Ineffectual Disclaimer: The Official Fanfiction University concept belongs to Camilla Sandman. All honor to Miss Cam! Hogan's Heroes, of course, belongs to whichever media company currently owns it and their corporate masters. Allison is mine (and Tirathon is me).

Important Note: I am unreasonably busy with what I use for a life, and some things have to give. One such something, for the past year or so, has been my writing time. Updates to this story (especially beyond the next couple of chapters, which are already mostly finished) will most likely be very slow and irregular. If you hate following ongoing stories whose author updates at the speed of supercooled molasses, STOP READING NOW and wait until the day you see it with that wonderful word Complete. Also, this has not been betaed at this point, so read at your own risk.

Revision Note: As it was rather clearly pointed out, the technique I tried in the first version of this chapter (writing in the character's style instead of my own) was a dismal failure. I'm not sure if that's because Allison is a lousy writer or because I am, but either way, it was a big bucket of fail. This is the revised version, returned to my natural style for better or worse. And yes, I do have every intention of finishing it; the warning was only that updates would most likely be slow. Also, Allison is not meant to represent any particular person; if she's anyone at all she's me at 17, Mary Sues and all.

.

There! Finally! Allison clicked the "upload" button and waited for the story details screen. All it needed now was a title and a summary. She closed her eyes in thought, chewing absently on a curl of her unruly brown hair, then typed it in.

Alexandrina And The Colonel: a new prisoner comes to Stalag 13 and its a girl and Tiger hates her who will Hogan chose? pairings: Hogan x OC, Hocksteder x Gertrude. Character death: Tiger. PLZ R&R!

She felt sure that this was the best fanfic she had ever written. Sure, the basic plot had been done before, but this story was different because of the original character. Alexandrina was perfect for Hogan. She was beautiful, stubborn, and sassy, so everyone respected her. She wore gorgeous clothes. She could do all the things the canon characters did, she was a crack shot, and she could beat any man in camp in hand-to-hand combat. She could charm any of the Germans into doing what she wanted, well, except for that nasty little SS man. True, that was quite a lot to be good at, but an original character had to be really special to be interesting. Who would want to read about an ordinary person? She wondered why the writers hadn't put a character like Alexandrina into the TV show. Maybe it was because of the wardrobe budget.

Allison picked Romance from the story category menu. What are the other choices even there for? Does anyone ever read them? One final click and the story was live. She emailed a few friends to tell them that her new fic was up so they could leave her good reviews.

Allison wondered why some people hated her stories. Many of the reviews were from uptight people who lectured her about history and geography as though it was important. This is fanfic, not history class. Who cared what women did back then, or whether or not you could drive from Germany to England? Besides, this is fiction. I can write whatever I want, and nobody has the right to tell me there's anything wrong with it. Those people reminded her of her English 101 professor, who probably hadn't had a creative idea in fifty years and marked Allison's first paper down two letter grades because of her spelling and grammar.

What really bothered Allison were the flames. Some reviewers said the canon characters wouldn't do the things she wrote them doing, or she was using words that only sounded like the ones she wanted. Her mother explained that it was because they were jealous because they couldn't write as well as Allison did. That made her feel better, although she wished her mother would stop calling her "baby" as though she was a toddler instead of seventeen and in college. Still, the flaming continued. Hadn't anyone told those people that if they couldn't say anything nice, not to say anything at all? They could have told her what they liked about her story, the way the good reviewers did, but instead they said things were wrong with her stories, and the last time she wrote a story about Alexandrina, they called that character a Mary Sue.

That annoyed Allison more than the criticism of her grammar. She knew what Mary Sues were, of course: totally perfect characters that everybody in the fic loved. Alexandrina Amelia Anastasia Winston-Hogan wasn't a Mary Sue. Allison made sure Alexandrina had flaws. For instance, other characters never thought she would be good at anything because she was so young and so beautiful, so she had to prove she was better than they were all the time. Just in case that wasn't a big enough flaw, Alexandrina was afraid of big, hairy spiders. Allison had never actually put a tarantula in any of her stories, knowing that nobody would want to read a story where the most important character got scared, but she made sure to point it out when she introduced Alexandrina so that people would know she wasn't a Mary Sue. Besides, not everybody loved her. Major Hochstetter, who called her the most dangerous woman in all of Germany, hated her and was constantly trying to trap her.

