Hola, everyone! I know it's been a while...over a month...since the last chapter, and both I and Caelum apologize profusely for the delay. Caelum's work schedule has her pretty much dropping off the face of the earth every week or so, so collaborating on editing and content and such is somewhat difficult. So, our sincerest apologies about the delay!

Also, with this chapter, I am declaring registration for OFUA:TLA closed. We will not be accepting any new students. It is up to me and Anj if we will accept more students or not for the second semester, and we will tell you when that semester arrives.

Until then, please enjoy this chapter of the Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Note that neither I nor Caelum Blue, my lovely beta and cowriter, own the series: we are merely devoted fans seeking to improve the fandom and entertain the masses.

On the morning of the third day of classes of OFUA:TLA, after being woken up even earlier than usual by the pet owners trying to get their various animals to cooperate during the early-morning walk, then being subjected to a grueling round of Firebending control and muscle strengthening workouts, followed by practicing pulling two heavy swords off her back without touching herself with them, refusing to eat the pickled vegetables offered for lunch, and learning about Omashu, a Fire Nation prison, and a double episode about spirits and stuff with barely a hint of Zutara…Lupe was dead on her feet. Run-on sentences tend to tire people out, after all.

Her head nodded as she waited for the next set of teachers to show up. Iroh had left a while ago with Pakku and Bumi, whispering amongst themselves about some drama going on with the staff. Gran-Gran had started a discussion with Gyatso about "young people these days" in the middle of class, and they had wandered off to find their respective charges and compare difficulties. Now whoever was supposed to teach this next class, whatever it was, was late. Late late late.

Meep was talking with Lauphen on one side of Lupe, and [-] on the other side was taking the opportunity to nap. In front of Lupe, a bunch of Water Tribe students were arguing about which characters were hottest. Having nothing else to do, Lupe was eavesdropping. Well, she wasn't trying to eavesdrop, her ears had just tuned into the conversation and never tuned out.

"Iroh is totally the best character," Allison Doyle insisted. "He's got that wise old man thing going on. Plus, please, don't act like old grandpa sorts aren't hot."

"Fools! Clearly Sokka is the most attractive!" Isabella waved a hand dismissively. She was technically a Fire Nation student, but as she'd claimed to be half Water Tribe on her application, she was also attending every class the Water Tribe students had, even if that meant she was taking twice the amount of some classes than everyone else. Rumor had it that, because she had written she was the Avatar, she would be getting even more classes once Karen got around to thinking them up.

"Don't make me set Pete on you!" Vera V Moretti snapped, stroking her pet capybara. "Iroh rules! And you know it!"

"But Azula and Toph are badass!" Carsten D argued. "They're awesome female characters who kick butt!"

"Nu-uh! Aangy's the hottest of the hot!" Danish, still sporting bruises from her cookie duel with Karen a day ago, glared at the other girls. "He's the last of his kind! Soooo much tragedy and hot angsting!"

"I fail to see why any of you would care about this," Moon Dragon sighed from the midst of the conflict. "How did we get from 'complaining about the food' to 'which character is most attractive' anyways?"

"Don't act like you're not interested in anybody!" Isabella Rose scolded. "Asexual my butt, I saw you drooling over Sokka the first day!"

"W-was not!" Moon Dragon protested, cheeks coloring a light pink.

"I'd say I'm stuck between Zuko and Sokka," Nathaniel Willowshaunt put in thoughtfully. "I mean, Zuko's the hot angsting prince, but Sokka's the rugged warrior who supported a whole tribe with his hunting abilities before leaving to help Aang. Plus, you know how it gets when you've got opposites…they just attract…"

"Why would a guy think other guys are hot? Go drool over that Mary-Sue Suki," Ashee Bieber said through sticky lips, rolling her eyes. She had made the unfortunate mistake of writing on her application that her lips were cotton-candy pink, and was now stuck looking like she had just finished a bag of the spun sugary delight. Andy Roseanne had insinuated earlier that day that her lips probably tasted like cotton candy too, but that had resulted in Ashee screaming and running off. "Anyways, everybody knows Zuko's hottest. No question. And I just know that he's totally into me." The part about Zuko's hotness was true, but Lupe knew Zuko would never go for a blonde with purple-streaked hair. Who put purple in their hair these days?

