#Irken Zim

[ms-scarletwings]

Zim getting fucked up (highlights)

[inbarfink]

No, you see, one of the funniest things about Zim is that he’s not, like, 100% fully incompetent. Throughout the entire IZ Canon, Zim has occasionally demonstrated some moments of surprising competency in combat - 

Infiltration -

Mechanical engineering and science -

Spaceship flying -

And Diabolical schemes -

Of course, all of these moments are contrasted with major scenes where he is very comically bad at all of those same things. But a lot of this can be attributed to his actual core flaws which are - his ego and his absolute inability to accurately assess threats.

(and obviously these two traits are extremely related. Zim falls into either underestimating genuine threats to his safety and goals due to his own overconfidence - or overestimating ‘threats’ and turning minor problems into anxiety spirals as a way to justify why he keeps failing). 

And you can see how all of Zim’s other screw-ups kinda all stern from that one core Flaw. Zim is probably decent enough at hand-to-hand combat for a tiny little alien, but he’s totally unable to assess whether or not he’s punching above his weight. And so he ends up losing in horrible and embarrassing ways to guys much bigger and tougher than he is.

He’s a pretty impressive scientist and inventor - but his inability to see his own limitations and flaws means he can’t notice when his project is too ambitious for his abilities or even just when he makes some error that he could’ve probably fixed before test-running but.. well… he doesn't and he didn’t, so…

And all of his plans overlook serious problems, while focusing far too much on minor threats. Even when his inventions work well and he comes up with something legitimately cunning, they are wasted on Literal Petty Schoolyard Drama. 

Threat assessment is the one thing Zim is Legitimately Bad at. Pretty much the only times he identifies danger correctly are explicitly a ‘even broken clock is right twice a day’ situations (see: ‘Plague of Babies’). 

And that is so funny.

Because while it seems like the Irken Empire sees an Invader actually conquering the plant on their own as, like, a Good Bonus Assignment to do on the side and Zim, ever the overachiever, has basically decided that it’s his duty.

The actual main role of an Invader - as stated in the first episode is - quite simply

The job of an Invader is to assess threats.

Zim is not quite as incompetent as people see him, but he is an utter failure at the one thing he’s supposed to be doing.

[scribble-bugz]

Happy new year! I haven’t been drawing so take doodles from literal months ago (I was high when I made half of these)

[ms-scarletwings]

My favorite fanon thing with this show is when people frame Zim’s exile and the way his society looks down on him as like a poor ugly duckling who’s amazing potential was overlooked (that would be Skoodge) or like a divergent mind among heartless conformists and it’s like

no they don’t hate him because he’s different™ they hate him because you can’t leave him alone for 2 minutes without him remorselessly decimating his own kind. They’re understandably terrified of him.

To his people he’s like a dozen Jeffrey Dahmers stuffed into one broken computer. Red is leading a flight of ships across the galaxy to subjugate and exterminate other species and the full extent of Zim’s actions horrify and disgust him. Zim has accurately been called a monster by aliens and his own. Yeah, a monster they created in part, but the rap sheet is what it is. Even if Irk were some utopia, I can’t imagine what kinder and more lenient action you could take regarding handling him besides imprisonment or exactly what Red did. He can’t be reasoned with, he’s a manic loose canon, and every time you stick him in the same playpen as other Irkens, well, sometimes you lose a bunch of your most valuable soldiers, sometimes you lose a couple of almighty Tallests. Bro doesn’t just not value “other” life like the rest of them, he doesn’t even value Irken life. And then he turns around and brags about it. Brags about nearly annihilating their civilization like you should be giving him awards for cutting your brake lines and shooting you in the back. I don’t care if it was ‘just a misfire,’ I pity him and I’d still be gunning for his trial if I was among them too, if it takes away the gun!

[ghostlytuxedo]

Kicking off pride month with a friendly reminder that

[bonniecupcake]

DAY 2 - SPECIES SWAP AU

Using @alt-zadr-b1tch3z event to draw more of my swap AU boys 😗

[shootingstarsue]

[the-alien-incident]

*bleh*

ANOTHER ICON?? yeah, have Zim :P

[0mochi0]

Yeah. I finished the animation ... Look at Oma's dance! She's trying to make her break more fun! The guard behind the camera is shocked- :000

[logovokamaza]

[ms-scarletwings]

Roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds of ZiM being an irredeemable monster

[ms-scarletwings]

Literally what other Irken even does this?! Refresh my memory if I’m wrong because Irkens actually do have a working construct of morality. Like they’re not actually that far and away from human psychology at all, other than the hyper militarized, imperialistic culture. On the whole they can be a cruel and very destructive people, but out of a tribalistic belief in their united supremacy. They have empathy- selectively applied to their own kind. They have respect- conditioned to yield literally upwards the chain of command. They understand loyalty and justice and even something akin to friendship.

