Not My Conference Paper

by AllenCodd

While scrolling through fanfiction one night, we discovered a Once Upon a Time fic set at our college of Sarah Lawrence that did not truly capture the essence of this school. In this fic, the OUAT characters have the true SLC experience of suffering through conference week, which is the period at the end of the semester when everyone is writing 100 papers and is also in hell

1. The Vending Machine and SLCWLAN

AN:

Hey so I definitely should be sleeping or thinking about my conference paper at 2:29 AM, but instead I am writing this. As we all know, the only OUAT fanfiction to feature Sarah Lawrence College did not include all of the things we know and love about our school, ranging from the exquisite dining to the wonders of 24-Hour Library during Conference Week. If you have not been to either of these things you are incredibly lucky and extremely deprived. Now, this fic will center on the characters as they come to terms with conference week(s). Enjoy?

It was the 28th of April and no one was ready for what was coming. As May was approaching, this meant the end of a hard school year, but also that the biggest danger was coming closer - CONFERENCE WEEK. The only person who seemed remotely excited about this was Belle, who was mainly looking forward to the 24 hour library opportunities so that she could spend more time working on her complex study of how the tale of Beauty and the Beast has been portrayed overtime in various forms of media.

The story begins with the six students: Rumpelstiltskin, Belle, Regina, Emma, Hook, and Zelena. The Wi-Fi connection had gone out once again in Esther Raushenbush Library, and the only place to find solace was at the lower level vending machines. Separately they all went downstairs to grab a snack, hoping that when they returned to their work, the Wi-Fi would be working again so that they could continue to write their conference papers on Google Docs or on their free student Microsoft Word Online accounts. The first one to approach this machine was Emma Swan, looking for some potato chips. She inserted her 1-Card into the machine, only to find out that she put it in backwards and had to try again. It took a while, but finally the machine accepted her card.

"Hey by the time you get that snack maybe the Wi-Fi will be working again." Emma turned around, startled by the voice behind her, only to find Regina Mills. Regina was in Emma's film lecture, and she seemed a bit intimidating to her, as she was the one of the few students brave enough to raise their hand in the crowded 60-person lecture. "Oh, I'm sorry, the machine doesn't seem to be working super well today" Emma sighed.

"That isn't the homophobic vending machine from Garrison/Taylor! If this machine isn't working either I'm going to have to go to the pub and order a sandwich from the sandwich line." The two girls turned around only to see Rumpelstiltskin also waiting in line for the machine. "Yeah well I don't think any of us want to actually go outside and walk to the pub right now, I'm just going to get a bottle of water, or should I say a bottle of ice, from the water bottle machine" replied Regina.

The door from the stairs slammed closed as Hook and Robin entered the area. These two boys were known to be Heimbros* and it was weird to see them outside of their natural habitat. The people already congregated at the vending machines rolled their eyes at the entrance of these two boys, as Heimbros are incredibly pretentious and annoying. "Come on let's go back upstairs, I don't want to have to interact with heimbros today, plus maybe the Wi-Fi is back up and I can continue actually writing my conference paper" said Regina, rolling her eyes at the heimbros.

The three of them walked up the stairs and began to head back to the places where they were studying, but Emma made a suggestion, "Hey since we're all suffering with this, do you all wanna study together? I'm by myself at one of the tables above the Library Cafe."

"I would be ok with that. I had to sit at one of those single tables by the stairs, which makes it very hard to focus on my work because people are always so loud coming up and down the stairs." replied Regina.

"I'm okay with not doing that actually. I already finished my conference work and I just came here to people watch." Rumple said.

"I can tell you're lying to us about conference work, but you can always people watch from up there" suggested Emma.

"Alright, I guess that will do" said Rumple.

"Well I'll go grab my things and join you." Regina left the group to go over to her desk and pack up her several books and notebooks that were strewn across the small desk space.

*Heimbro- Boys who are usually assholes that hang out in Heimbold all the time, they try too hard to be edgy and cool and are usually ~artsy film students~