"Shh, I think we're starting," Daniel Clemens hissed from the row before the Water Tribe girls. Sure enough, Karen and Anjilly were walking onstage. For some reason unknown to Lupe, Karen's hair wasn't in its usual ponytail, and it looked like a lemur had tried to kill it. Though, it made it easier to distinguish between the two women who, for all intents and purposes, looked exactly the same because they had brown hair that they kept in ponytails.

"Students! Welcome to class!" Karen proclaimed, arms spreading out wide. "This is going to be one of the most important classes you have, as it does not apply to just Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction, but also to every other fiction story, fan or otherwise, you will ever write. What, you may ask, could this amazing and wondrous class be? I know you're thinking it because you're all staring at me like you want to eat something."

"That, or they refused to eat their breakfast and want your cookie," Anjilly interjected. Karen shot her a superior look and stuffed the entire cookie into her mouth. Since the cookie was a bit bigger than her mouth, crumbs spilled across the stage floor while Karen tried to stuff the baked goodie down her throat. The students let out a low groan.

"Hmp! Mm mphfmm ffhm fhu!" Karen crowed through her mouthful.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Anjilly sighed. Karen swallowed, winced, clutched at her throat and gagged slightly, then gasped for breath and tried again.

"Ha! No cookie for you!" she repeated, ending with a fit of coughing. "Ugh…Anj, why did you let me do that?"

"I didn't. You just shoved it into your mouth," Anjilly rolled her eyes. "Back to the class, Karen. Remember, the class? We're teaching it? You'd been really excited about it up until we had to start going through badfics to find shining examples, at which point you began to pretend you thought you were a turnip and went looking for a missing student to get out of it?"

"Oh yeah!" Karen brightened. "Okay, guess what class this is? It's 'Creating Your Character,' a weekly class about how to make a believable, well-rounded, non-Sue original characters. And we're going to start this class with an intensive look at the scourge of the Plot Continuum, the Mary Sue! MOOMOO, GET THE LIGHTS!"

Moomoo, who had been waiting with the other lemurs, took flight. He glided past the torches on the walls, the wind in his wake blowing them out. Everything in the students' section of the hall went dim, and a huge screen lowered behind Karen and Anjilly onstage. Karen had struck a pose when telling Moomoo to put out the lights, and now relaxed it to start pacing across the stage. A shaft of light came out of a shadowy spot near the top of the back wall, hitting the screen squarely, and a slide show began. On the screen, a beautiful girl with a tremendous rack and a disproportionately thin body was frolicking in a field with a vaguely defined but likely attractive male.

"The Mary Sue is the perfect character," Karen spoke ominously, voice actually serious. Lupe blinked. "Karen" and "serious" were two words you wouldn't expect to use in the same sentence. Unless the word "not" was between them. But the cookiephile was continuing, so Lupe might as well listen. "She cannot fail, she cannot be anything other than the center of everyone's attention, and she is always the epitome of feminine grace and beauty. Sound familiar?"

Lupe's mind immediately jumped to her original character Twinkle Goldfire. An amazingly beautiful blond bombshell, Twinkle was not only a Firebender but also a Lightbender. She mysteriously showed up on Zuko's ship one day, dazzling him with her beauty and unmatched fighting skills, then went on to convince him to switch to the side of good and join Aang while they experienced a breathtaking romance.

But of course, Twinkle wasn't a Mary Sue. She couldn't be, because Lupe knew she was a good writer.

"There is also Mary-Sue's male counterpart, Gary-Stu," said Anjilly, and the slide changed to show an amazingly buff, shirtless young man standing in a dramatic pose in front of a bunch of explosions, armed with an entire armory's worth of weapons, and paying no attention to the hot chick clinging to his shoulder. "Or Marty-Sam, or whatever you want to call him. I prefer Gary-Stu because it rhymes with Mary-Sue. As with Mary-Sue, Gary-Stu is a perfect character. If he's acting as a self-insert character, he tends to have BAMF traits and constantly one-up the rest of the cast. If he's acting as a love interest for Mary Sue, he tends to be hopelessly sappy and romantic. Stus are nowhere near as prevalent as Sues, thank goodness, but it's still important to be informed about them."

