#like. jokes aside i need to write this goddamn paper. its not due Soon but it has to be started bc im working this week and the next

[silverislander]

i tried an energy drink today to see if it would do anything and. well. it didn't. it made me fucking tired is all. and now i'm mad that i'm tired, bc i have a paper to do and i STILL CAN'T FOCUS ENOUGH TO DO IT

[thedeviljudges]

based on @codyrhodesofficial prompt so uh, this literally didn’t turn out how i think u wanted it but fjalskdfa i tried!!!

Steve curses under his breath, twisting the pencil around in his hand. The eraser flies across the page, sprinkles of excess rubber shavings leaving his desk a mess. It shouldn’t be this difficult to write, shouldn’t take him goddamn hours to make sense of a language he grew up speaking. But it is; the words don’t come to him so easily, knowing this is something akin to permanent. Sure, he can erase until he rips right through the paper, but it won’t change the fact that as soon as the lead touches the slip, his brain goes blank, and he feels a little too stupid to even bother trying.

“What’s that?”

Quickly, Steve covers his paper with his hand, a loud smack against the wood. He hadn’t known Billy was awake, hadn’t heard a noise from the bed until it was too late.

Steve bites his lip, wondering if it’d be too obvious to smush it into a ball and throwing it away. The paper is dull now, gray and white and unfamiliar from his original scribbles. He’s made a mess of the page, not good enough now for a submission, as if it was ever good enough to begin with.

“Something I’m working on,” he says and hopes that Billy will leave it at that. There are a lot of things Steve is self-conscious about, and there are a lot of things he isn’t. The former is what he feels this time, his lack of mental dexterity a sore spot he doesn’t want provoked. Steve knows he’s not been smart about a lot of things, struggled with some classes more than others, and he thinks that maybe it’s really his fault for not trying hard enough despite the numbers and letters mixing no matter how hard he’s willed it to stop.

“Something important?” Billy asks from the bed. Steve glances at him, mere inches away from the chair he sits in. There’s a mess of curls sticking out from under the covers, two eyes blinking back at him with laziness while his nose remains covered most likely due to the chilliness in the air.

“No, it’s-” He shrugs, not having the heart to lie but also too distraught to bring attention to his misgivings. The joke’s on him though because Billy reads him like a goddamn book – the irony – and it makes him even more uncomfortable under such scrutiny. “It’s really nothing. I thought I had some time to rewrite this.”

“For what?”

Steve’s lips thin, tongue flicking out to wet them. He’s reluctant, at a crossroads because what he has is a mess of a college application paper staring back at him, taunting him for all the things he isn’t and might never be. Steve’s always been good at being decently cool, knows his sports, and maybe it’s easier for him to figure out equations involving numbers.

But this is writing, and it’s the only thing that matters out in that big old world, particularly if he ever has any desire to get the fuck out of town. Sure, money might buy him a spot or two, but it taints his stomach with unease thinking how little he’d deserve that kind of reward if he hadn’t worked for it.

“College application,” he replies simply, can’t take his eyes off the desk and the torturous stationary that mocks every fiber of his being. “It’s a lost cause.”

Setting the pencil down, Steve picks up his words without any delicacy involved. With every intention to crumble it up, he pauses when Billy shuffles out from under the covers with a single grabby hand that makes Steve arch a brow. “You’re not looking at this.”

Billy’s eyes narrow reaching forward just a little more until he’s got Steve’s paper in between two fingers. “You’re sure?”

Steve sighs and lets go, lets a shirtless Billy fall back onto his bed like he owns the damn thing while he slouches in his chair. The two of them have been through enough not to be embarrassed of judgment from one another, but his toes curl against the cold floor, and maybe his heart picks up a little speed as Billy settles down to read the absolute trash that’s become the bane of Steve’s existence for the past several weeks.

“Listen,” he starts, fingers curling into the palm of his hands, nails digging into the flesh. “It’s not worth the read, really. I can’t- I’ve never-”

Billy only hums, and Steve rolls his eyes at the fact that he can’t speak now. So, he leaves it at that, let’s fate take its course while he suffers in silence, holding his breath on an exhale.

It takes all of five minutes before the staleness in the room dissipates, Billy pursing his lips in thought while Steve’s stomach twists into fucking knots. “Nancy said-”

Billy glances at him, eyebrows rising of their own accord. “Oh yeah?” he questions, the annoyance clear as day; he’s never been fond of the girl, especially not after Steve’d randomly let on how he’d has his heart broken after a few too many beers.

