists, but Mostly Villains by Gray Woodland

Comment on Villains and Antagonists, but Mostly Villains by Gray Woodland

I Wonder What Has Otter's Attention So Rapt? (Probably Food.)

Argh Author: Barbara Monajem’s Lady Rosamund Confesses

Ridiculous weekend plans

July 25, 2000

a handful of microfictions

The Perfect Summer Activity for Otters - Or Humans, Really

Argh Author: Jean Marie Ward’s “Brigid and the Snakes”

Comment on Villains and Antagonists, but Mostly Villains by Emily

Comment on Villains and Antagonists, but Mostly Villains by Mary Kuhner

The Friday Five for 4 July 2025

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June 2025

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