"The Mary Sue and Gary Stu are, in essence, a way for writers to fulfill their own fantasies by inserting a character that represents them into a story. Sues and Stus are most easily identified by their habits of warping canon characters' personalities, bashing the canon characters they don't like, forcing 'twu luv' between themselves and canon characters—oftentimes breaking up canon relationships to do so—causing ill turns to occur to their rivals simply to get them out of the way or make the Sue or Stu look awesomer, trampling the ideals of the original story, and twisting the geography and timeline to suit their needs."

"There is a reason why many people dislike reading Sue or Stu stories," Anjilly took over. "The Mary Sue and Gary Stu have it easy—everything comes to them with barely a snap of their fingers in their fics, while the canon characters actually had to fight and struggle to get to where they are. Those struggles are what make the canon story interesting. Sue- and Stufics, on the other hand, aren't. When you have a Sue or Stu for a main character, the story becomes…boring. Where's the excitement in a perfect character, when they don't have to put any effort into improving themselves? And especially when they have no regard whatsoever for the canon?"

"And that's a huge reason for why we dislike Mary Sues and Gary Stus," Karen interjected. "Because we like the canon."

"Thank you, Karen," Anjilly nodded. "That is exactly why Sues and Stus are considered such a scourge. They trample on the canon we love and respect, and in doing so stir the anger of those who prefer to abide by that canon. Where we see beauty in the canon, they see something to be changed to make them the ultimate character. They don't want to tell a story; they want to show off how awesome they are. It's all about them. Can you see why we hate them?"

"Now we're going to look at some specific Sue and Stu categories," Karen said, and the screen changed to show a pretty girl with a wide smile and abnormally expressive eyes. "We'll start with Sues, since they're the most common. The scientific name of the original Mary Sue category, Bubbly!Sue or Purity!Sue, is 'Puella Perfecta. Literally, 'Perfect Girl' in Latin. Well, if you're going with literal, technically it's 'Girl Perfect,' but that sounds awkward in English so we rehash the word order to make it 'Perfect Girl,' and Anjilly's glaring at me in a very disconcerting manner so I'll get back on track now. Everything about Puella Perfecta is perfecta—her appearance, her personality, her actions. She is the kindest, most caring girl you will ever meet, sociable and helpful. At some point in her story, she reveals a tragic past. This Sue wins over the canon characters with her perfection, making men who would normally stay faithful to canon significant others or who like completely different kinds of women fall head over heels for her."

"New categories of Mary Sue have cropped up as well," Anjilly pressed a button on a clicker-thing in her hand, and the screen changed to show two girls in all black, looking depressingly gorgeous. "These are the Goth!Sue and the Emo!Sue, two variants on the same theme. Sues have always been rebels, but these two take it to a whole new level of outrageousness. They wear a twelve-year-old's idea of gothic clothing, cut themselves and use drugs, and make everyone feel sorry for them. Emo!Sue usually attracts her mate via nonstop angsting. Like Puella Perfecta, the Mulier Doluta—the Emo!Sue—and the Diabola Gothica—the Goth!Sue—have tragic pasts. Only, since they're so depressed by everything, they're much more vocal about it."

"These traits, if handled properly, can actually make for a more interesting original character," Karen pulled another cookie from her pocket and began to absentmindedly tear small pieces off to flick to the lemurs. Several students began to cry. Three days of barely eating anything because the authentic Asian cuisine looked "yucky" had taken its toll on the class. Karen continued without giving any indication she noticed their pain, though knowing the sadistic witch she was, Lupe was positive Karen was gloating inside. "But of course, tragic pasts are hardly ever handled properly. You have to think long and hard about how a tragic past will affect your character before you actually write it into her. Was she abused by a parent? Did she lose someone? Has she been raped? All of that will give your character some sort of fear or quirk that will affect her interactions with others. People who have tragic pasts don't come out of them completely normal—and if they do recover, it takes a lot of time and work to get to that point." Karen fixed an eye on the class. "But we'll discuss tragic pasts at a later date."

