So, I got a review for my new fic A Matter of Choice. In it, he/she asks if the story is Cannon. In my properties, I've marked it as Cannon. I'm just wondering if that's right though. See, the story does take place in feudal Japan, but that's about the only bit of the story I've followed.

In this fic, Kagome is actually from the feudal era and she know's Sesshoumaru, up to a point. I can't say more now without giving any more details away, because I've only posted two chapters.

So I suppose my question is, what makes a story Au? And what makes it Cannon?

Thanks,
Fei

I've always viewed cannon stories as ones that takes place within the original plot line of the manga or anime, or they at least contain the basic elements of the original before the author puts his/her own twist into it.

AU stories use the name of the manga/anime characters, but everything else is up to the author.

I agree with Critter...

Cannon is generally if the writer sticks to or uses the plot line of the existing story to fit his or her own needs in their story, while AU just uses the names of the characters and everything else is left to their discretion.

I agree with Critter and Midnight too. To moi Canon is literally sticking to the main elements of the series, preserving most of or generally all of the canon relationships, background stories, and so forth in the ficlet. I mean if you've changed Kagome to being 'from' the Feudal Era, instead of being a teenager going through the well, and back to the Feudal Era, as she does in the original manga/anime, than technically your story is AU, or at least contains elements of AU.

Then again the Sessh/Kags pairing is AU anyhow, so all of Dokuga could be technically stamped AU too XD.

I'd say just leave your ficlet as is, unless you've made major changes, or feel that your ficlet falls more into AU than Canon. I think it's up to the individual writer to choose which AU or Canon arc their story fits into. I've used the Canon arc for one of mine that shows Kagome as she is in the anime, being from the modern era, tripping through time, but she's hanging out with Inuyasha, and Sesshy's band in the Feudal Era, so it has AU elements too.

Not sure if it will become a Kag X Sesshy romance thing, it's at this point in time more of a brotherly-love-friendship-respect thing Sessh has for Kagome, and not romantic.

~ Pyre

Well, that answers that then mostly. I suppose it's more of a perspective or point of view thing than anything else. I still don't know where I'm going with the story so for now I suppose I'll leave it as a Cannon. Thanks guys!

Best Canon
"the works of an author that have been accepted as authentic." This category is probably the most contested in any award group for all fandoms. For this award group, I am going to put a simple disclaimer: If the story is set in Takahashi's universe (Modern Japan or Feudal Japan) and keeps the character origins, events, and motivations for character development that she created, then it is canon.

I copied the excerpt above from the awards category and it should give you another perspective of what a canon universe story should be. And in my opinion I do believe this is a correct analysis of what CU is.