Mary Who?
Squidward has to struggle to evacuate the number of Mary-Sues invading Bikini Bottom. But little does he know that these sponge/squirrel/squid creatures may, in a way, provide an advantage that he overlooked the first time.
Disclaimer: Don't own the sponge. Nor his sexuality. And I have nothing against Mary Sues, Gary Stus, Marty Stus or anything of the kind.
Chi Ling wasn't nervous as she walked up to the painted-up lobster trap that was the Krusty Krab dining establishment. She should have been, but she wasn't.
After all, more than anybody else, she knew what to expect.
She expected the customers to have to turn away from her dazzling spongy beauty lest they get hypnotized.
She expected the cashier and the boss to be unusually nice to her because of her fabulous wealth of riches and her pet mythical vampire snail nipping at her toes.
She expected the timid fry-cook behind the window to finally show his face and – what else? – fall head over heels in love with her baby blue hair and golden eyes. (No, seriously, don't reverse that.)
Deep breaths. Calm down. No need to be nervous.
She knew what to expect.
She walked in.
"Hi boys. Is it me or did it just get hotter in he--"
Crash.
What she did not expect was to get smartly booted out on her ear and banned from the establishment for life.
"Which is probably too good for you and a great relief for everybody!" quoted the one who banned her.
The interrogation started as soon as Squidward got back inside.
"Mr Squidward!"
"Squidward!"
"Why did yeh kick out a paying customer again?"
"That is no way to treat a lady!"
"This is the third one today!"
"She's beautiful, you owe it to her!"
"Why in the world-"
"would you-"
"Shut up, Krabs, SpongeBob. I'm not in the mood for this." Pushing past, Squid made his way back to the cash register. Geez, these dopeheads never learnt, did they? If anything, they should be thanking him for the added service.
Five seconds later.
"Mr Squidward, why did ye kick out that lady?"
Were he invertebrate, Squidward would just flop at that point. As it was, he merely managed a hand to his head as if he was gaining one of his infamous migraines. "Krabs, I told you – I'm not in the mood."
"But-"
"Besides which, it was for the good of the establishment."
"How is kickin' out paying customers for the good of the establishment?!"
"Ooh, I don't know," Squid sighed sarcastically (cool, alliteration); "maybe because she would destroy the whole dynamic that this restaurant is supposed to represent!!"
A pause.
"Huh?"
Yet another sigh. It seemed that Squid would never get anywhere unless he just flat-out told him his strategy. "OK, Krabs, I didn't want to tell you this, but you forced me into it. You know all the ladies that keep coming in here lately?"
"You mean the ones you kicked out," growled his boss.
"I know I know. Well, they're all each a part of the same group dynamic – the Mary Sue." Cue the thunder and lighting.
"Mary who?"
"Not who, Sue. Mary Sues all have the same objective – to become super popular, get free service, and woo SpongeBrat back there into total sexual submission."
Krabs' face went unusually blank at that point. "Free service?"
"Yeah, free service. But in doing so, they disrupt the carefully-constructed dynamic that we've so carefully set up for ourselves – for example, SpongeBob would be distracted to insanity because of the fitness of the girl, so you'd lose your best fry-cook. Good news for me, bad news for you."
"Free service?"
"Free service, Mr K. Another repercussion would be that our resident glutton would A: go nuts over losing his friend, and B: stop eating here. Bad news for all of us, especially (in the case of A) yours truly."
"Free service?"
"Yes, Mr Krabs, free service. For another thing, this Mary Sue would more than likely try to replace SpongeBrain's absence, and then insist on you paying her. But because of her beauty and manipulation, you'd agree to it. See what I'm saying now?"
"Free service?"
At this, Squidward put away the numerous diagrams he'd been bringing up throughout his statistics. "You're just gonna get hung up on the whole free service thing, aren't you?"
"Free service?"
He just ignored that.
"But we haven't seen the worst of it - " he brought out his largest diagram here - "Mary Sues are reputed to doing everything right first time; solving all the puzzles, clearing up cliffhangers, romancing everybody…you name it. If we had even ONE Mary Sue, even if it's only in this restaurant, there'd be no need for any of us, coz she'd do everything. So that's all our purposes of being gone right there. Our whole purposes of being, Mr Krabs. Even YOURS."
This was the camel-back-breaker. "Holy shrimp, boy, ye're right!! Why didn't I see this before?!"
"Of course," muttered Squid, "the most remarkable thing about this is that they have no personality, so they can't-"
"Not THAT, Mr Squidward! The free service! I can't be givin' out free service like I'm some kind of restaurant mascot!" His cashier's protests that it wasn't just about the free service fell on deaf ears as he scuttled into his office.
"Attention all patrons," yelled the intercom system. "If ye be a Mary-Sue of any kind, then ye've just been banned for life. Sorry for the inconvenience. Now GET YE BARNACLE OUT!"
They got ye barnacle out.
Including a loyal customer with the rather unfortunate name of Mari-Su.
Not even a few seconds later, the crab emerged back from his office. "I…I don't normally like bannin' me valuable customers…but I think I liked that."
"Well stop thinking and start chucking," pointed out Squidward, "coz here comes another one."
Janet-Louise was promptly disposed of.
"And another."
So was Nelly Vexorri.
"Whoop, another one. And that one. Yeah, you go, Mr K. Kick them Mary-Sues. That one too."
"…Uh, Mr Krabs, you didn't have to kick that one."
"Um, nor that one."
"You just kicked out Sandy, you know that?
"Mr K, that was your own daughter. … And that was your date. And that was my date. For after my shift.
"You know, you can just tell me if you've stopped listening. … Krabs, you really don't need to do that. Boys only restaurant? Krabs, I think you're overreacting about this just a tad. Not ALL girls are Mary-Sues, you know…"
A few weeks later, the Krusty Krab was still a boy's only restaurant. It even had shellball on widescreen up on the walls.
Not too bad, especially not for Squid, you might've thought. After all, Bikini Bottom was now free of the leech that was the Mary Sue.
And it wasn't all that bad.
Except because of the lack of femininity surrounding him Squidward had now secretly and irreversibly developed a crush on SpongeBob, despite the very asexuality Krabs and the religious agency had been fighting to save.
"I think I liked it better when the Mary Sues were here."