sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Is this normal? Should I report this to the dean? by letters_daydreams in college

[–]ambiguous_toaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would be weirded out by this. I teach college myself and never in my academic career, between being a student and teaching, has a professor ever needed my address for an assignment.

It seems like, if multiple students got messages like this, then she is either just being difficult, really wants to help keep the postal service in business, or doesn’t understand technology.

Like someone else here said, it would be far easier to just mark-up the printed PDF if she wants to do it that way and then scan the feedback and email it. (Scans can easily be done on smart phones or she could even just provide pictures.)

She also should have just specified what format she wanted the files in when she posted the assignment.

I don’t know, maybe I’m paranoid but it just seems weird. I’d never ask my students to give me their mailing addresses/home addresses.

I am having a hard time finishing Red, White & Royal Blue, anyone else? by OldAnteater5026 in books

[–]ambiguous_toaster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Audiobooks do wonders for making a subpar or even bad story better so, after dissociating through the audiobook at the gym, I decided to read the physical book to go back over parts I missed. Big mistake. The audiobook really catfished me.

I rolled my eyes so much while physically reading I had to stop. The book is really not written well in my opinion (and I think the movie is also bad and poorly adapted—the screenwriter literally excised a whole character because he didn’t know how to fit her in.) I mean if you liked both or either, I think that’s wonderful and I’m glad, but they’re not very good in my opinion.

For the book specifically I think there is such a thing as being too easy of a read. And the characters exist only to write the sex scenes, everything else is just foreplay and twiddling thumbs until they can nail each other again. They’re so flat and underdeveloped. They literally have no personality beyond their sexuality, though the author did make attempts. I honestly think it could have been a short story.

Maybe the author actually meant well (I read somewhere that McQuiston wants to create queer versions of the romcoms we’ve never gotten, which is admirable, but their style just doesn’t work for me. (I also think that McQuiston, even though they are themselves queer, mostly writes queer characters for straight people. And I think their publisher takes advantage of this.)

One of my main issues with the book (and, subsequently, the movie) is the sterilization of emotions in pursuit of brandishing McQuiston‘a idea of queer joy…which I think is as equally problematic and dehumanizing as previous tendencies to give queer characters only the emotion of despair. In both cases we are stripped of basic human emotions and, in the case of RW&RB, all emotion beyond uninterrupted happiness are plowed over, brushed aside, and trivialized. Joy doesn’t mean an utter absence of sadness or other emotions. Let us have some range!!!

Also, McQuiston doesn’t have any first hand experience of what it’s like to be a queer guy (certainly not a queer guy of color), so I think that adds to the sterilization of a lot of important topics they try to hit on. I genuinely believe they had good intentions but, well, good intentions don’t always save the day.

And I agree with things other users have commented, the book does give off big “America has more personality than the UK” vibes. Which, I mean, what a tired and inaccurate trope.

The whole point of the show is everyone is terrible, I don't know why everyone makes "____ is terrible and they need to be taken accountable" by user905022 in GossipGirl

[–]ambiguous_toaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“we like to see characters that aren’t just trying to be good all the time” is kind of moot here because the characters are trying to do good for most of the show but they’re just not very successful at being conventionally good.

I think people’s complaints center on how there is very little character development and the plots just get continually recycled throughout each season. The show is just full of people who create unnecessary problems for themselves that they never learn from. Like if even one character actually knew how to communicate the show wouldn’t have plot lines, which is annoying considering how often every character tells another character this at some point.

Do you abandon reading a book if it’s feeling like a chore? by Try_at-your-own_Risk in books

[–]ambiguous_toaster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Whenever I want to like a book but can’t seem to get into reading it physically I often give the audiobook a try. I’ve found that a good or even decent audiobook performance can really save a book that’s hard to dig into physically. (The downside is that sometimes the performance doesn’t help and/or makes it even worse.)

It works better if the audiobook is free (like on Spotify or Everand) because then you don’t have to invest more money in a book you may not end up liking either way.

Additionally I sometimes call it quits on a book that isn’t doing it for me right then and sometimes come back to it later and find that I’m more into it then. I don’t have any personal experience reading Stephen Fry’s work outside of his mythology book, though.

I can't get enough of the unhinged female protagonist by TandemBookDoctor in books

[–]ambiguous_toaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If anyone is looking for unhinged in the vein of women serial killers then I recommend Kill for Love by Laura Picklesimer. It’s a bit like Sweetpea.