#academic asks

[academicsurvivorscomicproject]

Soooo what are your plans on acquiring like basic hygiene products? Like you need soap that's like a basic necessity

[milk-lover]

Sobbing uncontrollably reading through a dissertation about the college experience of students with ADHD. It is like reading a report about my life that just says over and over "My experiences are real. My hardships are real. I am not lazy, I am not dumb. My struggles were not my fault, and they were not a moral failing. The failure was with the system, not with me."

Here's a line that got me in particular:

"Hotez et al.(2022) compared the health, academic, and non-academic capacities of a nationally representative sample of U.S. first-year college students with ADHD and without ADHD. Students with ADHD self-reported lower academic aspirations and more feelings of depression and overwhelm, ranking themselves lower in their general emotional health. The fact that students with ADHD scored in the highest 10th percentile for many non-academic traits, such as artistic ability, computer skills, creativity, public speaking, social confidence, self-understanding and understanding of others, compassion, and risk-tasking, suggests that this population has strengths that are frequently underappreciated in academia."

(the paper is a thesis called "Understanding the Collegiate Experience for Students With ADHD" by Gia Long, 2022)

[yeoldenews]

While we’re on the subject of names, is there an explanation for how traditional nicknames came about that are seemingly unrelated to, or have little in common with, the original name?

ie- John/Jack, Richard/Dick, Henry/Harry/Hank, Charles/Chuck, Margaret/Peggy/Daisy, Sarah/Sally, Mary/Molly, Anne/Nan, etc

I am actually over a week into researching a huge follow-up post (probably more than one if I’m being honest) about the history of nickname usage, so I will be going into this in much, much more detail at a hopefully not-so-later date - if I have not lost my mind. (Two days ago I spent three hours chasing down a source lead that turned out to be a typographical error from 1727 that was then quoted in source after source for the next 150 years.)

As a preview though, here’s some info about the names you mentioned:

The origins of a good portion of common English nicknames come down to the simple fact that people really, really like rhyming things. Will 🠞Bill, Rob🠞Bob, Rick🠞Dick, Meg🠞Peg.

It may seem like a weird reason, but how many of you have known an Anna/Hannah-Banana? I exclusively refer to my Mom’s cat as Toes even though her name is Moe (Moesie-Toesies 🠞 Toesies 🠞 Toes).

Jack likely evolved from the use of the Middle English diminutive suffix “-chen” - pronounced (and often spelled) “-kyn” or “kin”. The use of -chen as a diminutive suffix still endures in modern German - as in “liebchen” = sweetheart (lieb “love” + -chen).

John (Jan) 🠞 Jankin 🠞 Jackin 🠞 Jack.

Hank was also originally a nickname for John from the same source. I and J were not distinct letters in English until the 17th Century. “Iankin” would have been nearly indistinguishable in pronunciation from “Hankin” due to H-dropping. It’s believed to have switched over to being a nickname for Henry in early Colonial America due to the English being exposed to the Dutch nickname for Henrik - “Henk”.

Harry is thought to be a remnant of how Henry was pronounced up until the early modern era. The name was introduced to England during the Norman conquest as the French Henri (On-REE). The already muted nasal n was dropped in the English pronunciation. With a lack of standardized spelling, the two names were used interchangeably in records throughout the middle ages. So all the early English King Henrys would have written their name Henry and pronounced it Harry.

Sally and Molly likely developed simply because little kids can’t say R’s or L’s. Mary 🠞 Mawy 🠞 Molly. Sary 🠞 Sawy 🠞 Sally.

Daisy became a nickname for Margaret because in French garden daisies are called marguerites.

Nan for Anne is an example of a very cool linguistic process called rebracketing, where two words that are often said/written together transfer letters/morphemes over time. The English use of “an” instead of “a” before words beginning with vowels is a common cause of rebracketing. For example: the Middle English “an eute” became “a newt”, and “a napron” became “an apron”. In the case of nicknames the use of the archaic possessive “mine” is often the culprit. “Mine Anne” over time became “My Nan” as “mine” fell out of use. Ned and Nell have the same origin.

Oddly enough the word “nickname” is itself a result of rebracketing, from the Middle English “an eke (meaning additional) name”.

I realized earlier this week that my cat (Toe’s sister) also has a rebracketing nickname. Her name is Mina, but I call her Nom Nom - formed by me being very annoying and saying her name a bunch of time in a row - miNAMiNAMiNAM.

Chuck is a very modern (20th century) nickname which I’ll have to get back to you on as I started my research in the 16th century and am only up to the 1810s so far lol.