"Gary Stu often has a tragic past, too," Anjilly added. "Mostly so he can look cool while brooding. Usually a Stu's tragic past has to do with everyone he loved - his friends, family, or even entire race - dying. Sometimes he'll have been physically abused as a child. But he's never been emotionally or sexually abused, because as everyone knows, men don't have feelings and can't be raped."

"Nice touch with the sarcasm there," Karen said.

"Thank you. Moving on to the next category," Anjilly clicked the clicker-thing, and the two depressed women onscreen disappeared. They were replaced by a chillingly beautiful woman with red eyes. "Diabola Insolentis, the Evil!Sue, is either found when an author's Lust Object is a villain or when the author wishes for the Lust Object, found on the side of good, to make the Sue see the evil of her ways and convert to the side of good. This category of Sue wears dark red or black, and typically has red eyes, black hair, and pale skin. Another marker of her is that she tends to be a relative of the main antagonist, unless said antagonist is her Lust Object, in which case she is more likely to be related to his best friend. Her Lust Object almost always redeems her through his love."

"The Stu version is just as insidious," Karen nodded solemnly. "He wears black, usually leather, and is covered in scars from all of the battles he's been in. He'll either destroy the good guys and reign as supreme baddie for the rest of his life, or it'll turn out he's actually a relative of the Hero. Don't be surprised if his family was murdered by the biggest bad guy in the past-it'll be a reason for him to get the geezer out of the way and assume control. And you just know he's great in a fight, like his female counterpart...which takes us to the next category. Click the clicker, my good Anjilly Ka." Anjilly complied, and a woman in a rather revealing suit of armor appeared onscreen. "The much-despised Warrior!Sue. She's a real bitch to kill, or so I hear, because she is so naturally gifted with every kind of weapon known to man."

"Oh, Valar, is she," Anjilly shuddered. "One time, there was this half-elven Jedi Knight who had a seven-sided lightsaber and was a crack shot with both a blaster and a bow, not to mention the throwing knives, and she was a master of some made-up fighting style she called elf karate. She nearly snapped my head off of my neck!"

"Wow," said Karen. "How'd you defeat her?"

"My explosions enthusiast of a partner decided the best thing to do was blow up the planet she was on. So we opened a portal under her feet and dropped her on Alderaan mere seconds before the Death Star blew it up. Brenden wanted to take a more personal approach, of course, but I told him that the Sunflower Official would strangle us if we started blowing up planets without approval from DOGA, so…"

"That's nice," said Karen. "Moving on before Anj gets too caught up in her flashbacks. A Warrior!Sue is insulted at the very thought of needing help, and when she's around, at least one male character becomes the Designated Misogynistic Bastard."

"It's usually Boromir," Anjilly added, apparently still flashbacking.

"We're in the Avatarverse, Anj, not Middle-Earth."

"Oh! Right. It's usually Sokka, at least until she proves him wrong."

"Right," said Karen. "Since this 'Misogynistic Bastard' is constantly arguing against the Sue's presence, it's quite possible that this character is actually resistant to the Sue's Aura of Smooth, and is attempting to make his fellows see sense. But the Sue's influence over the others is strong, and she perseveres, despite this fortunately-immune character's best efforts—possibly because his best efforts turn him into a jerk that nobody likes. Warrior!Sue tends to first appear in a story as a mysterious figure, who then proceeds to save her Lust Object before revealing she's a woman."

"It's all very clichéd," Anjilly said. "Warrior!Sue's counterpart, Warrior!Stu, is just as bad. He's quite similar to Warrior!Sue, minus the part where his very existence causes a canon character to become designated as Misogynistic Bastard. If someone does become the Misogynistic Bastard, it's so Warrior!Stu can tell him off - thus scoring points with whatever canon female is nearby. It's also possible that Warrior!Stu himself is a misogynist. In general, however, Warrior!Stu cares little for gender issues - he just wants to show off his amazing fighting skills, show up everyone he comes across, explain to every single canon character that they're idiots, and look awesome." She clicked the clicker and nodded to Karen.

"An offshoot of the Warrior!Sue is Mary Tzu, a military-oriented Sue that rarely acts like a real soldier," Karen pointed to the woman in uniform on the screen. "You're actually more likely to see a male version of this species, simply because men find the military more appealing. Mary or Gary Tzu - named for Sun Tzu, by the way - are brilliant tacticians, to the point of being unrealistic."

