Welcome to part three of "The Encyclopedia of Mary-Sues", the content of which is 100% mine. A brief note: this is entirely tongue-in-cheek, no harm meant whatsoever. If you find yourself offended, press the back button, close your eyes and the feeling should pass.

THIS... IS... CANADA! How's everyone liking the Olympics?

-Ellie

Exotic!Sue

Because somehow Sue is trapped in the 19th century but still knows her way around the iPhone, the lovely ladies of the East and Darkest Africa are still really mysterious and interesting. And if stats can be drawn from fics where they're featured, 90% are royalty. Go figure.

Name: Either garbled, vaguely genuine sounding names or anglicized names a la Classic. E.g. Neytara, Soon-Xia, Junhare or Penelope.

Appearance: The one brand of Sue where nonwhite is broadly used. Skin tones like copper, caramel, golden, chocolate, mocha, and perfectly done marshmallow are current favorites. These girls are usually more athletic than counterparts, and tend to be lean and more animalistic. They have a tribal air about them and

Personality: Usually takes the role of "charmingly confused foreigner", or at the very least uses that as a cover to do improper things, usually of a mild sexual nature. Throws in a few babelfished versions of words in her native tongue to spice up her dialogue and lords her wikipedia knowledge of her culture over everyone to diffuse stereotypes. If royalty, she isn't snobby or elitist, oh no. Instead she is quite modest and tries to hide her heritage and always fails, presumably because the extent of her plan is "ask politely for whoever knows to please not tell and then let it slip out to the love interest".

"Perks": Are mainly for the Suethor. She feels very proud that she (and she alone) is representing a woman of color in her story. She's a revolutionary, a true forward thinker! Bravo! Now everyone's accepting of everyone else and- oh wait, you made her a SHAMAN? Good work Suethor. Yeah. (Sarcasm hand way up.) But Sue does, invariably, get everyone to stop hating on the Rwandans or Timbuktuese or Antlantian or whatever. And she brings back important knowledge to her country along with her canon future king, knowledge about tolerance and love, wireless Internet and vanilla Coca-Cola. Oh yeah.

WTF Factor: First off, there are few countries that actually function under a monarchy with any real power anymore. So yeah, the princess excuse can make Exotic!Sue insanely rich, but not much else. Her sense of entitlement is completely undeserved, anyway. Secondly, with international travel being so widespread (you can lecture me all you like about terrorism, people still flock all over the place) and the inception of the Internet, everything you ever wanted to know about any country is more or less at your fingertips. So goodbye to the mystery. Third, have you ever had an exchange student at your school? Sure, it's cool for about a week, but after awhile they just start relaxing in the melting pot of Western Society and stop flaunting their culture unless they're asked. It's part of human decency to avoid lording your lifestyle as superior over others, and Exotic!Sue just never seems to understand that. And her peers eat it up.

A Moment in the life:

"Ooh, a crown! Can I see it?" Lily gestured to the delicate white gold tiara sitting on Jesminder's dresser.

"Yes, of course," She smiled, her bronze skin dimpling with the gesture as Lily placed the jewelry on her head.

"Oh, I feel like royalty!" She said, twirling with delight. Jesminder laughed.

"You should, it's the Crown of the Lotus, a very sacred flower in Hinduism since the 8th century. It's been in my family for generations. Isn't it sundara?"

"What?" Lily stopped. "Jes, what's that mean?"

"Oh I'm sorry! It slipped out. It means beautiful," Lily slipped the circlet from her locks.

"Hmm. Well then, I think I definitely agree with you. It's sundry, all right."

Jesminder laughed. "No, Lily, not sundry! That is English for boring and everyday! You say sundara," She rolled the syllables like honey as she took the crown from Lily and gently replaced it on her dresser.