Allison mentally chastised herself for woolgathering and returned to reality. Her roommate's big digital wall clock read 7:22; the story had taken almost two solid hours of writing. She pushed her chair back from the desk and stood up, stretching. For a moment she felt a bit odd, almost queasy. Lack of food, she decided; writing always made her hungry. Was it worth wandering down to the student lounge in the hope that there was something new in the vending machines that was better than those awful little donuts? Then the clock caught her eye again. Something was wrong with the numbers. It read 19:23 now. She blinked, and the clock was cheerfully displaying 7:23 as it should be. She shook her head to clear out the writing cobwebs, worrying that it was a repeat of last week's incident with the dining hall tacos, not just hunger, affecting her. Then she noticed something -- an envelope -- on her keyboard. That had certainly not been there a moment ago.

Okay, this is getting weird. Clocks displaying the wrong numbers was one thing, but that envelope, business-sized, off-white, and looking solidly real, was something else entirely. There was no way it could have gotten on that keyboard, not without her noticing. She was standing three feet away from it and alone in the dorm room. The back of her desk was flat against a wall and there was nothing above it that the envelope could have fallen from. She looked around the room, then back. The letter still lay on her keyboard, inanimately oblivious to the fact that it had no right to be there. She studied it, not touching it. It was addressed to her: Miss Allison C. Haynes, 314-B Mikkelson Hall, and so on. "Miss"? That was so old-fashioned. There was no return address, at least not on the front, but something about it seemed official. She picked it up gingerly for a closer look. After a moment she realized what looked odd about the address: it was actually typed on a real typewriter, leaving faint impressions in the paper.

She pulled her Excalibur letter opener out of its little plaster stone, slit the envelope, and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside. It was an official form of some kind on thin, almost crackly, paper. Her name typed was filled (also by a typewriter) at the top.

.

The Coordinator of the Official Fanfiction Universities

To __Allison__ _C_ __Haynes___

Order No. _34608___

GREETINGS:

Having submitted yourself to an Online Board composed of your fellow writers for the purpose of determining your availability for training in the Official Fanfiction University, you are hereby notified that you have now been selected for training and service in the __OFU of Hogan's Heroes__________.

You will, therefore, report to the Online Board named above at _#112_Yarnell___ at __8:00 pm__, on the ___23rd____ day of _October _2008______.

This Online Board will furnish transportation to an induction station of the University for which you have been selected. You will there be examined and if accepted for training and service, you will then be inducted into the stated University.

Persons reporting to the induction station in some instances may be rejected for physical or other reasons. If you are not accepted, you will be furnished transportation to the place where you were living when ordered to report for induction by this Online Board.

Willful failure to report promptly to this Online Board at the hour and on the day named in this notice is a violation of the Writer Training and Pain Act of 2002 and subjects the violator to mockery and flaming. Bring with you any items necessary for your life or health, such as prescription medications, sufficient for 2 weeks.

You must keep this form and bring it with you when you report to the Online Board.

__TirXxXxXxXx____________________ Member of Online Board

O.F.U. Form 150 (Revised 3/8/02)

.

What the? Allison read it again and tried to decipher the scrawl on the signature line. It started out as "Tir" and degenerated into something resembling spaghetti. Online Board? Official Fanfiction University? This had to be some kind of joke by one of her friends. It was the sort of thing Kayla would do, trying to weird her out with some bogus official letter, but Kayla should still be in that late Biology lab. She still couldn't figure out how anybody could have put that letter on her keyboard with Allison standing right there.

Why the Yarnell Building? That was one of the old brick buildings, right across from Old Main. It had been there since the days when the campus had only a handful of buildings and people traveled by horse and buggy. It was mostly professors' offices now. An explanation suddenly came to mind. I bet it's a party! That would explain everything. Lauren and Kayla must be having a party, one of their crazy theme parties, and this was the invitation. That had to be it. When she got to room 103, someone would be there to tell her where to go next, or there would be a note or some other clue to where it was. She'd ask how they got the envelope onto her keyboard when she saw them at the party.

.

Behind her monitor, a matchbox-sized rationalizer coil hummed gently.