u/MyLadyScribbler

So I've started reading/listening to Unseen Academicals again 'cause of all the World Cup foot-the-ball stuff going on here in Roundworld. And I found myself wondering, as I often do about such things, what the World Cup would look like on the Disc.

What kinds of merch would CMOT Dibbler be hawking in the stands, which characters are most likely to get red-carded, which cities' teams are most likely to hate each other (Ankh-Morpork vs. Quirm? Ankh-Morpork vs. Uberwald? Ankh-Morpork vs. Big Cabbage?)

So the family and I are going on a big trip in a few months. I'm going to bring my pastels with me to do some drawing. But I can't bring spray fixative, 'cause, plane travel, and I don't want to risk the wrath of the TSA.

I've heard of people using the old glassine-foamboard-alligator clips method, and I may end up doing that. But I'm also wondering whether to invest in a pad of Pastelmat or Mi-Teintes Velvet, if they're as smudge-proof as some people say they are. (I hear they're both on the pricey side, so that's why I'm wondering they're worth it.)

Thoughts or recommendations?

Probably a question that a lot of us like to think about. Would the girls have gone on to have careers, and if so, what kinds, would they have started families, or a little of both, etc.

Obviously for quite a few of the girls, options would have been limited due to society's views on acceptable roles for women, among other things.

Addy might have been an educator and/or reformer, perhaps a public speaker. Likewise for Samantha. Kit defo would have been a journalist and/or publisher, maybe even an international correspondent. Molly - perhaps a pilot, or a park ranger, or a scout leader?

I was a huge AG fan when I was maybe 8 or 9 (now I'm a book editor). I was thinking back to when I took a children's lit class in college, and we analyzed a selection of different books. One of the Samantha books came up for discussion, and the prof said, point-blank, "These books are c--p. They were only written to sell dolls."

I remember having conflicted feelings in that moment: on one hand, I was like, okay, granted, the AG books probably aren't on the same tier as Anne of Green Gables or Charlotte's Web or any of the big classics, and the prof DOES have a point about the books and the dolls. But on the other, I was thinking, but I loved these books so much as a kid, and they got me interested in history.

Thoughts? How do you respond, if at all, when other people say stuff like that?

Trying to remember the name of this book I read a long time ago. It would have been published no later than the mid-late 90s.

A teenage boy and his little sister go to the U.S. from Vietnam, presumably as refugees (so I guess it takes place during the 70s or 80s). They're settled with a host family in California, but the adjustment is really difficult. The MC sort of runs away to another town (I think it's called Travers) and meets other kids and young people in similar circumstances to his own. The book discusses a lot of difficult topics like discrimination, hate crimes, and civil unrest.

The cover art is an illustration of the MC getting off a plane with some luggage.

Sound familiar to anyone?

There's that bit early on in Raising Steam, when Adora Belle is sitting up in the clacks tower of an evening. "In fact she could probably see everybody's office from here, but right now she sorted out the delicate little mechanisms and savored a world where she could reach out and touch the sun, well, metaphorically at least."

"Reach out and touch someone" was AT&T's slogan for a while back in the 80s.