I'm planning to write a fanfiction, but I'm wondering...What's a Canon/Mary Sue? Is it something that can give a character a very bad image?

Just wanna know. Don't want my characters to end up like one... :unsure:

There's an article about Mary Sues here.

Board links concerning Mary-Sues include:

- This somewhat outdated litmus test to help determine whether or not a character is a Sue
- Parody examples of DB Mary-Sues (and some profiles)
- Discussion concerning them
- Discussion concerning Artha as a Canon Sue with some additional discussion on Mary-Sues in general

Canon Sues in fanfiction context are simply canon characters shown favouritism by the author and/or acting extremely OOC. For example, a story in which Spynn discovers that she is the last living descendant of the original Dragon Booster and inherited psychic powers from him would be a Canon Sue, as would be an AU in which Artha was born a girl and became the ninja Gwenys trained to use her full powers by Word Paynn, or if Moordryd suddenly started acting like a dashing aristocratic romance novel hero. Artha is arguably a canon Sue as an original character in an original work because he's given so many powers by authorial plot device and yet by his personality doesn't seem to deserve them, and many of his flaws are also simply brushed over and ignored by the authors and characters.

Come on, you only write, if you are feeling ok about your fic, the cannon or no-canon, is not important.

On the other hand, if you want to write and actually produce something decent, paying attention is the way to go.

And can someone please defin the terms Canon-Sue and Mary-Sue? Even with all my time being here, people say those words and i have no idea what they mean.

"Decent" in what POV? People have many different tastes.

Plus, you could have a Mary-Sue in a really good story, or you could have a non Mary-Sue in a seriously bad story. Just go with the flow and find the style that most suites you, because sometimes if you spend too much time focusing on 'decency' - I'll be blunt - you end up with a piece of crap.

Obviously different genres and styles appeal to different people. However, 'decent' defined as 'of reasonable quality' is, to my mind, in this context quite clearly something which applies across genres. Good writing is not "I won't think about whether or not the characters are IC or I paid attention to canon events or whether my OCs are Sues but instead focus on boosting my self esteem". Canon/non-canon IS important for one particular, rather crucial, aspect of fanfic. Yes, good writing involves more than one quality. Yes, a Mary-Sue may coexist with decent style and tight plot. Yes, OOCness may not drive everyone out of reading a particularly well-written story. No, this does not mean "go with the flow and don't care about any of these things". Perfectionism may sometimes turn a story somewhat flat, but going in the other direction tends to be even worse.

I'll define these simply, Hunter, though it's already been covered in the links I gave above:

Canon Sue: canon character the author clearly favours. In fanfiction, canon character unrealistically given transformed personality and/or extra powers; in original fiction, character given a "free ride" by the author (no consequences suffered for personality failings, given more "speshulness" than your average deus ex machina, beloved by all good characters and hated by all bad, character perceptions invariably confirmed, etc).

Mary Sue: again, original character given a "free ride" by the author, inserted into a canon world. Usually possess "speshul" qualities and/or become a love interest; can be applied to any character in whom the author is probably a lot more interested in than most readers.