kiya

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?

In the event that any of y'all were worried.

Second of all: Wife and I went to see the live-action HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, which was fun, but did not...do anything? With live action, to differentiate itself from the cartoon? If you're gonna make a live-action remake - heck, if you're gonna do a remake at all - then there should be a reason for it that's not 'look at my shot-for-shot re-creation,' at least in my opinion. I still enjoyed the movie, not least because we went to an indy filmhouse that spent the half-hour ahead of the film doing an incomplete survey of dragons in movies and TV, rather than an assortment of advertisements, but I feel a little guilty for the enjoyment.

Third of all I ran headlong into writer's block on one of the stories I was writing. Boo, I say, and Boo again. I have vague ideas as to how to get myself unstuck, but only vague ones. Meanwhile I shall go off and world-build on my gloriously silly NaNoWriMo prompt.

(Fourth of all, does anyone know how to force wipe an old HP computer that won't give you the Settings menu? For relative amounts of old - I think it's still Windows 10. Wife says I'm safe to just give it the old heave-ho, but I don't trust there isn't financial information on it somewhere.)

And back! Will be out of town next weekend, so next chapter will go up Sunday, July 20th--unless my travel plans get catastrophically interrupted...

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Can the American King's uncanny military genius best an enemy so cunning the enemy loses every battle?

The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun by Christopher Anvil

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Sometime in the last couple of months, someone posted a link to a site that had interesting looking shirts made of linen, for lower prices than most places charge. I forgot to bookmark it. Can anyone point me to it? or to something else that fits that description, even if you didn't see it here?

Edited to add: A the shirts were less expensive than I expected, which is a large part of why I'm interested. Those may have been sale prices, I don't remember.

Also, the were made of either linen or a linen blend, not "line".

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This is much easier for Martin's New Voices series....

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wild cards

Four works new to me. One is SF, two fantasy, and the magazine (which I have not yet looked inside) likely both. Two of the novels are series novels, one does not seem to me.

Books Received, June 28 — July 4

Poll #33326 Books Received, June 28 — July 4

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

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FIYAH No. 35: Black Isekai published by FIYAH Literary Magazine (July 2025)
18 (51.4%)

Aces Full edited by George R. R. Martin (November 2025)
2 (5.7%)

Only Spell Deep by Ava Morgyn (March 2026)
6 (17.1%)

The Damned by Harper L. Woods (October 2025)
3 (8.6%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
29 (82.9%)

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books received

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-Doors and windows all closed
-Blinds and curtains all drawn when sunlight falls on the glass
-Mylar foil on the windows
-External shade on the windows and walls where available (we moved a potted tree)
-Margarine tub of water frozen to make a huge ice cube for the flask-with-tap of water, takes longer to melt than same volume of smaller ice cubes so keeps water cool all day
-Cooling scarves
-Drinking water from bottles means we drink more
-Linen clothes
-Watering plants with Baumbad bags and only at night
-Portable aircon units *simpsons meme*

Jay Kuo takes a break from chronicling the regime's crimes to share some honest hope for today, and the days and months ahead:

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/celebrating-independence

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political

Ninety years after her grandmother's family was stalked by a witch, international student Minerva Contrera's studies land her in a similar position.

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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I embrace new tools. In Fabula Ultima, for example, the order in which characters go in combat varies. I found it hard to keep track of who'd gone, so I went out and got poker chips and little round labels. Now, I can just toss the chips representing characters into a bowl once they've gone. Order!

OK, except it turns out I can't tell blue from green under the ceiling light in the room where I DM and the names on the labels need to be bigger.

I'm writing a story where my main character stops his friend, a dad to a 13-ish year old boy, from purchasing some ~~anime~~ manga books because the main character knows the book series is too adult (sex, violence, both) for a 13 year old. The main character then recommends a different series because the story line is more appropriate for the age of the teen.

The story is the relationship between the main character and the dad, so this is a small piece of the larger story. But I know absolutely nothing about anime (or manga, obviously!) and would appreciate some recommendations of titles that would fit those categories.

Thanks!

ETA: I'm looking for currently available titles and perhaps where they are best purchased (a bookstore, a comic book store, a specialty shop, online?)

ETA2: I'm looking US-centric here.

Director of the nation formerly known as Canada Quinn Atherton is determined to deliver much mass murder as it takes to achieve peace, order, good government. Why do so many ingrates object?

Blight(Sleep of Reason, volume 2) by Rachel A. Rosen

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review

The inspiration being the 1999 Mummy movie is not without problematic elements.

Imagine an Egyptian film company wanting to make a movie about idiots waking a horror in Canada that only the Egyptian lead can resolve.
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Boston's Orange Line, by Andrew Elder and Jeremy C. Fox. This is a collection of black-and-white photos, going back to the start of the old elevated orange line, with captions. This was for the "explore Boston history" square on the BPL summer reading bingo. If I'd noticed the "images of rail" series title, I wouldn't have borrowed this book. The captions are just about enough to confirm that there's more than enough to be said on the subject to make a book, but this isn't. This has a disjointed discussion of the lengthy "realigmnent" of the orange line to its current route, and a couple of paragraphs on the decision not to run an 8-lane interstate through the middle of Boston and Cambridge, and no suggestion that anything similar had happened elsewhere. Ah, well.

There are suggestions on the library website for some of the squares (including "with a green cover"), but not this one. Searching the catalog for "Boston histpry" got me this, along with, among other things, a book about the Big Dig, a book about the Great Molasses Flood (which is at least mentioned in this, with a picture of damage to the orange line), and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

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The June 2023 Dark Eye Megabundle featuring the English-language edition from Ulisses Spiele of the leading German tabletop roleplaying game of heroic fantasy, The Dark Eye.

Bundle of Holding: The Dark Eye MEGA (from 2023)

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bundle of holding

From our Librarything
Title: So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix
Author: Bethany C. Morrow
Publication: St Martin's Press (2021), 304 pages

Started: 2025-06-26 – Finished: 2025-07-02

This is a fascinating idea and absolutely delightfully executed. Little Women, but with the March family as recently freed African-Americans. It changes EVERYTHING about the book, of course, but the threads are still there to link the two. Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy and their love interests against a background of a place and perspective in history I was completely unaware of before now.

I found the tone both true to the time and easy to access, and the romantic storylines, in particular, much more satisfying than in the original Little Women. I was especially delighted by Beth, though also, of course, especially heartbroken, though the story as a whole is very light on gory details of atrocities; the emotional details are all there.

Five stars and I'll read any sequels.

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books

help with Venetian dialect

First of all, I am in Texas but not flooded.

Dreams of Dead Stars, Part III, ch. 8: Intermission, Interrupted

The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun by Christopher Anvil

Further update

Safe and sound

looking for a link/website

Wild Cards checklist

Books Received, June 28 — July 4

Guadalupe River, Texas

It's hot

July 4th

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Every time I run something

Manga (Anime) series info?

Blight (Sleep of Reason, volume 2) by Rachel A. Rosen

My alt-Mummy film

Wednesday reading

Bundle of Holding: The Dark Eye MEGA (from 2023)

Books: So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

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