[zephyrchama]

Satan with an MC who's not academically inclined. An MC who doesn't enjoy studying, who doesn't read books for fun, who would much rather be anywhere other than a quiet library. Someone with what he, a demon with high standards, considers to have low intellect and low grades, who doesn't think things through before rushing into them head-first.

Satan finds them ridiculous. They're crazy, a complete wild card. He can't take his eyes off of them. What a troublesome human. How absurd and silly and endearing. What a captivating human. If they can't sit still for five minutes, he'll just have to follow their lead to the ends of the Earth.

Satan has trouble coming to terms with the fact he's head over heels for them. It frustrates him to no end. The realization hit him like a truck out of the blue one day, and he's already fallen hard. So hard that he can't possibly imagine being with anyone else. That's okay. Satan convinces himself he has enough book-smarts to make up for the both of them.

Satan knows his human is foolish, but nobody else can dare say that out loud. That's Satan's privilege and his alone. People quickly learn to avoid demeaning MC if they don't want to incur Satan's wrath. His nose may be stuck in a novel but his eyes aren't following the words, they're following the human in his peripheral vision.

They're a breath of fresh air. They don't overthink things. They don't make situations complicated. They're Satan's favorite kind of open book. They force him to live in the moment. MC might not know complex math or obscure history, but nobody can teach Satan the joys of life and emotion quite like his human can.

[chemicalarospec]

one of the posts on this website that haunts me is the one that claims neurotypicals instinctively know to read faster by reading the first and last paragraphs of an article and then skimming it if confused. I can't even begin to understand how someone would form such a bizarre belief.

[hasellia]

[txttletale]

okay to be 100% clear, while every [usage of "degenerate" where "bad/dislikeable/nasty/sexpest-y/etc" would suffice] is allowing fascist shit to creep into your rhetoric for no good reason and therefore bad, there is one really specific context in games in particular where the phrase "degenerate strategy" makes sense in an academic (or adjacent, like "game dev advice") context - it typically refers to when a particular game is supposed to present a series of interesting choices to the player, but there is some standout strategy that is kind of boring to play but also objectively the best one, and by its inclusion, this "strategy" will "degenerate" the whole game into being boring. although i probably would be distrustful of a Gamer who seemed to really enjoy using this phrase even correctly. so this is not a very purposeful tangent but there is a fun fact about that phrase!

yeah a lot of people have like made this specific etymological argument and all i can say is just like hang out around some normie gamers for a while and you will see that they are not carefully cordoning off this piece of mathematical terminology from the other ways the word is used

[cptnbeefheart]

last year in my sketchbook: can representational art be more sustainable for me if i take it less seriously? can i balance the two? | my art

[cracklewink]

I know its not canon but I always liked the idea that Flurry Heart grew up to be a normal pony. Never went on any princess-title-earning quest, no grand magical destiny, no real royal responsibilities. Just a normal pony (who happens to be an alicorn) free to enjoy life with her friends and hobbies

[nothorses]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

I think trying to find one perfect answer that applies universally is the critical mistake here. I mean, I am a gay man. I say this because as of yet, that's the clearest answer I have for myself personally; maybe there's a possibility I experience attraction to a woman at some point (maybe I already have???), but I don't really have clarity on that right now, and it doesn't serve me to shape or explain my identity around "maybe"s.

Trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that attracts me to other men, specifically, is also like... not that useful. I used to find myself really attracted to feminine men specifically; not feminine women, not masculine women, not masculine men, not androgynous anyone, but feminine men. Specifically, men who were feminine in a very particular, long-hair-certain-attitude kind of way.

Recently, I have found myself appreciating, more and more, a certain kind of masculine body type and gay masculinity that I was never really interested in before. I find it incredibly hot. A lot of that coincides with things I appreciate about my partner, too, and things I find myself appreciating more about my partner as time goes on- as well as things my partner expresses appreciation for about me!

And I haven't even touched on attraction to nonbinary folks here because, like, it's a massive spectrum. "Nonbinary" means something different for every individual nonbinary person. To my mind, of course there's a possibility I experience attraction to a nonbinary person; how they identity, present, and what attracts me to them are all even more impossible to know for certain than the "maybe"s and the "why"s around my attraction (or lack thereof) to men and women.

My relationship to my own orientation was vastly different pre-testosterone versus post-testosterone, too. I was much more reserved and uncomfortable with relationships and attraction before I started T, and the only dynamic I ever felt was even a little bit tolerable was one where I was the "masculine woman" in a lesbian relationship. I didn't realize until very shortly after starting T that, actually, I like men. A lot. I felt comfortable with my body and my masculinity in a way I never had been before, and I felt comfortable in relationships with men; I no longer felt like I was The Woman By Default in contrast.