He’d also questioned Billy and asked him not to break his heart, too, but that’s neither here or there, and Steve doesn’t have the time nor patience to deal with the flush of his cheeks when he thinks about it. Curse his body’s lack of patience with alcohol, and curse his inability not to be a Chatty Cathy in the most inopportune moments.

“Yes, she said-”

Billy snorts, honest-to-god releases that sound in the midst of Steve’s feelings of inadequacy. “Good thing I don’t give a shit about what she says.”

And that’s certainly not what Steve was expecting.

Furrowing his brow, he stares at Billy, trying to gauge whether he’s really fucking with him or not. Sometimes it’s so hard to tell, what with those goddamn eyes and those lips and how eager Billy is to give him a smirk when he least expects it.

“She’s not wrong, though,” he counters because Nancy’s comments sure as shit didn’t help his confidence. And it’s not like he desperately needed the compliments and for her to lie to him about what he’d attempted, but it was still a let down knowing he tried and failed. What’s worse is that he still doesn’t know how to correct it.

“Did she tell you it was shit?” Billy turns in bed, lying on his side, paper still nestled between his fingers. He glances back and forth between Steve and what’s left of his writing before he gives up waiting for Steve to reply. “Because it is; your thoughts are all over the place.”

Steve lets out a frustrated growl and slouches even further into his chair. “Thank you, captain obvious. I know that, which is why I was trying to fix it.” Immediately, the anger deflates. Like Nancy, he can’t fault Billy either, and deep down, he knew he’d get an honest response. Though, Steve’s not sure if he prefers the way Nancy handled it or the bluntness that comes with Billy Hargrove.

“Look, you’re on the right track.”

“Don’t flatter me, asshole.”

Billy rolls his eyes, but he keeps Steve pinned with his gaze. “You just need some reorganization, make it more seamless.”

“I swear to god if you’re fucking with me-”

“I’m not,” Billy replies, voice rough as it lowers. It makes Steve blink and reevaluate whether he was raising his voice out of resentment of sorts, the apathy he has for this conversation overshadowing his real feelings of defeat.

But Billy looks as serious as he can be, playfulness set aside for something much more raw. It stirs familiarity in Steve’s chest, like an old memory playing on the backdrop of a warm summer night. It coddles him like a blanket, that look, full of genuine care, and rather than it startling Steve, he wraps himself up in Billy’s ability to graze the line between truthfulness and tenderness just when Steve needs it the most.

“If you want,” the other boy begins, gaze fluttering down to the floorboards, “I can help you.”

And now the tables have turned, so slowly and casually, Steve almost misses it. Billy looks just as nervous as Steve had felt, like his offer might not be well received nor appreciated. But Steve, god, does something inside his chest flip: most likely his heart, if he could guess. It dances in waves, like a soft breeze caressing the flowers. “Do you want to?” he poses because Steve has to know if Billy is really willing to take on a task like that, through the grievances and thoughts that encompass Steve’s inability to communicate. “I’m not very good at it; we might be here awhile.”

And well, that brings up another point of contention: for how long is Billy willing to stand his presence until he abandon’s all resolve and leaves Steve scrambling for some semblance of coherency.

“Steve,” he hears, tone falling to the depths of a warning. “Let me help you.”

Reluctantly, Steve nods, not willing to push this into an unproductive argument. Instead, he reaches for a random book, rolling the pencil he’d forgotten about in between his fingers. “Move over, then.”

Ungracefully, he clambers onto the bed, Billy huffing as an elbow and a knee knocks against his bones. Steve doesn’t settle until there’s a pillow behind his back, pressed against the wall while the rest of his body casually lounges across Billy’s lower half. “Okay there, princess?”

Steve bites the inside of his cheek, refuses to acknowledge the heat crawling up his neck and onto his cheeks because he knows how distracting that gets; not just for Billy, himself included. “I’m good now. My ass wasn’t havin’ it much longer on that chair.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” Billy says, slowly smiling like he’s got a secret or two to kill. He doesn’t say much else after, but he does reach for the book Steve has in his hand, using it as a solid source to write on. Reluctantly, Steve hands over the pencil, eraser pitiful in its shape.