Yes yes Zim’s a living symptom of a very diseased system, but it always grazes me just a little wrongly at how much I see other fans blaming all Irken society for the degree of Zim’s antisocial tendencies. Every bit of cruelty and scorn they have thrown his way, he has literally been earning from them since the day of his birth without a single hint of regret or intention to stop. Sizz-Lorr and Red and Purple and Poki are not a pack of bullies to him, they’re terrified and appalled of him, and they see him as the maniacal criminal he is. Red is, for all intents and purposes, also grossly callous toward his subjects and downright tyrannical to conquered races, and even he would call zim a monster for killing two previous Tallests. You’d think if he were some true purely self-interested dictator he’d maybe see the silver lining that it got him into his current position.

I don’t remotely think Zim even buys the idea much of Irken supremacy inherently, just Zim supremacy, and a little of that trickling down onto other Irkens abstractly, because they are lucky enough to the same species as ZiM. The harm he causes his brethren, though? He’s proud of it, the same as he is for acts of sadism against lesser kinds. He wants commendation just for showing off that he has the capabilities to destroy their entire way of life unchecked. He feels no remorse for the deaths of Miyuki and Spork, no shame for his devastation on their home planets. Skoodge (who I can only assume is cracked in the head for this) offers himself up to the guy as a faithful compadre again and again only for Zim to throw him to the wolves and unnecessarily endanger his life. Over and over we get shown the primary motivation behind his attempts to win the Tallests favor actually being fear of retribution from them, not any ernest desire for redemption. I swear a time or two, the longer he is away from his society the more times he lets slip his honest regard toward the flag he flies, and Dib is blissfully not listening carefully enough.

If Skoodge or Poki or any of the others didn’t make a stark enough contrast to Zim’s chaotic evil ass, there we always have Tak. Tak who did everything right, save for ending up an unlucky collateral of this idiot’s antics. Tak who arrived determined and bitter, barely holding back righteous fury, and doing all of the things that Zim isn’t- the actual work involved with repairing her status and earning her place back in Operation Impending Doom II. Zim thoroughly screwed up this poor soldier’s career and dream and he doesn’t have so much as an excuse or apology to offer when confronted. He completely understands Tak’s vendetta against him, and he doesn’t care.

Tak herself isn’t the kind of monster he is. To humans, yes, she’s the same if not an even worse threat because of her competence; and yet, she would have been a hero to Irk if she had succeeded and gotten Zim out of the way. She presumably had the explicit clearance of the Tallests to do this, she did her due dilligence in tracking down Zim and taking over an otherwise “unclaimed” world, and she truly believes she is acting above petty revenge- she uses all the logic of fairness and the rightful way of things to justify what she’s doing. She shouldn’t even be here and she shouldn’t have to be taking someone else’s assignment. Zim is the unhinged supervillain, and she’s taking back what he in a sense stole from her. She actually wants to serve her empire to her fullest capability possible.

Zim on the other hand just wants to see the world burn. Any world… Earth, Devastis, Mars, Irk, it truly does not matter that much. The sick pride in being the one who can burn the most things is its own reward to him.

Infamy and veneration are exactly the same feedback to this guy, as long as all eyes are on him while the crowd screams.

I mean, okay, the funny thing is that it’s a very common Trope to have the Evil Villain who does a lot of Evil things but is so deluded and full of bullshit self-justification that they earnestly believe that they are Good, even as on some level they know this is wrong. It's just something they cannot admit to themselves, and this denial is a fundamental part of their psyche. And Zim Invaderzim is… not that kind of character. Zim is very proudly and shamelessly horribly evil.

But also on some level he is that Trope…. for the other axis of the D&D Alignment System. Zim is a Chaotic Evil Villain who is obsessively dedicated to maintaining the self-delusion that he is Lawful Evil. 

[inimoose]

Happy Birthday Zim!

[blenselche]

He can't walk, he just had his boots polished.

[brewinghamlet]

-_-

[ms-scarletwings]

THIS IS A QUESTION PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF ASKING?!

THE ANSWER MY FRIEND IS

YES. ABSOLUTELY YES.