"He or she is able to predict their opponent's plans with the smallest of hints, and no matter how unbelievable their counter plan is, it will succeed," Anjilly interjected. "Most of the time, they're a general or other highly-ranked authority in their respective military force. That is usually accompanied by them being incredibly, unbelievably young for the position, yet highly respected by everyone else. Keep in mind that you have to show this character's implausible tactical skills to make your Tzu apparent: otherwise, if they're not too young and immature, we can probably believe their skills. Though they might still be a Sue proper."

"Following is the Anti-Sue," Karen continued. "The Anti-Sue is usually created by Suethors who are trying to avoid creating a 'Sue proper'. This is a noble attempt, but they still fail. Anti-Sues are ugly, stupid, and have terrible personalities—but the canon characters fawn over them all the same. What do you get? Everyone fawning over a Mary Sue who makes no attempt at hiding her true self. It's one of the worst sort of Sues you'll find."

"But not nearly as bad as GodMode!Sues," Anjilly sighed. A new image appeared on screen—a woman in the Avatar State, her eyes and mouth glowing blue-white. "The bane of the PPC, a GodMode!Sue is capable of pulling whatever she needs to win the day out of her butt. It is almost impossible to be rid of her—the only known method so far is complete disintegration. She usually appears in this fandom as an extra Avatar, or some sort of dual-Bender. GodMode!Stus also have a habit of possessing both Zuko and Sokka, causing them to become annoying, super-powerful badasses who can never be wrong. More on Possession!Sues and Stus in a second. GodMode!Sues and Stus are not only dangerous, they are some of the most blatant Mary Sues you can find."

"But not nearly as bad as," Karen's voice dropped to a whisper that the excellent acoustics of the hall carried to every ear, "the BlackHole!Sue."

Anjilly shivered. "BlackHole!Sues are, fortunately, few and far between," the more experienced agent told the class. "They twist the canon in a way other Sues can only dream of, and distort even the most basic Laws of Reality. If you're responsible for a BlackHole!Sue, don't mention it around active PPC agents—they may very well kill you for it."

"I may kill you for it, and I'm not even an active agent," Karen muttered, fishing another cookie out of her pocket. She flicked one last crumb from the first cookie to Moomoo, and began to feed the second to General Iro. "Okay, we will conclude this presentation on Mary Sues and Gary Stus with a look at one final kind of Sue—the Possession!Sue. This Sue occurs when a canon character is Sued—not sued as in the legal sense, but Sued as in made to be a Mary Sue or Gary Stu—and forced to act so out of character that they couldn't touch canon with a ten-foot pole. Though, how weird would it be if someone legally sued a fictional character? I mean, I could understand suing the creators, or the company, or the live-action actors, but what would you even sue a fictional character for?"

"Karen," Anjilly said warningly. "I will let Long Feng brainwash you."

"Uh...back to you, Anj?" Karen grinned sheepishly.

"Don't mind if I do...Possession!Sues are most commonly found in bad romance fanfictions," Anjilly added. "They are usually behind some unorthodox pairing that would never canonically happen, or a pairing that is never explained. That said, Zutara fics are often the result of Zuko and Katara getting possessed by a Stu and Sue."

"Zutara isn't possession! It's true, pure love!" someone in the audience shouted, and they were promptly dive-bombed by Zuke and Katar.

Anjilly spoke a little louder so she could be heard over the shrieking. "Some Possession!Sues are also the result of badfics written in second person. These can be especially tricky to handle, as the author wraith will inhabit the first thing to step into the fic - oftentimes an unsuspecting PPC agent. Trust me when I say it isn't fun to get possessed by one of those things, yes, I'm speaking from experience, and no, I'm not elaborating."

"And…I think that's all for today," Karen smiled a little too brightly at her partner. "Right, Anj?"

"Karen…" Anjilly sighed. "You know what's next."

"Hm? I do? No, I don't think so," Karen's grin grew forced. "Whatever could you be speaking of, my dear, dear Anjilly Ka?"