Seconds later, Billy’s scribbling shit down, and as curious as Steve is, he doesn’t look. It’s hardly from wanting to keep the momentum of surprise and more so his lack of restraint when it comes to criticism on his end. “I didn’t know you liked writing,” he says curiously, not remembering whether Billy had previously shared a love of language with him or not; though Steve is certain he’d remember something quant like that, didn’t question Billy’s ability in school and whether he remained true to the stereotype that all the pretty ones were idiots.

No, that was Steve, and maybe somewhere deep down he’d be jealous if it wasn’t for the amount of appreciation curling along the length of his chest.

“I don’t,” is Billy’s reply, though. It’s quick from concentration, but still as sharp as a knife as if Steve’s stumbled upon a subject Billy isn’t interested in entertaining.

“Oh,” he breathes because well, if Billy is shit at this too, then he supposes this entire session is a lost cause. “You know what you’re doing, then?” But as soon as he asks it, Steve regrets it, winces at the sound of his own voice and the lack of assurance he should have in the one person who’d willingly offered their time and their help.

The pencil stops moving, and Steve suspects that maybe Billy will climb out of the comfort of his bed, leaving Steve the asshole and with a foot in his mouth.

Rather, Billy seems to space out for a second, like the paper and the book and Steve aren’t right in front of him, like they’re worlds away from Steve’s near empty house, to a place where Billy doesn’t know a Steve or the small town of Hawkins, Indiana. “I’m sorry,” he begins, wishing he could slap himself upside the head for being a dick.

But he doesn’t get much more out because Billy is countering his apology with a heavier statement that leaves Steve both breathless and in awe.

“My mother,” Billy says, almost randomly if Steve hadn’t known better, hadn’t understood the context underneath the tone. It drills so deep, the silence that follows, a standstill and confusing. Steve tries to read Billy as much as he can, particularly in such a moment when the boy beneath him is crossing the line of the unequivocal into uncharted territory.

So, Steve doesn’t know what to say, lost in both a detail left unclear and how Billy blinks away a new shine to his eyes. It’s like he expects Steve, so suddenly, to nag him until he cracks further, right down the middle until nothing is left but mushy innards that can’t be stitched back together with titillated words. Which, in all honesty, Steve does have that power, has a magical way of slithering under Billy’s skin without trying too hard. Those wounds reopening something fierce, debris breaking loose the point where it makes Billy re-exam parts of himself he’d long forgotten.

And Steve never means to pry like so, tends to wade in the water until Billy drags him farther in, down a rabbit hole filled with guilt and despair.

So this little revelation, a stumbling block Steve did not, and had never, anticipated is there for the taking. And he’s curious; god is he curious about every part of Billy he doesn’t know: the good, the bad, and everything in between, but some things are meant to be left alone. Steve may not be very good at reading between the lines, or reading in general really, but he knows Billy, and he knows the basis of what makes him tick.

“She loved literature,” Billy says softly under the dim glow of sunlight that filters through the blinds in Steve’s room. His fingers tap against the book beneath his hands, eyes not yet filled to the brim with tears, but glassy and distant like he’s in another time, another world far away from what his life has become.

Steve thinks he can picture it, maybe, a young boy too wild and hyped up on candy every Halloween, climbing trees in the woods near his house, accumulating scrapes and bruises his mother kissed away. A much gentler Billy takes over his mind, and he wonders if Billy misses that kid, if he misses that life and all the promises it held for him until it took away the one thing Billy cherished the most.

“What was her favorite?” he asks instead, would rather not reveal how deep his affection goes. It’s already vulnerable, and Steve partly regrets pulling out his paper to look it over now, not quiet sure if he made a mistake in unleashing memories of a happier time on Billy’s part.

Just slightly, Billy turns his head, finally glancing up from the parallel lines turned baby blue. Upset has never been a good look on Billy, and he’s grateful that that’s not what this is. It’s familiar, those occasions when Billy recalls the nuances he’d left behind in favor of anger and torment. Similar to a setting sun, the pinks and oranges mixing together with the blue from the ocean, designed for a snapshot and a brushstroke until Steve almost snorts at the simplicity. Doesn’t everyone believe that? Majestic as it is, humans have little ability to steer clear of what they already know, and this is no exception.