- He has the blood of countless beings on his hands

This little guy and his sidekick have killed or mangled a lot of sentient life. He’s non-lethally ruined scores more than that, especially within his own species. He raised an entire little civilization/cult once from the ground up, Spore-style, in the comics only to destroy them. He’s killed the show’s main antagonist and his direct rival at least once, on-screen too. Vaporized or blown up irrelevant side characters, launched domestic animals into the sun for no observable reason, etc. Anyone from outside the show, you understand what his kind does, right? They take over foreign planets from the inside, and then they call over backup to either subjugate the inhabitants, or wipe them clean off the face of existence before moving onto the next target. That’s the stakes here and his primary goal in all of this.

- He is a unrestrainable, cosmic-level threat dressed in moron’s threads

His comedic incompetence by no means dampens his ability to be a fearsome force; if anything, he is made all the more intimidating by his unpredictable and chaotic tendencies. He will go to absolutely asinine lengths or choose the most destructive/dangerous path to completing his goals possible on an impulsive, arbitrary whim. Opening a hole in the fabric of this dimension to impress his leaders, tampering with time travel to cripple his rival, blowing up a city to dispose of a lab accident, draining the entire ocean to throw the unholy mother of all water balloons at one kid who pissed him off. Even acting in neutral or “good” intentions, he has caused planetary scale harm to his own brethren multiple times, including the indirect assassination of 2-4 almighty tallests and corrupting their ultimate judicial authorities to madness.

Generally speaking, Zim gets what he wants, barring something that would outright break or end the show’s broader formula. From the surface it MAY look like he’s the idiot being strung along by Red and Purple, but truth be told, they are the ones wrapped around his little finger. Those two are rightfully scared of what he could do if their one effective method for keeping him away failed. He’s crazy, but not stupid by any means, given he’s the single most brilliant and powerful inventor in the whole series. Yes, even more than Membrane. The comics went further to demonstrate that his technology is hypothetically capable of outright destroying the universe or trapping all of its inhabitants into a perpetual time loop purgatory. Every character in Invader Zim is completely at the mercy of his protagonist plot armor.

- He purely looks out for himself and has zero sense of loyalty/honor

Being a useful ally to him rather than an opponent only tenuously, if at all, saves you from the disasters he leaves in his wake. He will betray those he works with on a dime the instant it becomes convenient to do so, and he’s a competent manipulator who uses humans and aliens alike to self-serving means only to immediately throw them under the bus or abandon them. Additionally, he’s proved himself the most unsoldierly soldier of the Irken military. It is very likely the reason that the role of invader was even appealing to him was because it allows for the freedom to operate absent of accountability to fellow comrades or supervision. His biggest “accomplishment” in training ended in the obliteration of his commanding officer and fellow team members. For the countless ways he has been a menance to his homeworld he has bragged in the place of showing remorse. Other Irkens are just as expendable npcs to him as the very creatures he’s actively trying to conquer, and it’s evident that his reverent feelings toward his leaders themselves don’t actually penetrate beyond a surface formality. To quote him directly, “I know not of sides, Earth Stink.”

- He is overtly monsterous and sadistic to the point of straining the boundaries for what a kid’s show can even allow

Oh, Hebert over there robbed a bank? How about the attempted and sometimes successful enslavement/genocide of all humanity? How about frakensteining an innocent schoolroom hamster into Godzilla? Bugs in chili? Zim put bologna into the genetic sequence of a 12 year old. One time, and I’m not exaggerating, he was the bug in Dib’s food! Ripped another child’s eyes out of the sockets and replaced them with hallucinating implants. Kidnapped and subjected hundreds of humans and many animals to fridge horror types of probing and experimentation. Swapped the brain of a witness with a regular squid’s. *cough cough* Dark Harvest. Don’t get me started about rubber pigs or muffins, but I could certainly keep going on. Zim is a brutal little bastard when he gets any opportunity to be. He doesn’t just want to beat his enemies, he wants to crush them with all of the unbridled glee of a bully cackling while burning ants with a magnifying glass.

- As Megamind would say: Presentation!

As we all know, it’s mostly a matter of theatrics and domination that really puts the “super” into the title supervillain, and goodness does this lil green man have a penchant for the dramatic. His maniacal laughter and his hammy mannerisms have reigned pretty iconic going on over 20 years now, after all. “Over the top” is likely one of the first things any fan of the show will think when asked to describe this guy in a nutshell, and justly so.

Taylor art by @tactilescream

Propaganda

Invader Zim: No Propaganda Submitted

Taylor Hebert: - She's the protagonist and main POV character

- She spends the first several arcs going from "insecure teen" to "widely feared supervillain" over the course of a few months

- Her actions are definitely villainous, from robbing a bank, to attempting taking over a city, to putting bugs in the chilli someone was cooking