Basic Trope: Someone is given an assignment, procrastinates on doing it, and scrambles to get it done on time.
- Straight: Alice is given a month to write a paper on amphibians. She procrastinates about it, and suddenly realizes it's due the next day. She stays up all night, cranks out the paper, and manages to pull a B.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice hasn't done any work since the semester started, and now it's last week of classes before final exams when she tries to get every assignment done.
- Alice manages to get an A+, despite the fact that she (quite obviously) wrote the paper under the influence of sleep deprivation and three energy drinks.
- The paper Alice has to write is something like a thesis or a PhD dissertation, and/or will make or break her grade in the class.
- The amphibian paper was due last week.
- Downplayed:
- Alice does the research aspect of the paper relatively early on, but puts off writing the actual paper until just days before it's due.
- Alice begins work on the amphibian paper a week before it's due.
- Alice has a week to do a small project. She starts and completes it on the day it's due.
- Alice was supposed to being working on her paper throughout the whole month, but she only produced a basic outline and some notes. Nonetheless she is able to turn those into a research paper in three days.
- Justified:
- Alice only has to do a relatively short paper or a relatively small project; even if it is something cobbled together at the last minute, it's not that big a deal.
- Alice has a habit of procrastinating and/or slacking off.
- Circumstances beyond Alice's control, or problems in her personal life (a bad breakup, family problems, what have you) have made it difficult for Alice to get her work done.
- Alice has a learning disability, or a problem such as ADHD, that makes it difficult to focus or to get work done.
- Alice is a Forgetful Jones.
- Inverted:
- Alice is given a month to write a paper on amphibians. She gets started on it right away.
- Alice predicted that she'd probably have to write a paper on amphibians, and started working on it before the professor even gave the assignment.
- Alice is given a month to write a paper on amphibians. She quickly throws together a paper on day 1 and hands it in because she's desperate to get it out of the way as soon as possible.
- Subverted:
- When she realizes she won't be able to write a good paper in time, Alice emails her professor to ask him for an extension.
- The paper is overdue.
- Alice has done about half the paper.
- Alice copies some or all of her paper from The Other Wiki.
- Alice has someone else complete the paper for her.
- Professor Bob thinks Alice's paper is pretty bad, and wonders if she did it at the last minute. She didn't. It just turned out so bad because she's a bad student.
- Double Subverted:
- Professor Bob denies Alice's request, which forces her to stay up all night writing the paper.
- Professor Bob still wants the paper, even though he will deduct points off Alice's grade for the fact that it's late.
- She has not had time to finish it, and needs to stay up late scrambling to finish it so she'll have it for class the next day.
- Professor Bob notices her plagiarism, calls her out on it, gives her a chance to explain herself, and then lets her redo the paper.
- The other party procrastinates, and cranks out a half-assed paper the night before it's due.
- Parodied: Alice moves Heaven and Earth to get the paper completed and printed out, only to find out that Professor Bob is out sick and has canceled class.
- Zig Zagged: Some assignments Alice begins very far in advance, others an average amount of time in advance, and others at the last minute.
- Averted: Alice starts her paper early enough in advance that she can get it done and turned in on time.
- Enforced: Let's write a situation many college and high school students would be familiar with.
- Lampshaded: "Oh, crap! That's due tomorrow?! sigh Looks like another all-nighter..."
- Invoked: Alice procrastinates about her paper.
- Exploited: Alice's Cosplay Studies professor purposely does not give the rubric for Alice's final project until just days before it's due. The project entails making a costume and props on a limited budget, and putting together a skit to perform for the class. He wants to see how the students perform under pressure, to make the test that much harder.
- Defied:
- Professor Bob grants Alice an extension.
- Alice plans ahead, so she can get the paper written far enough in advance that she has time to make it look good.
- Discussed: "You think Alice submitted her paper at the last minute again?"
- Conversed: "They're not gonna let the protagonist fail class. I bet she'll throw together a miracle paper really quick."
- Implied: Most of Alice's papers are at least okay, but the one on amphibians is so full of padding and research failures that it was probably thrown together a few hours before it was due.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice's paper contains a lot of Entertainingly Wrong "facts" about amphibians.
- Alice tries to plagiarize from The Other Wiki, and is caught immediately because she didn't even bother to remove the formatting.
- Alice is supposed to write a paper on amphibians in French. The thing is due in a few hours, and she's bad at French, so she instead hastily writes it in English and runs it through a crappy online translator. Then she hands in a "Blind Idiot" Translation... in broken Spanish.
- Played for Horror: Professor Bob is a Sadist Teacher. Late work is one of his Berserk Buttons, so Alice has to turn it in or face very severe punishment.
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