“I think-” is the voice that breaks through his thoughts, and when Steve studies Billy’s face, it’s all changed again; his demeanor, the depths of his eyes, the crease between his brows like he’s struggling to find something that just isn’t there. Distressed, Steve thinks, as he reaches forward, curling delicate fingers around Billy’s wrist because he knows that’ll get his attention.

It does, and Billy gives a soft smile, emotions fading by the second. “I don’t think I remember anymore,” he says.

Steve doesn’t miss the desolation, the acidity of what that statement means, what it’s dredged up. For the first time in quite awhile, Steve doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t know how to comfort a loss he’d never been apart of. There’d hardly been any rules between them to begin with, each moment a stepping stone together, building boundaries together, and Steve doesn’t have the heart to make that a thing they must do right now; it’s much too soon.

Alternatively, Steve finds the end of a curled piece of hair resting between Billy’s shoulder and neck, twirling it around his finger and letting it fall into a ringlet against his skin. “Will you read to me?” he proposes, wondering if this compromise will be enough for today. If Steve cannot have Billy’s memoir, then he will find another, bringing forth an interest he believes Billy might’ve forgotten he could care about.

“If you want me to.”

Steve nods and doesn’t say another word, lets Billy fall back into writing, erasing, and posing questions when he needs the answers. For now, it’s Steve’s turn to dwell on his misgivings, and it’s then that he realizes exactly why Billy refused to work on his.

There’s a time and a place for everything, and even in their shortcomings, everyone gets their turn. Today is for Steve and Steve alone, and if he thinks too much on it, he knows it’ll leave him breathless.

Instead, Steve thinks about how much he’d like to kiss Billy, leave him just as senseless as he feels. But he waits, he waits a few minutes in this moment where Billy’s voice cocoons him in encouragement and prompts him for details that expose the foundation of his very being.

And by the end of it, even if he may not have a full essay yet, Steve brings his own encouragement to the table, discarding the paper and falling into a natural ease that comes so easily when it’s just the two of them together.

[sarahfama]

Theoretically, students can make it through all four-plus years of college without ever setting foot in the library. But why on earth would you want to do that?

Libraries are awesome, and the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University has some particularly cool features that can significantly improve your student experience.

8. No Laptop? No worries.

Murphy’s Law says that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” I’ve had students lose laptops on buses and trains, and leave laptops hundreds of miles away while visiting family over breaks. I’ve had students whose homes and cars were broken into, their laptops stolen. I’ve had students whose computers unexpectedly crashed, bricked, and fried.

  Losing your laptop sucks. (Especially if you forgot to back up your work. Always back up your work. Use Google Drive or Dropbox or even just email your latest draft to yourself whenever you make major additions or alterations.)

When Murphy’s Law bites you in the hard drive, stay calm and library on. You can visit one of the library’s several computer labs or even check out a laptop for anywhere from four hours to thirty days, allowing you to retrieve all those assignments and keep going — because you backed up your work.

7. Google-fu failing you? Library research assistance to the rescue!

…And I mean literally failing you. If you aren’t using any sources for your college writing assignments beyond what you can scrounge up in basic web searches, you’re going to start having a very hard time very quickly.

At first, doing research in academic databases (much less the actual stacks of academic books and journals) may seem intimidating; it’s like trying to find your way in a country where you may not speak the language and you’re unfamiliar with the local customs.

Like the quaint British custom of “not being completely goddamn oblivious”

You know the stereotype of the “ugly American” tourist who just stomps around shouting louder in English at people who don’t speak it, and who complains that they don’t do things in Oslo/Cairo/Chiang Mai/La Paz the way they do in Muskogee? Using basic web searches when you should be doing academic research isn’t nearly as gauche, but it is a symptom of a cultural adjustment — to an important part of academic culture.

Happily, the world is a pretty friendly place, and when you ask for help politely (even if you “ask” mostly via gestures and a few badly mispronounced phrases), you’ll find that people are usually enthusiastic about introducing newcomers to their culture. At the library, they’re almost aggressively happy to help: you can instant message, call, text, email, watch videos, use web-based how-to guides, drop in, or even make an appointment to work with a subject librarian to get in-depth research consultation.

It’s like a personal tour guide, a butler, and a concierge got together and had a magical library baby who lives to help you. Start seeing the sights — you’ve got the intellectual world at your fingertips.

6. Find some Silence in the Library

No, Whovians, not that Silence in the Library.