"We have to give them a few examples of Sues we read about in all those badfics," Anjilly rolled her eyes in exasperation. "The badfics you called 'abominations against canon,' remember?"

"Oh my god!" Someone in the student section screamed. Lupe started, and whirled to look in the direction of the voice. "Mai4 vanished! And…some weird guy in a rainbow karate thingy is sitting in her seat!"

"Huh?" Karen peered into the darkness before her, but couldn't see a thing. "Uh…it sorta sounds like you're talking about Marshall Arts…and don't worry about Mai4, she turns into a teapot whenever a plothole passes by…can someone get a light over there? I can't see a flaming thing!"

"What are plotholes?" another student shouted.

"Plotholes are holes in the plot, unexplained occurrences or deviations from canon," Anjilly answered. "We really should get to those badfic Sues, Karen…"

"I need to tell them about plotholes, though! Students, another thing that causes a plothole is an unexplained timeskip," Karen held up a finger, "Like…"

"…that one just now," Karen finished grinning at Lupe. With no idea what had just happened, or why Karen was speaking to her, or why she was inexplicably holding a turnip, Lupe let out a squawk and fell off of the teapot she had been balancing on by her little toe. Said teapot grumbled in annoyance and rolled back into the plothole.

"What the…what just…how did…" Lupe babbled, trying to make sense of how she had gone from sitting in a dark hall to this extremely odd situation. "Dios mio! Lo que el Diablo que acaba de pasar?"

"Ooh, Spanish," Karen sucked in a breath. "I don't speak that. Sorry. But it seems we just got caught by a plothole. Did more to you than to me, it'd seem. Well, at least I got out of that badfic stuff! Yay for plotholes!"

"…Estás loco," Lupe muttered, picking herself up.

"I know what 'loco' means!" Karen's face lit up. "Crazy, right? And 'estás'…er, sorta like 'est,' so…you're saying I'm crazy?"

"Sí," Lupe shot at Karen.

"I know that one too! 'Yes'?"

"No tienes remedio!" Lupe screamed, bringing her hands to her temples. "What is it with you people? Why do you seem to think this place is necessary at all? Who cares if your 'Mary Sues' get written or not? I just wanted to write something hot with Zuko and Katara!"

Karen rolled her eyes at that, and crossed her arms. "I know how it feels, at first," she said calmly (another word that one would not expect to apply to Karen, ever), "but you'll get used to it. Let me guess—on your first day, you were awed at the thought of finally meeting your Lust Object and all the canon characters. When we told you they'd be your teachers, your heart was ready to burst out of your chest. Am I right so far?"

Lupe was reluctant to admit it, but Karen was. Karen was right, that is. Somehow. "Sí."

"Your very first day of classes was wonderful, despite all the torture—perceived or actual—you went through," Karen plowed on. "When you went to bed, your head was filled with thoughts of how you could get your Lust Object—Zuko, I'm betting, since he's a sexy beast everyone loves—to fall for you." Lupe just nodded this time, and Karen's tone dropped. "But the next day…you woke up wondering about your family. You wanted to know how they were doing without you, if time was even passing back home at all…if you'd ever see them again."

"Yeah," Lupe used English this time. She was more than a little subdued by now—not only was Karen so accurately describing all Lupe had felt in the past two/three/four days (depending on whether or not one counted the first day, which had honestly been more like an evening, or this day, which hadn't been going on for too long by itself), but Karen was doing it seriously. Karen. Serious. Lupe's head might explode at the thought. Hadn't it been established already that "Karen" and "serious" did not belong together?

"And the homesickness has been coming in waves since then," Karen concluded. "You're alternately fangasming over the characters and the extraordinary situation you've found yourself in, or wanting to curl up in a corner and cry because you miss your family. It's mostly fangasming, but you've thought about home now and then."

"How…how do you know all that?" Lupe whispered shakily. Could Karen read minds? "I haven't told anyone. Nobody."