And that's all just me! This is my personal, specific, individual relationship to attraction, and how gender- both others' and my own- factors into my relationship with orientation.

I don't think it's necessarily inborn, or completely unchanging for everyone. I also don't think the same factors apply for everyone. I think a lot of different things can be true for different people, all at once, and it's not really useful to try to pinpoint a specific, universal explanation for orientation.

Everyone has a different relationship to orientation and gender; everyone will be influenced differently by cultural factors, by their own ways of processing and understanding the world around them, by the ways different aspects of their culture, identity, personality, and inborn traits and how they all interact with one another, and sure, maybe even by biological factors and tendencies.

Trying to solve this puzzle for the entire world of diverse human beings isn't going to make it any easier to understand yourself. Focus on what this all means for you, personally, and accept that you will never, can never, fully and perfectly understand anyone else's internal world and workings. Things get a lot easier when you can let go of that & just appreciate the diversity of human experiences, y'know?

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 235

MY FAVORITE AU!! YOU KNOW I GOTTA!!!

[invaderlynx]

Do you think Omega ever reminds Rex of himself? Two little blond tagalongs to a squad of older troopers? The age gap wasn’t so drastic between him and his brothers, but it sometimes felt that way, in the shadow of some of the best the command class had to offer. He’d learned quick though, as had she. He hopes she gets the life that all their brothers were never allowed to have. The life he never got.

I think he’d sometimes see his brothers in hers as well, though he’d try not to. Hunter and Cody, the steadfast leaders. Cody had found Rex, insisted he’d stay, protected him. He’d do anything for him and made sure Rex knew it too. Perhaps he sees a bit of Wolffe in Wrecker. Tough as nails, both of them look frightening, but are a lot softer than they seem once you get to know them. Not to mention the eye. Maybe he sees some Bly in Echo. Often the peacemaker, he also knew when to step back and let his brothers duke it out. His sense of duty was unmatched. In Tech, he’d see Ponds. People always assumed Ponds was the rational one for some odd reason. Sure, he had a good head on his shoulders, but more often than not he’d be leading the pack in whatever dumbassery they were attempting. He’d usually be the one bailing them out of it too. In Crosshair I think he’d see Fox. Blunt, sometimes harsh, and slow to trust, but clever and deeply loyal too—though that loyalty would be what Palpatine and the Empire would use to twist them into something almost unrecognizable.

[triptychgardener]

Hey so just maybe consider that constantly asking trans women about their justifications for their various reads of character's genders over and over and over again may, in fact, get exhausting and it sucks and you should probably stop.

Like I tend to answer asks assuming good faith and because I don't mind giving an explainer every now and again. And it can even be fun now and again to go through the my analysis process.

But the fact that so often transfem reads are interrogated endlessly over and over again while trans women are expected to be ever-flowing fonts of gender knowledge who have to defend their reads from people who haven't even done a basic bit of analysis makes actually engaging in this fandom and taking it seriously a fucking ordeal.

If you don't agree with or are confused by a read, consider reading a bit more analysis on it or, barring all else, just move on! Unfollow or block! We literally cannot stop you and it will save everyone a lot of time and energy!

[aropride]

if you've used it in middle/high school And in college, vote for the most recent one

[gynii]

Gynii my beloved mutual gynii.. can I see the baby (Michael_B) please and you're the best.. <3

To make up for how late this is, a bonus tubbo with your michael_b <3 (also youre the best!!)

[jstor]

My friends find it very hard to use JSTOR, how do I tell them your wrong and the best database?

I meant to say their wrong and you are the best database, it's been a long day!

It can be complicated to use a repository like JSTOR, especially when first starting out! We have a post around searching best practices that may be helpful, the main point being that searching on JSTOR is not like searching on Google.

It takes a bit of adjustment, but once you get the hang of it, JSTOR offers access to some incredible academic content, especially in the humanities and social sciences. A few tips that might help your friends:

Use specific keywords – Start with broader terms, then narrow your search using filters like date ranges, subjects, and content types.

Take advantage of advanced search – It can help refine results and target exactly what you’re looking for (e.g., by including/excluding terms or focusing on article titles).

Explore collections and themes – JSTOR hosts collections that can give a more focused entry point into topics.

Create a free personal or institutional account – This way, your friends can save articles and organize their research more easily in Workspace, even with limited access.

It might not feel as intuitive as Google at first, but the quality and depth of resources are well worth it. Plus, once you learn to navigate JSTOR effectively, it becomes an essential research tool!