  Which is a good thing, because I would be less excited about sending you to the library if I felt there was a chance you’d be eaten by invisible microscopic alien piranhas hiding in the shadows.

  But did you know that the SFSU library has multiple spaces set aside for quiet study? Because sometimes you’re trying to study with friends or at home, but the noise starts to drive you crazy until you just can’t take the yapping and the snapping and the tapping and you just want to leap up and shout —

But you can escape those distractions in a quiet study space.

Thanks, library!

    5. Get your group project going full steam in a group meeting space.

I know a great joke about group projects (and by “great” I mean terrible):

At my funeral, I want everyone who I’ve ever been in a group project with to be a pallbearer, so they can let me down one last time.

Group projects can be…challenging. The library doesn’t check out cattle prods (as far as I know) so there may be very little you can do if your group members aren’t very motivated; nor do they offer drones mounted with tracking devices and tranquilizer darts (again, as far as I know — you’re welcome to inquire further), so if a group member goes totally AWOL there’s not much you can do to pull them back into a productive orbit.

What the library does offer are a number of handy meeting spaces, including reservable group study rooms with whiteboards, wifi connections, and everything you need to collaborate with two to twelve of your favorite people.

4. Ran out of ink at home? J. Paul Leonard has your back.

It’s the moment every college student dreads: you’re printing out a major assignment worth what feels like 160% of your grade, and page one prints out looking…faded. Page two? Barely legible. At page three, your printer hacks out a final consumptive cough and the ink dies completely, leaving you with a dozen blank pages that should have been filled with your scintillating argument about the causes of the Boer War.

In this moment, you hate your printer. You want to destroy your printer and all that it represents!

But don’t go full Office Space on it yet. You’ve got a deadline to meet!

Hurry — grab your laptop or email/upload your final draft where you can easily access it, and run, don’t walk, to the library. You can print there.

One caveat: don’t expect to be able to waltz in and out in minutes, at least not during peak times of year such as midterms and finals. You will not be the only person whose printer gave up the ghost, and there are also plenty of people who use the library printers as their regular printing method.

Plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time to print before assignments are due — and if Murphy’s Law kicks in and literally everything goes wrong, contact your instructor as soon as things start to go pear-shaped, attach the assignment to an email to show them you completed it before the deadline, and ask if you can get an extension on the paper copy.

3. Fuel up on coffee at Peet’s.

Some of us need our coffee in the morning. By which I mean throughout the morning, in a continuous infusion. And then again in the afternoon, as a pick-me-up. None in the evening, of course, unless it’s a shot of espresso over ice cream — or unless we need to be up late working on a project.

I could really use a coffee right now.

Because it would have been silly to ask people to walk the hundred or so yards to the nearest coffee shop in the student center, there’s a Peet’s inside the Library, in a kiosk in the middle of the first floor.

In theory, this makes getting coffee incredibly quick and convenient. In practice? Give yourself plenty of time to get your fix delicious beverage, since at peak times the line at Peet’s can extend most of the way through the lobby.

Pictured: The line at Peet’s during finals.

2. Snag great deals at the used bookstore.

Channel your inner Belle and pick up your next book at the booksale room on the first floor (in room 120 A, near the book drop). Although small, the Friends of the Library bookstore seems to turn over its inventory frequently — and the books are so cheap, it’s easy to splurge without hurting your pocketbook.

If you’re trying to stock up more texts relevant to your major or intended major, this is the bookstore for you; I suspect a lot of the donations here come from professors cleaning out their offices, as you can frequently spot insane deals on older editions of textbooks and scholarly works.

1. Oh yeah, and the library is also a library!

So you can also find articles and check out books. For free!

You aren’t even limited to the SFSU library’s collection. If you need a book and it’s not available at SFSU, you can almost certainly get it through the inter-library loan service CSU+ or iLLiad.

Once you’ve followed the advice above and learned how to use some of the library’s research tools, you can search for articles from the comfort of your own home using the online databases.

The library also has an amazing collection of films, music, theses written by former students, and archival materials. Heck, the library even contains another library. The Sutro Library, on the fifth and sixth floors, is a California State Library and has a massive genealogy collection, as well as a massive selection of rare items (including a selection of Shakespeare Folios) and publications.

So what are you waiting for? Go live it up at the library.

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  Level up your SFSU Library game with these 8 tips Theoretically, students can make it through all four-plus years of college without ever setting foot in the library.