Canons. Canon Sues. Canon Inserts. Self Inserts. Things I hate for 100!

Canons are characters in an rpg that come from a novel, TV show or movie. Obviously this would be Prof. Xavier, Spike, Sheridan Boothe, Lestat de Lioncourt, Lana Lang, Claudia Kishi, Mariel of Redwall, Opal Koboi, B.A. Baracus, Shawn-Douglas Brady and so on. Every fictional person, vampire, mouse, mutant, pixie or whatever that appears on screen or gracing any pages can be a canon. <-------- See "canon" in the spanky new glossary

Canon abuse can occur in many different forms. Here are the three most common and one of them I even made up!

Canon Sue: <----------- Also in the glossary!
Canon Sues are Mary Sues in disguise. A Canon Suethor will idealize the character into a total corruption of who the character is to make them better, stronger, faster, smarter, more heroic, and more troubled. Even if the Canon they are working with is Lex Luthor. I saw this one in a Lost rpg where I was playing a female made up. The suethor playing Charlie, in one post, saved my character from drowning (even though she wasn't drowning nor even in the water), delivered a baby, took the baby into a cave to get it out of the coming rain and then got the two of them caught in a cave in. I wish I were exaggerating a little. I admit that after reading that one post I said, "Screw this club" and I walked out.

Self Inserts: <------------ In glossary.
This when a person creates a character totally based on themselves. This is a Mary Sue that directly links up to the author. Sometimes they give themselves amazing abilities and crap but for all intents and purposes, the character is A REAL PERSON!!!!! Self Inserts are especially aggrivating because it's almost worse than a Mary Sue. I saw one in a Buffy rpg that is a textbook example. The author started off playing Harmony and she was doing well. Her Harmony was an average Harmony. Maybe even a good Harmony. She should have stayed Harmony. But then it happened. She asked if she could create a whole new made up character that would just be great and fit into the game all nicey nice. She was allowed and she plunked herself right down in as Harmony's forgotten sister who had witchy powers. She posted pictures of herself and joined herself right in with Harmony's character in some remote cave so they could bicker about how Harmony's vampireness was affecting their parents. *insert eye roll here*

Canon Inserts: <----------- I made this one up and put it in the glossary but it's still valid.
This is when an author signs up to play a canon but then strips away everything the canon is to turn the canon into themselves. Maybe the author identifies with the canon in some way and this is why this happens but the end product is a canon that looks like the author. I saw this in a Buffy club and it was an amazing transformation the author made from canon to self. She was playing Tara. She started off having cute little moments in the Magic Box with Willow. Willow left and she sought me out to role play with. I was playing a guy at the time and "Tara" approached me normally and since I was a bad guy I menaced her a little. Then the author wanted to talk to me in the chatroom alone to discuss a scenario she wanted to play out. She told me that in real life a psychic had told her she was reincarnated and in a past life, during the Civil War era, her step-dad has beaten her and locked her in a basement. She wanted me to make Tara call me daddy, beat her, and lock her into the backroom of the Magic Box. I said I didn't really want to do that but I would continue with the menacing only not as mean and maybe my guy would just leave the Magic Box and she would remain okay. She agreed to this and as soon as I left she found another male character to ask this favor of. She left soon after citing creative differences.



Mods are the bottom line here in what they will allow, canon-wise. I trust them to make it clear what they want in an rpg but sometimes they want a canon who isn't everything they truly are in books or on screen. Even I can't get annoyed with this. The canons are being placed in new scenes and new plots facing new bad guys. They can't always remain 100% true to form. I get that. But if you are a mod, you need to be aware that people like these make your clubs die an icky, horrible, sputumy death. A little variation is fine but when Chris Halliwell wants to fuck the demon Barbas raw while his younger sister, Amy Halliwell, is holding Barbas down for him because it will save the world, your club may have gone too far.