"It's how I felt at IAHF—the International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction—for about the first two semesters," Karen's voice caught in her throat, and she looked away. "I'd written some crappy fic about one of the Hetalia characters, and before I knew it I was sharing a room with another badfic author and trying to get something to eat while most of the other students had foodfights over their favorite ships. Um, not that I got involved in any foodfights. Especially the Germancest one, which is creepy and incest-y. Nope, I'm way too immature for that...why are you rolling your eyes? Anyways, we were learning from the very characters we had twisted in our stories, hearing their sides of the stories, and…it was an eye-opener, believe me. I never really stopped trying to glomp my Lust Object, but I definitely learned a lot while I was there. And when I was done…well, despite missing my family so much it hurt, I decided to join the PPC."

"You went to one of these schools too?" Lupe's brain had only digested half of Karen's short monologue, and was trying to process the rest as quickly as possible. "You…you were a…'badfic author'?"

"'Fraid so," Karen chuckled. "Not just Hetalia fandom, either, though that's the first OFU I ever found. I've written Avatar: The Last Airbender before as well. But that's not important. What's important is that I get how hard all of this is, but it's gonna be worth it. I know it will be. That's why I wanted to start this place up."

"But nobody here did anything to you!" Lupe protested. Karen might have thought this was necessary, but Lupe was dead sure the other girl was wrong. "What gives you the right to force us into slavery like this? Not that I mind meeting Zuko and all..."

"Honestly? I don't really care who did what beyond writing badfics," Karen shrugged. "Did I wanna be at IAHF? Nope. But I wound up there all the same. And I don't think I can thank Hugh and Allen enough for getting that place going. They taught me something I'd been trying to discover all along—the beauty of the canon itself. It's something you have to realize on your own. Some of the other students didn't figure it out, and even though they don't write badfic anymore, their stories have been tending towards AUs. Others got it, but decided not to write anymore because after what they'd experienced—interacting with canon characters—they felt they couldn't do justice to the canon. Me, I decided that someone needed to protect the canon at all costs. So why shouldn't I do it?"

"You're not making any sense," Lupe crossed her arms. Her forehead scrunched in confusion. "The show exists, and we can do whatever we want to it. Why would it matter if we stick with the actual show or not?"

"Because," Karen explained patiently (how many words were going to be associated with Karen that shouldn't be? This was getting frightening!), "you'll offend people who love and respect the show itself. And you're not the owner of the canon—the Creators, Mike and Bryan, are. So it's probably a good idea to respect them and their ideas as well as those who also like the canon."

"I still don't get it," Lupe scowled. "And why are you being so…sensible? Serious? All that?"

"Huh?" Karen paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Meh. Guess it's the plothole. They can make people act out of character if they're the right kind. Look at the bright side, this kind of plothole can't get people stuck in it. Like Marshall Arts. He's really bad with plotholes. I don't know why. It could be because of his tie-dyed gi, that's sorta Sue-ish when you get down to it, or rather Stu-ish since he's a guy, at least I think he's a guy because that gi's sorta tight on the chest and I've never really noticed any boobs, though if he's a transsexual who hasn't gotten the surgery yet maybe—"

"Okay, that's sounding more like you," Lupe interrupted. "I'm going to walk away now. What time is it?"

"Er…time for your Platonic Love class, I'd say," Karen guessed. Lupe brightened. She would get to see Zuko. One could never see Zuko enough. "Try not to stampede or glomp anybody, would you? Katara isn't a fan of using up Spirit Water to resurrect people, or using water in general to heal students like yourself, so we'd really like to avoid anyone getting injured."

Lupe didn't hear a word Karen had said after "Platonic Love class." She was too busy walking in the direction she thought the Fire Hall was in, daydreaming of her precious Zuzu.

Karen watched the student go with a heavy heart. "Let's hope that one learns…" She muttered before turning and walking into a plothole.

It took her to the Fancy Lady Day Spa. Who's to say plotholes are always bad things? Unless you're like Karen, and afraid of spas that offer acupuncture because of your acute fear of needles, in which case plotholes are evil indeed and the Ironic Overpower is laughing its head off at you and your weird phobias.

Again, registration is closed. If you have a student, I would love to hear from you about how you feel on my characterization of you! Keep in mind that this is all for humor-I will rarely take you seriously, and if I see a turn of phrase I can corrupt, you can flamin' bet I will. Pairings amongst students are also up to me, but I'll listen if there's someone you have in mind.